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Completed my 1/72 Bandai VF-1S Hikaru kit. This kit has been controversial from the beginning and now that I’ve finished this kit, I figured I’d give my own viewpoint. I’ll try to be fair and balanced. J I built this kit without painting much. The parts I painted were - - the tailfins - the foot thrusters - the gunpod - some minor details here and there - the black stripes on the arms, legs, and wings I had to paint the black stripes because the Bandai decals were terrible and generally a pain to work with. Those areas are also heavily touched during construction. Decals can be easily scratched even with a clear coat on top. Paint is a bit tougher (esp the lacquer & enamels I use). Painting them was also much easier. A couple of mods were made. The main one being the wheels for the landing gear. The wheels included with the kit were way too small for my liking. I thought about using the wheels from the Hasegawa kit but those are small too. I’ve always felt that Valks should have big meaty tires. So anyway, I cut off the wheel attachment point, drilled a hole, inserted a brass rod, and attached F/A-18 Hornet wheels from an aftermarket resin set. This does however mean that the landing gears no longer goes into the bays. But that’s okay since I don’t plan on swooshing this around like a toy or transforming it to any other mode. Another mod was to the gunpod attachment. Since the model is staying in fighter mode, I cut the ugly gunpod holding strap and simply glued the gunpod to the attachment point. The final mod was an attempt to fix the inward slant of the lower legs. Fellow MW member, Budokhan, seemed to have come up with a easy fix and I tried it out. It’s not perfect, but it’s a heck of lot better than it was originally. In general, the buildup of this kit isn’t that hard. Most of the parts come together decently. There is however, one section that I had trouble with Despite following the instructions, I simply could not figure out a way to firmly attach the shoulder rotation point to the socket. After numerous tries, I gave up and gutted the whole shoulder linkage section. Which is just as well as I had no intention of ever taking it out of fighter mode anyways. There’s probably a better way to put that shoulder section together but I really don’t care about transforming so I’m not going to bother. In all honesty, it’s not a bad kit to build into fighter mode. Since I glued many of the moving parts, it’s all nice and tight. Another thing that is nice when it’s all put together is the heft of the model (at least in fighter mode). The quality of plastic Bandai uses and all the mechanisms for transforming gives this model some weight. It’s not important but it feels nice. As for the general “look” I find it to be just fine (at least in fighter mode). It’s not my favorite fighter mode model (that belongs to the Wave 1/100) but it’s looks well enough like a VF-1. If I had to complain, I think the tailfins are a bit on the small side. I guess this is the compromise for battroid mode. In the future, I might replace them with Hasegawa fins or something. That all said, I’m pretty happy with the end result. The mods I made help. Actually, I’m pretty chuffed with the Hornet wheels. I took the pics with a phone camera so some things are not correctly in focus.

Finished my Wave 1/100 scale VF-1S! This was a relatively quick build (for me). About 2 months from start to finish. The buildup of this kit is relatively easy. It’s mostly snap-fit. Some parts do require glue however. The fit is decent but not quite to the level of Bandai gunpla precision. I would suggest that in some areas, the snap-fit pins should be cut off entirely and instead the parts be glued together. I did not do this and thus some areas on my build got a bit gappy. Made a slight change to the main landing gear covers. I’m a leg man and I wanted the main landing gear legs to show. The main color is Model Master Light Gray (FS36495) enamel that was brush painted on. Tamiya Gunmetal (TS-38) was used for the foot thrusters. Tamiya TS-6 for the black part on the tailfins, the gun, and parts of the wing stripe. I had problems with the decals. I don’t know why but they were constantly cracking or breaking apart while I was adjusting the placement. I then learned that Gunze’s Topcoat doesn’t quite seal the decals like Tamiya’s TS-80. The decals were flaking off on my fingers! I found out that the best way to deal with this was to apply a thin coating of Topcoat to the decal, then apply Microset, then apply another coat of Topcoat. I pretty much had to paint much of the black wing stripes after they crumbled off. I was real lucky that the UN Spacy kite survived. Also, some of the decals like those for the tailfins and ventral fins were poor fitting. They just didn’t line up at all. I made a mess out of the ventral fins. After that, I decided to simply paint the tailfins. That all said, I like the details and the sculpt is excellent. It’s a modern kit and definitely several steps above the old 1/100 Arii. Save for the decals, it’s a relatively easy kit to complete. The scale goes great with Gundams and other sci-fi mecha models. And now for some pics. I hope I'm not posting too many. Next to the old Arii kit that I built several years ago

Custom or Arcadia getting into the itasha mood after the 30th anniversary VF-1J? http://www.toysdaily.com/discuz/thread-208271-1-1.html

After a long break from my last Macross/Mecha kit building (as well as my hobby life), Somehow I managed to come back to it! I've always wanted to make this custom build, but I had a couple of reasons I didn't start until now. The biggest reason was my fear of paint wearing and chipping on transforming kit, but I might have found some solution - which is not fully tested yet. Anyways, the below image is my project plan. Basically, my goal with this project is to make it like Hasegawa 1/48 or Club-M resin kit - while keeping the ability to transform between 3 modes add details where it's safe add lights where it's possible and make sense. use metal where it makes sense for texture or it need strength The base kit will be either VF-1J or VF-1S that I bought from HLJ during 'Panic buying frenzy' I haven't decided which one it will be yet. It could be My favorite first TV Hikaru VF-1J - but cockpit design is not as cool as movie ones, and doesn't go with cool launch arm (that I'm planning to build later..) Movie Focker VF-1S Super Valkyrie - All good except that I'm not a big fan of S head design Movie Hikaru VF-1S Strike - it's the final battle model - All good except that I'm not a big fan of S head design I'll decide as I go.. By the way, I've been buying some supplies and parts for this mod for a while now. Below is a some part of it So.. according to my plan, I'll be doing some major work on the wings, chest block, backpack(?) and cockpit area. So I've made silicon mold to start copying those parts. My workflow will be 'recast - cutout/rework - recast those parts'..etc Also I found a cool mechanical hand parts that I can use. Size is between 2 hand types that comes with Yamato 1/60. Design is a little different, so I need to work on that. That's it for now, but I started it at last!! I can only work on this over the weekend nights, so it will be very slow process..

hello everyone.. i'm not be good at 3d ..but the vf-1s is my Favorite