mpchi

Does anyone else get a kind of sick joy from dismantling their toys to see how they tick? When I observed my Alto was starting to get a bit loose in the hip lock I just ripped apart the entire groin assembly to see what was inside. For those who would want to alter the lock to include a locking bar it would be devilishly easy to cut out a bit of the T-bar to make a "hook" and thread a nice heavy gauge brass rod through the inside of the groin. There's a bit of flexibility in the lock so that it could be locked into position by pulling the hip part down once its in, and then released by pushing up on it again when you want to release it.

If a Super Armor Alto gets announced I'll order that one and use this as my modification testbed

I'm tempted now to continue dismantling it to see how much I can get apart. If it's easy to get to the waist joint I might look into installing a heavy spring to put some tension there and make it a bit tighter.

Don't get sick joy per se, but feel some accomplishment when I was able to tighten the diecast left crotch hinge, with the entire crotch block taken apart, as well as tightening the left hip ball joint. You might be surprised on what made it work. Dental floss and clear food wrap.

But some areas are really hard to take apart, as the screw hole covers are very tight and flushed. Won't be able to get those suckers out unless you scratch and pry them open and damage the plastic.

I don't have Angelbird myself. But judging from pics I see, the blue is close, but probably a bit darker on Max. While the 1/48 TV Max's blue is not as purple as the 1/60 ver.2 TV Max, based on Yamato's pics.

I think it's way too early to tell what Bandai's release plan is, or weather they plan to release all variants possible or just the main valks. We are only about 3 months into the line afterall. The line seems to be a success for them so far, so if the popularity remains then Bandai should have the incentive to produced more variants. Basically, anything is possible. Angelbirds didn't exactly get much screen time, either.

But its Yamato's Angelbird, who is also releasing the 1J cannon fodder. I see your point though, and I agree its a bit early to tell. But from past history, Bandai hasn't been very eager to release variants. Not on the 1/55 (vintage & reissues), nor the 1/65 Macross 7 stuff.

Since base on just watching the show, I don't even know what head a VF-25 cannon fodder usually come with. So I can see it not being a favorable pick for Bandai to do a DX release. A 1/100 or a 1/72 model kit will be more likely. Just my 2 cents.

What are the chances of a VF-25 Cannon fodder version? I was just watching episodes 3-5 and saw a few of those.

My guess is not high. Unlike VF-1 cannon fodder, the VF-25 cannon fodder has very little screen time. I bet some not very hardcore Macross fan or casual viewer of the show may not even know it exists. I don't even remember seeing a VF-25 cannon fodder in battroid mode in the show myself, and already watched the show twice. And unlike Yamato, Bandai doesn't look like they are going for all variants possible in terms of their releases. So probably will just make the main ones, and maybe movie variants if there is a difference. Lucky if we'll get the VF-171. I really want that one.

I like the Yamato stand, looks almost like a set piece with very strong ratchet and has some diecast. But it doesn't seem to be as versatile as the Flexistand. Though the flexistand doesn't really clamp on the valk in anyway. And hearing some stories of valk sliding off for a shelf dive keeps me from using them. But they do allow cool midair poses.

That Hikaru 1S looks pretty dirty there. These weathered ones sure fetch a hefty price.

Me want Spartan! Its like a little brother to the GBP. And Hikaru actually piloted that thing.

I also noticed that the inner intakes were painted gray, nice surprise indeed. The 1A head just looks perfect, and I also had trouble getting it through to battroid. Had to take out the instructions, it shows the angles the front and back plates have to be in order for the head to get through without damaging the laser.

I looked at the instructions too, after getting stuck at the head laser part for 5 mins, but to me, it wasn't as helpful. I did follow the angle and all, but still get stuck for another 5 mins..haha, with the head laser tip hitting(softly) the back plate constantly on all attempts. End up had to angle it at the max clearance (still a mm or so short) and force it a bit, relying on the plastic tolerance on the head joints and neck..and finally get it squeeze through. But it did stressed the laser a little. Not at the tip, but like 3mm below the tip. Wish its just a couple mm short, then it would clear out just fine, without looking much different than it is now.

Does the movie 1/48 VF-1A has a shorter head laser? I don't remember having this problem back then transforming my Hikaru 1A. But I sold it long ago, so can't compare them anymore.

Got my 1/48 VF-1A Max TV ver.

Very nice in a lot of ways. Great head sculpt and awesome detailed visor. Its pretty much the best executed 1/48 head sculpt to date. Love the blue plastic used too, not just painted blue on white parts (except the lower legs). The inner hip intake is painted grey like the 1/60 ver.2. Very nice touch. No broken parts and joints are sturdy and even overall.

But it does come with a couple minor things. They made the head laser too long. Took me like 10 mins to get it go over the neck hole transforming from fighter to battroid mode. The laser really doesn't fit through there, and needs to be a couple mm shorter. End up getting some stress mark on mine... fortunately its not very visible. Looser tail fins, looser nose cone, and wobbly knee ratchet (ratchet is tight, but knee still wobble about 10-15 degree when locked, same issue with my recent reissue 1S Focker, but not on my older 1/48s, not stable for adding any armor) probably due to overused mold, and overly tight elbow swivel that I need to loosen up screws on upper arm, so the elbow won't break off due to stress like my Hikaru 1S did. Wish it comes with the TV hands. No neck/backpack support part either.

Not perfect, but a good purchase nonetheless. I can always borrow my 1J TV hands to fit Max, since my 1J is busy wearing the GBP.

If you guys looked carefully, the Luca's RVF has two tone green in the toy show display to begin with. Just that most of you didn't notice it back then, while some of the latest photos enhanced the color difference more. So you can pretty much say Bandai had a little hiccup at the production line on this release. Its really no myth. So purchase with precaution.

Don't know if white plastic is really an issue. They can always pick a lighter grey paint for the weathering. Its just poor choice of paint color. Most Gundams are bright white, but you don't see them all showing up ugly and overdone, when its treated right by the modeler.

kicker's badass hik VF-1S pose 1/60 v.2 style... mad props to Kicker773 for the sick pose...

Don't forget the good old 1/48! They can be just as cool!

Actually, I like the way the 1/48 shoulders & neck proportion better. Looks more natural.

"minor flaw"? didnt mean to be disrespectful bro, but THAT is no minor flaw

Can i say, we've been "Bandai-ed"?

come on Bandai, for the pricepoint on this baby?!!!!!

the ugly and short landing gears are now back to haunt the G variant, in the worst possible way

You won't be "Bandai-ed" unless you are willing to buy it, after knowing its 'non-minor' flaw. And they don't owe you anything either, as if they promised you personally to make the greatest VF-25 with all the features you want to see. Bandai messed up a bit here and there on the VF-25, but the bashing is getting a bit old.

Its a bit disappointing for it to not house the sniper rifle properly with enough ground clearance. But I wouldn't blow it out of proportion. The Yamato display stand doesn't allow my 1/48 Super VF-1 to house the gun pod in fighter mode either (also not enough clearance from the arm). But I don't consider myself 'Yamatoed' in this case (unless something broke like in other cases), and still consider Yamato's stand as one cool display add-on for my VF-1.

R2 Japanese DVD/BluRay sure is very nice. But you won't get any subtitle/translation whatsoever, and be ready to pay literally an arm and a leg for it. Be prepared to pay around $500-600 for the entire collection. The last vol.9 (ep.23-25) will be out end of April. So you won't need to wait too long for owning the whole series.

In terms of bootleg DVDs, I have experience with the Malaysian version. The one that shows up often on ebay and comes with a free soundtrack vol.1 CD. The subtitle is actually very good for ep.1 - 24, with just very minor name and words mispelled once in a while (literally just mispelled, they actually got most if not all of the terms and names correct, as if someone knows the show well enough. Not someone try to make out of a random katagana or substituting with a Chinese name that had never watched the show before...maybe sourced from an existing fan sub...not sure). Good grammar and sentence structure. ep.25 however got a bit worse. Still understandable (not engrish), but you can tell the translation is done by a different person and some names or terms no longer follow what it was in ep.1-24. Video-wise, its straight from the Japanese TV broadcast. Most of the episodes (around 70%) are pretty crisp and clean. But the remaining 30% episodes suffered some video compression issue, making the colors look pixelated. Its not so bad as VCD with everything got pixelized (especially in fast action scenes), but more like less colors were displaying than it should (especially obvious when colors gradient, like in space scenes), and the video looks more blurry overall. The bad looking episodes spread out randomly, like 1-6 was good, then 7 & 8 got bad, then it gets good again, then a couple bad here and there, then its good again towards the last couple episodes. Its still very watchable, but something a video buff won't be happy watching or owning.

A domestic English DVD release is very unlikely (just like Macross 7 and Zero), so there is no easy way. You can choose to download episodes with fan sub and burn them on DVDs. Thats another to go at it.

I appreciate the input from each of you. I must have got a lemon.

If I were to rate the firmness of the groin tab locking on mine on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being "good god I am going to break something trying to get it apart again". Mine is maybe a 1. Possibly a .08. When the tab goes into the hole there is a slight hint of connection being made. But any slight movement or pressure makes it pop out and turn into a floppy mess. I am going to have to do the nail polish trick or get in there and wedge something on each side of the tabs to give it a positive locking grab on the tab.

I figured out what you guys were saying about the hip bars and moving them forward which helps with keeping the intakes from rubbing on the fuseloge.

Sounds like you got the same issue as eriku's on the loose groin peg connection. On mine, based on your scale of tightness, it was around 9 fresh out of the box. Took some effort and care to separate the connection the first couple tries. As I transform it more, it wears a bit, and now stays at around a 7. Still pretty secure and won't pop off unless i have it in a plastic bag transporting it to work or something, then I sometimes found out the peg gets popped off on its own in the bag. But when standing or posing under normal condition, its pretty secure.

The shoulder ball joint is hell of tight when new. Hold on to the block with 5 dots with one hand, then rotate the arm with the other. It will turn, right at where you have the pink arrow.

I love the vf-25s design, in all three modes, it is the best thing since sliced bread!

Now that I have tried transforming the dx I just got, I am seriously disapointed with it. Talk about a floppy mess. The waist lock does not lock in and unless I lean the battroid way far forward it flops apart......... What is up with the shoulder design? Why is there no articulation in the shoulder??? It is a solid piece until you get to the elbow. The lack of shoulder articulation is really super disapointing. If they had just made it so the hips could slide down to the anime position the dx could have way better posability and not have a problem with paint rub on the fuseloge.

I am seriously torn about this toy right now. I want another to display one in fighter mode and one in battroid. But after paying $150 to HLJ to get this toy I am thinking it is a $80 to $100 toy and not $150. I may try a 1/72 model version.

I really dont see how through all these pages there has not been any complaints about these issues (or I missed them). If I had seen those issues I might not have bought one. Did I just get a defective one where the hip mechanism doesn't lock in.

Also has anyone translated the instructions? That might be of some help to some me.

Yeah, does sound like you need to spend more time on the VF-25. I understand your complains, but those are all non-existing issues, after you figured out the toy and understand the structure, unless you are unlucky and got a lemon.

The chest and neck locks good (if you know the angle to transform the chest/neck) with no wobbleness, the crotch tab locks tight. Hip won't scratch the paint if you position the hip giving it 1 click forward on the hip ratchet joint in battroid mode, like Graham suggested in an older post. And about the shoulders, this VF-25 probably has one of the most (if not the most) articulated shoulders you can find on a diecast toy (to a point it almost got too many moving joints LOL).

Give it some time, transform it a few more times and watch some video instructions if you need to. You'll probably end up liking it more.

There's two low viz's in there... sorry for the crappy positioning. I didn't have a lot of room to work with. But hopefully tomorrow when i have time i can move things around and perhaps take better pics of the graduating class..

Not really a request, but a suggestion. If you have a black backdrop, with some decent lighting, someone or myself can do some quick photoshop clean up to get a real badass wallpaper out of this, titled "The Taste of GBP!" or something of the sort, having all missiles pointing towards the viewer. Haha.

That's at least a cool $1K worth of Valks. Very nice collection. And yeah, a single Valk will never be as impressive as a whole squadron on display such as yours.

$1k? You are quite underestimating the power of the mighty Yamato! That won't even be enough to get just the armors (even if its on discount).

Those group pics are truly a marvel to be seen. I am a proud owner of a regular 1/48 GBP, a Urban Camo, and a Takatoku 1/55 GBP. But thats about it. Got to say a GBP VF-1 is still my favorite variant of all valks.

Sharpie is handy and convinient, but you can't get a matte finish out of that thing, but a glossy black with a purple tint in the light. It also tend to rub off a bit on smooth plastic surface. So its not a good solution for the valk. A $10 Transformer, sure. A $100+ Yamato valk? Better not.

Why assume his talent is to blame? He does work on other projects concurrently, yes? I share the criticism (somewhat), but not the reason.

Mainly because I see that if you are a great artist, you nail your proportions and perspective even at a very rough state, and doesn't take much time to finesse and correct your mistakes as you draw and paint. The less you need corrections, the better you are. But in Tenjin's rough stuff, particularly issue 14, 15 it shows a good number of flaws on the structure and palette that I wouldn't even know its done by him without the name printed at the corner. And I wouldn't put up that kind of quality if I got the job doing a Chronicle cover.

So just saying I like his stuff less, now seeing his limits as an artist. But not saying he sucks (far from it), nor telling anyone not to like him.

Got my bulk finally and got the taste of the Chronicle. Its very nice indeed. There's actual quite a bit to read, and literally took me a couple hours to read an entire issue, not just glancing through pretty pictures quickly like most artbook or fanbook. And for whatever they covered, its in pretty good detail, detail enough to satisfy most Macross fans. And I like how they cross reference a lot of stuff, even with images or screenshots to make the referencing even more clear. I just wish the pages hold together better than they are now, as I was hoping to keep the books as is (even though I did get a binder) without taking the pages out. But this turn out to be impossible after reading the first issue with very light page flipping and handled with care. The pages still come off. Just suck if we end up need to get like 5 binders just to hold the whole thing. Having problem just figuring how to sort out the entire collection, and among a few binders.

One side note upon reading Chronicle is that, my respect to Tenjin's artwork declined. While its cool to have him do artwork for each issue (most of the covers too), it clearly showed that his artistry is not as high as I expected, when I mainly saw all his very detailed renders in his artbook and online pics. When given 2 week deadlines, his quality took a nose dive and some of them are so rough that I wouldn't call it done myself (I am a illustrator too). Not just because of the rough rendering (as some great art does come in rough), but there are misproportion and funny mistakes too. It showed that it took the guy a lot longer time to render out the nice stuff that he has been showing (and looks like he need the help of digital/photo manipulating to get the realism too). His straight painting pieces don't look so hot. Not to say his art is bad, as he still does cool stuff with given enough time, but he is not as good as I thought. On the other hand, I am glad that some of the other illustrators doing paintings for the technology/history sheets have pretty solid skills, which is a nice surprise. Making the extremely high price on collecting the Chronicle a bit more worthwhile.

While not having a huge 1/48 collection like some of you, I still see them as my main VF-1 pieces, and will probably stick with them for good. I like the bigger size, finer detail, and the shoulder/neck proportions better. The 1/60 ver.2 while nice and improved, doesn't feel different enough to buy everything all over again. I already have all the main VF-1 variants I want in 1/48 scale, so it should be enough to keep me happy. Can't say I won't ever buy a 1/60 ver.2 VF-1, but there isn't one that I felt like I have to have so far.

I wonder if they can make the gears telescope? Weird I know, but if space is an issue... Of course, it's got to be really tight to manage the weight.

Bandai sure didn't do a great job on the landing gear length. But looking at the structure of the toy and where the landing gear sits, there is really not much room to make them much longer, unless they telescope like some suggested. But sustaining the weight of the fighter will be an issue, and it may still not have enough height for the sniper rifle. Given the main structure of where the joints and parts are separated, I guess Bandai chose to sacrifice the relatively smaller concern, and just have it long enough for all, other than Michel's with the sniper rifle, rather than scrap the whole design and go back to the drawing board. Still sucks in a way, but just wanna point out that if the landing gears are longer with longer gear bay, then something else will have to give too (how about losing the ratchet knee or longer nose/torso for the front?) and will have a rippling effect to create more things to complain about. But with all things considered, I do feel that Bandai can do better than this. But I wouldn't go so far to say this DX VF-25 sucks.

And for those that think Bandai was blindly praised by the majority here, I think you need to check on more of the older threads. Sound more like Bandai had been beaten to a pulp and barely breathing til now.

Feb 09 reissues of DX VF-25F and S retooled.

http://www.toysdaily.com/discuz/thread-88929-1-1.html

Looks like Bandai have added extra holes on the top of the fuselage. Extra attachment points meant for the Armor Pack perhaps?

EDIT: The VF-25 in the lower images are of Michael's G. So it appears the RVF and G variants will also sport this new holes/attachment points.

Don't see the fuss about this, as the holes are for the armor pack. But its still unknown if Alto and Ozma will ever get a armor pack only release and not a bundle. And if Bandai wants to, the armor packs may only come with a valk with more holes. So don't see the first release losing much, when we know it fits the fast pack for sure. At least I know I feel fine with it, knowing my Alto is just gonna wear a fast pack.

Though Bandai did drop the ball on development planning, as its a given that these valks will have the various add-ons like all other valk toys have. Its weird they don't forsee it coming. Thats bad planning for sure.

Hmm... could the minor detail part mean that this release of the VF-25S will be the movie version rather than the TV version?

Also, with the new landing gear hatch design, I guess the Armoured pack won't be back-compatible with the current DX toy, which is a pity. Looks like there won't be a neck or laser re-design.

From the way they say it, the 'additional detail' is very vague, and can be something as minor as adding a couple panel lines or tampo print. So don't hold your breath on this until further announcement from Bandai.