MacrossJunkie

I haven't heard anything about limiting the M&Ms to a small number made. The 1,000 for Gamlin's version must have been regarding just the initial batch because I see on AmiAmi that they are doing a pre-order for another batch of Gamlin types to be released in August.

Nice. That seems sufficiently bright to me. I've got 3 items per shelf for my 1/60 scale VF cabinets and 2 per shelf for my 1/48s. I may have to play around with the positioning of the lights a bit when I get them. That's true, it is expensive if you compare it to normal lights. But compared to the LED lightbulbs I was looking at before, these are a steal. It seems a decent LED bulb would cost between $30-70 per bulb. These Dioder strips come in a set of 4 so you could kind of look at it like each strip costing a little over $12. I'm a little paranoid with discoloring plastics, especially with the whiter VFs. Fluorescent lights use a low amount of energy and less heat than incandescents, but emit a good amount of UV light which would likely facilitate discoloration. Incandescents emit low UV, but produce a ton of heat which can also discolor plastic, probably more so than UV light from a flourescent bulb could achieve in the same amount of time. LED lights seem to be the best of both worlds. They produce very little UV like incandescent lights and produce even less heat and use less energy than a fluorescent. Given that, I'm willing to invest in some of these Dioders so that my display will look nicer with some lighting and still give me some peace of mind that I'm not hastening the yellowing process by having them on.

It's too bad shipping costs so much. I got mine when they had the 70% off shipping and the total came out to be 15,808 yen. At least they have FedEx as an option now. A bit cheaper than EMS and much faster. What would have taken EMS about 4-5 days from shipping date took only 3 days with FedEx.

Awesome! That is exactly what I was looking for. I was looking for some lighting solutions but I didn't want to risk yellowing the plastics with fluorescent lights or adding extra heat from incandescent ones. I had been thinking of getting LED light bulbs to put in my cases but I couldn't find any that would work well or were extremely expensive. At $50 for a pack of 4, that is a much better solution. Thanks for bringing this up. Btw, just how far does the light go? Do the toys at the bottom get any usable illumination from the LED strips? Edit: Oops. fixed the price. looked up the Dioder multipurpose light instead of the light strip version, but that looks good too.

Heh, I would but I'm no pro at this. I'd be much too afraid of messing up on someone else's VF whereas if I screw up on mine, I can only get angry at myself. I'm not really sure what the issue might be. I've really had no problems on the YF-21 and Gamlin's and Max's VF-22s with the sliding cockpit. I think the head does have to be flipped back up if you're taking it back to gerwalk or fighter. Also try to start straightening out the joint that folds the cockpit away from the hood/cowl. Perhaps the pilot seat is tight which could prevent you from pushing the cockpit back into place. Normally the seat get pushed back into upright position when you slide the cockpit back. If the seat is tight, it might actually be acting as an obstruction so try to manually move the seat back upright and then slide the cockpit back. Can't really think of anything else that would help at the moment.

I don't think it's the camera so much as it is the lighting. The various factors in the lighting (color of light, incandescent, flourescent, etc.) makes a huge difference in how visible the different shades are.

Is it me or does Hikaru seem really tiny compared to the cockpit he's in? Like someone put a 10 yr old in a flight suit and put him in the fighter.

I'm so glad I got Max's VF-22S. While design wise, I prefer the YF-21 with its armored canopy and faceplate, the color scheme of Max's bird is just beautiful and has become my favorite. It's a lot easier to weather than Gamlin's also. P.S. Yes, I do know that I still have masking tape on the sensor lenses. I'm waiting for the clear coat to dry before I spray another layer.

Was the shoulder slider problem unique to the first release 1/72 YF-21 and later fixed in the FP version? I have a couple of the purple FP version and I've never noticed much stress on the shoulder sliders in fighter mode for either of them. I just took out one of my 1/72 YF-21s and for the first time, pulled out the landing gears. I found it somewhat funny that when I set it down, the rear landing gears collapsed back in. I'd have to roll if forward as I gently set it down to keep it from folding in. Maybe the collapsing rear landing gears on the 1/60 version is an easter egg reference to the 1/72

That works too. The benefit of using a spare fist is that it's harder to spot and matches the color of the VF.

Yes. The F-16 is 14.8m long. The VF-1 is 14m. So it's still a tad longer, but much closer. The F-15 is actually in the VF-22 size range. The VF-0 is 18.69m (not counting pitot tube?), the F-15 is 19.45m, while the VF-22 is 19.62m. Just a mixture of flat black enamel paint mixed with paint thinner. I wouldn't say it's bigger, just longer in alt/fighter mode while being much shorter in robot mode than a VF-1 battroid. It's also necessarily more complex in transformation because they had to take something that wasn't designed to transform and make it able to become a robot that resembles the G1 version of Starscream, et al. As for price, I'm sure the MP seekers benefit from several factors like economy of scale (arguably) and more so that it's being produced by a much larger company with all the benefits that entails. Also, doesn't Takara-Tomy own the Transformers franchise? If so, they wouldn't have to pay licensing fees as Yamato has to do for Macross items.

There is a slight gap in mine they way I have mine positioned, but not enough to fit the full width of a standard pen in. You can adjust the chest so that it almost makes contact, but I think it makes other areas look off in positioning. As for the neck base plate, there's no real lock that I've found. It's just kept in place by the fuselage pushing up against it from underneath. Here's how I have mine positioned. There is a tiny bit of jiggle room there at that position, but I think it looks better set like that. You can even go so far as having the tip of the neck base plate rising up over the chest piece at which point there is no jiggle room at all, but I don't think it goes that far in the line art. For the angle of pelvic thrust, try my suggestion of putting in one of the fists that you're not using. I have mine at max angle which I'd eyeball as around 65 degrees from the backplate.

I had a post that explained how, but I can't seem to find it in search or recall what thread it was... Anyway, I'll just re-attach the pics I used in that post. The waist joint is just locked in by a little tab. Easiest way to disengage it is to make sure the crotch piece is not locked in and just carefully pull on it until the part pops out. This is actually how the VF-25 and 27 achieve the outward pointing crotch in the animation. Too bad Bandai didn't actually design a fold out piece to prop it open. I just jam one of the spare hands in space. A closed fist works best. The pics just show the tab that locks the waist joint in to the fuselage. You can see how it should look when disengaged.

I'm not very clear on this... The standard one will still come with the basic stand while the SP version will come with the stand AND base, right? Or will the standard version not have any support/stand at all?

I'd have to agree there. Actually, the YF-21s I have seem to have fairly stiff landing gears and don't collapse in easily. I don't recall how it was for Gamlin's VF-22, but I just got Max's and I had the landing gears down while I was putting the stickers on and even just the slightest nudge backwards caused the rear landing gears to collapse back in which annoyed me greatly each time it happened. The visible turbines in the intakes are a complaint I have of all the Yamato valks. I wish they handled the intakes like the DX VF-27 - Just a black wall behind the intake covers. The turbines look especially cheesy on the SV-51, VF-0, VF-1 and VF-11.

How about this? I put in a VF-0 as well which is closer in size to an F-15. All are 1/60 scale of course.

I think out of that dstance garage kit and the Yamato toy, I'd pick the Yamato version. The model may have a more dynamic look in battroid mode, but it's achieved at great expense of the fighter mode, imho. The model's fighter mode is just terrible. The neck is way, way too long, the nose is stubby, intakes are too thick and rounded, etc. It was definitely designed with battroid mode being its primary emphasis. Yamato designed its YF-21 with the fighter mode being the emphasis. However, I think it still achieves a good battroid and gerwalk mode as well and so it seems to be a much better balanced design overall. I guess if there had been a custom VF-22 employed in Sound Force, I'm sure Yamato would have put more emphasis into the battroid mode vs fighter as they are doing with the VF-19 Kai.

I guess if you aren't able to match it close enough, you could just mask it off and repaint all the dark striped areas. It should be relatively simple to do and there aren't any markings in the dark striped parts that you would end up losing.

For Brera, Dark stripes are not metallic. Intakes are the same as the dark stripes. Beam cannon does have a sort of metallic look. I believe the cannons for all the 27s are the same. The green details like on the back of the hands, the diamond shape on the hips and on the crotch piece are metallic.

Yes. That seems to be the case. For some reason the VT-1 is affected but not the VE-1.

All these pics of Max's VF-22S plus the sale on HLJ and 70% off shipping have completely eroded my resolve to not get another VF-22. I put in an order for Max's bird and with its arrival I'll have more YF-21/VF-22s in my collection than any other VF in 1/60 scale. Now to figure out how I'm going to make room for it in my display cabinets...

That really depends on what you use for the clear coat. So far, I've tried automotive clear coat, clear coat from krylon, and clear coat made by testor's for models. The automotive one is very durable but can melt the plastic if you're not careful, the krylon seems to be pretty safe and durable also, the testor's flakes off just looking at it. Some people have suggested using Future floor wax (now under the Pledge brand name), but I haven't tried it as it would require me to use my airbrush and I hate doing clean up on it.

You could just do it for the nose if the difference in sheen doesn't bother you. Then again, the plastic for the main body is shinier than the plastic used for the wing engines. It's really up to you. You could test it on a separate piece like the shield first to see how much of a difference it is when it dries and decide from there.

Your complaints on the 1/60 DX VF-25 toys are valid and I agree 100%. However, it's not true of the entire 1/60 DX line. I find the VF-27 releases to be quite excellent and vastly improved over their VF-25 attempt. The plastic is still shiny and the gap under the cockpit for the waist joint is still there, though somewhat obfuscated by the lower canards. But just about everything else about the design is superb. A lot of effort was made to ensure the pieces lock together in the various modes and especially in fighter mode. The pieces fit together with hardly any gaps. For example, the hip gun practically flows into the wing root as the fit is really good, unlike the DX VF-25. The landing gears are much longer and can accommodate the fighter's huge beam gun with plenty of clearance between the gun and the ground. The gunpod attaches using a built in clip on the fighter along with a hook built into the beam gun itself. Proportions of the toy are even better than the 1/72 model. The pilot figure is more detailed and sized to 1/60 scale rather than the 1/72 scale half pilots that the VF-25 DXs had. The only real cons are that the paint comes off easily so a clear coat is highly recommended and it doesn't come with any stand, but that isn't such a big deal as the VF-25 stands are not very attractive and minimally functional to begin with. In short, it's much closer to what you would expect from a Yamato offering than the VF-25 DX.

Thanks for the compliments, guys. I sent an email to OverDrive last week but haven't heard back from them yet. Hopefully they will get back to me soon. I've pretty much used the same methods as I have in the past. I try to avoid using gundam markers for panel lines. I don't like the results as it looks too heavy. Panel lines are done with Promodeller Dark Dirt wash mixed with dishwashing soap and painstakingly applied with a very fine paint brush. The result looks better as the lines are finer and not a constant solid line since the wash is just fine particles of dirt suspended in liquid. Tamiya Weathering Master kits were used for the weathering. The burnt red from kit D blends in well with the beige and orange colors to make the areas look slightly darker. A bit of oil stain color from the same kit is blended in at varying amounts. I tear off the foam from a foam paint brush and use that to apply the colors. The foam can be folded and pinched while applying to achieve the desired thickness of the lines. A clean part of the foam is used to fade it. I try to keep the lines somewhat subtle. I've tried different clear coats and so far haven't really settled on a favorite. For this one, I used a matte clear coat made by Krylon. It seems to be fairly durable.