PointBlankSniper

The hand covers aren't yellow like this on the live sample. Stickers it is...

And a total of one gunpod lol

I guess the inconsistent eye color happens in all mecha. Some gundam are like that too. One color for animation, and another in the kits. 🤪

Between all the inconsistent shades of Klan, theres enough for hand me downs for the other two pixies lol. If you've got something original in mind, looking forward to seeing what you cook up. I don't even remember if those two had any distinct color schemes tbh lol

Good work! Definitely gotta stop somewhere if you aren't looking to go down a rabbit hole

I think Klan should have yellow eyes, but that's a minor nitpick. I'll just take w/e cool pics I can get, even if she's there to photobomb lol

I think I figured out what the Gu head is. It's just an F head split down the middle with the center removed, through the visor and all, with a G head sandwiched back inside. Then the bottom front filled back in with the lower jaw piece. IDK about 3D modelling, but I imagine it might actually be simpler than the S head to make since you already have the F and G done.

Speaking of which, I forgot to include this from my digging yesterday. More for you to play with.

Full gang's heads, including prophecy, and then some unused alternate ones.

From what I can tell, C head is just G, with top fins on each side, and the cheek nozzles replaced also with full fins. C-II Seems to go back and remove the top fins but keeps the cheeck fins.

E looks like what the Gu tried to accomplish, but with an inverted approach. It looks like the top of the C head with the fins, and the lower front lense, slapped on top of the F.

Hope it helps. Have fun 😃

Here's Klan's vf-25Gu. Made for a magazine. It seems to be the most distinct iteration of multiple similar variations.

This seems to have the 25G head, modified to have an ear antenna laser on each side in addition to the default top one. Ignoring the armor pack, its in the colors of Klan's bodysuit, with the Pixie Squad emblem.

There is a very similar livery seen in the previously mentioned Trial frontier game. But it's slapped on to a 25S unit along with her red unit. Michael's unit here just for color and nose pattern contrast. I don't think the emblem is pixie squad here. It might be her own picture from the Deculture edition of Michaels unit.

Here's the Deculture Edition. You can see its 25G, with Klan's picture. It's in Michael's blue, but it's got the pink.

As you can see, she has a confusing mess of similar looking schemes. imo, the very purple Gu looks the best. Not sure you can do the head with just these images for reference though. I found a couple murkier photos, but I don't wan to spam more images here. You could do any iteration of this thing though.

Bonus: Here's the first teased depiction of the VF-25, which was the 25S in white and blue. Doodle has single ear lasers on each side, but screencap seems to have them in pairs like the final version. Have fun 😀

Wow, I wasn't expecting something cooked up so fast. Not sure what's bugging you, but I'm guessing it's because the white pattern looks very moth antenna like, and is too intricate for that small area. W/e you end up with though, will probably look good since the colors just work.

Did some digging on Klan's unit. Apparently it cameoed in two games and images are scarce.

battroid image from Triangle Frontier, and depicted in the Master File book or something

fighter from Trial Frontier

It was apparently in the blind box 1/250 figure set, Macross Fighter Collection 4, as a secret item. Michael's unit there might help with color correction. It seems the toy is more purple and the shade changes based on lighting lol.

There aren't a lot of clear images, and some are custom kits built on the 1/72 VF-25G, which isn't quite right. Speaking of which, it seems Klan's VF-25G in a different scheme is semi canon as well lol. I'll just seperate it to another post.

Nice!

Are you able to use the other heads? The VF-25A is the canonical CF and I think it shares its head design with the 25G.  It would be as CF as can be if you can get that one there.

If you could work with the 25S head, then you can create the mythical Klan's red unit too. Even without the head, Klan's livery is so mythical, it deserves a depiction lol.

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Second pic has a pretty good view of them, still at an angle, but you can tell they're just the standard belly plates with the added gunpod compartment.  Looks very much like the old Yamato mold.

Since these are partformers, I didn't think to consider the parts on one form as representative of what's on another form. I guess those battroid plates could be the same ones in fighter mode since it doesn't accomodate gunpod fitmnet.

I just want to know what he belly plates look like. They did a magnificent job hiding it here 🙃

2 hours ago, weiser21 said:

What's the difference between the DX Chogokin Super VF-31J original version and the revival version?

All we know is that the new one comes with super pack and no missiles, making the missiles originally from the seperately sold super pack all the more unlikely to be made available again lol

I'm gonna predict the canopy will turn out to be a slightly different shade for absolutely no reason though lol.

They should drop the drone charger from the 31As and retcon it with the dual triangular cannon pod thing from the master file. I bet that would really move sales.

It's pretty sad how true that is. They can't just sell a good toy that everyone wants.

I just happened to notice this going on with Tekken 8 yesterday, and boy were the reviews bad. The funny part is that bandai forgot the FOMO part to their plan, so it's just a post launch surprise nickel and diming scheme on a product with no scarcity, and a lack of polish that people demand the most.

It feels like bandai is repeating the same thing here with the 31J being so abundant, yet missing bits and pieces that people want the most.

9 minutes ago, MKT said:

Bandai not only not completing a series now, but make you buy multiples just for little accessories.

I think they've been that way for decades...

13 minutes ago, MKT said:

I really wonder how they will handle the Armors.

We'll know how they handle equipment packs once the YF-21 releases. It comes with fold booster struts, while the 19 lacks that as well as weapons and fast packs. Bandai is literally setting themselves up with the need to demonstrate how they will handle these things under WWM releases. I wouldn't be surprised if they just prove they will only continue to release incomplete collections for decades to come though lol.

5 hours ago, Anasazi37 said:

Bandai is using some kind of poorly-trained AI model

You have it backwards. The AI model is well trained on bandai's long standing history of releases. At which point you would think they don't need to use said AI because they can do it themselves. But they still use it, because bandai.

In the midst of enless second hands and same colored AX in circulation, gotta use up the blue paint and plastic, and deny collectors of completing story sets. Just another round of typical bandai

I thought it was just to flex how it has not horrifically yellowed 😂

Finally got mine. The bendies are very bent, but shouldn't be a big deal if they can be fixed with heat.

Front landing gear doors don't seem to align if pressed flush, so I have them bulged by a hair for now. Not sure if its fixable. One arm came untabbed and won't budge, but I haven't learned it's articulation yet, so it's not really an issue for now. Noticed a stressed nub mark on the instrument panel when I stuck the Alto in the cockpit. Haven't tried anything else yet.

Tbh, nothing seems out of line knowing bandai's usual jank, and having not even done a first transformation. It's back in the box for now, until im not lazy.

On both of them, it says resin cast. And then big reflection blocks rest of the important text on the 22.

On the MAXL, it says on sale now, with a whopping price tag of "probably not a plamo kit" 

NGL, this looks kind of like they went through so many revisions to test ideas, that they completely forgot what the original design looks like, by the time they settled on what design points to keep.

9 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

The DX v2 after the renewal will be the one to look forward to. 🤣

They may as well do that sooner with macross 7 stuff they keep pretending to do, and reinvent canon by making all the massive proportion changes to the VF-22 to explain why it occupies a different number from the prototype. Even all the different versions of the 19 don't get new numbers, so the differences must be massive here 🤪. We can then pretend all the retro morphing animations must have hidden the fact that the 22 had been a different airframe structure from the 21 all along 🙃

On 2/6/2024 at 1:05 PM, Lolicon said:

It's a damn shame that if you want the MDEs you have to have the old 171 armor set as Bandai opted not to include them in the revival version. Classic Bandai.

Aren't those only from the CF's armor pack? Since this is not teal, bandai can get away with this one.

I will look past all the flaws if they manage to make the 22 perfect transformation, including the internally stowed gunpods. I imagine since there is no need for the fast pack belly armor, that material thickness would be recovered as free space to make the integral belly plates just barely clear the floor on landing gears without using those partsforming dummy gunpods. I won't complain even if it looks like drooping tumors if they actually pull it off. I'm sure that would make for some horrifically malformed skirts in battroid though rofl.

12 hours ago, 26662 said:

 An ankle swivel?  Easy decision all-day long. Retracting backpack: ... all of the telescoping backpack solutions I've come up with thus far are the definition of "bad idea"

This franchise as a history of telescoping leg segements, it's too late to suddenly say its too hard to be done. There have also been plenty examples of roll pins in panels no thicker than a credit card or two, and the toys still hold up. Considering the product line and the price point, metal parts should not even be off the table either.

Its not that complicated to give the collar plate two or three folds into a V or U shape, and then run a peg or tab through them, to be an "accordion". The vf-31's body is basically already vertically held together like that, despite being much more disproportionate. it's even simpler though, to just turn that collar plate into two trays that slide under and over each other to double up as locking tabs on opposite ends and double the total thickness if strenth was a concern. If anything, collapsing the plate to reduce overhang in any way, and adding thickness and fastening points between the backpack and the body should only make the whole toy sturdier. Bandai regularly does far more fiddly things than this.

The crux of the problem though, as seen above, is that none of this would actually be neccessary if the proportoins weren't so arbitrarily inaccurate in the first place. Since they are going the inaccurate route, they could have made the proportions into anything to avoid the gap as well. In either case, the size of that gap didn't need to be there in the first place.

Ignoring the cockpit, sombody is probably going to make the advance parts too lol

2 hours ago, 26662 said:

I'm not 100% satisfied with its current design - although I'm stoked it's coming my way - but telescoping or "accordioning" the backpack towards the figure's midline in order to provide full articulation in the shoulders and arms isn't a viable solution here.  Not at this price point using these materials.  And especially not for a figure on this scale.  Not that I'm slavish to the animation, but your proposed solution is not in the line art and it would be a remarkable reimagination of the valk's transformation.  More importantly, no one - not even "cheaper, faster" 3rd and 4th party - would attempt that engineering on this scale.  Look closely at the figure's dorsal surface in battroid mode and just imagine what would be required to collapse the backpack enough to free the shoulders and arms.  Then imagine how many additional hinges/plates that feat would require.  Then imagine how those additional moving parts would impact figure stability in fighter and guardian mode.  It would be even beyond the nightmare experience of transforming the 171.  My take, but someone convince me otherwise.

The swivel calf already blatantly contradicts official transformation though... and doesn't seem to be meaningful or neccessary...

Meanwhile the yamie has the non canonical retracting nose and everyone seems to be in universal agreement that its the best reimagination ever.

Not sure how a retracting backpack can't be done "at this price point using these materials" either. The price is already way above everything in the product line with no discernable reason. These toys already often have smaller joints that need to carry more load than this. As far as I can tell, all we need is the collar plate to fold or slide over itself.