MKT

Nice collection @Spark-O-Matic The current stand design does remind me of the old Yamato's VFC ones lol.

As with @505thAirborne, I'm also using the Stage Act Trident. However, I believe Bandai have discontinued this not too long ago, so secondary markets only for now. But as with most Bandai clear stand & parts, it oxidizes rather easily.

Usually I would suggest a Flightpose or CalWings Router Stand as a reasonable alternative, but here I'm hesitant to recommend them as the silicone tips had some reputation for stripping off paint, and KC's valks are just about the most painted of any valk toy lol. But to be fair, the paint stripping only appears to have been reported on only certain Flightpose batches, and there's been non reported on CalWings stands so far. Thinking about it, CalWings' products are mostly painted diecast metal and one would expect that with the added weight pressing down on the tips the paint stripping would be exacerbated, but it hasn't happened so far so it could be safe.

@tekering Very nice upgrades so far. Agreed the pregnant part always looked off, but perhaps because of the absence of any alternatives, I've sort of come to accept it as part of its charm lol. Your sculpt of that part looking great. Yeah Moderoid appear to be best chance of seeing any new BGC kits, but thinking about it now I also get the feeling they may have tried but unsuccessful as well. The series is so ripe for new toys and kits.

Love R-Area’s VF mash-ups: https://twitter.com/R_AREA2019/status/1740684899621990834

https://twitter.com/SHOWROOM_jp/status/1740371821978128472

Thanks for digging up the images. Didn't realize Aoshima did variant kits of this.. I always liked Aoshima's sculpt of the Motoslave compared to Yamato's toys - somewhat more angular and defined. All the same, I wish someone did make the later Motoslave variants like the Typhoons I & II, which always looked so cool in illustrations. I bet Arcadia would have liked to revisit this, but seeing how the Figma's project stalled, perhaps due to licensing issues, it looks like we won't get any new items for a while. Anyway, look forward to seeing your completed kits.

Great, all 4 motoslaves. I didn't realize one of the cannon's supposed to be different though.

Thanks for confirming the colors I was considering of getting the Low-Vis, but I have the old Yammie 1/48 Low-Vis, so perhaps will go for Roy's Special Paint instead as no one else has this scheme. Trying to see if they have any solution for a fix. I do understand any fix (if available) may not be immediate, but at least an acknowledgement of that issue would be nice. I'm seeing from a few pages back that the previous Vermillion Squadron set (old packaging) have the leg modex numbers the right way up, so it at least confirms that there are different production runs for this squad and perhaps KC might just happen to have extra parts or something. Although I'm not sure if it is replaceable as I haven't properly examined if the leg can be easily opened up.

The slow-mo wasn't applied at appropriate moments too. They were there just to look cool for freeze frame shots, but narratively don't make much sense. Unless Snyder wanted to highlight how the goons ape Star Wars by catching copious amounts of Stormtrooper-litis in their aim.

Ah the initial Paulmartstore's pics are what I meant on the richer grey. The picture on the box actually looks more similar to the initial pics though, rather than the actual item. No biggie, I've been looking for an excuse to pick up these figs, and this is the one that did it.

The Low-Vis grey looks strikingly similar to the Roy Special Paint's grey. Are they the same? From KC's website, they look rather different with Roy's shade being some degrees lighter. But KC's pics are usually quite bad photoshop jobs anyway, and somehow they don't update their pics even after an item's been released. They even continue to use v1 pics for items that have been released multiple times into current v2 generation. I've e-mailed KC regarding the screwed up modex numbers on my Ben & Max 1A, with a follow up reminder, but they appear resolute in ignoring me lol. Perhaps it's the holidays, I'll shoot them another mail again next week.

May 2024? That's quite some delay.. but I don't mind, wallet needs a break lol

I love these! They are old but gold. Coincidentally, I think Tomica will be releasing a few VF-1s in their Premium Unlimited line, to be out mid-2024. Hopefully they move on to other VFs from there.

I hope Bandai doesn't do a reverse-Arcadia & charge more for a no-tampo version.

Just a PSA & reminder, especially for folks new to handling Arcadia's VF-19 / YF-19, that the Gerwalk joint doesn't pivot down as far as you would expect especially if one is used to handling Bandai's DX. The Gerwalk joint is nicely stiff and clicky, but it does not take a lot for the joint to break after the (I think) 3rd click if one is expecting the 4th.

Thanks @Slave IV @m0n5t3r. It's fun to think up new ways to present these old figures. I'm telling myself to wait for some 'flu' downtime to watch Macross 7 lol, but I have been rather unlucky so far in that aspect. I think it's just the sheer number of episodes that is a bit daunting, and like @Sanity is Optional's experience, so many have mentioned needing to get past the first 1/4 or so episodes before it gets good. The concept of playing musical instruments while flying valks always sound bonkers to me, but just only couple weeks back I found out that the official line art actually do detail how the instruments interface with the valk to fly. Small mind blown moment there..

Likely last pic for this year.. I think, from the top view I like the Fighter sculpt of this VF-19 Kai more than Yamato / Arcadia's. Yeah the area between the legs can be a bit gappy, but the shape of the LERX and wing roots are more akin to the YF-19's..

I'll likely put Player 2 Ryu and any future repaints by themselves, since the aesthetics are a bit different than SHF's.. Your comment on Ryu's grey bugged me a bit, so I looked it up and although the recent reviews on YouTube never mention it, I think you are quite right. The grey looks to be washed out. I'm usually not very particular on exact coloring on toys, but the initial shade of darker / richer grey Jada showed for this Ryu was somehow a big part of why I decided to pick it up.. oh well..

Love this as well

Nice! I ordered this as well, as my first Jada SF toy to dip toes in. Figured I'm likely gonna get their repaints as an alternative to the SHF ones.

https://tamashiiweb.com/item/14559/?wovn=en Release has been updated to 20 Jan 2024.

So, look for stores that accept payment during PO to lock in today's rates? Anime-Export & Hobby-Genki comes to mind..

This being Macross World, let's analyze more pics.. Battroid is supposedly much improved over Yamato's, mainly due to the bulkier legs. But coincidentally, there is another YF-21 developed by Bandai, which is the HG kit. So comparisons are inevitable: I think most of us can agree the HG looks fantastic, it has ideal proportions. On other hand, we can see the DX's nose is comparatively really long, and the hips are ultra-Urkel right up to near the chest, giving it unusually long legs. It's as if Bandai, in its clever ankle rotation engineering, overshot the lengths of the legs to make it as long as possible compared to Yamato's. But of course, this is not a fair comparison as the HG is a parts-former vs the DX that has to be perfect transformation. However, if Bandai implemented Yamato's nose shortening mechanism, and just reduced the height of the top of the hips, we can get something like this: In the edited pic, I've shortened the nose by about the same amount as what Yamato did for their Battroid YF-21. I've also lopped off a little the tops of the hips, without moving the hip joints or side skirts. The edited proportions now still nowhere near the HG, but I do feel it is much better than what it is now and in fact, the top of the hips can be lowered even further. The way I see it, Bandai should be able to make both of these changes without adversely affecting other modes at all, so it is a bit of missed opportunity as Bandai have been teasing this mold for so long compared to other DXs. The DX VF-19 Advance / YF-19 never had so much controversy. They took what worked for Arcadia - from what I see the high-speed mode wings, and the thigh filler engineering from S.H.E kit, and even improved the sculpt a bit in areas and made an excellent toy out of it as whole. Here they did their own clever engineering solutions for the DX YF-21, but just kind of missed the mark in some key areas that could easily be fixed. Anyway, this exercise is kinda moot, because this also being Macross World, I will still join the PO come Jan 10.

This gives more hope that the arm cannons issue can be fixed. I believe @Chronocidal also reported the same thing for Hayate's first release. I did try to force the arm slider a bit but no luck then, so I suppose have to try even harder next time..