Space Battleship Yamato / Star Blazers - Classic and New Series

[blakeh1]

Some background

Not too long ago I got a bunch of built (many as glue bombs) and unopened models from my younger brother. He had a bunch of things he collected back in the 80's but never bothered building, or built bit more as a toy than to actually finish a model, so they were never painted (unfortunately for many of the military planes, that meant gluing on canopies to unpainted cockpits )


At any rate, we were both huge Star Blazers fans, catching the cartoons after school and during summer vacation on the old UHF channels.


Of course while the Yamato/Argo was pretty iconic, I had forgotten most of the series over the years. I remembered a couple ships like the Andromeda and the Black Tigers, as well as the main crew and basic plot of the first season, but forgot most everything else.


In the past few years looking to expand beyond Star Wars/Battlestar Galactica I happened to see the 1/72 Bandai fighters from the 2199 series. Then seeing the new 2199 episodes only further fueled my Yamato nostalgia. I've gone down the rabbit hole, collecting the 1/500 stuff and the 1/72 fighters and now starting on the 1/1000 stuff.

I will use this as kind of a running "blog" of sorts as I build the stuff

Starting a rescue for some of the built stuff, I gave the old 1/1000 kit a proper paint job. It was already put together, and dried glue was overflowing in places as well

Looking through some more of the unbuilt kits, I found 3 of the Earth Defense force ships and an odd 2520 Yamato

I had never heard anything about that series or this design, but have recently learned it was actually a Syd Mead design. They did a few episodes before it was cancelled

I built it straight out of the box going for a less saturated color "cartoony" look


Not too sure about the design. Looks good from some angles, but not so good from others. Also the deck guns are a little odd looking

 

[blakeh1]

Since I picked up the 1/500 2199 Yamato, I was hoping to find more 1/500 ships, but there is not much. I found out Fine Molds produced two while they briefly held the license for the Leiji Matsumoto ship design but not the Yamato brand


It's a great kit and pretty impressive as you expect from Fine Molds. The fins/wings etc are nearly paper thin, but look so much more in scale than the overly thick ones on the smaller Bandai versions (obviously thicker for strength)


Pretty much finished painting, but still a few tweaks needed.

(kind of makes me hungry for MacDonalds :lol with those colors)

Does anyone produce a proper set of Cosmo Navy markings?


The decals in the kit are nice, but are totally different

I also managed to paint a few of the 1/500 fighters that came with the Yamato

It's hard to tell, but I replace the "spikey bits on the front of the Falcons with thinner and longer ones instead of the molded on ones that looked odd. It was hard working on these since they are so small in scale. I think for the others, I have to tone down the panels lines a lot more. They are too dark and it really looks out of scale. Althought they do look much better in person

 

[blakeh1]

Currently I am building the Earth Defense ships from the original 80s kits. In Bandai fashion, each one of them includes a "mini kit"

None of these ships were in the 2199 series as apparently they were part of the second and third series with the Comet Empire.


The first thing I noticed when assembling them is that Bandai has really improved. These kits are a far cry from the current quality of the Bandai Star Wars and Yamato line.


The gaps and misaligned parts I guess are typical of kits from this time (at least when comparing to AMT/MPC/ERTL Star Wars stuff).


Next, the scales were not listed on 2 of them, and I am guessing they are just box scale like much of the mecha collection. The one that does list a scale says 1/270, but I am not sure on that. Seems like it would be too small for 1/270. Unless they are talking about the mini-kit that is with it. I've seen some places list one of the kits as 1/700, but the two ships look like they are nearly the same body class, just with a little different weaponry, one being more of a patrol ship, the other being more of a cruiser.

So I started with the little mini-kits in each of the boxes


First to finish is the Medical (Shuttle?) mini kit

I am guessing this is the precursor to the really cool Seagull in the 2199 series.


My first impression was it as kind of a dated design, and the drawing/model pic on the box didn't help


But after literally doing a same day build and paint, it kind of grew on me.


I now wish I had spent more time and maybe scratch up some new engines for the top and paid more attention to adding some other little details here and there.


One thing I did do was scribe in some additional panels/hatches etc and did some seam filling on the worse areas.


I am tempted to strip it all and go to town detailing it more.


here you can see a great example of how misaligned the parts were when looking at what is supposed to be a circle on the front

Next up is the Marine's landing craft.

I've got it assembled and will hopefully be painting it up this weekend along with the actual kit ships

 

[Snow Builder]

Great set of posts. I loved the original show. Can't wait to see more.

 

[Gimpdiggity]

I still really want to watch this series. The ship designs are fantastic.

I really like like that little medical shuttle.

 

[Pcoz]

Cool oddity of things.....

Thanks for sharing

 

[blakeh1]

Thanks for looking!

Here is the landing ship. I think I want to add a bit more to it looking at these now

Next up is the larger ships

 

[blakeh1]

I added some decals I had left over from some other kits, including numbers from the Fine Molds 1/500 yukikaze and some from the UN markings from the 1/72 cosmo zero kit
Forgive the red/yellow "caution" stripes around the hatch door in the front. I hand painted them, so up close they are a little uneven
Also I'll try to get better pics when I get them with the bigger ships

 

[blakeh1]

Finished the EDF Patrol Ship Yuunagi

EDF Cruiser

along with the mini kit

The whole lot

 

[blakeh1]

Here is the EDF Battle Cruiser. I apparently forgot a couple small guns on the bridge tower, and I missed painting the center piece on the "wave motion"? gun at the front, and the red glow effect on the two side pods, but other than that it is done.

I skipped painting the back thruster red like on the box art, I think it looks better grey

"dramatic lighting" (actually the sun went behind some clouds. I use my photo booth right next to a window to get natural light)



And with the mini kits

 

[yuumi2891103]

Great set of models and you did a nice paint job for such a small model.

I was in a high school when they run the first season of original story.
Boys are excited on the firing scene of Hado-Hou cannon.

There was no good kit then. I build a foot long wooden model.
It was a long long time ago.

Thanks for sharing.

katsu

 

[blakeh1]

Thanks!

Great set of models and you did a nice paint job for such a small model.

I was in a high school when they run the first season of original story.
Boys are excited on the firing scene of Hado-Hou cannon.

There was no good kit then. I build a foot long wooden model.
It was a long long time ago.

Thanks for sharing.

katsu

I'd love to see that wooden model. If it's anything like your starship stuff it's probably pretty impressive

As far as the EDF ship I am planning on adding some extra markings and maybe some ship numbers etc...


I may use the new 2202 version one as a guide for some extra markings


At any rate. Something newer kit wise, the Dimensional Submarine UX-01. One of my favorite ships from the 2199 series


I tried using white oil paints drybrushed and then blended a little further after doing darker washes to create some highlighting. I still haven't figure out how I want to handle the "glow effect" around the "torpedo tubes"(?)

 

[sithman66]

Next to the Yamato herself, the dimensional submarine is my favorite too!

I wish Bandai would make a bigger model of it!

 

[blakeh1]

a 1/500 would be awesome to go along with the 1/500 Yamato, and it wouldn't not be too large either. Probably still smaller than many of the 1/1000 kits

 

[sithman66]

1/500 would be perfect! and still WAY smaller than the 1/1000 Domelaze III which I am also considering as a next purchase!

Can't get enough Bandai or Yamato!!

 

[Carnet]

Cool cool cool! I love your paint work. I have done the cross-sectioned Yamato and also the 1/700 Andromeda. These kits were my first time doing any type of anime model kits, and I found it much harder than I anticipated to keep the panel lines clean.

 

[blakeh1]

Almost finished the 1/1000 2199 Cosmo Reverse version (left off the wave motion gun plug though)


Again I decided the plastic color was actually quite good and actually would save a lot of time using it instead of painting.


So i used the similar process I used on the sub


I matte coated it. Added some black/brown staining, let it dry. Then drybrushed some white oil spots and wiped them vertically.


the effect in the pics doesn't show up as much on the red hull bottom as it got washed out


Hopefully it doesn't look like plastic anymore








The tiny ships were a pain to try making them look like something other than colored blobs. I also managed to break off the back left tail on the Seagull

 

[vismus]

Very impressive work and great collection. thanks for posting.

 

[blakeh1]

thanks for looking


I recently finished up a couple more

First the Meltoria class Garmilla ship











It was part of the Warships set along with the transdimensional "sub"



Next I finished the Andromeda







The out of the box wave motion effect is pretty cool






The engine effects looks decent here, but in person, the blue is too blue






The color is weird. Same lighting (outdoors), only a few minutes apart but different backdrop and the color looks different. Much more blue grey. The base coast is pretty much straight Tamiya Ocean Grey 2 (XF-82) over a Black base with some layers of white and black oils added to weather it a bit








And here are some group shots for size comparison

 

[angrytrooper]

These look great. The paint work on the Andromeda is excellent and I like the lighting effect. Nice work.