Nani?!

I know they're prototypes but I think their potential is vastly overshadowed by the revoltech stuff.

Loving that glossy finish on the yf-21.

It'd be cool if they do a yf-19 in that finish with a whiter tone.

wow that tomahawk looks fawkin awesome.

and I never thought I'd buy another 1/48 vf-1, but that weathered fokker is MINE.

Please bear in mind that these are very rough samples, made on a rapid prototyping machine and quickly hand painted.

Graham

Dayam, the vf-11b seems to be packing the beefiest weaponry~

I've worked with a rapid prototyping machine back in college and these looked like they were made from it right off the bat.

If these look as passable as they are from the proto machine, they'll look great as final products.

I like their proportions., their look in general all seem awesome. It's not too exaggerated.

But...

it also seems like the joints don't nearly have the articulation revoltech offers... If they cannot be posed in a wiiiide variety of super dynamic poses then I reckon they'd be pretty much useless for whatever cheap amount of money they cost.

Why the hell would anyone want the redundancy of smaller non-transforming versions of valks that can only pose just a little bit better than the much bigger tranforming versions? Variety of dramatic poses are critical.

I'll wait and see how these babies can pose before I buy them.

There is something fishy about the transformation sequence. When the video shows the valkyrie transforming from gerwalk to battloid, it begins with a brief display of the bottom view, but there is no head present. Then it goes through the tranformation to battloid and at this point the chest and the back are completely closed to form the body, still no head shown. Finally, out of thin air the head appears.

I know animagic is involved in the TV show and the Movie, but now real life??

Or does the head have to be removed for transformation?

Nice observation.

But this line will be basically pointless if it weren't perfect transformation. I doubt the head is even an issue.

again, probably because it's a prototype.

i'm with you there. its the beginning of the line which means it'll take at least 2 releases before they go back and fix anything that needs to be fixed.

i know they're just proto photos but did anyone notice how gappy the fighter mode is? the fit and finish just doesn't seem to be there, its almost toynami-esque.

I'm definitely in the "buy-the-2nd-release" bandwagon now. Even with the new releases people praise about, the sv-51 still came with wrong hinges (the nora is technically a second release).

But yea, all yamato prototypes have gaps and it's too soon to determine the fit and finish of it. If anything, yamato had many attempts with the vf-1 design and I'm sure they got the hang of it by now.

Great looking stuff yet again. Didn't lose your touch at all.

I love the amount of detail you put. Not too over the top, not too much or too little...

just..... right.

dayam, thanks graham!

looks sexy as hell.

You might also want to cross out #8 as well with the coming of the new VF-1 1/60 line that's been engineered for two seaters.

-Kyp

hehe... yep, it isn't "official"~

I'm really impressed with Yamato these days... The hands are looking better with each subsequent release (my pet peeve with previous yamatos) and pretty much everything else in my list is being crossed out.

I got one to add though. Prices. It's about the only thing really that makes it totally sweet and honestly it's something I don't think we can expect until a competitor comes into the picture.

Anyway, good job Yamato. Bravo.

P.S. Yamato, make the vf-0D... Please. That's my personal #1 on the list.

Another line to cross off your sig list?

!! Yes. Thanks Dave.

I always prefer "too tight" than "sagging/floppy", so that's good news to me.

heck yeah

and once i again i find myself living in the wrong country.

The US aint so bad~

We save elsewhere (cars, authentic tech products, avg living expenses:avg income).

evens out eventually.

There's always the possibilty that they didn't even have a QC guy to begin with.

Maybe they reserved that job for the interns.

my thoughts exactly.

What QC guy???

I'm in manufacturing... it's nothing to do with toys... but I deal with japanese stuff. I think as far as the prices go, dante's comment rings the most as far as initial price goes, with dealer inflation coming in with the obsessive demand that DnD talked about.

Japanese goods to begin with, especially collectibles, are way overpriced. Is it just yamato? No, not by any means... but I only start to have a problem with them when they give us craptastic bullshizzle about them barely breaking even with this stuff.

I find it funny... Very funny... especially because they make it all in China.

They cut corners when they can (like any company will do) and they charge a killing for these things and still have QC issues with 99% percent of their first releases.

A lot of people will be happier even if it all cost the same amount for the stuff we're getting these days, but for everything we do get to be POLISHED... It's really the only thing they need to step into the next level as a company.

-----

DnD's point is a good one that would work, but on the flip side if everyone did it, maybe work too well and possibly trigger something in the light of what happened with Yamato back in the early part of this decade. News drought (silent treatment), and repaint after repaint... Basically, Yamato turning into the equivalent of a turtle hiding in it's shell and playing it safe.

It takes balls to release a totally new sculpt and pre-orders and audible fan demand gives them the balls to do so.

However, again, on the flip side, if we just kiss their ass with every release and brush off their QC issues with comments like "aww shucks yamato, It's okay, I'll just file that down and nail polish it in a jiffy", and yeah like DnD said, jump on every pre-order x 5, they'll just say "oops, hehe sorry dudes, just buy another one in the second batch ".

It's a balance. We need both the cheerleaders and the pit bulls.

There are licenses involved so monopoly is kind of the name of the game. We, as consumers, have ultimate say in what the price is. They will only charge as much as we are willing to pay. If you stop buying astronomically priced toys they'll stop charging such a huge mark-up on them.

All technically true but where else are we going to find comparable good macross toys to completely stop buying them?

It's teetering over to be right in saying how much "we have to pay" rather than how much "we're willing to pay."

Yamato needs some serious competition. Correction. We need yamato to have serious competition in the form of Bandai. It'll not only raise the quality of the toys, but drop their price down as well.

Hehe.

Yo. I go out of town a couple days for the holidays and poof!, a batty war with MW's very own Batty Bouncer went on without me~

Got to admit though, it's pretty damn hilarious reading it on the sidelines.

Maximiria, you're entitled to your opinion and I totally agree that change only happens when people voice their opinions. It's the whole point of a toy section forum.

Just make sure you dont take it personal when you're the only one bantering about it... sometimes you get more people behind you and it eventually gets to Graham and then maybe into the ears of Yamato, sometimes you're alone and it ends up no where and you're left licking your wounds from all the anti-battying beat down you get.

To his credit though, Eugimon did approach you mildly, you just pissed him off with your rhetoric~

IMO,

The yamato's yf-21 legs are skinny and the Dstance does capture the essence of the yf-21 battroid better than the yamato but yamato has the fighter mode down so good that I really stopped caring if the legs were a bit skinny.

And thanks for the comparison pics guys... I used to love the D-stance but I'm happy I'll be getting something better with PT come early next year.

this is freakin awesome....

Holy crap how did I not see this until the 11th page??? awesomeness!

So is it time to update your sig again?

Hey, now that you mention it... yeah!

anyone else notice the really cool poseable hands?

it sure as hell beats the chicken hands we every other release.

i also love the fact that this isn't all gapified.

i like the little intake covers but now it doesn't have perfect transformation.....

haha, of course i had to b!tch about something, i wouldn't be a MWer otherwise.

The hands look good. They actually look like beefy hands not like a friggin Terminator endoskeleton hands.

Yamato is getting good at designing toy versions of macross valks.

All they need to do is to test them before 1st release and clamp down on the QC problem in their Chinese factories.

NANI?!

Full scale YF-21 Pictures

BOMBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

charger69 >>> your official yamato.com lurker

Yes? You called?

Thanks for the pics!

Eugimon, don't forget that the first release 1/48 had some issues too. It had the nosecone that fell off too easily and the wing flaps that were an issue. We also got crooked skulls, hip joints that cracked, and the BP8. Granted, the 1/48 overall is still Yamato's best release (by far) but we mustn't remember it as being sublime right from the gate. Still, the point is valid enough, I had a first edition 1/48 and loved it whereas I was afraid to friggin' touch my VF-0. What a shame.

Right... I was just about to say myself...

So far in my book yamato has yet to get newly released toy right the first time.

It's kinda sad though... obviously they see it happen all the time... Make a few and test a couple before you release to the public. I'm sure the japanese & HK employees there working over time wont have an issue messing around with one an hour a day. Shoot, give graham a freelance gig and have him mess around with it.

It really seems like yamato GUESSES it's QC all the time and releases a valk with it's fingers crossed.

I personally wanted to have the option to have the limbs be removed with a detailed inside like the d-stance but I totally see where Eugimon is coming from though... This is frackin 100%-Sub-Par-QC-Yamato we're talking about here. The yf-19 had removable visors, but then had f-ed up landing gears and crooked gunpod attach points.

So yea I agree, get the bloody basics right.

I want bandai to do it on the condition it's a high quality, high end toy.

Competition is almost always a good thing for us consumers. Hopefully they'll make a great toy that will force yamato to step up a bit on quality and find ways to bring prices down a bit.

judging by current yamato trends, I see it the only way we'll see halt yamato's prices from continuing to go up.

Bandai usually hits a lot more than it misses with it's current quality of their higher end products so I think it's really something to look forward to.

If it happens...

ah, haha, i just noticed the feet sticking out in fighter mode.

Nice observation.

yea, looks like they make a triangle and fit underneath the top piece.

Odd way of dealing with the feet. We'll see soon enough...

Told ya so~

It's not a model but it was something else.

I'll take the vf-11b in 1/60 please!