lavinrac

Congrats to everyone who got one! Sorry to all who didn't. This was the most painful pre-order I have stayed awake for. Good luck to you all!!

I just.. man.. I don't feel like I've won anything. that was arduous, I'm all amped up. ******* scalper world.  At least i got Email from HLJ so i didnt imagine it working.

HLJ came thru. This crap is just getting to be too much.

May God have mercy upon our souls...

This is gonna be rough. 

N-Y is for patient people. As I have gotten older i have become less 'gotta have it now' ... It'll come. They get me my stuff. its sometimes slow but they have not stiffed me yet. My last several successful orders have been from them.

HLJ is my fave but like others have said. their site.. something about its design/structure/database... just falls apart on preorders with high demand. even on a good day the site is slow, but they are my favorite COMPANY. And i appreciate that they don't charge me until the item is in their hands. 

Everyone has their own experience. I hope your preorder experience is painless.

I want it, So I'll give PO a shot, but if i fail I fail. And if it comes available later.. cool. I want a Focker VF-1S, but I don't have strong feelings about TV vs. DYRL... if you look at all the macross toys out there, there are so many inconsistencies.. both in the show and in the toys.. I have (diagnosed not appropriating the term) OCD, and this STILL doesn't bug me. Its just.. Hey cool an awesome Valk! 

Hope I can get one but if not.. Well the Hikaru VF-1S is pretty awesome.

I just received this a few hours ago. It took forever to transform. Its beautiful, but its very very fiddly. Not fun to transform. Same way i feel about some of the Transformers Masterpieces.. just too much. If you want anime accuracy, its great, and very nice looking. I wish it had more tabs to keep things in place like the 1/48 DX VF-1 for example..

I'm glad I got it, but at the same time i wish someone would do minopr improvement to the old Gakken Legioss.. or for that matter just re-issue the sucker.

On another Note, I have the much hated CM's.. it has the Tread so i like it a bit. They at one point came out with new chest pieces with larger circles but I never managed to get them. Wonder if anyone has done them in 3D for printing.

As long as you ask politely it might help. I'm convinced that the only reason I got mine is because I asked. That or dumb luck.

1 hour ago, crackpot said:

I think they can design a way for the VF-1 to have inward shoulder movement and still retain its ability to transform. A lot of toys have it. Bandai just got lazy with the VF-1.

It probably can be done. but i wonder what the cost in durability would be.. I am SO impressed with these DX 1/48's but at the same time.. the old 1/55 takatoku/bandai's Posability? Barely. but you could throw it on the floor and it'd still be in one piece.

2 minutes ago, crackpot said:

No inward shoulder movement and the toy can't shrug its shoulders. The animation makes it look like the strike cannon is pivoted inwards. 

Hahah yeah. Sorry i shoulda marked that as a joke. the 'real reasons' make sense, its just so frustrating!     'Anime Magic' 

Nippon-Yasan Super Strike Packs arrived in rural SW Virginia today. They came through. It was a long wait but they got them to me, and they REALLY make the toy just so much more awesome.. Now i gotta wait got my ~$75 plastic missiles.

PS:  Why is the most iconic pose of the VF-1S from the movie impossible to recreate (due to shoulder?) on EVERY toy and model? My Macross Modeling book has one the builder modified to do it, and the way it had to be done is all sorts of complex!

1 hour ago, Vertex said:

@lavinrac Was that via UPS or Ferry? if UPS how much did they charge? if you dont mind my asking.

I paid like $47 extra for shipping one set UPS.. Not ideal but i decided I'd like to have the product before armageddon.

SSP SHIPPED from N-Y... I  asked them by mail last week what was up (politely) and it SEEMS that after they said they were forwarding to their fulfillment team that it went to 'processing'  and now last night shipped. This is just for one SSP set.  My mail 'might' have helped with a gentle nudge. Dunno for sure.

Now about those missiles...  (don't think the second wave is even out yet is it?)

The model builder/resin kit pinner on me can't help but think that may be fixable. Wonder if you could get someone with good skills to fix the break for you?

(I didn't offer because my skills are middling. They work for static kits, but for a moving joint I might not be there)

I may be jumping into this topic late.. but I was on the HLJ site. yesterday.. these things are like .. $20-ish each, and I stopped counting at 95 'issues'... is this correct?  If 95 were the last thats $1900. Please tell me my math is crazy or wrong. 

Beautiful work!

Heh. Some kinda moderator ought to shut this nonsense down.. IMHO    It is a bit comedic tho.

Few more recent ones. Removing all that detail from the legs seems like sacrilege but it has to be done

Little further. lot cleaner... 

This is still messy but here goes.. I just started scratchbuilding tonite and you can see the shapes starting to form....

I have never been satisfied with the wad the front-middle section hasegawa didn't bother to do right ...

All that kibble on the legs is going away too.

I ordered Strike packs a bit after NY put them up the second time, for April. Should I be concerned about whether I will get them AT ALL? 

I can wait, but I'm a bit concerned they will not come through and by April it will be too late to get them without a huge scalper markup.

22 minutes ago, SpaceCowboy said:

What is the general lead time between when we know a PO is coming to when it happens?  I know I've not checked the site for a week or two and missed preorders.  My guess is that sometimes it is days of notice.

Subscribe to this thread with email. its the only way I can keep up.

19 hours ago, sqidd said:

For the amount of work/talent that goes into something like that I think it's a bargain. That's about $20/hr. High skill labor like this is usually a LOT more per hour. When I was doing suspension tuning (race car stuff) I was $250/hr. plus expenses (travel was usually involved). Good tattoo artists charge $100-200/hr. Heck, your local car dealer charges $100/hr+ in labor to just change parts (zero creativity factor).

Still yowza though.

That's gorgeous!

The price is a lot of money, but certainly for the amount of hours that goes into it, its probably fairer to the customer than the artist. (I don't do a lot of art for commission for that reason... too much of a perfectionist to break even!)

I wonder what kind of paints LEK uses. I'm guessing if he hasn't found some magic elixir these can't be transformed much without serious damage. And if he HAS.. man I'd like to know what kind so I could repaint my yellowed Yamatos!

6 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Touched up my Hikaru 1S a bit since it was still missing some important details.

Phone pics for now. 

Looks sharp! What did you add besides the Skulls behind the cockpit?  (I am at work and don't have my toy onhand to compare)

I don;t remember the triangle warning below the cockpit being on the toy but it could be foggy memory.