AcroRay

Personally, I've kind of given up on Yamato/Arcadia & Bandai moden Valks. They're just too expensive for me. I'm not going to say they're not worth it. But only the 'older' Yamato pieces and classic Bandai & Takatoku stuff is in my price range now. So I've gone back to models, 1/55's, vinyl figures & stuff I loved back in the 1980s. I wanted them back then, anyway. So it's not so bad.

They posted photos of the Missile/Cannon Regult test shot sprues today:

The community NEEDS you and your ALPS printer!

Beautiful work. Really classic!

Palladium mentioned a couple of days ago in one of their all-property updates that the steel tooling had just started being cut, and that the Valkyrie design was undergoing some revision. With that as the case, I'd estimate we're probably 2 or 3 weeks away from seeing press images of fully-assembled test shots (of earlier approved pieces, like the Destroids and Regults, but not the Valkyrie modes undergoing revision) at Palladium's offices, assuming there isn't some significant failure on the part of the manufacturing contractor.

Sigh..... :-(

Those are solvent-based paints. They attack the plastic itself, the paint particles invading the plastic surface and binding into it. Pigments like black & red & yellow will actually dye the plastic material. You'll have a heck of a time removing these paints, especially in a manner that won't require priming & repainting those areas, because you'll have to scrape or sand down the 'invaded' surfaces below the paint.

Your best bet would probably be masking & repainting them with something like MonsterKolor, which is a hobby version of the same sort of solvent paints.

http://www.monsterkolorstore.com/

You might also try working it over with acetone, after the PineSol and other degreaser-style cleaners do their work. That may clear away some of the paint in the plastic surface that the degreasers won't lift. However, you're unlikely to get rid of all the pigment.

Oh, that's beautiful!

I so wish those kits would be reissued...

I don't understand the concern with gaps in the seams and other issues with the demo models. None of those come from injection-molded tooling. They're 3D printer outputs, or at best low-yield RTV mold casts from 3D printer outputs.

That's like crabbing at Bandai for all the little funny lines on some of their trade show samples... "That looks horrible. I hope Bandai fixes that, or I won't buy it. People will be mad."

I happened across a TaoBao seller offering the Happy Well "Galaxy Defender" knockoff of the 1/55 Takatoku/Bandai VF-1S. From the description it seems the seller has a large quantity of them, but that theie boxes are somewhat water damaged. The buyer feedback on previous sales of them seems to indicate that the toys inside are unaffected:

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.334.RJqyDY&id=7603697673

I ordered one myself via my TaoBao proxy, and it came to less than $20 USD after everyone's fees & paypal exchange charges. (Of course, that doesn't include shipping to the US.)

I stumbled across this weird show called "Music Knights" 音乐奇侠 with some pretty nice toys of figures with "Moto Slave" styled motorcycle armor suits. Like Bubblegum Crisis, Power Rangers & maybe Dunbine, all mixed up in a blender...

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjYxMDc1MjY0.html

Darn. :-(

Toy Fair is to offer product to attract retailer interest. These are products they've done enough R&D on to comfortably offer to retailers, but if not enough retailers order them, then the items won't go into mass production. Just because it is at Toy Fair doesn't mean that the stock is ready to ship.

Toynami certainly still has the tooling for the 1/100 toys, so they can offer them as often as they want. But if no one orders the minimum quantity to go into production, then they won't go to retail again. The other items might be far enough along in product development and determined to be of potential interest to retailers that they're offering them even if they're not ready for production, so they'll go into tooling & production with enough commitment from retailers.

The reason the vinyl Regults aren't there is probably because Toynami believes that the market for those is exhausted, regardless if they still have the molds to make them (Regults). I'm really a fan of those and bought every one. But if they were still offering the line I would only be interested in the Glaug or other new items.

I should have sold a kidney for a pinkie...

Got the Orgroid! Thanks, Danth!

Oh, those are absolutely beautiful, sir! Congratulations!!!!

Can you please or someone on here please tell me what type of version this valk is where the back pack stays up in fighter. My older brother (who passed away) traded someone on the playground when we were younger for one of these and he gave it to me for my birthday when I was 6. I have no idea what happened to it, but with all the high end valks I own, the best memory I have is swooshing this one in the picture around when I was a kid. If you know what it is, please let me know.

He might have gotten the CONVERTORS versions, released in the US from repackaged old Takatoku stock (and later recolored and shot from Takatoku's molds). There were piles of knockoffs of them as well, available at discount dollar stores or wherever cheap Transformers-craze toys were sold. I've got about a dozen of them in various formats and editions. (No original Takatoku boxed ones, though.)

Oh, that is beautiful! And inspiring. Amazing craftsmanship and creativity!

PM'd you about the Orguss toy...

They're available via the Chinese "Tao Bao" auction site. You would have to find a proxy service to get it for you, though. I inquired about it at one point, and it seemed that as cheap as they cost, they'd still run me over $80 to get one.

This search will get you Astro Plan toys & products, including books (and some unrelated products as well):

TaoBao Astro Plan search

You might ask "Sir Toys" (look online). He carried some AstroPlan products, and did have the larger ones in stock at one point (when I was too poor to afford them), but he could probably find one for you. Feel free to message me. The Astro Plan fighter designs are really nice. I've got a couple of model kits and some smaller cheap fighter toys. I would really like to get a couple of the larger ones, but the economics of it just aren't working out for me.

Oh, wowwwww........

My kudos to Mechapilot77 as well for a couple of Toynami Valks that are in perfect shape and were excellently packed and quickly shipped. Thanks!

Also a Krylon user.

I use it for my finished graphite and charcoal drawings and also for my models.

Bonus is that because it is made for protecting artwork it is archival grade,

thus it is designed not to yellow with age.

Krylon Crystal Clear does yellow, in spite of what they say. I coated a white model rocket with it, and - while repairing damage from a crash and sanding off some clearcoat into the white paint under it, I noticed that the Krylon clear had yellowed noticeably. The rocket hadn't spent that much time in the sun, either.

A lot of my rocketry friends have sworn off Krylon products because they don't react well to each other, yellow after time, or generally don't behave in a consistent manner even under the most controlled conditions - especially in the last couple of years as it seems Krylon has changed a number of their formulas.

In short: buyer beware.

American Acrylics make an incredible multi-material gloss spray, if you ever need one of those. Amazing stuff.

Special thanks to MechTech for the great deal on old kits, and packing them up so thoughtfully!

Offhand I'd say it looks to be based on in-scale Macross included with the Arii Zentraedi warship kits, minus the arms, with little turrets added from something else (maybe a GHQ mini naval battleship) to the shoulders. The mini included with those kits has details and carrier arms, but lacks a bridge. This looks like it was made from the main body of that mini, minus arms and rail guns. I don't believe it looks like the Nichimo kit.

My Zentraedi warships aren't accessible to me at the moment to compare.

PM with a question...