To add or not to add. That is the question.

[seadude]

So I just bought a 1/500 scale Space Battleship Yamato model kit tonight. It is 26 inches long and is highly detailed and accurate. Now, I don't plan on whiffing this model. I love the Space Battleship Yamato/Starblazers anime series and I think the ship looks damn cool.  I'm a bit of a "purist" and I want to keep the model as is. BUT............there's a little bit of me that has always looked at the design/configuration of that ship and wondered if it couldn't use just a few extra laser turrets in certain spots. Not many, but just a few. But if I add anything that isn't "reference canon", then I feel I will have angered the cartoon purists. I tend to feel that there's not much, if any, defensive armament along the lower sides and bottom of the ship hull. There's a lot of "weak areas" that aren't being defended. Know what I mean?

Has anyone else been in a similar situation with a model?

[kerick]

This is where the Advanced Modelers Syndrome (AMS) rears its head!

[Steel Penguin]

Simpeless  says the Meerkat   get 2  do one straight out the box,  and then go at the outher to your harts content !! 

[Dizzyfugu]

Second that. I had a very productive anime/mecha phase and was, at times, torn between autheticity, conversions to authentic variants (you are amazed what you find in sozrec books...) and "private" variants, e. g. of the beautiful Macross VF-1.
I'd also get a second kit - and if you do not build it, it might be a valuable specutaion object since many anime kits, even from large manufacturers, are typically not for long in production.

[NARSES2]

I'm with the Penguin if it's feasible.

I do know what you mean though. There are some kits that are just so nice they demand to be built as the designer intended. Not quite the same as your feelings but similar

[seadude]

Buying a second Yamato is out of the question. Too damn expensive. One is enough for me.

[zenrat]

Many (most?) Sci Fi Space Opera Anime, Movies and TV shows ignore the lack of any up & down in space and so when craft interact with each other they are always on the same plane.  Star Trek is a prime culprit.   When an Enterprise (or Voyager or the Defiant) come across another ship it is never upside down or sideways on relative to them - they are always aligned as if they were aircraft flying in a gravity field.  An extension of this thinking is that when small spaceships attack large ones they always target the "top" side rather than the underneath.  Like aircraft attacking a ship.  What I have seen of SBY fits in with this.
You can therefore build your wonderfully huge kit (I am so jealous - I wasn't allowed the 1/500 version) OOB secure in the knowledge that while you may have identified a weak area in its defences it's not one that would ever get picked by anyone attacking it as they just wouldn't think that way.

Or, tell yourself it has such an amazingly fast roll rate that it can travel corkscrewing and thus use all those topside laser turrets to take out anything attacking from any direction.

Or, attach your extra defensive turrets using rare earth magnets inside the hull.  That way you can remove them if you want to go "purist".

[seadude]

Or, attach your extra defensive turrets using rare earth magnets inside the hull.  That way you can remove them if you want to go "purist".

I like that. Thanks for the idea!  I might use that on other future model projects too.

[seadude]

Or, attach your extra defensive turrets using rare earth magnets inside the hull.  That way you can remove them if you want to go "purist".

I like that. Thanks for the idea!  I might use that on other future model projects too.

Actually, I take back what I said. That might not be a good idea. If I were to paint the model, then the painted surface would get all scratched and so forth from adding and removing any parts with magnets.

[PR19_Kit]

Or, attach your extra defensive turrets using rare earth magnets inside the hull.  That way you can remove them if you want to go "purist".

I like that. Thanks for the idea!  I might use that on other future model projects too.

Actually, I take back what I said. That might not be a good idea. If I were to paint the model, then the painted surface would get all scratched and so forth from adding and removing any parts with magnets.

I've used that technique on R/C model boats and found that 'paint fatigue' wasn't a problem.

Just ensure that the paint is well cured, and preferably varnished, before you assemble the magnetised parts for the first time. It also helps if there's some locating method as well, like a short stub fitting into a hole adjacent to the magnet.

[Rheged]

I have a vague memory of  a discussion some time ago concerning  cheap "toy" magnets as a way to attach a Grand Slam to a model Lancaster.  Did anyone try it, and if so did it work?

[Rick Lowe]

I did that one time for a friend, so he could swap turrets for some wargaming models.

I used some of the cheap fridge magnet business cards... pretty easily done, what with superglue/epoxy these days, but the only thing I would recommend is that you check for polarity before you glue them in place... 

you can probably guess how I know... 

Rick

[PR19_Kit]

you can probably guess how I know... 

Rick

That'll be because of the gun turret stuck in your nose after you found out that like poles repel??? 

[Weaver]

If you've ever wondered why the removable tail rotor doesn't fall out of the "Dragonfly" helicopter I take to shows, it's because it has a tiny 1mm neodymium magnet on the end of the spindle and another one at the bottom of the hole in the tail.

[Rick Lowe]

you can probably guess how I know... 

Rick

That'll be because of the gun turret stuck in your nose after you found out that like poles repel??? 

Sumpin' like that, yeah...