MacrossJunkie

Beautiful! I had the same idea with making the leading edge of the black a lighter colour using a filter. I messed mine up pretty good though. In trying to find the right subtle shades for the patterns, I had to clean off paint and redo when the color looked off or too strong. However somehow the paint solvent I guess carried up the panel lines and capillaried their way up through the masking tape and spread out under the tape all throughout. So when I took the masking tape off, the red and black paint were all splotchy, cracked and ruined. This is the first time I've had this happen to me. I even made sure to press the tape on firmly, but the panel lines are pretty deep and the textured surface probably also allowed enough space for the paint solvent to work its way under the tape. So I had to mask off and repaint the black areas and the red stripes... what a friggin' nightmare. It especially sucked trying to fix the "SMS 030" and SMS logo areas. So it's been taking me far longer to do than I thought it would and has made me regret this project. Fortunately they went with a basic red and black so it was an exact color match with off the shelf hobby paints. Here's a quick snap of it on my desk. I went with 4 different color tones and tried to keep it subtle and simple. I initially tried to match the patterns from the red and grey variants, but it looked too busy in the end so I simplified the pattern. Stripes and the screw ups are mostly fixed now. It's still a work-in-progress. I still need to mask and spray the filter, do the weathering, and clear coat.

I'm super late to the party, but wow! That's such a classy looking stand design.

I like both. The 17 and 19 series of valks (for example) are both big and bulky and look great to me. On the other hand, the VF-25 also looks awesome in its own right. Not to mention its thinner design makes things like the full armor pack that stays on in all modes possible. If it was already bulky before the armor was added, the armor would make it too cumbersome. I actually feel like the 30 is partially a throwback to the older styles and more in line with the 11, at least as far as the legs are concerned. The leg design on it harkens back to the vf-1 or 11 with its simple, clean lines and shape. The upper body and back kibble are a different story though. I think the sleekness of the recent battroid designs is just a natural progression though. Valkyrie combat is all about speed and agility, so making it thinner and harder to hit while at the same time potentially reducing the mass of the base unit makes sense to me. Well, that's my take as far as Macross goes. I really couldn't say for other franchises.

I've transformed mine back and forth a bunch of times over the past few days and thus far, haven't found any use for any of the braces. Mine has been holding very well in all modes. It definitely feels like it holds together better than the VF-171 in battroid at the very least. Hopefully it stays that way. My only gripes for it are: There ought to be some sort of tactile indication for when the vertical stabilizers are in the right spot in fighter mode The left wing on mine swings up higher and flatter than the right will go by a subtle but still noticeable degree. The missile pod doesn't really sit flush with the backplate and leaves kind of an ugly gap on the top of the fighter. On the plus side, I like how it shares some similarities with the YF-21. Like the very similar wings, how the hands are hidden in pockets, or being able to do the same "high speed mode" as the 21 by folding the wings down and moving the stabilizers inward. It's also nice having another Frontier era valk, aside from the VF-171, that doesn't have a nearly identical transformation as the 25. That satin finish looks great out of the box as well. I think I will use the renders of the 30 from the Macross 30 game as reference for the weathering. I noticed that the renders still have a subtle camo pattern that the red/black and black/purple schemes have but didn't translate over to the toy itself (not to be confused with the reflections). That's a shame. I may have to try adding that myself as I like that.

I would have liked another one, but I didn't even try to stay up this time. All my previous attempts go like this: F5, F5, F5 ... *pre-order time hits*... *sites are slow so the refresh takes several seconds*... *page is returned. shows sold out*... I rage for wasting my time. I'd rather just get a good night's sleep than to spend so much effort in futility. I'll look casually for sites to have more up later, so all hope isn't lost yet.

Wow, that really is sagging. Mine is closer to the "after" pic out of the box, but there's still a bit of wiggle in the attachment. I feel like they could have designed it better.

I guess worst case, you could sand the surface a bit to make sure the seam is level with the surface and spray paint it white.

Sheesh... that bracket isn't even remotely subtle. It could pass as part of an armor piece. WTF, Bandai?

Where did you order yours from? Mine was shipped from NY on Monday.

I have to agree with everyone. That stand looks awful. Not really digging how the antenna gets in the way of the back folding down. Looks pretty silly like that. This will remain in fighter mode for me for sure.

I think that's due more to people not having it rather than not wanting to put it on display.

I just took mine out of the box to examine it and one thing that came to mind while handling it is that this has got to be the first Bandai release I've ever gotten where the toy isn't covered in grease. I can't find any on it, in fact.

Wow, that was fast. CDJapan shipped mine on the 11th and I got it this morning.

That looks nice even without the tinting. But, I say go ahead and do the purple or blue tinting. It's actually not that hard to accomplish. the only pain in the butt is possibly disassembling part of the valk to get canopy parts off (and if going with purple, finding a suitable clear purple if you don't have one already). You'll be much more satisfied with it in the end. When I painted my Isamu YF-29 canopy, I took the pieces off and stripped off the paint so it was just clear plastic. I repainted the framing first and then sprayed the underside of the canopy for the tinting so that the tinting would be protected from accidental scrapes and such and it makes it easier to remove without having to worry about re-doing the frame if you mess it up. You don't need paint that dries instantly for the tinting and you only really need a few layers at most. I just mixed clear blue acrylic with some future to dilute it and lightly dusted the inside with a few layers using my airbrush (which had a hazy look at first) before finally spraying a thicker coating to get it crystal clear. Alternatively, you could spray coat the inside with clear future first to ensure that there is no bare plastic that might cause the colored paint to pool up or recede. It took me a few tries only because while it looked really light when I had the canopy out in the open, the tinting looked heavier when it was reattached and closed, so I stripped it off and redid the tinting even lighter. But at least it was really easy to do so. I plan on doing the same with the Ozma when I can find the time, but I haven't had much time so far this year.

My v1 Ozma disintegrated without doing anything with it. My v1 RVF and 25G are still intact with no cracks or breaks, however they are as floppy as a rag doll. It definitely seems to be a common problem with the version 1 VF-25S. The gray plastic they used seems to be very poor quality.

I'm not sure I can describe the weathering process very well. You would probably learn more from looking up youtube videos on weathering models. That said, I used primarily an airbrush to do the weathering, but if you don't have an airbrush or haven't had much practice with it yet, you might want to consider getting the tamiya weathering kits first. They give pretty good results and are fairly versatile. I started out using those exclusively before moving on to using an airbrush as I got better with it through practice. As for the VF-19S, the reason the panel lines are more visible is because I did some panel lining on it. This is one of the rare cases that I used a fine tip gundam marker pen to panel line. Because the color of the valk was already pretty dark, the ink from the pen didn't contrast too much. I also panel lined my YF-21 and VF-25G with it as well.

I actually like to take the canards off and reverse them like in the 4th pic so that they're angled back in battroid mode, but just in battroid mode. That gives more clearance for the hips and the hip guns. Otherwise, they tend to get in the way.

Do stores order a bunch on their own or are we talking about cancelled pre-orders that they try to sell off? My impression with past web exclusive releases was the retail availability of web exclusive stuff tends to be pretty low.

In the end, it's really just a matter of practice and experience. I would avoid using the gundam marker for any of the actual panel lining, it's just much too dark and heavy, imo. I only used it in a few select areas that weren't even really panels. I would normally use a wash to do the panel lines, but some of the lines are really fine and hard to get the wash to stay in, so the mechanical pencil worked out better in the end. If you screw up with the pencil, just rub it off and redo, it shouldn't really leave any marks or stains on the plastic. I keep out a piece of paper and after every few lines, I re-sharpen the tip on the paper until it's a fine needle point. The matte coat should be alright as long as you're careful during the transformation. I've transformed mine back and forth a bunch of times. I guess it's important to be familiar with the transformation first.

What? This is going to be a web exclusive? Noooooooo... The one time I want something to be a general release and they make it a web exclusive. My plan was to not pre-order and just wait until it got in people's hands to see if it still suffered from the same breakage problems as the 171 CF. Darn you, Bandai! *shakes fist* Evil bastards.

The panel lining was done primarily with pencil and a bit of Gundam marker in select areas. Weathering effects used Tamiya smoke colored acrylic paint and some snow color from their weathering kit. It was then sealed in with a mix of Future and Vallejo matte varnish.

Not a green tint, but on mine, the yellows are painted on with a very thin coat, so the grays and blacks kind of show through a little.

Got mine yesterday. I definitely had the impression that the color was off immediately when I took it out of the box. It's not way off, but enough for me to notice it without having to do a side by side comparison. I'm sure it won't look as different once I weather and clear coat it. If only I can find the time. I still have my YF-19's to do and I also just got my Ozma 29 in today as well...

This is great news. Glad to see it's still coming.

Dang it. Missed these too. Always opens when I'm asleep. I can't afford to stay up all night like some people can...