A few days before Christmas my wife and I went to the mall to buy a gift for our nephew and I just happened to walk by the rack with GI Joe toys.

Having been a long time fan of GI Joe, with a stable of figures in my collection (which I still have to fix), I couldn’t help but notice how crappy the re-issue of the 3.5 inch figures are. Mostly because of the quality of the plastic and the painting.

Translated Color Guide and Construction Manual for the High Grade Model Kit version of Graham Aker’s/Mr. Bushido Masurao from Gundam 00 season 2 fame.

Started translating the Japanese manual of the 1/72 VF-25F Armored Valkyrie of Alto Saotome from Macross Frontier. I like how the armored Valkyrie design evolved with the arrival of the VF-25 Messiah.

In the first Macross series, the armored GBP-1S could only be deployed in Battroid mode. If the pilot wanted to switch modes it had to ditch first the armor and in the process lose the protection if offered. But with the VF-25, the pilot could keep the armor on and switch through all three modes (fighter, gerwalk, battroid) without a hitch.

I guess one benefit of having translated all these color guides from Japanese to English is that I started having a feel as to the common colors that are used to paint these model kits. I cross checked that with the Mr. Color series of paints by GSI Creos and made a list of the popular colors that you will most likely need a lot of in your paint inventory. That is of course if you are planning to color it with an air brush.

Here’s a list of the most common colors that are often repeated in each model kit from Bandai. The Letter-Number code enclosed in parenthesis are its product reference no. for easier look up.