QuinJester

All of the Animated leader figs so far have just seemed so... dull. The designs look great at the smaller scales, but once they scale up, the big smooth expanses of plastic just look .... meh. It's all well and good, I suppose. I've been spending too much money on other stuff and can use even the slightest opportunity to not spend money

That's not the crotch.

And Ideally, Ozma's will come with the FA and Alto's will come with the super pack. I rather just have the normal Ozma's type though.

You know, as I was looking at those pics I had my Nora on my computer desk and that part of the body on the SV-51 turns into the groin, so my brain just sort of spaced

Of course, now my crotch comment has no basis in reality so I just look like some sort of pervy mecha ogler. Oh well. If the shoe fits...

As for fast packs and armor, I'm still torn over how I'm going to get these. For now I have the bog standard versions on pre-order. If armored/FP versions show up with release dates I'll probably drop one of my preorders and get the advanced version for one of the two. I'm still hoping that the fast packs, since they've been consistently shown with the protos from the beginning, will be included with the base units.

There's more Aquarion and Armored Core in Kawamori's designs...

That sculpted detail on the VF-25's crotch looks hawt.

/admires the crotch.

As for the hands, we've seen a bunch of different hands, from fists to blade-fist hands, to gun and knife holding hands. I'm sure Bandai in typical fashion will include a plethora of appropriate hands for the 25. I wont even mind if there isn't a poseable one in there; poseable hands have a nasty tendency to have difficulty holding things, anyway.

Really? Thats interesting. I wonder what specific changes Kawamori requested. Where did you find out about that?

I wonder why he would make any changes. Maybe Alto gets his head blown off too many times and they redesign his VF-25 with a new fatty visor head by the end of the series.

Probably more a case of an artist never being satisfied with his work and revising it at every opportunity.

I just want to know what the story with the fast packs/armored packs for these toys will be.

theres a swich under the wing for the SV-51 so try moving it to lock the wings

I'm quite aware of that. The wing sags. Period, paragraph, the end.

Stickers will be very unlikely on the DX versions; they'll probably be fairly festooned with paint and printing. The models will likely have a mixture of dry transfers and thin stickers instead of waterslides, with maybe a foil sticker or two for the camera visors.

When these things actually enter the finalized, painted stage (these are definitely photoshops of a blank model. There are tells all over the images), they'll look anything but cheap, I'm sure, even though price-wise they're definitely cheap by comparison to the alternatives

With the Zero, SV-51, and now the VF-25, it doesn't seem like Kawamori is a big fan of folding/sliding hands anymore.

Maybe he looks at it from the design standpoint of "it'd be more efficient and faster to transform realistically if the hands were already available". Wouldn't it suck if your RL transforming mecha got something stuck in its gearing and didn't have hands to hold anything?

That was the reasoning for having the head mounted up on the top of the fighter body, wasn't it, supposedly?

My own Nora had slightly wiggly wings, the right side definitely droops a tad in comparison to the left, and her hips aren't exactly the tightest in the world (rawr? No, no, that's definitely not appropriate), but for the most part it's still pretty solidly assembled.

Visually I'd say it's nicer looking than both the Ivanov and the CF, though, fixes or not, simply because it's so different (and it's not an unpleasant difference). How many Magenta fighters will you have in your collection, vs. yet-another-charcoal-grey?

Gah. I'm so conflicted. I want these, but I want them with fast packs and armor. If the fast pack releases are complete sets instead of just add-ons and come later, I wont want to buy the standalones... and yet...

ARGH.

One shouldn't confuse "aesthetic" with "limitation". A lot of the 80's-tastic SOCs are blocky, chunky, and tubby looking, yes. Unfortunately, most of them were also never designed to actually transform in the real world, making a lot of those "chunky" and "simple" designs a nightmare of cleverly designed swinging panels and pivots; unfortunately, humanity doesn't have easy access to morphing plastics that can change size and shape, yet.

Xabungle's crotch is a piece of genius, is just as complex as any moving mechanism on the YF-19 or SV-51, and it's a quarter of the size.

While it's easy to "poo poo" a lot of bandai's SOC and other transforming work simply because its design aesthetic doesn't match the lithe proportions of the F mecha, you shouldn't assume that it means Bandai don't have the engineering and design cojones to make complicated mechanisms, make them small, and make them sturdy.

I'm surprised that so many people seem to be ignoring the obvious point of comparison for this; the LAST DX product Bandai produced, and a Kawamori design, no less.

Aquarion.

Well, if you want to talk about realism with regards to the intakes and whatnot, how about that big, yawning, gap that sits between the front intakes and the rear engines of the 21 when in gerwalk/oh-god-where-are-my-limbs modes.

The 21 too enclosed for my liking; it's a shell with legs and arms hidden inside. It's a radical departure from previous valkyrie designs and while the fighter mode is extremely elegant, I just can't find it in my heart to like it that much. The 19, on the other hand, is a flying brick with wings and a gooseneck. It's beautiful in a brutish, inelegant kind of way.

Definately looking forward to it. But i wonder if those scripted map events would mean the end to randomly generated dungeon levels like the 1st two diablos.

It'll probably be a combination effect, mostly random areas, with certain "set pieces" and "set levels" interspersed for good measure. D2 already had them, with things like the cathedral in the 1st level. Even Nethack, the ultimately complex roguelike had setpiece levels (town, class quest levels, castle, etc...) interspersed with the random areas.

/drools all over himself in anticipation of painted fastpack photos

Oooh, which is stronger, the Force or Spiritia? Would Basara have been able to turn Palpatine from the Dark Side through the power of song?

Who has bigger mechanical breasts, Aphrodite-1 or Myelene's VF-11?

Aphrodite-1, totally.

... oh wait, are we not supposed to actually be having this discussion? Crap.

And they didn't even include it with the 19. I wish they had included more than empty air and some spare canards with the 19...

No, they wont include a stand, I'd imagine. Doing so would be direct competition against their own product as the VF-1 doesn't need a specialized stand like the SV-51 and I presume the 21 did.

although, all this prototype pics look slightly promising, I still don't think Bandai will make a quality Macross model/toy, they seem to be showing, as always lack of interest in developing this properly, example of this, Gandam 00 was halfway through the series and there were already releasing their fugly mechs, and Macross is close to halfway already and all we got are crappy rivet filled unfinished prototype.... Bandai has no love for Macross

Or, you know, they're taking a lot more time and care working on the designs, because a transforming Kawamori design takes a sight more work than knocking out yet another gundam design?

This "Bandai hates Macross" nonsense is mind-boggling.

Transformation wise the 25 looks like it shares more in common with the SV-51 than any other valk, which is pretty neat since the 25 is a cool, if ungainly, looking piece of work. The 25 will be like it's prettier, slimmer, cousin that gets all the attention at parties.

It's seriously a little creepy to think about all the classic resin that has been produced, but never seen. I mean what the hell is happening to it and what is everyone waiting for? I'm beginning to think that nobody builds them they just collect them.

<Eyeballs his stack of unbuilt Five Star Stories resin kits, remembers that he lives in a small apartment 400 miles from his airbrush, and sighs mournfully>

Bandai have said 23cm for the 1/60 DX, but no idea if that is battroid height or fighter length.

The Macross Compendium gives the dimensions of the VF-25 as follows: -

Fighter mode:

Length: 18.72 m

Wingspan (full extended): 15.50 m

Height (without landing gear): 4.03 m

Battroid mode:

Height (with laser guns): 15.59 m

By comparison, the YF-19 dimensions are: -

Fighter mode:

Wing span (fully extended forward): 14.87m [14.89m]

Length overall: 18.62m

Height overall: 3.94m

As you can see the fighter modes of the 2 are very close in overall length, with the VF-25 being just 10cm (approx 4") longer than the YF-19.

Graham

From what I've been reading, 23cm would be the height of the battroid mode, though that's probably not including the head lasers (in the past, specced heights on bandai figs is usually the the top of the head, ignoring horns/shoulder pauldrons/back ridges/whatever), which would mean scale 13.8m for the head without lasers, which sounds about right. The head lasers on the vf-25 are pretty tall.

Overall, it should be about the size of the YF-19, maybe a tad shorter than the 19 in battroid mode.

Either way, it should be a decently big bird, even if it's a little shorter than expected, and the fast packs should really push it over the edge.

Can't wait to see armor packs for Ozma's 25! Hopefully Bandai wont deny us all the fixin's there!

okay dude you're twisting my arms so i'll take it... Is it for sale....

Er, you know, that thought had never even crossed my mind? I'm still not even finished with it at the moment . Got caught up with real life work. I wouldn't even begin to know what to charge for it, but if you want to start throwing numbers at me, be my guest.

I'm having trouble getting TFA Starscream's chest plate to align properly/snugly with the back section when transforming back to fighter plane mode. There always seems to be a gap. But I noticed in some of the pics here that's not the case. Am I mis-transforming something?? Any help?

Thanks in advance.

You probably just need to fiddle with the orientation of his hips a bit. If the hips are clicked a little too far down and the knees not totally compressed, the legs will pull downward on the back of the jet mode and create a gap. Futz around with the leg orientation in fighter mode and you'll probably fix snugness issue.

Starscream has a pretty decent Gerwalk mode. Although in this photo it looks a bit like he's presenting himself to Nora...

So far I've been quite satisfied with the simplicity and aesthetic appeal of the Animated figs I've picked up. Lugnut is the current leader for me, as his transformation is so smooth and intuitive. Prime is fun too, once you figure out the correct way to line up his waist for the spin gimmick to reset properly into alt-mode.

wooo, what are they? SRW?

Yeah, they're from Super Robot Wars, a Horse/Rider pair. The Horse (Pferd) transforms into a robot (Aussenseiter),

Not the SOC, but this is what they look like. Aussenseiter is the one on the right.

If one were to believe the animation vs. the given stats, the VF-11 would look awfully similar in size to the YF-21. 'Bout the same wingspan, too.

It'd be nice to have it closer to the 19/21's size, just for appearance's sake, but regardless I'll probably be picking up an 11, QC issues willing. I love its look and combined departure and adherence to the general VF transformation style. Hopefully it has nicely implemented (and non-floppy) wing flaps too, as they're shown in definite use in the OVA/Movie.

okay, maybe it`s just me but why do the hands look solid?surely Bandai has mastered posable fingers better then Yamato or Takaratomy have?

Bandai is the king of including 10000 sets of hands with their releases. A completely different set of hands was shown with last prototype; we'll probably get a set of poseable hands like MG hands/Yamato chickenclaws, a set of fists, a set of open hands, at least one gun-holding hand, and probably a few stylized open hands.

Those fastpacks look hot. It'll be nice if each release comes with them, instead of them being separate releases.