MacrossJunkie

Cool. I like seeing more people doing weathering stuff! Look forward to see you do your other valks. I've got a bit of a backlog to work through myself. I just lack time

Yeah, it really shows. At least Yamatoi's M+ stuff had only cost $60-80 at the time.

Don't forget Morrow's tour of the Idris! And yes, the characters look like crap right now, but they are very much a work in progress. If I recall correctly, one of the devs said that even Admiral Bishop in the senate speech video was put together in the matter of weeks and they said he was about 75% done at that stage. Here's a link to the actual star map in case anyone had trouble finding it and wanted to check it out for themselves. It's impressive to say the least. Works fine for me in Firefox, but had issues in Chrome. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/starmap

Here's basically what I do when spraying a clear coat if I don't feel like disassembling or can't remove a part. Put the valk in a partial GERWALK mode. Fighter mode is usually no good because only parts of the legs or arms are exposed and it would look strange when you have an area partially clear coated with a clear line where the un-sprayed area was covered as it will likely still show when you go to spray the previously covered area. GERWALK tends to have the arms and legs exposed and every fighter mode part tends to be visible in GERWALK also. Keep the legs straight though when spraying or you'll have areas that are unsprayed when the GERWALK joints are folded forward. If the head can be popped off, I tend do so and handle it separately. Generally pay attention to the angle of spray and make sure you get the entire surface of any part that is exposed. For example, the shoulders on a VF-1 might be in front of the underside of the wing, so spray the shoulder in a direction that won't hit the underside of the wing or you'll have a shoulder shaped overspray on the underside of the wing. I usually don't bother spraying areas that are only visible between transformations or see a lot of friction, like the back of the hip/intake section on a VF-1 for example or the underside of the backplate. On the VF-19Adv, I didn't spray the red sensor arrays on the sides of the nose and had them masked off. Mostly just use some common sense. After you finish spraying in that configuration, most likely all you have left are the battroid mode parts. First let it dry and cure for at least a day or two before working to expose any battroid parts that were hidden away. For the VF-25, that tends to be the front of the chest and the crotch plate. On a VF-0, that would be the upper half of the heat shield. Airbrushing is ideal so you can control the spray amount and pressure and use whatever clear coat you desire. Otherwise, you can go with a spray can. Avoid the Testor's clear coat products. From personal experience, that garbage yellows over time and are not very durable. Do nice thin layers with some time to evaporate in between. You don't have to coat the surface in one pass. That could lead to dripping, especially with cans. If you have any other questions, you can PM me if you'd like.

For small crevices and hard to reach areas where even compressed air won't dislodge dust, you could use a sable hair brush or a lightly dampened cotton swab.

I generally wouldn't apply waterslide decals without a top coat over it. They tend to be pretty fragile and can be scratched off/damaged very easily. A top coat would not only be stronger, but also protect the decal. It is, by far, easier to fix a clear coat scratch than to fix a damaged decal. So to answer your question, I would say having a clear coat over the general area of the decal is better than having none at all. In an ideal setting, it would be better to airbrush the whole thing so that the finish looks even. If you go the handbrushing route, note that it will take a lot longer to dry and cure.

I don't know what to say... I thought maybe it would improve since the initial prototypes, but it strongly gives off that Banpresto VF-1 vibe now more than ever and that is not a good thing. The way it is now, I just don't see it selling well at the price they're asking for. I don't know if it's the result of the lack of effort, lack of skill, or both. Such a wasted opportunity... I'm coming at this from a point of ignorance, but just based on what I've seen of the 3rd party Transformer stuff, I wish there were people like the ones responsible for those making some Macross stuff. So many of the 3rd party releases even manage to look better than the official stuff from Takara/Hasbro.

I kind of like my greenish Takara MP Starscream. It's got a crazy amount of panel detail and tampo. The non-canon, non-cartoony color lets it look good next to the Zero valks since both are 1/60 scale and F-15s would still have been in use during that point in time. Looks good from the top, but look at it from almost any other angle and that illusion goes out the window, to no fault of the toy designers though. Just an inherent problem with taking existing designs and trying to force a transformation out of it into a robot design shown in a cartoon that didn't put a whole lot of thought into the transformation process and mainly just tried to make them look good.

Probably Macross Delta stuff

Are we talking all scales here? My top 5 in quantity are: VF-1 (1/48 and 1/60) x 17 YF/VF-25 (v1 and renewal) x 11 YF/VF-19 x 9 YF/VF-21/22 (1/60 and 1/72) x 7 3 way tie - VF-0, VF-171, VF-27 x 5 each In just 1/60 scale which is the bulk of my collection and including only the stuff I give a crap about: Tied VF-1 and YF/VF-19 x 9 each YF/VF-25 (renewal) x 8 4 way tie - VF-0, VF-171, YF/VF-21/22, VF-27 x 5 each I don't really buy re-colors or multiples of a single thing very often. I mainly concentrate on getting at least 1 of each variant of a base class.

I wasn't really making any argument for the 29 becoming a CF fighter, especially with the rarity of the fold quartz. Not sure anyone was. Was just speaking about the apparent uselessness of the 30 since it lacks firepower for extended engagements compared to its predecessors. Once it blows its container load of missiles, all it's got left are the head lasers and gunpod. It's only got one very specific specialized ability and that is to break through fold faults. I don't really see that as useful in general every day use. So yeah, if there's anything that is likely to replace the VF-171, it would be the 25 due to its multi-role adaptability, as long as it's not deemed as too much of a hero valk. Or they might finally decide that some cheaper variant of the 19 will be for the masses like the EF, which Isamu's is actually a custom variant of, VF-19 EF/A. (Thus bringing this discussion back to the 19 )

I'm not really sure what the point of the 30 is other than as a missile boat. The 29 seems like the better fighter all around. Amongst other things, it has more guns, still has plenty of internal missiles. It's biggest advantage is it has two extra engines to provide more thrust, excess power for SWAG and PPB in fighter mode, and can pivot to direct thrust.

Speaking of MTF, is your 1/3000 Prometheus and Daedalus project still alive?

Just saw those pictures and I have to agree with you. The concave slope on the underside of the ship's bow is such a visually distinctive feature of the TV version that leaving it out is pretty much akin to leaving the DYRL? style bridge on. I'm disappointed that this is such a lame cop out attempt from Hasegawa when usually they are better than that. Either go full TV or go Macross the First, but don't go half assed and give us a little mix of both. I believe I'll be cancelling mine.

That looks awesome! A great accessory for the 0D.

I've got one of those cutting mats too. Not that specific model, but still awesome just the same. The self healing really works.

Yeah, the jolly roger insignia on the inside of the fins is accurate. Most of those look like stickers in those pics. You can see the outline of the clear parts of the stickers. Other than the UN Spacy, Danger Intake V's and the skull squadron insignias, I have very low expectations that anything else will be tampoed.

Actually, you can get them off. I popped mine off so that I could start panel lining. Just took a little more force than you think you'd need. The pegs are very short, so there's little chance of breaking them. Also Shin ejected his as he approached the birdman in the last episode, so having them off is just as legitimate, although it does expose ugly holes in the chest.

No, but it's easy to take the head off.

Got mine in the mail today. Has a nice heft to it, but there are some things I don't like about it. The intakes really have nothing to hold them in place in fighter mode or GERWALK for that matter. It's pretty annoying. The wing lights also are also just painted black instead of clear pieces like the Yamato ones. Looks really cheap like something you'd find on a toy for little kids than a collector's item that costs close to $300. When the wings fold back for battroid mode, there's a lot of scraping involved and there's signs of scratching on the factory paint from it. I find it funny that on the sticker sheet, the VF-0A on the sheet has the back of the legs as grey and not blue. Not sure if it's my imagination, but it looks like one of the engine thrusters in the feet is off angle compared to the other by a degree or two like it was put in the wrong way or something. At least it feels a lot more solid than the Yamato releases.

Got mine today. The left wing is has no resistance at all and just flops about. The stickers just don't match the tampo so I think I'm just going to leave them off.

Cut up the numbers and you can have a mix of 0,1,2, and 3 in any order you want They look like stickers to me. First version also came with stickers. No super parts or it would have been more expensive. Would have cost at least as much as the Brera release.

I find HLJ's EMS prices to be cheaper than most others tend to charge. They only charged me ¥2980 when most places tend to charge ¥4000+ yen for EMS for valk shipping.

Man, how the heck? I assume that NY shipped these around the same time. Mine's still stuck in Osaka since the 27th with "Origin Post is Preparing Shipment".

I kind of wish they designed a new ghost to go with these new VF-0's. The old one is a bit inaccurate as it's missing the upper intakes. Also it's pretty much held in place by gravity. Put it upside-down and it will fall right off. Also the wing hardpoint mounted drop tanks and missile pods don't fit in all the way if the VF-0D is anything to go by. It's a little loose on my 0D and the center peg is blocked from going all the way in because the shape of the hardpoint indentation is a little different and reversed. Yeah, even ignoring the fact that it's so way off base from what it should be, it just looks bad and out of place compared to the rest of the color scheme.