SebastianP

All VF-25s are two-seaters. It's just that Luca never had a back seater. The Master File book lists a dedicated two-seater (with both crewmen in Ex-Gears), but it's not really canon. I'm holding off on ordering mine for a bit, there's plenty of time and I still have a VF-25G to build. I'd love for there to be a VF-25A release, all the tooling is there they'd just need a slightly different decal sheet. Also holding out for super and armored parts... though those will require at least entirely new leg sprues, and most likely more than that.

Depending on where you buy them, the Hasegawa kits are 1000 to 1200 yen cheaper than the corresponding Bandai kit. (At HLJ, the difference is 1040 yen - the Bandai kits are 3600 yen, the Hasegawas are 2560 yen). To build them right, you're going to need a bit more than 1000 yen worth of paints alone, though, especially if you're doing anything other than Alto's VF-25F, which is the simplest color option there is. (it's all over white with some metallic and black parts, nearly all of the other colors are on the decal sheet). Each of the kits has a substantial list of pros and cons. The Hasegawas a: are stuck in fighter mode permanently; b: require expensive paint and glue; c: are not play-friendly *at all*; and d: only come in a very limited subset of the types available from Bandai, i.e. only plain F/G/S. There are as yet no super, armored or tornado packs for the Hasegawa kits, and the Bandai items won't fit. (I've checked this.) On the plus side, since the kits are stuck in fighter mode only they won't sag, and Hasegawa has seen fit to include underwing ordnance and the hidden back seat, complete with a little Ranka in the VF-25G kit. And Super parts are probably only a matter of time, given that pretty much all the other VFs have gotten a super parts release if such parts existed in the anime. (Only the VF-19 doesn't have any, but I don't think the super parts for that were shown on screen anyway). Also, even if the decals for the Hasegawa kits turn out to be as thick and fragile as the Bandai ones, they're *still* superior, for the three reasons of being solidly colored, much more detailed, and unlikely to be scraped off during transformation... The Bandai kits, being transformable, sag horribly in fighter mode (at least the plain and super versions do; the Tornado and Armored not so much); have decals that start flaking off if you look at them sharply; make a bunch of concessions to snap-fit assembly and transformation that result in terribly crude or off-scale parts (such as the landing gear, the pilot figure and windscreen, not to mention the very ugly joints at the wing root) or even non-existant parts (no back seat, no wing ordnance); are a royal pain in the butt to squeeze into proper fighter shape; and are fragile if you do play with them any(broken shoulder on my Super VF-25S) in a way that can't easily be fixed (styrene cement doesn't work on ABS plastic, and superglue is not recommended.) Also, the series appears to have been discontinued - they still make the existing kits, but nothing new has been added for a couple of years now. On the other hand, all versions of the VF-25 including the prototype, the RVF and the Tornado and Armored packs are available; they *are* transformable and can be displayed in Gerwalk or Battroid mode if that's what you want to do; they don't *require* glue or paint (unless you do something stupid, like break a part); and most of them come with stickers that are at least less fragile than the decals. All in all, if you want a plain VF-25 that will hold together perfectly in fighter mode above all else, and are prepared to spend the time needed to paint and decal it properly, get the Hasegawa kit. It looks *awesome* in fighter mode. If you want *anything* other than a plain VF-25, want to display it in something other than fighter mode, or don't have the patience to paint it, get the Bandai kit, because the Hasegawa version won't give you any of the above...yet. Maybe in the future. (here's hoping we actually get a VF-29 from Hasegawa at some point, given that Bandai has abandoned the 1/72 builders...)

As I see it (I own the kit but it's still in my HLJ private warehouse so I haven't actually eyeballed it) Hasegawa made two mistakes with this kit - 1. They molded it in blue, making painting it a pain in the ass, and 2. They didn't (as far as I can tell) stick a regular gun pod in there, so you can't build it into an A without swiping the gun from an A/S kit. If they'd done those things, I guarantee kit number two would already be waiting as well. Given the amount of work needed to make an A (i.e. all the parts exist, we just need them boxed together) we'll likely see one released this year anyway, even if it's a limited edition. Hopefully we'll see some Super Parts soon as well. I really really really want a better option than the Bandai Super parts...

The above is slightly incorrect - the A/C models share a head, as do the B/D models; the twin gun head is unique to the S. I don't know if that sprue is included with the VF-0S kit, or if you'll have to get it from someone who built their "A/S w/Ghost" as an S. Either way, good luck!

I've received mine, but I've got my hands full at the moment. I really should finish some of my in-progress stuff up before I start on a new kit...

That's not a VF, that's an F-203 Dragon II, the fighter Roy was flying during the Unification War. It's in Episode 33 of the original series, in a flashback to how Claudia met Roy. (I don't remember seeing that scene in the Robotech version of that episode, so it might have been cut.) What I want to know is if that was a scratchbuild, or if not - where the kit came from. (Not that I could afford a resin kit that size anyway...)

Someone needs to tell Hasegawa they need to make a VF-11 Battroid in 1/72 - and then an Armored version.

Google delivers: http://www.modelivery.com/product.detail_995098_en_5293875

I have been using Vallejo and Humbrol Acrylics for airbrushing - while the local hobby shop nominally stocks Tamiya, the previous shipment of paints from Japan to Sweden sank en route, so many of the colors needed for the stuff I build ran out. And no one in the region stocks Gunze anymore - which is a crying shame, because they actually *have* the colors I need for modern jets. And ordering paints privately is either expensive, slooooow, or impossible, due to the regulations on flammable liquids.

That thing looks awesome. I've been brush painting Humbrol for more than twenty years, and it's really not that hard - stir the paint in the tin with a toothpick until you're not getting gobs of pigment on it, then use the toothpick to dribble paint into a disposable mug (you only get a few drops at a time, so it will take several goes to get a decent amount.) Then add a couple of drops (be careful, you really don't need much) of white spirits to the cup, and use your brush to mix the paint. It should be just thick enough to not go transparent when you try brushing the inside of the cup. Depending on the base color of the model, and the color you're painting it, you're going to need between two and four thin coats - the wings and most of the fuselage on my VF-19 have received three coats and they're completely solid, no blotches at all. With just one coat, the white comes through from underneath, making it look awful. Properly thinned humbrol is really very forgiving to work with - you can brush the same area multiple times without getting buildup as long as the paint is still wet, so you can really brush off dust particles and stray hairs; it sticks well to the plastic and has near zero surface tension, so it won't bead; and if it builds up in the corners where it shouldn't, you just touch your brush to where it's pooling and the brush sucks it right up. And you have several minutes before it dries to the point where it stops self-levelling and you start getting brushstrokes. The only bad part is that their white paints turn yellow way too quickly, which I think is due to the oil. Despite being infinitely more frustrating to work with, I've started using acrylics for landing gear, gear bays and intake interiors because of that. (I've even gotten a decent finish on a model car once using just thinned enamel and a wide brush.)

For once, some actual pictures of actual models that I'm actually building... A while ago, a friend of mine bought me a VF-19A "Lightnings" w/High-maneuver Missiles, which I set aside for a couple of months to concentrate on the Gundams and VF-25 kits I'd bought for myself. A couple of weeks ago I finally got around to building it, and got to this point: When I discovered this: Yup, that's a short-shot. I was all kinds of miffed at this, since it's a rather prominent piece and I am *not* up to fixing it with scrap plastic. The next day I took a break and went to the local model show, where I found another VF-19 kit (actually an YF-19 "Demonstrator" kit) that I got for 30% off of the already lowered show price. Since the kit scheme isn't my cup of tea, I'm painting it up in the "Lightnings" scheme (black and yellow over gray) instead: Here's where I am right now. In case it's not obvious from the picture, I'm brush-painting the second kit (the first one I'm using for airbrush practice - it's been stripped a couple of times already, and I'm not really getting what I'm doing wrong - the paint just clogs up way fast no matter how thin I mix it), and I haven't gotten around to the black parts yet. The exhaust bits are painted with Humbrol's metalcote gunmetal, which is wonderful when it works and terrible when it doesn't. To anyone thinking of trying it - despite being in the same kind of tins as Humbrol's enamels, you should *not* thin this with white spirits/naphta. Use alcohol. White spirits is good for stripping it off, though. (lesson learned the expensive way - the gunmetal was drying in its tin, so I poured white spirits in to thin it back to usable a year or so ago. Big mistake - the pigments don't dissolve properly now..) I have way too much crap going on right now - there's a 1/1300 Bentenmaru (from the Mouretsu Pirates anime) awaiting painting or decaling (not sure whether to paint it actually - it's molded in color, and the colors are strange mixes like a very dark burgundy and a dark pink for most of the fuselage and bits), a 1/25 Corvette ZR1 that I finally managed to get an even coat of paint onto, an Airbus A400M that I'm still working on the interior for, and three different AW101 Merlins at mostly that stage as well. Plus I have a Super VF-11B and an F-14B Tomcat that are singing "build me, build me"...

I have finally gotten an airbrush! Need to get some cleaning supplies for it this weekend and some practice time, but everything is set for actually making some decent models now.

Well, aside from the original VF-1 ordnance pack, there's the missile pods for the VF-0 (no longer available IIRC, was in the A/S + Ghost and the C), the High Maneuverability Missiles (VF-19A "Lightnings" kit), and now these for the VF-25. I'm hopeful that there will be RMS-7s in the Super or Armored versions when they're released, as well...

The official tech specs (I think) are on the Japanese wiki page for the YF-30 here: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/YF-30_%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AD%E3%83%8E%E3%82%B9 Open the page in Google Chrome to have it auto-translated, it works well enough for the stats box, at least.

Nice! Where did you get that five-inch X-acto blade in the last pic?

My biggest beef with the landing gear is that the main wheels look tiny. But I think Hasegawa's mainwheels are either larger than Bandai's, or their nosewheels are smaller - and while the main struts are't much thinner, all the other details are. I foresee Hasegawa receiving a tidy sum from me via HLJ this winter, at any rate. I need two of these, a Super VF-11B, and if they're still available then, a Thunderseeker...

EXO: I have a color laser printer, so I could theoretically print my own stuff, but I suck terribly at 2D graphics and I don't think anyone in my entire country actually stocks blank decal paper. (My *kit assembly skills* themselves are only marginally up to OOB Gunpla building, but I'm at least trying to improve... ) On the other hand, if someone *does* have source files for finished decals and is willing to share, I'll order some decal-making supplies from Hannants next month. One of the print shops in this town is bound to have an ALPS printer... Vifam7: Thanks for the offer, and I'll keep it in mind. Going to see if there's any way I can avoid Bandai's decals first though. I'm going to order a few things from Samueldecal anyway (I have, aside from the three Messiahs, three Master Grade Gundams that are waiting for paint and decals - a 00 Raiser, a 00 Seven Swords/G, and an Exia - plus a dozen or so HG kits that will be used for painting practice...)

I'm finally getting an airbrush in the next couple of weeks, and with it I'm planning on repainting my Bandai VF-25s (Ozma's Armored and Super Messiah, and Alto's Tornado Messiah). The problem is though that I've already used much of the basic decal sheets for one S and the F, as well as the Super Packs, and they were as terribly fragile as everyone says. And I'm not using stickers on a painted kit... So, where can I get some decent replacement decals for these things? The options I've found so far are SamuelDecal, who has sheets for the basic Ozma and Alto kits, and waiting for Hasegawa's kit which comes with nearly enough decals for both an F and an S (since very few of them are common between the two, AFAICT). Neither option will give me what I need to replace the Super Pack decals I've used, though. Are there any other options that I don't know about yet?

Since I don't own a PS3, I've been reduced to watching LPs on Youtube to get my info on this game so far. One thing I really liked was the mothership, which is a modified Northampton-class of some sort. Does anyone have any good pictures and/or official specs on it (the specific variant of it, that is)? It looks absolutely perfect for a Macross RPG campaign, if you want a ship big enough to handle VFs but not so large you'll need a thousand page manifesto to cover the crew...

This months paycheck hasn't arrived yet, but as soon as it does I'm ordering at least one, probably a pair, and permanently turning my Super VF-25S into a battroid. Maybe then I'll get around to putting the decals on it. What's the usual schedule for variant releases at Hasegawa? (I.e. when can we expect Super and Armored VF-25F/S, VF-25G, RVF-25 or VF-27 kits to show up?) (Edit: The preview image at HLJ says "Illustrated by Hidetaka Tenjin", so we'll most likely be getting traditional Hasegawa box art for this one too, no worries...)

The Zentraedi sourcebook for the Robotech RPG by Palladium (yeah, booh hiss and all that) had an illustration of a Glaug facing off with a Monster that put the two of them at more or less the same size, IIRC (I think the Glaug was taller and the Monster fatter). I can't find my book right now, nor a scan of the back cover (the front cover is available all over the place though), but if my recollection is right, it should be one of the better pieces of Macross art out there. (It's plain black and white, and I have no idea who drew it...)

Pretty much anything that isn't hard - I'm fairly sure a lot of dolls are made from PVC, for example. Think Barbie and Cindy, Regular model kits are made from styrene (PS), and pretty much any brand of styrene cement will work - that's what it's for. Depending on what I'm doing, I use Revell Contacta in the needle applicator bottle, or Humbrol Liquid Poly from a glass bottle with a brush in it. Generally, the latter is for big seams like gluing airplane halves together. It is actually safe to use styrene cement for clear parts - apply the cement to the non-clear part, blow on it for a couple of seconds to get rid of the worst fumes, then press the clear part on. Works better than trying to use non-solvent glue, in my experience. Bandai kits are made from mixed plastics, and for those you need either extra strong solvent cement or superglue. I suggest the latter, because the extra strong solvents are nasty and do awful things to styrene, plus they're hard to come by. Vinyl reacts poorly to solvents - either it doesn't react at all, or it goes completely melty. Or worse, it might crumble to bits after it dries. IIRC, you can melt vinyl bits together with something hot, but it takes a bunch of practice to do right, so I wouldn't try it with anything important to start with.

I finally got around to getting myself a VF-25, and I figured I'd start with the most difficult one: The kit has pretty much only been assembled at this point, and transformed a couple of times so I could figure out how it worked, so it will be disassembled for final cleanup, panel lining and decalling later. I'm not sure at this point whether to go with stickers or water slide decals, I'm leaning towards using the stickers to start with and saving the water slide decals for if I ever get around to actually painting this beast. While the kit feels somewhat sloppy with the super parts on (it takes a bit of fiddling to get everything to where it wants to stay put), it's really not that bad once you get everything in place and put it down. Just don't go zooming it around the room...

What I was referring to by being a different beast is that many of the things you need to be careful with during assembly are different. Japanese (and nowadays Korean and Chinese as well) scale models use hard styrene that's comparatively brittle; have very sharply molded pieces with very tight tolerances that will, if you're really careful, let you get away with no putty or even sanding; and tend to have realistically thin landing gear and sharp edges where neccessary. It's very seldom you actually need to modify the plastic for better fit or a sharper look, nor do you need to pin stuff because the pieces can only be glued in one way and have locator tabs to help hold them in place. A GW model (my experience is so far only a couple of Monstrous Creatures, specifically the plastic Wraithlord and Carnifex, plus the same-generation metal Hive Tyrant) will need pinning of the joints even out of the box unless you want the arms and legs to fall off; pretty much *needs* green stuff or epoxy glue to make some of the parts stick together even on plastic kits because the gaps are so extreme; and if model airplane panel lines sometimes need a bit of help to become more visible, you'll need to give a GW vehicle some help making the panel lines more subtle, if anything, because they're big enough to fly an X-wing and a flight of TIE fighters through. You won't need to worry much about pieces breaking because you were squeezing too hard, though, nor is the plastic as crazy sensitive to cement spills etc. And GW kits don't come with decal sheets with 200+ decals, like some modern jet kits do... It's completely true that a good painter can make a GW model look awesome, but they'll always look better from a few more feet further than a good "pure" scale model. (I should acknowledge that while I'm pretty good at assembling models, I'm nowhere near as good at painting them, and most of my recent airplane kits are sitting around witing for me to get around to finishing the paint job and decals. For some reason, I tend to run out of steam once the model is assembled...)

GW should be referring to Games Workshop, i.e. Warhammer etc. Their plastic models, the ones I've tried at least, are a completely different animal from what we're used to as regular model builders, since they're designed for gaming rather than display. The pieces are thick, fit comparatively poorly, and have exaggerated detail due to being hand-sculpted as originals, but the plastic they use is awesome and carries detail nearly as well as Hasegawa's while being less brittle. Coincidentally, warhammer 40k models are very roughly 1/72 scale (+/-5 or so, depending on the modell), and they appear to have been making an effort to *stick* to that scale in recent years, since going mainly plastic rather than metal...