Lolicon

Might be an easy fix. But it is a $200 toy, so maybe we shouldn't have to?

Oh, if anyone was wondering, the reissue does not come with the special Walkure stand that came with the initial release.

6 hours ago, MKT said:

In my very fuzzy memory, I always thought the VF-1J 30th Anniversary scheme appeared with Ranka in one of the Frontier movies, in a short scene of it coming up a carrier lift. The timelines don't match, which meant I must have saw that image somewhere else. I can't seem to find the illustration now though, so I thought I'll make my own of both together

 

And it so happened, I think I managed to recreate above illustration perfectly with the toy 

 

Jokes aside, if I look at it slightly cross-eyed, the colors exactly as presented in just this pic down to that bronze canopy, reminds me of a certain other screaming star transforming jet.  

 

Great shot! 

On 6/14/2023 at 9:28 AM, Pontus said:

Yeah, it looks awesome... but the important part is, (much like our valks in fighter mode) how does it swoosh?

Quite well!

Review of one that's nearly identical to the one I got. Skip to 12 minutes to see it whooshing around. 

The lighting can definitely affect how blue or green it appears. 

18 minutes ago, MKT said:

I don't know anything about light saber merchandises, but this looks awesome. Hilt looks like its machined from billet metal, and that saber's green glow is fabulous.

Thanks! I've wanted an accurate version of Luke's green lightsaber for a long time and finally got one. It's much better than the officially licensed one from Disney, which involves swapping out the skinny "neck" with a fatter one to support the blade. 

Parts swapping is lame! 😄

8 minutes ago, MKT said:

Thanks. 

The YF-21 cockpit may look pretty basic, but I forgot one aspect of it though. The seat can actually rotate so the pilot is seated the right way in battroid, same as what Arcadia eventually implemented for their VF-0 toys. It is these little gimmicks that will always endear Yamcadia valks to me more than Bandai..

Yeah I think the 21 was the first Yamato valk to implement a rotate for battroid mode. It's a 15 year old toy now but still compares favorably even to the latest Bandai offerings. 

But I would love to see an all new 21 from Arcadia. 

On 6/9/2023 at 10:37 PM, Chronocidal said:

Finally got around to something I'd been meaning to do for a very long time.

I've probably had those nubs of tan sprue hollowed out since shortly after the VF-1D released.  Was really irritated they didn't give us hardpointed wings for it, but it wasn't hard to rectify, and I finally have the packs to use on it.  

Also took a little time, and painted up a set of TV missiles that came with the Messer crossover version.  A standard red Gundam marker with a flat coat turned out to be a pretty good match to the paint they use.

Looks good with the supers.

9 hours ago, MKT said:

Not very sure where to put this, so I'll just post here some comparison of cockpits & pilots between the 1/60 Mac+ valks:

Yammie's YF-21 Fighter may still look very handsome today, but pop open the cockpit and Guld doesn't look very good. He's more or less a rough big blob squashed in the cockpit, with just enough detail to see his zen-like hand posture. Cockpit interior also has barely any detail, with some plastic sticking out that supposedly emulates the flight stick & throttle.

 

Moving on to the VF-11b, Yamato tampoed on some nice cockpit screen detailing, but one of my top favourite party trick of any Macross valk toy, is the removable cockpit module. I suppose, this feature of the VF-11b is to emulate the escape pod module seen in jets like the F-111 Aardvark. In this VF-11b toy, what I'm stocked about is how well toleranced the cockpit module is sitting very flush in the nose of the jet.

However, the pilot figure's proportions are also quite off, looking pretty wide.

 

 

Arcadia stepped up and gave nicely proportioned and sharper Isamu & Yang figures for their YF-19. I love how they have limited articulation for both of them, and it would be a nice if they have continued offering some of these limited articulation for pilots in their other valks.

Somehow no cockpit screen detailing here, but I really love the split cockpit canopy opening like how suicide doors are cool for some cars. More than that, there's this little feature on the way the front canopy opens that's just feels pretty awesome to me. Whether it is canon or just a toy transformation legacy that started all the way from Yammie's 1/72 YF-19, carried on midway the VF-19 and through till the YF-19 now, but for the front canopy to open properly the anti-glare area in front of it needs to be recessed. It makes the pivot point of the front canopy lower, such that the top of it becomes more or less level with the rear canopy when both are opened. Bandai's YF-19 on other hand doesn't have this feature, and to me it is another subtle but prominent plus point of Arcadia's over Bandai.

 

Great shots of some great past releases! I'd say better than what's being churned out now.

There's no clearcoat on the PF as far as I can tell. That was only done for the PF SDF-1.

Was the overtightened shoulders something that affected the regular edition reissue as well, or is this problem exclusive to the PF?

Continuing the long trend of some single catastrophic problem affecting what would otherwise be an excellent release. 

On 6/10/2023 at 1:37 AM, Chronocidal said:

Yikes.. I forgot how monstrous that stand bracket is.

Did anyone ever try and make something to mount the VF-25s on that doesn't involve clamping the entire thing in a claw?  I'd be curious to see if you could work a wire armature between and above the arms to mount it on something that looks like it's actually meant to be displayed.  

That's another improvement I wish they had taken from the Delta line: clear stand brackets. It would have been an easy thing to do, but again, why would Bandai bother? It's "good enough" as far as Bandai is concerned. 

On 6/10/2023 at 3:04 AM, DewPoint said:

I don't remember if it was portrayed in the show, but I do wish they made the wing hard points functional this time around. Seems like a missed opportunity to sell more accessories.

Don't think they ever mounted weapons on the wings in the show even though all the toys and models clearly show hardpoints under the wings. Functional hardpoints would have been another improvement I would have loved to see.

I think the only hardpoint use was when they had speakers mounted on the 25G.

On 6/10/2023 at 1:22 PM, ValkAddict said:

@Lolicon - Your custom work is always amazing!! I wish I had the skills to do that!!

Thanks! And I'm sure you could easily do the same; I only possess beginner modeling skills. Amazing what you can do with a bottle of Flory's, a mechanical pencil, and some topcoat. 

You guys have heard me say it before: the fit & finish on Bandai valks has always been inferior to Yamato/Arcadia, and that was before the decline in QC with the 31AX releases.

Bandai absolutely has the resources to give us valks that are of superior quality to Arcadia and probably at a lower price point, but why bother? When it comes to Macross, Bandai makes toys like George Lucas makes movies: it just needs to be "good enough."

Got a more screen accurate laser sword. 

On 6/7/2023 at 2:10 PM, MKT said:

Gorgeous work on the VF-25F @Lolicon 
I thought this new F looked a bit too naked out of the box; somehow the matte surfacing makes the bright white that much more plain, but all the details you've added made it really pop!

Thanks mate!

Got held up by work during the work, but finally fixed the missing seat and got a few extra pics in. I really wish Bandai had increased the detail of this line so it would be on par with the Delta and 1/48 lines, given how much these cost now. 

The VF-25 is definitely one of my favorite valks; I'd say it's right up there alongside the VF-4, YF-19, and of course the VF-1.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Alto and Ranka... or is that Sheryl? 

On 6/5/2023 at 11:35 PM, David Hingtgen said:

Props for painting the chin grey.    (and the white ankle-discs)

There's quite a lot of of little details that are visible on the CG model when zoomed in, but it seemed like too much hassle to add them. 

23 hours ago, twich said:

I am impressed with the ability to get those tiny little stickers/waterslide decals on to your toy.  I am old and my hand is not steady enough, nor do my eyes possess the acuity to be able to see that small detail.  That is indeed a good looking VF-25F Messiah!

Twich

Thanks! Funny you mention that because up until a few years ago I was nearsighted and had no problem seeing tiny details up close. Then I got my eyes fixed and now I have normal vision and have to wear magnifiers when doing tiny detail work. 🫠

18 minutes ago, leeboo1211 said:

Did the matte finish give you any trouble when panel lining/cleanup?

Yeah more wash got caught up in the surface imperfections compared to the old gloss finish toys, requiring me to really scrub the surface with a Q tip to remove excess. 

Fixed up the revival 25F a bit. Was originally just going to do a quick panel wash and call it a day, but then I kept going...  Was a fun, quick little side project though.

Whoops! Forgot to reinstall the rear seat when I was putting the fuselage back together and now I have to take the whole thing apart again just to put the seat in.  Fighter and gerwalk pics will have to wait till tomorrow...

6 hours ago, treatment said:

 

https://twitter.com/simsim5479/status/1665702909596561409?cxt=HHwWgsCzvZL-4Z0uAAAA

 

 

 

Waiting for it to show up in the bargain bin before I think about getting one. 

On 6/3/2023 at 1:54 AM, treatment said:

somebody nicely panel-lined their HMR VF-IJ Revival...

https://twitter.com/muko037/status/1663927049357234176

 

rescaled samnples::

before:

 

after:

 

 

Looks much better with the extra detail. Now if only Bandai could make a correctly scaled pilot...

On 6/2/2023 at 9:40 PM, seti88 said:

These are reminding me of a lower tier (read cheaper HMR and less light control, - and not that its bad😉) @Saburo photoshoot shots! 

Well, the HMR VF-1 line is just a smaller, crappier, and more expensive copy of what Yamato did years ago. 

On 5/28/2023 at 4:02 PM, Slave IV said:

Oh that's excellent use of the adapter 

1 hour ago, no3Ljm said:

From Hobby Japan Web:

 

Actually looks good there

17 minutes ago, Pontus said:

I understand the marketing behind limited releases, even why Bandai stalls releases for things (basically to smooth and pad out their income streams).  But doing a lottery for prizes where I can't control what I get and might get something I don't even want (and I'm assuming can't return) still sounds insane to me.  

I've purposely ignored anything from Zero, 7, or Frontier to save my poor wallet, so no Sheryls for me.  I was interested in the Gorgeous version if that's what you're talking about, but only because it looked cool.  But I'm not paying $250+ (now going for over $400) for a figure purely on aesthetics... although now I think about it, that is exactly why I started collecting Delta stuff.  Done with that now... unless they come out with an Elvis SV-262.  

People do it for the same kinds of reasons they drop well over 20k yen into a crane game for a 1500 yen figure {yes I actually watched a Japanese dude do this). For fun, because they like the thrill of gambling, etc. 

Why did I stand around watching? Because the guy had gotten the figure to the edge and I was hoping he'd give up so I could swoop in and nudge it a little and win the figure for cheap. Alas he didn't give up. Sunk cost fallacy or whatever. 🙃

There was a Sheryl figure that came out alongside that Freyja to promote the Delta movie and Frontier short. I ended up picking up both simultaneously. They very rarely show up on Mandarake, which is unusual for these figures. 

13 minutes ago, Pontus said:

Yeah, I bought this one when it came up on my Mandarake alerts for what I thought was a very good price of 8000¥... until US DHL shipping was added making it 15k¥/$116!  But this one seemed worth it imho.  

Btw, what the heck is this Ichiban Kuji prize thing?  I see references to it being some sort of lottery for prizes, but why would anyone want to enter a lottery for a random prize when you usually only want a specific one?  And they seem to be for sale individually, which makes the whole lottery thing make even less sense.

Is this a protoculture thing that I just can't seem to wrap my giant, Zentradi brain around?

I did the lottery thing once while in Tokyo. It was for a Sheryl figure that had 3 slight color variants. Paid 6k yen, drew a ticket, and got one of them. Luckily I got the color I wanted on the first try. The figures themselves aren't for sale at normal retail shops. Have to get them secondhand from places like Mandarake.

If I recall, there are different prices for different prize levels as it would be hella lame to pay 6k yen and get one of the cheap 100 yen prizes.

As for why Bandai does this... well, making things available for a limited time usually boosts sales. Ask McDonald's about the McRib to find out more! 

Did you get the Sheryl figure that was released alongside that Freyja?

9 hours ago, Convectuoso said:

That looks pretty sweet!

On 5/29/2023 at 9:27 PM, MKT said:

What figure line is that from?