Lolicon

Wish Bandai did a "Revival" edition of Chuck and Arad instead so we can finally get their super parts. 

Still available at HLJ.

PO madness has never really been a thing for HMR, even before WWM.

Hope the final version looks as good as the promotional pics. HMR valks are like fast food burgers: smaller, cheaper, and what you end up getting always looks worse than what's shown in the advertisements.

5 hours ago, MKT said:

It has butt flaps, but somehow they accentuate the YF-19 having no butt for them 

 

And personally think this has the best YF-21 proportions..

Damn now you're making me wish I bought those when I had the chance.

Remember, kids: as far as high end collectables go, Bandai doesn't strive for "best." They strive for "good enough."

On 3/12/2024 at 11:42 PM, MacrossJunkie said:

Hard to tell from the photos. Could be my eyes playing tricks on me or the lighting, but the wings and the fuselage don't look the same white as say the lower thighs and knees or the missile pod attachment arm, for example. I'd say it's white enough still in any case. 

On 3/12/2024 at 11:54 PM, MKT said:

I remember there is slight difference in tone between parts when new.. some are slightly cooler and other areas are warmer white. So your's look pretty much as good as new.

Thanks for the input.

Before going back into storage, she's getting a panel wash and a topcoat in the hope that it will prevent future yellowing. Damn Bandai and their cheap plastics.

On 3/14/2024 at 7:39 PM, m0n5t3r said:

I know I'm years late to the party but I can't stop staring and admiring (and sometimes swooshing) this thing. Easily top 5 Macross toy overall for me, but now I actually have it on display, it's starting to supplant the YF-19 as my favorite in fighter mode. 

She's a beautiful bird. Much better than the HMR version!

All this talk of YF-30 yellowing made me concerned for the spare YF-30 I had in storage so I pulled her out of her box to make sure she was okay.

Does she appear yellow at all or is the color imbalance between the painted parts and the plastic just the usual poor Bandai color matching? My other YF-30 is has been modified so I can't use her as a point of reference.

On 2/29/2024 at 12:42 AM, MKT said:

I'm trying to think the last time Bandai released anything CF.. was it the 31A Kairos? Arcadia seem averse to CF schemes, and it'd be a shame Bandai follows suit.

The Kairos was fantastic and should have gotten a reissue as well. I'm surprised they didn't do a Delta CF 171. It's just a recolor of a mold they already have...

Yes. It's both broken and not broken until you open it and collapse the waveform. 

On 3/2/2024 at 3:24 AM, physioguy said:

Did you just add a Topcoat to give it the matte finish?  It looks 10 x better!

I sold my last few ages ago but I might want them back if a topcoat could work on it

Yeah I added a flat coat to it. Don't like the glossiness that Bandai insisted on for years and years.

On 3/2/2024 at 1:32 PM, Robin-11 said:

I do not own a DX VF-171 NIGHTMARE in its cannon fodder version and i have a question. Is there anywhere on the toy an aircraft number? I didn't see any in these pictures but i know Bandai likes to put one on most of its CF releseases...Looks beautiful anyway.

Aside from a few extra markings added on the Revivals, Bandai only put markings based on the CG models. If the markings weren't in the show's CGI then Bandai didn't add it. None of the CF units had any modex numbers in the show. Although that shouldn't stop you from just adding your own numbers with some decals. 

Although Bandai did neglect to print 171 on the wing flaps on both releases of Alto's unit, but remembered it on all the other 171s. So someone at Bandai is asleep at the wheel.

On 2/29/2024 at 11:10 AM, Jeff J said:

Is there such thing as Uncanny Valley for adaptations? Probably not; I'm guessing that the core of my complaint is really that they weren't close enough... Regardless, I still wonder if the general proximity of HG's iteration to the Real McCoy makes things worse... would it have been less frustrating for many of us if HG changed the show more dramatically? I fundamentally agree that RT's "Macross Saga" captures 90-something percent of SDF Macross, but that kind of description bothers me because it generally comes across as sounding like the shows are functionally equivalent or equally as good. Moreover, that description glosses over the quality issues stemming from the loss of fidelity while incentivizing people to watch RT (or worse, pay HG to watch...) to experience the story and not bothering to seek out the source material. If HG's iteration was so much more substantially different, it would've greater emphasized the value in watching the show as it was originally intended to be.

Wasn't making a value judgment about Robotech. Just simply putting Robotech in its proper context in time. As I already prefaced I do not care for Robotech. It isn't 1985 anymore. Why watch any inferior anime adaptations today when you can access the originals without much hassle?

On 2/27/2024 at 3:17 PM, MKT said:

@Lolicon Lovely work!!  I like the default glossiness of the CF 171, but seeing this makes me wish it also comes in matte! 

Thanks!

Would like a non-explodey reissue of this particular aircraft, since I can't ever transform this one. If you look closely, you can see cracks have already formed in the shoulders just from putting the thing back together. It will never survive a full transformation.

19 hours ago, 505thAirborne said:

True, it's rare that Bandai ever does the obvious, like reissuing the Valk's fans/collectors really want. I'm strapped for cash at the moment, but I'd find a way for a CF VF-171, maybe even two. 

I would love it if they reissued a non-exploding revival of the CF 171. We'll see if Bandai ever bothers. We never even got the Delta CF version.

4 hours ago, 505thAirborne said:

There's always a chance that Bandai does a re-release of the CF 171 w/armor since they just did Alto's Valk, but this time without exploding legs, knees, hinges & triangles. 

As for me, the VF-171 CF is one of the coolest looking Valkyries out there, the Teal makes that design come alive! 

I hope so but I'm not sure Bandai will even finish the SMS squadron much give us any non-hero reissues. 

4 hours ago, MKT said:

Another previously leftover pic..

Love the 11B! 

4 hours ago, Mog said:

We talking toy itself or design/color-scheme?

If toy, the VF-17D.  Better looking head than the S and comes with FP armor.  Though, yeah, lot of anime magic going on for all modes.

Design and color-scheme?  CF 171.  Love the teal, and it stands out from all the other hero Valks out there.  But yeah, don’t need Toynami Alpha levels of aggravation from the toy.

Yeah it's a shame that Bandai botched the CF 171 toy so badly.

On 2/22/2024 at 6:42 PM, Sanity is Optional said:

My VF-19 showed up from HLJ...

That almost looks intentional. Did you piss off your DHL/Fedex/USPS guy? 

Which is your favorite Nightmare?

The VF-171 Nightmare Plus lived up to its name because fixing this thing up was a plus-sized nightmare. As mentioned in earlier posts, I had two units that has breakages at various points and I decided to disassemble both and Frankenstein the salvageable parts into one working unit. Still, cracks started appearing in the shoulder triangle parts during the reassembly, so this thing is staying in fighter mode forever, as it's almost certain to break if a transformation is attempted.

It is hands down the most shoddily constructed valk I own.

Still, I did what I could to pretty her up, though between the topcoat and bright lights, a lot of the surface detail is lost. 

Here she is before her makeover:

And after:

Bandai's DX VF-1 doesn't have warped wings, but all their Frontier valks do. Even the Revival version has warped wings.

On 2/13/2024 at 10:03 AM, MKT said:

Looks good. The small hangar looks more like an elevator bringing her up to the flight deck. 

On 2/11/2024 at 1:22 AM, Sanity is Optional said:

Now do the rest of sound force.

I will buy every kit in this line if they actually did that.

So sifting through the pile of parts that used to be my two CF 171s, I pulled out the black shoulder triangles to see which ones were usable. Out of the four, one was outright broken apart and the other three were cracked. The cracks seemed to follow the swirls in the plastic, so I'm thinking Bandai cheaped out somewhere along the production line, since this was just a "reissue" of an already proven toy (Alto's 171 had already come out).

So yeah I wouldn't be surprised if Bandai hired T-REX and received a fantastic design from them, only to bork it up somewhere along in production.

11 minutes ago, treatment said:

iirc, @Lolicon had a bunch of HLJ discounts to use at the time of ordering his PF. 

Lucky timing, I guess...

Indeed I did. HLJ was way more generous with their discounts back then.

However, the yen is much weaker now than it was back then. The average yen to dollar ratio in 2017 was 112 to 1, making my PF SDF-1 about $435 back then.

49200 yen as of today is only $326.

I didn't expect Bandai to fix the arm attachments.

That leg armor gap is pretty unsightly. Was it always there or is that display just badly put together?