Lolicon

My non-canon VF-27. After the herculean effort of the Armored VF-25S, I decided to take it easy and just lazily stick this one together. Finished in one month instead of four. Took a lot of shortcuts and cut a lot of corners. The pics with the flash more accurately show how the red appears in person. I figured dark red is more intimidating than bright lavender... Model doesn't have enough range of motion to replicate the super dynamic poses seen in the anime.

I'm having a difficult time getting the crotch lock tab in place on the VF-27. Anyone else have trouble with it or am I just doing it wrong? I'm wary of snapping the thing off.

LOL! The Grace pic nearly made me spit my drink out.

The underside of the nose around the landing gear doors is blue in the anime.

Yay I'm not the only one who doesn't want to see the VF-27 on an SMS stand, model or toy.

Yeah, I recommend simply trimming the white parts of the decal and applying them separately and just painting the maroon stripe in. Sadly I don't have the proper paint available to fix it right now; something to do later I guess. The front "toe" decals that cover the black stripes are too widely spaced. I simply cut them in half and applied them separately. The purple stripe and green sensor on the thighs are a single large decal. Hard to tell if they're spaced perfectly because of the irregular surface, but cutting them apart would probably make it tons easier to apply. I wish Bandai would actually include properly sized decals for their own models.

Just an FYI the shoulder markings on the VF-27 are done with one big U-shaped decal that doesn't fit. I found out the hard way and now the right shoulder looks kinda screwed up. I got it to go on better on the left shoulder with enough fidgeting, but the decal is simply too small for the shoulder. More corner cutting from Bandai!

Hey Jarrod or anyone else who's worked on the VF-27 kit, did you guys notice that the panel lines (apart from the wings) seem a lot more shallow than the VF-25 kits? I'm having a harder time getting a wash to fill in the lines. Of course it could just be that the paint I'm using managed to partially fill in the lines (the high gloss doesn't help)... I can't actually remember what the bare plastic was like.

Whoa those shoulders look perfect! What color gundam marker did you use on those?

Whether or not it was ever established as canon onscreen, it's just damn foolish to build an aircraft without landing gear.

Too slow. Others have already filled me on on the differences in the GFF line. I made my statement because I thought the original poster was referring to the 1/144 GFF line. But if you insist... How is the 1/100 scale VF-19 a "completely different product targeted to different buyers" versus the crappy VF100 line? Same scale, more or less the same price point, one release not even a year after the start of the previous line, by the same company. Your comparison with the old Takatokus is specious. The 1/55 chunkies were made in the early 80s by a completely different and now defunct company. So it's nonsense to compare them to the current Yamato line. How does that many any sense at all?

I'm trying to cut down on my figure purchases. This doesn't help!

My remark about substandard to better products refers to both franchises (it didn't seem to come across in my post). On the fence on whether or not to pick one up. Though if a YF-19 is really in the works, I'd rather wait for that!

I like the color. It like Brera's unit got a haircut.

EDIT: Double post. Stupid DSL. EDIT 2: Fair enough. So Bandai's MO is to release a substandard product so they can release a better version later. That's only slightly better.

Just would like to add that I have the GFF Zeta and it's a POS. It's detailed, but that's all it has going for it. Parts fall off if you look at it the wrong way, and the parts themselves lack the precise molding required for something that transforms. In other words, it's supposed to transform, but can't really because all the parts are so warped and ill-fitting. And it's not even very poseable. I have a lot of other GFFs besides that, and crisp molding and parts that fit properly are not their forte. The VF-19 looks to be far and away superior than the GFF line.

It'll be even more ironic if Bandai releases a VF100* version VF-25 that surpasses their bigger, more expensive, super ugly DX. *EDIT: A Hi-Metal VF100, that is.

So, um, did anyone pick up the NA Sheryl release? http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10097989

Newest figure added; temporary stand-in for Ranka.

Wow1 What a beauty! I might have to reevaluate my stance on flat finishes for mecha models. What custom decals did you use?

Why does eveyone forget that Kawamori never intended for Macross to be a serious war story? Where did this myth that the original Macross is some kind of serious, mature war story and all its sequels are kiddy fluff come from? And why would an adult sci-fi fan dislike the Quarter? Hey did you know the Yamato looks like an ocean-going vessel from World War II? Guess what many sci-fi fans love Space Cruiser Yamato (or its English bastardization Starblazers). A lot of sci-fi fans also love Gundam, and there's way more unrealistic stuff in that. I'm an adult sci-fi fan and I love the Quarter, despite and because of its completely impractical design. It's also not practical to build a gigantic space station the size of a moon, especially with an open exhaust port that some nutcase could drop a torpedo down. Any race that can actually build such a thing would be so advanced that they wouldn't need to. Sorry, there I go again into "serious" sci-fi mode.

Damn I'm impressed with the skill and patience you've had with these mediocre decals. I would've lost patience and just tossed them and painted some of those sections. Up close the dithering pattern is pretty awful, even with the naked eye. Still I really like the finish you have there. I like having that kind of finish on anime mecha, instead of just a plain old flat finish.

They look like generic SMS pilots with rounded helmets. Ranka looks like she's been hitting the gym a lot. The DX pilot figures look 100x better.

I like how they used a pic of the 1/72 model with the hip bars swung upwards to make it look like the jacked up leg placement of the DX.

Quarter arrived today. Finally, Bandai releases a Frontier toy that isn't sub-par! Lots of others have talked about it and posted pics, so I'll just post a quick couple of pics with the Quarter's illustrious predecessor.