Taylor_VFA122

Scratch that, I just figured it out. Did you do a wash to do the panel lines?

I was really excited to build this thing and then lost all motivation when i started reading more and more stories about the stickers and such, and to make it worse, I don't have an air brush. I saw a build of someone's YF-29 and they used the stickers that came with it and I was mortified.

Kyp what exactly did you paint on yours from what you didn't?

Kyp, did you paint the head of the robot or did you use the stickers that came with it? actually did you use them at all?

I've been putting off building mine in favor of something more practical. I have a Tamiya 1:32 F-14A Tomcat I've been thinking about starting, but also time and money have been an issue the last few weeks, and space. 1:32 is a pretty big scale, and 1:32 of a plane that's already huge to begin with will take up a ton of room.

As for the VF-25 I like it, but I'm starting not to like this kit that much. Looking at it and looking at what others have done with it to make it look right seems to be too much of a pain in the @ss to want to deal with. It takes a lot to make this kit look good and at that point it would probably be easier to make it look good in a larger scale.

Mine will be here today. I will start on it immediately, lol. I doubt I'm going to paint the pilot, the 1/72 Ozma pilot was bad enough, IMO. Going to also paint the canopy frame, I have a feeling that's going to be a pain in the ass, though, but it has to be done. I can't stand to leave that unpainted.

-Kyp

Canopy frame and pilot are a must. Are you going with a custom color scheme or are you going to do an OOB on it? I'm still going to do the Gilliam thing as I found a pic of a 25 done up that way without the striping on the head of the Battroid and it looks awesome. I also found a really cool custom 1/72 done up with the color scheme of an F/A-18 fighter wing. We'll see.

Oh, by the way, more head stripe weirdness. The one Alto crash lands near the SDF on Gallia IV? No headstripe there either. Just randomly watched that scene the other day and noticed it.

Seems like the stripes tend to be missing if you get a lot of close-up shots of fighter/gerwalk, but never in battroid.

I just watched that episode last night and didn't catch it. I've noticed two things about this stripe thing. It tends to only happen when the plane has its fast pack on. Weird. I'm still likely only to do this kit in the way it shows up in promo shots, minus the stripes because thats how I first saw the thing. Also because I don't really like Alto as a character. I think he's a bit weak. I was always partial to Michel (or Mikhail, or Michael, or how many other variations to his name there are), whom I have a 5" miniature version of his plane already. I just didnt want to spend 21 usd plus shipping on the Alto version when the vf-25g was significantly cheaper. We'll see how this kit goes, hopefully I don't ruin it. Its been a while since I've built anything.

Extremely fast shipping from HLJ. I just got my kit today!

I'm hoping mine will be here by this Saturday, otherwise, it won't be coming in till after the 4th. Has anyone here built one yet?

-Kyp

We should have an assembly race to see who finishes theirs first!

In all seriousness though I've only seen pics of this kit built once by someone on a PLAMO blog. I think the builder is a member here actually, but at the mo the user name escapes me. Are you going to go with a custom finish or anything?

the long wait for this kit to arrive . . .

Battroid mode for this thing looks great its a shame that Fighter mode is so fugly looking. I hope its cool in the movie.

HAHA! I knew I was't seeing things!

sorry, simple things excite me lol

Anyway as I said before there are a few pics, mostly promo pics that I've seen for magazines and such that have floated around here a few years back of the VF-25 without the head stripes. There's also pics in the Wallpaper section of this forum, screen caps rather, of Gilliam's fighter missing the stripes. I like the look of it that way.

Everyone seems to have accepted that as canon, but I'm pretty sure it was just an animation goof. Why? Because when Alto bails on his VF-25 in the last episode, it's also missing the head stripes.

EDIT: Either that or the last episode was goofed. Either way, someone made a mistake. (Doesn't matter to me really, just noting it.)

I dunno man there's quite a few screen caps and its not there. One of which is when his VF-25 is banking in to go after the VAJRA that busts into the Frontier's city center. You get a big full shot of the top of the plane and it has no markings on the robot's head. Also I have early promo shots of the VF-25F that have no markings on it as well. I kind of like it that way though. So that's what I'll likely do.

No, No, No... definitely not. Most decals are spot colour printed - meaning that they have solid colours representing the true colours that the design intends to be. Well, most reputable companies like Hasegawa, Tamiya or Cartograph. Screen printing whereby using a limited pallet of colours in dots/screening to simulate other colours is just a cheap way to give you the likeness of other colours without the true expense of paying for those inks to be printed. It's the difference between a photographic coffee table book and a colour photo in a newspaper! It just underscores to me that Bandai doesn't really pay that much attention to Macross models - if you look that closely, a whole world of problems open up! Just my humble opinion ;-) Did I mention how much I hate their MF decals?!

WM Cheng thanks for shedding some light. I was kind of hoping you'd post in here sooner or later. I just read your build of the 1/72 scale Alto Custom. Fantastic job with that. I think if I get this kit I'll do a Gilliam-type, which is basically the same as the Alto type minus the paint on the head of the robot.

I remember a while back there being such a thread. Does anyone else recall this and know how to find it?

honestly I think that particular graphic has the spotty look on purpose. I'm looking at the decals and stickers that came with the original VF-25F kit as well as the original set of Sheryl itasha decals and neither of them have that dotted look from any reasonable viewing distance. (If you look at them under a magnifying glass or take a picture of the decal with a macro lens then yes, you can see the dots but with the naked eye you're not going to notice it.)

:edit:

of course this is with them still on the backing paper, not actually applied to the model. It could change when you apply them but I doubt it.

:edit: :edit:

It just occurred to me that I bought both my VF-25F kits and those decals when they first came out in 2008, and I still haven't built either of them. I haven't even taken the parts/decals out of their individual bags.

that sucks

Since you own this kit are the stickers as bad as they're being made out to be? Would you recommend it? I was going to get the bigger transformable kit, but in all reality it was going to stay in fighter mode anyway.

Well, not by definition. Screen printing just describes the process used to put pigment onto the decal carrier film. I think that's the main way mass-produced decals are made. But short-run or home-made decals can also be done on a printer.

Ahh gotcha! Excuse the ignorance guys I never knew the terminology when it came to these things. I've also been away from the modelling world for a while

aren't most decals screen printed? I mean thats what a water-slide decal is isn't it

I may end up cancelling this order for now and wait until someone else on here buys one and posts a build of it. If the stickers are anything like a Gundam kit, it'll be a nightmare. Especially since I don't have adequate space to use an air brush.

so I was lucky enough to speak to someone who built this kit and he told me he didn't bother with the stickers at all for this thing. He just painted everything. He said also that getting the stickers on what would be the top of the battroid's head would have been far too difficult. He also did some modding. He opened the vents above the intakes up, did a bit of panel lining, and lastly he split the feet apart, and inside he stuffed some really cool blue-ish/purple LED's in the legs to simulate afterburner. Its very nicely done for sure.

I wonder how you get the red stripe over that nub that sits a top the vf-25f's head, or was that part omitted from this kit?

Hit or miss with HLJ. Sometimes they ship fairly quickly, sometimes it takes forever. I guess it depends on how many people bother showing up to work there.

When I ordered my YF-29 kits, they sat in the the "Preparing for Shipment" stage for 9 days. And they were "in stock" items.

You are correct, sir. I held out hope that maybe the stuff would be caustic enough to melt those stickers, but then again if it was that strong it'd probably just melt the plastic too.

I did discover something that is effective at getting the stickers to conform to the surface: a toothpick!

Just how bad are these stickers? I haven't built a gundam kit in a long time and I thought from what I was looking at on another page that these were wet transfer decals. Am I wrong in assuming this?

I ordered this kit from HLJ.com about two days ago. I remember them having faster order processing. Has it normally been taking three days to do this?

Is this a snap together kit or do you have to glue it? judging from the pictures posted it looks like it just gets snapped together, but the description at HLJ.com says it requires cement. Can anyone shed some light?

Thank you thank you thank you for making me fall in love with the VF-2SS. I have Macross II on VHS and I bought it from Suncoast when I was 12 years old while down in Florida visiting my grandparents. I'm now back in Florida and reading this thread has brought back so many memories thanks again. Awesome build

Seeing stuff like this makes me wish I was a kid again. Nice job. Third pic in reminds me of the launch tubes in BSG and the landing decks from the Wing Commander games.