MKT

Another great pic! What figures are those? Never seen them before..

Great pic @tekering!

Minmay to be Tamashii Web Exclusive

Here's hoping this DX YF-21 will not be stillborn like the Hi-Metal version they showed off years ago. What a shame it would be since this DX was shown already all painted up and look to be nearing release instead of just an early prototype grey mold..

Tenso can be pretty pricey, when all the fees are added up. Other proxies, for eg FromJapan or Zenmerket are ultimately a fair bit less in fees as compared to Tenso. Difference is, with Tenso, you do the buying yourself and have it forwarded to your Tenso address. For the other proxies, you give them the link to the item you want & they do the buying for you, but this whole process has a typical elapsed time of a few hours. So, Tenso would be good for items with time sensitivity (PO nights!), whilst other proxies work just fine if you know item is still going to be up for some time.

Another great post! I love how you are tackling the peripheral aircrafts in Macross..

Looks like the Fewture Garlands are turning out to be a bit of a dud.. Prices just keep falling. New ones can be picked up at Mandarake for only 20k yen. Double or triple helpings anyone? https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1148741359&ref=dos&keyword=art storm garland&lang=en No doubt, the hefty shipping costs for it during these times likely contribute to its further price drop..

Yup it was from Mandarake, at 12k yen. They still have the normal paint version for Priss: https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1148924269&ref=list&keyword=Yamato bubblegum crisis&lang=en I’m really hoping Arcadia would revisit the Motoslaves next, just as they did for the Garlands.

Somehow, looking at these pics are so satisfying! Love the old-skool chunky poses

I'm still quite on the fence for the rest of squad. Despite how they appear in the anime, on the toys the flatter colors on the bikes look incongruous with their respective metallic-colored hardsuit figures.. On other hand, if another metallic version Priss comes up, I would be more inclined to go for it again for different mode display..

This just arrived: I had always hemmed & hawed on the rare instances a Yamato Motoslave becomes available. On one hand, I like Aramaki’s designs of all his transforming bikes, yet Yamato’s Motoslaves always look just a bit too plain & drab in its colours. So when a Priss metallic version showed up at Mandarake recently, which I did not even know existed before this, I had to grab it. And what a beauty it is! The metallic candy red, plus the additional paint detailing on other areas really makes the bike pop. How I wish Yamato also released metallic versions of the other bikes.. Now to see if the Figma versions will ever see the light of day, after being previewed some years back..

Ditto on both points above..

If the line's a slow seller, the problem can be easily solved by making all remaining releases a Tamashii web exclusive. Let the fans complete the collection after so many years.. I've been casually collecting the SHFiguarts Street Fighter line, and there were quite some shelf warmers with rather steep discounts. Yet that didn't stop Bandai from continuing the releases under web exclusives, all with increasingly higher prices. The latest, Sagat, is already the 4th straight web exclusive for this line..

Love the color you used for the low-vis custom. This shade of grey is perfect & looks better than the 1/60 version.

More and more I'm thinking I should at least start picking up some painting skills, so won't be so much bothered about paint imperfections or scratches. But maybe I'm not bothered enough yet to pick it up.

Bingo! Because this describes about roughly same experience I had many years ago. I had a couple of figures being out in a room with indirect but still bright ambient light for about couple of years, and then one day I noticed they started to turn just ever so slightly yellow. I removed them to another room that have no sunlight at all, and in just a matter of short 1-2 months, it yellowed significantly. @BlueMax mentioned on previous page that exposing yellowed items back into ambient light reverses the yellowing to some degree. So it seems UV light both causes & reverses yellowing. Now I am sitting here wondering, perversely, if I should just have left my two yellowed items out in the bright room. Yes, they would continue to yellow, but perhaps not as rapid as if I removed them into a dark place, if that makes sense at all..

What a great weathered piece @MacrossJunkie! It's rare to see a black piece that really pops & stands out like that. I for one love the SV-51's gangly battroid mode. Perhaps not as much if its the only valk around, but more as part of the large variety of valks Kawamori gave us over the years. Many are unique enough in its own way & stands out in my personal head cannon, and the SV-51 is really one of it!

I second this. Bandai's valks, especially from Frontier era, do tend to have more random, minute imperfections - scratches, dents, warped pieces, loose pieces, inconsistent panel gaps etc. It feels like they are more loose in visual QC during assembly stage at the factory. Which I think are not that out of place compared to other general non-Macross toys & figures. It's just Chogokins are on average pricier, even more so now, that the expected standards are naturally much higher. Yamato/Arcadia really shoot for higher standards, and one of the things I'm always impressed with are the small, & generally very consistent panel gaps. But sometimes it feels they push tolerances too far, and failures are always more structural in nature in terms of materials selection or assembly process.

I think there’s been a small resurgence in popularity for Kaneda’s Bike ever since Ready Player One came out couple years back. So it drove the prices up for these even further.

Always a pleasure to see your pictorial updates!

I would count myself lucky then, that for the one & only time I PO’ed through YAJ, it was fulfilled by seller. It was the VF-31J Kai, that was only available through lottery, and I sorta jumped at it without thinking through any protection or insurance at that time. It’s great that there’s insurance/protection plan for these.

I believe this as well.. I have a new item that aggressively yellowed in only 8 months from just being in a dark room sealed display, and the only light exposure was to LED lights. After 16 months, the yellowing is worse than 30+ year old toys.. The yellowing was on selective whole parts of the figure, so it is definitely down to the plastic composition used for these parts.

Hygrometer would be very useful.. thanks for the tip @BlueMax! When doing up this space initially, I only wanted to keep sunlight & dust out. Never considered humidity would be at play too, because I've never seen it mentioned (or just plain overlooked) while browsing toy display discussions online.

I suppose, despite the perceived faults, this 0D is still the best factory-weathered Macross item.. not counting the Mac-Z F-14 yet.

This more or less describes me. I guess ignorance is bliss haha.. but I do appreciate the critical eye of experienced modelers. Just curious, how does this VF-0D weathering stack up with previous Yamato weathering efforts? In my casual eye, when I look at pics of the older Yamato VF-1 weathering editions, I just go somewhat 'meh' while this VF-0D makes me very impressed.