Anasazi37

1 hour ago, SpacePirateNeko said:

Ill get a copy up at shapeways soon...for the print file version  im gonna just drop it on my artstation(i can make it really cheap since artstation takes only a small cut). For the print file  version i made a few extra options  that are thrown in...such as a single solid version...and option clear  glass pieces. Once im done painting and get some screenshots ill throw them up.

I might be able to help with decals for it, too, if you weren't already thinking about making them yourself. The yellow and white banner wouldn't take too long to design, and based on how you made the top piece, all you really need is the white text since the rest can be painted yellow. The red and blue artwork with the black lines on it, that spans the six cans, would be a little more challenging due to the curved surfaces and how everything has to line up, but is feasible. I'd need the print files for the machine to do everything correctly. You could include the decal artwork file with your print files. I wouldn't want any compensation, just offering to help another fan. I could probably print a few decal sets for folks who are interested.

On 10/29/2023 at 8:50 PM, nightmareB4macross said:

That sounds like an amazing project. But it makes me wonder about all those DX with no gunpod. What happened? The same seller also has a lot for V/YF-19 gunpods as well.

Honestly, I totally skipped that for this. Thanks a cool friend.
Now to find the son’ itch Valk that goes with it.

Every time I look at my plush gunpod, it makes me smile because of how patently ridiculous and fun it is. Still one of my all-time favorite Macross purchases.

2 hours ago, jvmacross said:

If they want to maximize WWM...then that rules out any SDFM/DYRL items....

If that is the case...I'd really like an SV-303

I'd very much like to see an Sv-303 release, too.

On 2/20/2023 at 8:51 PM, no3Ljm said:

Plamax MF-69 Alto Saotome. October 2023 Release. Y4180. (1/20 VF-25 not included.)

https://www.goodsmile.info/en/product/13998/PLAMAX+MF+69+minimum+factory+Alto+Saotome+with+VF+25F+Decal+Set.html

Heads up: release date for Alto has moved from October to December. Just noticed the change on Good Smile's web site. I'd been holding off on shipping items in my HLJ Private Warehouse until this released, putting up with their seemingly endless onslaught of "SHIP NOW" emails, but it could be another two months....

5 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Shouldn't be that long, looks like Kakizaki has a 10-19 release date, while Max is 10-31.  Unless you meant that they both regular releases put up for sale at the same time as TWE items, which I wasn't keeping track of.

I was actually hoping to get duplicates of these, just so I can get some extra TV missiles, and those particular tinted canopies.. and having a spare Max for a Q-Rau battle pose is always necessary.  

Tamashii site says "November 2023" for Max:

https://tamashiiweb.com/item/14457/?wovn=en

I hope it's closer to the beginning of November, or even 10/31. Don't want to wait too long to complete the squadron. 

2 hours ago, ArchieNov said:

I heard Mrs. Jenius likes to play with Jenius's Monster too, so you're not alone 😜 

By the way, I just got a notification from Anime Export that the HMR VF-1A Kakizaki is now in stock, but nothing on the Max yet. I thought they had the same release date?

Got an email from my proxy service this morning that my Kakizaki is ready to ship. I'm going to have them hold onto it until the Max releases next month.

1 hour ago, Drad said:

I didn't see Kakizaki or Max go up at all anywhere, and now Anime-Export lists them as sold out.

They went up for PO at the same time, as Tamashii Web Exclusive (TWE) items, but their release dates are about a month apart. You can keep track of the latest announcements using this site:

https://tamashiiweb.com/item_character/macross_series/?wovn=en (be sure to select "Japan" for the region, using the floating button in the lower right corner of your screen)

There's also a well-maintained PO announcement thread:

A few stores like Anime Export are still willing to take POs for TWE items and then act as proxies for you, but Bandai is really starting to crack down on proxies. The proxy service I like to use recently had to switch to a process where orders are shipped to a third party and then shipped to their warehouse, to get around Bandai's latest "defenses." Not a huge additional cost, maybe $4 in postage and a bit longer wait time for me, but this whole situation is beyond ridiculous.

4 hours ago, connor99 said:

Does anyone know if and when gokinplus.com will do a re-stock on the short ver. of the Archi Pro Series Stand?  I need one for a 1/60 ver.2 I just acquired. 

He's been restocking pretty regularly. Recommend you 1) check the site often as @starkiller239 recommended, 2) join the Macross Fan Central group on Facebook (he announces restocks there), or 3) message him here and request an update on restocking (his username is BroTaku79). When I need stands...and I keep finding reasons to buy more of them...I tend to check the site a few times a week. That way I don't have to sort through a bunch of "sorry if someone already posted this or already asked this question" noise in the Facebook group to find his updates. With that said, when an update does show up in the group, he sometimes includes a discount code.

7 minutes ago, rematron said:

Are we sure the model is perfect transformation? The cockpit and nose cone look very different from fighter/gerwalk to battroid. 

It's definitely a partsformer

I've continued to refine my Yamato 1/48 adapters for the Archi Stands. Battroid is done now, but I'm still tweaking the ones for Gerwalk, Fighter, and Armored Fighter. As mentioned above, the gunpod sits lower in Armored Fighter, and it's a lot heavier when displayed, so I made a separate adapter just for that case. Required some reinforcement. Here's the result. Printed in PLA for rapid prototyping, not ABS, but it's still very strong. You can do some extreme banking poses. The adapters are really cradles, no clipping on to anything. The valk just sits in them and gravity does the rest. I'm avoiding the clip-on approach because that is more difficult to print reliably, but also because I plan to use these adapters on 1/48 customs I'm creating and don't want to scratch the paint jobs.

5 hours ago, Robin-11 said:

Thank you for all your inputs. So basically if one of the items has been released in late august in Japan it is safe to bet that they won't get it before the end of october right? i will try to contact them anyway...buying with this kind of delays always makes me...uneasy.

If it released in Japan in late August, it could arrive at BBTS right before the end of October. That would be two months. As others have said, BBTS is responsive to inquires about arrival times, so I'm sure they'll give you the best estimate they have right now. I'd prepare to hand over $200 before the end of next month, just to be safe.

6 hours ago, Robin-11 said:

I apologize in advance if this the wrong thread but i need a suggestion. Few months ago i placed a pre-order on bigbadtoystore for a non-macross but always anime related product. The release date for these items was july/august in Japan and the store list them as a september release.I know that the store(which seems very professional and reliable) imports via ship most of the goods so i was wondering if i should expect any delays on the arrival of the items...Do you guys have any experience on the matter? it's really not an issue for me, i just need to understand when those $ 200 will have to come out of my wallet and therefore plan my life accordingly(i usuallly buy on japanese stores and they always have been very accurate on the release dates). Thank you in advance for your help.

BBTS estimates for release are usually pretty good, since they've been doing this import thing for a long time. However, they are at the mercy of when the manufacturer puts the items on a ship, how long the ship takes to arrive in the US port, how long it takes to unload the ship and get the items through customs, etc. Assuming 2 months after release in Japan is usually a safe bet. You could try looking at release estimates on other sites like Amazon US (assuming it's being sold there). Odds are good that Amazon will get the item earlier or at the same time as BBTS. For example, Tamashii Nations lists the VF-25G release as 23 September in Japan, Amazon US lists it as 15 November, and BBTS just says November. So, likely sometime in November.

2 hours ago, electric indigo said:

New extras for your Regults from Experten

 

The Hasegawa kits usually cost around ¥3000, so ¥13,000 for an add-on is pretty steep. Experten does great work, so I'm in no way criticizing the quality of it. It's just likely priced out of reach of a lot of people. If what they're selling are the digital files, so you can resin print four copies for the four variants (Regular, Scout, Light Missile, Heavy Missile), that makes the price a bit more reasonable, but most companies don't offer them for sale. It's risky to do that.

On 7/17/2023 at 2:22 AM, strikevalk said:

interested in these if they are ever produced....

I need to get back to this project. I'm a lot smarter about 3D design now and should rework these a bit. The RMS-1 is almost 100% ready to go, but the UUM-7 still needs some tweaking. It mainly comes down to tolerances between parts that have to fit together after printing, but I'd also like to make a pylon to hold two RMS-1, like what we see on Yamato, Arcadia, and Bandai valks.

2 hours ago, nightmareB4macross said:

I definitely agree with you there. They have just enough paint apps, but could use a little more to bring out the details. Hopefully, Bandai announces more upcoming releases for this line…soon.

So far these releases have a much higher production quality standard than I expected. They're nicer than the HMR VF-0S, which I found disappointing. I hope the standard stays high. Lots more valks to make!

19 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

This might be an unpopular opinion, but Bandai could just, you know, make it easier to buy their crap, instead of making their customers scramble over each other like a bunch of circus seals fighting over a bucket of fish.

And it's not like they don't know how to make it easier. Just look at the all Gundam stuff they produce. Yes, that franchise is orders of magnitude more popular than Macross, so they care about it orders of magnitude more, but they should be able to apply the same business logic to producing Macross stuff. It seems like there's clearly unmet demand that they could meet without flooding the market and making it unprofitable for them. I'm not a fan of artificial scarcity. I buy these toys to enjoy them, not as investments, so I don't need their value to go up over time due to limited supply.

8 hours ago, DewPoint said:

Perhaps a method to combat purchasing bots?

That's my initial reaction to the news as well. The upside is potentially no bots. The downside is potentially entering multiple lotteries across multiple sites in a semi-futile effort to secure a PO. What if you end up "winning" on more than one site? I guess you'd have to buy all of them? In that case, if you limit yourself to one site, you might miss out entirely and then have to deal with the secondary market after release. As much as some folks might not like the following idea, I'm okay with all sites charging the full purchase price up front for POs. The few times I've seen stores do that, their POs were available for a lot longer. Having to put a lot of money on the table seems to be a big discouragement for scalpers.

4 hours ago, Macrossfan92 said:

Will this be going up at big bad toy store? I cant find a pre order anywhere…

Usually takes about a week after the domestic PO in Japan for a WWM item to show up on sites like BBTS. Amazon US generally takes longer for some reason.

7 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

I'm not necessarily criticizing making up markings to splatter everywhere to make it look like they know what they're doing, but I absolutely am going to call out printing numbers backwards, then claiming it was on purpose, and then doubling down on the idea that people might want backwards numbers (note: not mirrored, but with the digits in reverse order) and including a set of alternate decals to fix their screwup.. instead of just admitting it was wrong.  Heaven forbid they admit that something obviously wrong was actually wrong.  

I'll add the recent DX Angel Birds release to the pile of evidence that points to Bandai consistently making poor design decisions with respect to markings on valks. That gigantic AB logo they created, which isn't canon, stamped all over the valk, is the main reason why I didn't buy one. I was very much looking forward to owning a DX AB, but I just couldn't bring myself to spend money on that atrocity. I personally find it to be a massive eyesore and it destroys what is otherwise a clean and attractive color scheme. Hasegawa and Yamato/Arcadia respected the original scheme in their releases, Bandai did not...for the sake of originality?  I'm sure if they were asked, they'd somehow double down on the design decision as being in the best interest of fans. It's not at the same level as the reversed modex numbers and associated gaslighting about how it was done intentionally to maintain visual symmetry, but I'm still disappointed.

22 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

I wish I had stocked up on more Yeti adapters. They're so much better than the default adapters from Yamato/Arcadia. Especially the VF-1 adapters. 

It's starting to feel like I wasted a substantial amount of my limited free time on the Yamato 1/48 adapter project to help fellow MW members who have been asking for adapters for several years now, but more intensely since Archi Stands came on the scene. I'm now glad that I hadn't designed or printed anything beyond the prototypes. If Yeti makes his adapters available again in some form, great. He clearly put a ton of thought and effort into those and the community will benefit from having access to them. I'm going to pause my project and wait to see how all of this plays out.

8 hours ago, Slave IV said:

I remember pics of some of the Yeti adapters where he was holding the Valks upside down with no fear of them falling off. Quality!

It comes down to how you can print them and what materials you use. It's not hard to design adapters that will snap in place so you can hold the valk upside down (which I did), it's another to be able to print them without going to a commercial provider. Consumer grade additive manufacturing options are more limited and because of how the material is laid down during printing, there is a "grain" to it. Introduce too much stress along the grain, which would happen if you start pushing adapters onto valks, and the adapters break. I went through multiple prototypes that suffered this fate. I also wanted to limit how much the adapters might scratch up paint jobs on custom 1/48s, so I increased tolerances to create cradles instead of snap-on adapters. I still need to complete my Minmay Guard and Blue Roses 002 customs and don't want them getting messed up by display adapters.

13 hours ago, ChaoticYeti said:

Ah...yep. I put several years into Yetistand. It was enjoyable and sometimes rewarding, but very stressful. I doubled down on my career during covid and don't have the capacity to fire up Yetistand like it was before. It looks like my acrylic design was....flatteringly taken over and I'm taking it as a compliment? I understand I left a vacuum. Yetistand was not cheap to run, so more power to you and I hope your margins are making it worth your while. I question some decisions, and I don't know who is responsible for the archistand stuff, but I have had zero involvement with that project, and only recently became aware of it.

Seems like the adapters have a bit of value in them. I have all of my digital files backed up for all of Yetistand. There are some intriguing questions in some old emails and dm's around buying all of my files. I don't think anyone is going to pay me what I think they're worth, but I am not against looking in to setting them up on a print on demand service. My only concern with that is quality control and tolerances. I took pride in dialing in the adapters as best I could. I don't know how well they will work if a service or other player prints them, and I don't know if they will care enough to adjust them to work as needed.

Thinking this through. 

Margins?   Much like the waterslide decals that I've produced for this community over the past 22 years, I'd be taking a loss if I offered my adapters for sale at a price that collectors would find acceptable (which is what I do). Especially when you factor in the amount of time required to design them, print them, clean them up, and ship them out. Big chunk of the design time was getting everything dialed in, to include recalibrating my printer for the filament I wanted to use and then making tweaks to the designs in order to ensure the prints were as close to the drafted dimensions as possible. I would care enough to print your adapters correctly, but it might be more than I can take on. My day job is...intense.

8 hours ago, ChaoticYeti said:

It was never lost on me that if someone's $300+ figure fell off the stand I would be blamed.

I feel this way about the adapters I just designed for the Yamato 1/48, since they are cradles that don't "clip" onto the valk. Do anything too crazy with them, like a close-to-90-degree banking pose, and the valk might fall out.

9 hours ago, Slave IV said:

Maybe you can just do the adapters? Or help us get the ones we need in some way? I know you did a lot of work to perfect so many different types of adapters so it would be a shame to have to redo some of that. I’m pretty sure there would at least be demand for the various Yamato 1/48 and Sentinel Mospeada adapters. It is great to have any of these better stand options though. 

Yes, even just selling personal use versions of the designs through a site like Cults 3D and letting people print them as needed would be extremely helpful to this community. I just spent several weekends designing new adapters for the Yamato 1/48. It was a time consuming and frustrating process. I was working on a plan to make the adapters available to people, but now maybe I'll stop....

16 minutes ago, Slave IV said:

Looking good! Will the Battroid adapter work with GBP equipped Valks too?

It might require some modifications. Good thing I have a VF-1J suited up and ready for testing.

Took a week longer than anticipated, but I finished up all four adapters for the Yamato 1/48: Battroid, Gerwalk, Fighter, and Fighter with Super/Strike Parts. The Battroid and Gerwalk adapters work with or without the Super/Strike Parts attached, but separate ones were needed for both Fighter mode variants so you don't end up with a lot of empty space under the gunpod. I printed them in some white PLA that I had on hand because it was much faster for prototyping and tweaking the designs, but grey ABS would be my choice for actual use. I'm still making some small adjustments, but they're looking pretty good now. My goal was to make them as low profile as possible, so you barely know they are there. They are also best thought of cradles because the valk rests in them, but isn't locked into place. You can do some pretty extreme banking poses, though.

End of week update for the Yamato 1/48 adapter project. I've been tweaking the design a little bit each evening, printing multiple prototypes along the way. I think it's pretty close now. Here's the latest version. It takes advantage of the original adapter design and uses it as a low profile anchor point behind the head, but also redistributes the weight of the valk further back (right behind the shoulders) in a way that holds the valk snugly in place without having to do any kind of snap fitting. It simply rests in the adapter. I wouldn't flip it upside down and expect it to stay in place, but other than that, you can do some extreme banking in the display stand and it seems to be rock solid. The tab at the bottom is moved just far enough back from the edge so the front of the adapter sits flush with the Arcadia A adapter when attached. I've been printing the prototypes in ABS for added strength, but you could probably get away with PLA since the adapter isn't subjected to a lot of pressure. I'm thinking about making a shorter version for a valk that doesn't have the armor attached. Adapters for Gerwalk and Battroid are also in the works.

1 hour ago, Slave IV said:

Nice! Are you going to sell some of these or willing to share the files?

Haven't thought that far ahead yet. For now, I'm just trying to get the designs right. Rest assured, they will be available to the community in some form.