platypus

Hi, could I cfm that my model, if looked from above fighter mode, has a slight ankle tilt to the right at the right exhaust, it is indicative of a defective leg model?

5 minutes ago, Slave IV said:

Totally agree. No brown box doesn't prove anything other than you didn't get a brown box. 

It may mean ny is camping outside the Bandai factory picking up whatever vf-31a that’s just produced hot off the press sans brown box in order to ship it out to us.

Hence Bandai doesn’t even have to ship the items to ny in the brown shipper box.

Er, so is this just an announcement or put up on sale now?

8 hours ago, MacrossJunkie said:

It's full of pink canisters... Is this a Mary Kay cosmetics vending machine?

Think it's just the white surface of the micro missiles reflecting the red interior of the micro missile housing that's making 'me look pink.

On 07/01/2017 at 11:43 AM, Lolicon said:

Looking good!

Unfortunately, Bandai glued pretty much everything together. Even parts held together by screws are also glued, just to make extra sure you can't get at anything. Bandai probably wants you to buy their model kits if you want to customize anything.

There's a few things you can remove, like the backplate and arms, though that involves breaking some glue.

I was able to take off the backplate, which made adding the missing shoulder sensors 10x easier.

Has anyone disassembled the leg? How hard is to take that apart? Would like to Know how bandai integrated the kneecap slider mechanism into the leg.

20 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Looking good!

Unfortunately, Bandai glued pretty much everything together. Even parts held together by screws are also glued, just to make extra sure you can't get at anything. Bandai probably wants you to buy their model kits if you want to customize anything.

There's a few things you can remove, like the backplate and arms, though that involves breaking some glue.

I was able to take off the backplate, which made adding the missing shoulder sensors 10x easier.

Have you tried disassembling the knee cap landing gear and remod it? Any idea how to do that?

Hi guys, does anyone know how to disassemble the rear landing gear wheels? How feasible is it to replace the rear wheels with customised, larger diameter wheels?

DX VF-31J instruction manual pages.

I believe these are from the Bandai booth where visitors could have a hands on with the DX.

https://twitter.com/setuna115/status/779878080919711745

Thanks for the heads up on the transformation manual. Could you verify if the rear landing gear in the manual is actually different from the image posted here?

I thought so initially but it now looks to me like the markings on the nose might be misprinted/mispainted, making the nose crooked when the markings are lined up with the rest of the plane.

A nose job gone wrong...

Should have corrected it if the display was meant to show-case the final product. Leaves us wondering about the quality...

Thar accurate landing gear/kneecap certainly looks good in fighter mode. But it will look bad in battroid mode if not done correctly.

I think Bandai took middle path between the 2 mode.

Going by the artwork, an accurate rear landing gear will require at least two bending joints. Not impossible to make at this scale, but troublesome to make.

Bandai can get pretty sloppy in the details, we've always known this. They took the easy/horrible looking road with their landing gears. Granted, Kawamori made their jobs hard with this design.

Comparing the screen shot to the Takara Tomi model, that's pretty accurate to how it's supposed to look.

The point is, they've got the CAD done up for the VF-31. Bandai could have followed the details right down to the landing gear. Plus they have the experience to do so.

To their credit, they've already taken pains to make the rest of the vf-31 DX look fabulous. It's just the landing gear. A little more effort and they could have perfected it.

Sorry, I'm just whining aloud...

Do you perhaps have a screencap of the 31 with the rear landing gear down from the show? I don't even remember the rear landing gear in the anime looking particularly detailed or flattering.

Wait Never mind, I found one: Hmmm, Bandai could have put a bit more detail in there, but it doesn't look better or worse than their other recent attempts at landing gear.

Oh no, in anime it looks much better... See there's lots more clearance for the gear cover from the ground and the wheel is more than exposed.

No, Bandai's doing a half-assed implementation of what they were given. Look at the actual show, and Takara's implementation. The same design can be done much better. Sure, it's never going to look great, but it can certainly be "decent". It's just much easier to do it how Bandai has done in both the kit and DX.

It's like bandai is just taking the easy way out. Actually I think it's possible for bandai to get the rear landing gear on the DX to look a bit more like the tomytec landing gear.

Well, I really can't say that it's a well thought-out Valk since the landing gear design for us looks like an after-thought.

Heh, I was trying to be diplomatic.

Overall looks good and appears to be a well thought-out robust, construction, taking into account the many movable parts...

But the rear landing gear covers look like they'll scrape the ground during takeoff and landing!!

Ok, I got purged too by haj

By hlj I meant.

Possible... But the DX nose bay doors open outwards unlike the kit... Just wondering if that becomes an obstruction...

Hi guys, in the model kit, the nose gear doors open up to reveal a hole, which is then used to slot in the peg on the "back bone" when transforming to battroof.

But that's not going to happen in the DX version, right? Since the landing gear in the wheelwell is not going to afford any hole for that to happen...

Correct me if I got it wrong.

Am waiting to see if any replacement pilots are going to be using D02, and if its still going to be with the grim reaper insignia.

It would be a kick in the pants if suddenly there was a new 31 valk..otherwise it may very well be down to just the remaining...

Keeping delta squadron to the current five units is possible if the script includes hayate piloting Messer's valk at some critical juncture of the story... Like if hayate eventually inherits the grim reaper role.

Hey but then there's no reason to stop Bandai from introducing a totally new unit and pilot to bleed us further!

Yeah, I agree with you. Wish they would refine the landing gear on the DX version. But, even with DX, it will still be coming out from the knee for sure. And that for me, design-wise, is just an afterthought. For sure, they just forgot about the landing gear and just decided to utilize the knee armor since they already revealed the image of the 31 last year. Hehehe.

Agree. I'm resigned to the fact that it's coming out from the knee.

The big boys dictate the design. We are here just to buy up what they offer. :-P

it a mis translation on part by a forum post.

it is still in production,

Thanks for the clarification. I'm glad Bandai's taking their time with the 31. Hope they get the landing gear right on the DX. Their

1/72 model kit landing gear don't seem to be accurate.

Does anyone find the landing gear positions on the bandai 1/72 kit different from that of the tomytec 1/144 kit?

It appears that the distance between the front gear and back gears is greater on the 1/72 than on the 1/144.

Perhaps Bandai isn't ready/confident with the complexities of the rear landing gear...

Like the 31 too, but really wondering how they are going to pull of the gear extension/retraction in the DX version.

Just what's so wrong with sticking to the original yf-29 landing gear? I agree that in real life applications this new design is trickier to implement than conventional landing gear.

Ok, now I see it... the video shows that without the brace in battroid mode, the nose cone tends to flop down.

Not the brace is a must, but you won't get a very presentable battroid pose without it.