sqidd

So I have been reading the VF-25 thread in the toy section for…..ever. And there certainly is a ton of controversy about the looks of the 1/60 toy. I have never seen the show so to me it’s not horrible. In a vacuum (pardon the pun) it’s a cool lookin Mech. But just like there being a part of me that is a completest which drives me to get more 1/48’s than I really want, I do have a part of me that would like to have an accurate VF-25. Who wouldn’t want an accurate one over a non accurate one even if you didn’t know the difference? And that aside, from what I can see the 1/60 does have some pretty sloppy gaps, etc. Word on the street is that the 1/72 models are very accurate and the few pictures I have seen look great to me. Trouble is that I am in no way a model builder. It’s odd because I have incredible fabrication skills, but generally I am working in metal and on a much bigger scale (1:1 for example). So what position does that leave a guy like me in? I can shell out $175+ for a 1/60. I can skip getting one all together. I can pay someone to build a model for me and paint it. At some point I guess I am going to need to make a decision. Problem is I am missing part of the equation. That part is how much would it cost me to get a model professionally built? Any of you out there in model land interested in the job? If so can you fire me off an estimate? I understand if you want to PM it and I promise I won’t make it public knowledge. I am not at all certain which way I want to go with this but I will certainly never know until I know what getting a model built is going to cost me. If one of you kick @$$ model builders (which from my point of view is just about all of you) can fire me off an estimate that would be great. Even if you don’t want to do the job you could still give me a number to work with. Thanks (I posted a version of this in the VF-25 thread to to get more penetration)

Bingo

I would like to thank everyone who had my Ootis in their prayers today. Unfortunately the final diagnosis was advanced Lymphoma of the liver and spleen. The Oncologist, trusted family Vet, good friend Dr Addison Tarr and my family decided that putting him through Chemotherapy would only serve to make us feel better and not Ootis. Obviously Ootis’s well being and daily quality of life far outweighs how much we will miss him. At 5:15pm today we put him down. When he slid into what I hope is a wonderful journey for him he was surrounded by all of his loved ones. Ootis was the best dog anyone could wish for. He was caring, cuddly, spunky and always seemed to know when to clown it up. Over the past two years I have had some issues with depression because of the collapse of my business in 2006. I know it sounds crazy but Ootis helped me through it ever day. When I dearly needed a friend to just be there for me and give me a hug when I was feeling down Ootis always stepped up to the plate. When I was sitting on the couch feeling sorry for myself he was always there to drop toys in my lap so we could play. I’m going to miss his silly smile, his crooked ears, his goofy run and his absolute insistence that when it was bedtime he got to get under the blankets. Since the day I got him I have spent every minute possible with him. He was my best pal. No dog will ever be able to replace him and he will always be missed more than words could possibly express. Gods speed Ootis. I love you.

Alright everyone, I need your help here. My best friend and Boxer named Ootis had his eyes turn yellow on me this morning so I rushed him to the vet. It’s one of two things. Liver failure, which means he is already dead. Or gall stones which are theoretically treatable. I just got the first blood test back and it does hold some hope because the numbers associated with his gall bladder are off the chart, but so are his liver function numbers. The former could cause the latter and it is less likely that the latter causes the former. I am taking him in for an ultrasound at 2:00 to check his gall bladder and get the final diagnosis. This dog is my best friend. We have not been separated since the day I picked him up at 6 weeks old. He has been going to work with me for his entire life. He is currently 7 going on 8. He is the sweetest, most communicative and friendly dog in the world. He loves nothing more than to cuddle up next to you on the couch, lay his head in your lap and watch TV. He always has a smile on his face and has never, ever been a problem. Please, can everyone say a prayer for my buddy? I can’t stand seeing him go through this. Thanks Jason Here he is shredding empty boxes, his favorite sport.

Yeah, I forgot about that. I would buy one....two....three........ for sure! Those are cool. I love the few I have seen in the modeling section. I would even spend the big bucks to buy one from one of those guys if they would put it together and paint it for me.

I think the 1/60's with the armor parts look great. I don't care if they are line art accurate. When it is determined that they are of good quality I will be scooping up one or two for sure.

Yeah, no kidding. It's like trying to watch someone weld

Ditto. And how about some Zero style GBP armor?

You could have this guy build you one out of Lego. This one is 14ft long and 200,000 bricks. How much harder could a 66ft SDF-1 be?

I like "dirty" ones. You know, jet black hair, a couple piercings, a tatoo or three Kind of along the same lines as creepy

They are the same. I have black, green and chrome ones. I like the stands a lot. The offer lots of posing options without the fear of your Valk tumbling off. I like the claer three prong stands from LAF Toys also. They are a bit more delicate to pose with than the Yamato ones but after some fiddling you can get them to do just about anything. They also have a higher probability of a tubling toy though because they are not locked in. The nicest thing about them is the stand effectively disppears under the toy so your eye focuses on just what you have sitting on it.

I haven’t gotten a thing from them. I have been charged and I am waiting on a VF-1A Higgy with S&S parts. I sent an email a few days back and no response. Anyone have any info on this? And to stay on topic…..sorta. Has anyone received their VF-1A Higgy with S&S parts already from a different vendor? Have they even been released yet? And if someone does have one do you have a small report you can post about it? Thanks Jason

I am a newer collector (since I joined the forum) but I wouldn’t call myself less selective. I am not into the Anime side of this hobby nearly as much as other members of the forum though. I watched RT when I was a kid and I just watched all of the Macross SDF, Mac+ and Mac Zero in the last year to see what I had missed as a kid (SDF) and since. I enjoyed them very much but I doubt I will ever load them up and watch them again. Back to the toys though. I got my first couple of toys because I thought they were cool and I had wished I had saved mine from when I was a kid. The toy that started all of this for me was the Gakken Ride Armor (yes I know that’s not Macross). I saw a mint one on eBay and picked it up because I did have a few of those when I was a kid and I am a huge motorcycle fan anyway. I certainly didn’t get it because it’s line accurate though. That thing is horrible! But it does bring back some fond childhood memories for me and it’s just plain cool. Once I got the Ride Armor toy I figured I had better get a VF-1 to because I was also way into them when I was a kid. Of course when I was a kid I had to pretend my Jetfire was a VF-1 because I had never seen a real Macross (or RT) toy. I even tried a couple of Jetfire-VF-1S conversions when I was a kid because the VF-1S always stuck with me as my favorite. The conversions I attempted were miserable failures though. When I went in search of a cool VF-1S to go with my newly acquired Ride Armor I stumbled across the Toynami Mastercrap collection stuff (I was searching RT not Macross) and got a couple of them. At this point I still didn’t know the difference between Macross and RT though. Actually I didn’t even know what Macross was. Then I stumbled across this forum and made a huge mistake by calling a Valkyrie a Veritech in one of my first posts and got pounced on by half the forum and directed to the section with the history of Macross/RT. After reading the sordid history of RT I wanted to get rid of the Mastercrap stuff I got and get myself some “real” Macross toys. At that point I did a search on Macross toys and came across the Yamato 1/48 line. I ordered one, got it, opened it up, and was hooked! To me the Yamato VF-1S 1/48 was the absolute ultimate when it came to getting what I had always wanted when I was a kid. Did I even notice that it wasn’t exactly line art accurate? Nope. If I had noticed would I have cared? Nope. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. The only way it could have been better is if they were even bigger. Shortly after getting my first VF-1S I saw a picture of a YF-19 1/60 and had to have it. At the time I had no idea what it was from aside from being some sort of Macross toy. I had no line art in my head to compare it too and I didn’t even know there was such a thing as Mac+. All I knew was that it looked incredible and I had to have one. Then I saw a VF-0S 1/60 and thought it was beautiful! Once again, not knowing where it landed in the Macross universe and having no line art in my head to compare it too. Of course everyone knows that at that point I was doomed and I got a lot more Yamato Macross toys. I was buying them because I thought they just plain looked cool. I loved sitting in my office and just looking at them on my shelves. To me they were purely art. They had no connection to the Macross shows/movies because I had still not seen them yet. So to sort of answer your question Graham, line art accuracy was a non issue for me. I liked how they looked in a vacuum (no line art and no shows to compare them too). Even after watching all of the Macross shows/Movies it never once entered my mind that the toys I had on my shelves were not 100% line art accurate. I thought they looked cool in the shows and I liked how they looked on the shelf. A total non issue. I watched the shows for entertainment and I collected the toys because they looked cool. Now for the second part of your question about newer collectors liking them to be “chunky”. I have to admit that I do like the slightly chunky look opposed to some of the more line art accurate stuff. A perfect example is the 1/48 VF-1S vs. the 1/60 VF-1S ver.2. I think the 1/48 simply looks better. It looks tougher, meaner and just plain menacing. Don’t get me wrong, the 1/60 ver.2 is very attractive, but the thinner dimensions don’t do it for me as much as it’s bigger brother. I won’t be purchasing any of the 1/60 ver.2 toys unless they are offering something that was not offered in 1/48 scale. For example I ordered a 1/60 ver.2 VF-1A Higgy with S&S parts but skipped the VF-1S. There is a limit to the “chunky” look though for me. The Chunky Monkeys don’t do a thing for me. I don’t find them attractive. Now for the VF-25 and it’s “chunkiness” which is the topic of discussion here. I have not seen any line art of the VF-25 and I have not seen one episode of Frontier yet. So when I look at the examples from Bandai I am seeing it in a vacuum, and I think it looks cool. If the toy ends up having decent quality I will most likely get one because I think it would look great on my shelf. It’s a great looking toy. If after I see some line art or an episode will the “chunkiness” bother me? I doubt it. It’s still a good looking toy. So to sum up the perspective of a “new collector” I am not very concerned about line art accuracy as long as the toy looks cool. I am purchasing a toy that I think is attractive and turns me on. I am not trying to buy a “piece” of the show. Does that make sense? And as far as “chunkiness” in general I gotta say as long as it’s not overboard (like the chunky monkeys) I like the look. As far as line art accuracy goes I am attracted to the idea though. Who wouldn’t be? It is certainly appealing to have a toy that in your head is “perfect” and no compromises were made. It’s the same type of attraction as wanting to have one of every 1/48 for your collection. I guess I am just easy to please. If it’s not exactly line accurate and still looks stunning (1/48’s) I want one. If it is line art accurate and is stunning (1/60 ver.2) I want one of those too. To me it simply boils down to if I think it’s attractive or not on its own merits. Line art accuracy is a secondary consideration. Now in regards to why Bandai may have decided to add some chunkiness to the VF-25. From reading this thread I think it is universally agreed upon that if Bandai wanted to make them more or 100% line accurate they have the capability of doing it. So then the question arises why make them chunky? I doubt that it was intentionally done because a market study showed that the largest buying demographic prefers a chunky version. I would be surprised if they even did a market study at all. Studies like that are very expensive and when dealing with a product like this very hard to get a large enough test group to make the data you do get anything more than a probability, let alone definitive findings. I would bet money that the decision on the final design was made completely in house. Secondly is manufacturing techniques. Manufacturing is very difficult. The most difficulty is being able to manufacture something is finding a way of doing it where you can meet your desired selling price and keep the cost of each unit to where you want it so you can make money at it. A lot of what goes into a final design is based on how easy it will be to produce. There are millions of variables that will raise or lower the cost of production. Some are obvious like the amount of material or what kind is used for example. But some are not so obvious like is the assembly line big enough or efficient enough to keep costs down. If they have to re-tool a lot of their existing infrastructure to produce a product it will have to be factored into the cost per unit. And that re-tooling can cost an astounding amount of money. Another example is that in a certain scale certain shaped pieces may require more steps to make or may need to be made out of multiple smaller pieces. This also can dramatically affect the cost of production. And the above examples are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to manufacturing decisions. Someone earlier had mentioned why not just “grow” the 1/72 scale design to 1/60 and be done with it. That idea sounds simple, but in practice it is not. Smaller pieces are inherently stronger than larger ones are because the flat unsupported sides of a piece are closer to a corner or a “bend” which is what gives the part its strength. If you were to simply “grow” that part and all other things remained equal the larger parts would be more prone to breakage because there would be bigger stretches of material that are effectively not reinforced. A good analogy for this is why the Earth doesn’t have a population of large (4ft long) insects that have exoskeletons. At a certain point to achieve that larger size the exoskeleton would need to weigh so much that the insect would effectively become uncompetitive in the food chain and die out immediately. When scaling something up the changes are exponential, not linear. All of the examples above are possible reasons why the 1/60 was designed the way it was. And unless you had a background in Business Marketing you wouldn’t have be expected to consider things like market studies (I have my BBA with a minor in Marketing) or production challenges and how quickly they can make the cost per unit soar right past the targeted amount (at this point in my life I design and manufacture parts/ products for motorcycles). I couldn’t possibly express how production and marketing decisions effect the per unit cost of a product. Everything boils down a cost/benefit analysis. Absolutely everything. I hope whomever reads this enjoys it and helps them to understand this from a different perspective. And it would be great if what I have written explains why things may be the way they are and because of that some of you may be more likely be ably to look past some of the VF-25’s shortcomings and enjoy the toy for what it is. But please understand I am not trying in any way to pick a fight with those of you that think line art accuracy is incredibly important. I completely understand what drives people to want them that way and I respect that a lot. In my eyes line art accuracy doesn’t boil down to a right or wrong situation. Each of us has their own drive and reasoning to purchase what they do. I just thought I could answer Graham’s question about “less selective buyers”. Which I would rather define as “different criteria buyers”. I don’t consider my buying practices “less selective” in any way. I just have different motivations and goals. This is one of those wonderful situations where everyone can be right. And for those of you that read this whole post, thanks. It took me forever to put together.

For what it's worth I have not seen any of the line art so I am a blank slate. With that being said I think the Bandai VF-25 looks great. Fighter mode rocks.

Hasn't affected my Macross toy collecting (not much coming out though) but it has put buying my Drft car and building a "race" motor for my Mustang out of reach for now. Gotta keep a chunk of change on hand in case of trouble.

I think you could hog out the bottom of the feet and fill them with a slug of this stuff that crankshaft balancers use as "heavy metal". The stuff is super dense. I may try it on one of mine. I'll bet two small slugs of this stuff weigh about as much as half of the figure.

Matchbox one is 171mm to the top of the weapon pod on the RH shoulder.

I just checked, cool I have a bid 260294517249

Mine is posted up on eBay and it's not a cheap knock off, it's priced fair and the shipping is very low.

The Dioramas look sweeeeet. But the half chick half valks are creepy.

Did you order a pair of Tomahawks or is there another Destroid I have not seen? I'm looking forward to the reviews on these but I can't say I am as excited about them since seeing that hight comparison pic. They are a bit small. $75 seems a bit more reasonable for something that size that doesn't transform into anything.

Send them flowers

I think the Weathered Roy got all blown out of proportion. The last one I saw went for $440 shipped on eBay. I wish I was in town and thinking about it, I would have bid for sure. If the prices on the Roy are already coming down this quickly instead of going up I think these future releases that don’t seem to be nearly as limited will be smokin’ hot for a little while but will then stabilize out like the Low Vis 1 is. There will be a lot of people getting multiples thinking they will make a mint on them like the Roy but instead there will end up being a lot available (comparatively speaking). And the law of supply and demand says that the prices will drop fairly quickly. At least that is what I am hoping (based on experience/history though). I just don’t have the time nor the inclination to do some back door, top secret type of purchase to get my hands on one of these. My money is on that if you wait long enough (which probably won’t be more than 6 months) that you will be able to pluck them up without too much hassle and they won’t cost a bundle either.

Who did it come from? I am waiting on one from LAFtoys.

Looks like I need to wait till the Jury comes back then..........I'm no good at waiting Thanks for the heads up!