wm cheng

Thanks, checked them all out, cdjapan ended up the cheapest at $77cdn shipped - hope I don't get dinged with customs & brokerage

Ah!  How could I have missed the art book!!!  Is it only on sale from PlayAsia (from what I see earlier on this thread) or is it anywhere else maybe friendlier to ship to Canada?

It's not just this release, it started with the VF-25, VF-31 and now the YF-21 - Bandai just doesn't understand aircraft landing gears (and a little blame needs to go to SK too)

My biggest grip are the anemic landing gears!  All Bandai seems to have the landing gears as an woefully undersized afterthought (maybe some of the blame should also fall on SK since they are awful in the newer designs - what's up with the back of kneecap landing gears WTF?!?!?!) - with the possible exception of the VF-1s.  I can't ever display any of my Bandai Macross models (other than VF-1) on their gears and have to resort to Battroid, Gerwalk or flight mode with gears retracted.

Thanks!  I bit the bullet, it says in stock and shipping ($46 for 10-17 days S&H is in the ballpark nowadays, unfortunately)  I don't have a lot of enemy mech so I'm interested in what this is going to turn out to be like.  I hope they do a Scout.  I really like the fact that it opens up and the operable rear hatch.

That actually looks pretty good!  So what's the general concensus on KitzConcept?  I wished they just wired them all up to a central bigger battery.  I didn't know anything about them before this.  I'm not a huge fan of their Valkyrie interpretation, but this Regult looks pretty cool and not a terrible price considering all the gimmicks.  I'd love to get that missile pack add-ons but can't seem to find that on their site.  Are they hard to get after pre-order?  It says its in stock.  What do you all think?

How tight are the holes @pengbuzz - I've seen perforated paper/card stock at art stores and some cross-stitch papers that are more like card, just don't know how tight you need the holes.   There are also perforated vinyl films, they put ads on glass to see through them, different closeness of holes for different transparencies - that's pretty opaque and light blocking.

OK, I've left it to breath and walked away from it for a few weeks and I've calmed down.  After the Alclad clear coat crackling, it dried but attacked the paint underneath, but only the Tamiya orange areas (Tamiya Acrylic thinned with Mr. Color leveling thinner - which works amazingly), the lighter tan area is Mr. Color Tan Radome which is a lacquer and seemed to resist better.  However there is still a very raised pronounced texture over everything.  I've sworn off Alclads now (I only use them for metalizers - this is the 4th time I've had problems with their stuff like the gloss black enamel undercoats).  I'm going to try switching over the Mr. Color Super Metallics - nice to have something brushable for touch ups.

So after walking away from it a while I can come back with a bit of calm.  So I started to sand everything down working from 4000 grit to 6000 to 10000 grit.  I think I got pretty good at gauging how far down to go without removing too much paint, just getting through the layers of clear coat to a smooth finish.  I've seen people sand down decals and I didn't have the guts to do it before, but now after sanding down the clear coat just to the decals, I think I got the hang of it.  Plus it gave a really smooth finish and blended all the decals in so they looked painted on with no carrier film.  Unfortunately, I can see now that the Alclad aqua clear when it reacted with the Mr. Color Super clear (lacquer) actually attacked the orange Tamiya Acrylic paint and created this weird pattern.

But I noticed that the decals protected the orange paint underneath and it was perfect (look at the space between the 0 and 7 in the 607 and you can see the carrier film protection.  So I thought I would sand everything down to a smooth finish without disturbing the decals and mask them and re-spray the orange.

I got everything smooth now.  There were a few spots I went a bit too far and I had to repair with some lighter tan.  Unfortunately, the orange separation to tan was no longer crisp because the paint reaction somehow made it seem to bleed into each other.

I managed to take the masking off today and it looks pretty good - so I'm pretty happy with the repairs other than the added 2wks of heart stopping sanding.

Here's some before and afters...

I'm going let the orange cure (luckily I still have some mixed from Tamiya Orange + Red) and then hit it with a light mist of Mr. Color GX100 Gloss clear.  I want that lacquer clear coat because I want to try doing that ink weathering technique that uses Tamiya X-20A thinner.  Hopefully things will go more smoothly over the next few weeks after this save.

9 minutes ago, Paco Grande said:

And you don't mind the price? Do you feel that it's worth it? I have not purchased it yet because I'm hoping that it eventually goes on discount like the YF-19 did on Amazon.ca. I cannot get over how much more the YF-21 costs than the 19. Over $500 CAD is just mental. But I really want it to complete the set with my YF-19.

Do you happen to need a VF-171EX Revival Version? I'm thinking about selling it but nobody wants to pay the $430 CAD I paid for it. These things cost too much.

Yeah, price is pretty crazy nowadays, but if it makes you feel any better, its actually cheaper here at Amazon.ca with free shipping and no customs $479cdn.  I'm still surprised its in stock and available to ship; https://www.amazon.ca/TAMASHII-NATIONS-Macross-Spirits-Chogokin/dp/B0CRK23S71/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=5xoby&content-id=amzn1.sym.0fb3a8d4-ede0-492d-a6c1-c6fb537531e1%3Aamzn1.symc.abfa8731-fff2-4177-9d31-bf48857c2263&pf_rd_p=0fb3a8d4-ede0-492d-a6c1-c6fb537531e1&pf_rd_r=DRBM5YJ0YMJFC6BD0RB5&pd_rd_wg=5kqKa&pd_rd_r=9a9b2645-4591-4bf5-9aae-20f01a6ff69e&ref_=pd_hp_d_btf_ci_mcx_mr_ca_id_hp_d

Is it worth it is another question - I am like you, I have to have it to complete my YF-19 as a pair.  I never got the Yamato version so I can't compare but generally I like these Bandais more than the old Yamato/Arcadia offerings.  I haven't transformed mine yet, but its pretty secure and very helfty in the hand.  Yes the nose could be a bit longer, but in real life it doesn't bother me as much as all the earlier photos did.  Yes there are some inaccuracies but overall it does scream YF-21 to me (as an overview especially if you are looking at it from the top or 3/4) and I don't mind all the tampo printing, I prefer too much over too little and makes the bare plastic of older offerings look naked.  The looks fall apart when you look from below or side on, but I rarely see it from that and will be displayed looking down on it.  The antenna issues and broken canopies does scare me, but luckily I didn't get either. 

Anyone know how best I can tighten up the looseness of the head antenna laser, I guess I can apply future or crazy glue to the nubs in hopes of closing the gap.  Odd I haven't heard anyone else with this problem, it just flops back now and can't stand up.

Woohoo!!! So happy to have received my YF-21 from Amazon.com (even here in Canada I got it today on Oct 1st) - too bad it was only available much later on Amazon.ca but I had US gift certificates to cash in so I'm a very happy camper.  I didn't think I would live to see the day I got a Macross toy from Amazon delivered - its my first - but it was excruciating watching everyone here get theirs for months ahead of time 😛 

No bent antenna laser too, so I won the lottery there, but its really loose, it doesn't stay up, it sits down/folded back - maybe that's why it didn't get bent.  Has anyone else found their copy to have a really loose floppy antenna laser?  I guess I could build up the nub to get a little more friction, I couldn't figure a way of clamping the holding nubs closer together.  The canopy is intact too, so overall I'm very happy with it.  Haven't transformed it yet though.

What kind of lacquer clear coat gloss that is airbrush-able would everyone recommend?

Unfortunately its somehow damaged the orange sections underneath the clear coat (the orange areas were Tamiya Acrylic) and gave it a very light crackling crazing.  I think I can sand down carefully the raised folds/cracks but I don't know if I can do anything about the orange sections that have this fine lighter colour cracking that's below the clear coat surface and I can't strip it back without loosing the decals (which I already had a lot of problems with breaking up and definitely do not have enough spares to redo - or want to).  I will see how carefully I can sand down the texture and re-coat, maybe if I can get it smooth again and try to recover and protect, the ink weathering can hide some of the sins?  Don't know if I'll have enough patience for that.

Argh DISASTER!!!  I guess you can't put Mr. Hobby clear coats over top of Alclad Aqua Gloss.  First time using Alclad Aqua Gloss (as everyone told me I was a dinosaur for still using Future) to create a glossy base for the decals then I sealed in the decals.  I wanted to try that weathering technique using acrylic inks, but it needed Tamiya X-20A thinner as a base to thin the inks - unfortunately, the X-20A ate past the Aclad Aqua Gloss.  So I thought I'd protect it with Mr. Hobby Super Clear - but that's a lacquer and it reacted badly with the Aqua Gloss underneath and ruined the smooth finish.  I'm walking away from it for a few days to let the reaction cure and stop, I might try to sand it down with 6000 to 10000 grit sanding sponge to see if I can salvage it.  If I can't then its trash as its not worth stripping it back to bare plastic as I can't save the decals.  I hate frakking up at such a late stage.  Now I know that Alclad Aqua Gloss is useless - being a water based clear coat, it can only be used if its a final coat with nothing to go on top.  I guess newer isn't better.

I just wished Hasegawa (with their expertise in aircraft) does the entire line in 1/72 as injection styrene models.  I'd love to get that FFR-31, but at $240 for a lump of resin, is hard to swallow!

More decals, I'd say about 40% were somewhat damaged in some way (due to age or reacted badly to MicroSOL by curling up), but I was able to re-piece together the broken bits on the model mostly, I think I only lost about 10-20% of the total amount of decals.  I supplemented with some other sci-fi decals where appropriate and I added the bottom thrusters in the forward fuselage by piecing together scraps of other decals (I was going to drill them out, but forgot and started painting, if the other decals weren't such a pain I probably would have, but now I just want to get the damn thing finished!).  Some of the decals required layering of the white underneath which ended up making a thick sandwich layers and I had to try to cut them around the panel lines so it looks painted on instead of lying over top.  The "607" had to have the white underside slightly offset like a shadow underneath the black numbers and really did a trick on my old tired eyes!  Hmm, I see Hasegawa went with 607 but I couldn't find any reference to that number in the anime, it was blank, and Bandai went with 102 (but isn't 102 the VF-1D at the beginning rescuing Minmay during the zero gravity which is a different Valkyrie 2 seater without stadium seating rear seats?)

Hey @pengbuzz, sorry to hear that man.  It happens, it happens to me all the time, It happens to my VT-1 that I just posted, did some assemblies in the wrong order, have to crack things open to paint, and then glue back together, putty and sand and refinish because I didn't think ahead enough.  Some tough spots to try and spray into and then only to see some overspray that I had to clean up after I removed the masking - I just didn't take pictures of those 😛  The decals from this 20+ year old kit is breaking up on me in some areas and is reacting to the MicroSOL by curling up small thin sections, but I'm trying to make do with what I got.  You learn from it, hey worst case, you've got some good greebling for your next scratch build.  I know it sucks, but give it some time and step away, it won't look so bad with a little distance.

@Urashiman ooh!!! an actual flying model too!  Very cool vintage kit.

@electric indigo wow, always sooooo smooth and too scale!

Man!  I'm so rusty at this, its been such a long while since I've built a Hasegawa Valkyrie and somehow I've forgotten a lot of "out-of-step" order of construction that would have made my painting a lot easier later on.  I'm just stuck in masking hell, without much progress to report on (I have a week left before I start work again and after I dropped off my daughter off at Uni).  I forget how much masking there is in VT-1 that the plain white VF-1s don't have 😛

Sorry so dusty!  This is just so I can finally showcase @arbit amazing figure sculpts as I've always wanted Minmay with her helmet off for this scene.

Added a little fencing to block from seeing the internals.

I should have been a present wrapper!  I had to glue the forward fuselage to the body to work out the seam from the forward half and the rear main section as it wasn't very clean and needed some putty and sanding - unfortunately this meant I had to spray the orange sections underneath in a very tight spot between the intakes.  Ideally you want to mask and spray the forward fuselage by itself before assembling it to the rear, but that would leave an ugly gap so its just lots of masking now.

Then masking all the Alclad metals (and I forgot to glue the antenna fins while they were bare plastic to bare plastic which is a stronger bond than after its been painted - argh!)

It's finally starting to look like something... (I glue two magnets inside the arms so I could attach them to the stand without a visible hole)

I just caught up with your amazing builds @tekering - they look absolutely awesome!!!  Love your mods too, congrats on a beautiful collection.

1 minute ago, RavenHawk said:

I seriously love bad-@ss female heroes, and love the BGC designs, but I'm starting to feel like I'm an outsider in the fanbase because I DON'T want them over-sexualized.

I'm in your camp, love the original designs but won't display/buy any of the newer figures coming out unfortunately.  Same problem with the YamatoGirls, they are just too suggestive and it was never like that in the anime.  So you're not alone, but we are probably the old farts. 🤣

Is this region protected and can only play in Asian Blu-Ray players? or does it say anything about "All-Regions"?

Someone in my office got the TOS and its quite impressive (my only complaints were the weathering was overdone and the stand too clunky) but when its lit up its pretty nice and most of the complaints were overblown when you see the actual ship.  The size is quite impressive. 

I don't think I could ever afford the Factory Entertainment Enterprise; https://factoryent.com/products/star-trek-u-s-s-enterprise-ncc-1701

It's only really two Bandai YF-21s!  (no broken antenna too!)

Nice @MacrossJunkie - it does add a bit of depth and pick out the edges and details more...

Yeah, I have absolutely no place for it at all as well.  I'm just going to say "oh my honey, I didn't realize this was going to be this big?!?!  Well at least you get some value for the money right honey?" 🤣  That's a problem to deal with more than a year away!

Yep, I have the 1/1000 kit too, perfect size but can't imagine cramming all the lighting and electronics into that one (although I have seen some people do it) but I've had it along with the Reliant for years and haven't cracked it.  I have the Bandai version but the lighting isn't right and the stand got broken over the years so it doesn't light up anymore unless I look into fixing the stand and I have my 1/1400 resin which I built more than 20yrs ago when I had time 😛

I hear ya @Chronocidal - I would have much rather had it in plastic too for the same reasons, I don't really care about the metal or heft.  However I just don't see having anytime to put into building one of these anytime in the near future, plus I know Polar Lights is just a crappy manufacturer so its a lot of sanding and modifying to get it to fit properly and after pricing out all the aftermarket parts, iridescent paints, paint masks, electronics and LEDs plus the kit itself not including my time would be close to $2K.  This seems like a good interm solution for my all time favourite starship design.  Maybe someday if I ever retire I can get to building my own model, by then maybe there would be a better kit out and better electronics but then again, I might have arthritis and can't build anymore - you just don't know!

No, that's the TOS (The Original Series) Enterprise from the 60s and it's over now.

This if for the TMP (The Motion Picture) Enterprise from 1979 and it's just starting up today and accepting orders through to Sep 15.