Chronocidal

So.. I got bored a little earlier, and curious about how difficult it might be to do this. Turns out Bandai's general yellow plastic in many of their kits is a pretty good match. This is just two of those big tabs they label sprues with, sandwiched together with cement, then cut and filed to shape. The notch was made by pressing a 1/8th inch drill bit into the plastic and cutting a dent, then filing a channel for the snap to travel. Not a perfect match, but not bad for about an hour's work. Honestly? I think I like it better than the stock one, just for filling out the mount, and not constantly getting knocked out of place. The pivot is horribly sloppy on the normal one.

I think with DHL that might not be wrong. I usually avoid them when possible specifically because they wind up being more expensive for large orders. Think it just comes down to whether a particular shipper is charging by weight, or by volume. Not sure which DHL uses, but when I look at options through HLJ, DHL seems to increase faster than other shippers when I add more items.

Interesting note, but I'm curious what it's useful for. Maybe if they printed them off center? I'm still debating what to do with the piles of extra Skull roundels my fast pack sets came from. Since each set comes with every member, I've got a good dozen spares I could decorate in custom markings. On that note, where's my DYRL CF, Bandai?

Anyone able to get a hold of the MGS Tie Bombers? I've had a pre-order for a pair of those with Amazon for months, and they just up and cancelled them on me. Kind of irritated, I've been waiting on Bandai to make a kit of those, and it seems like they've just completely shelved the franchise at the moment.

Yep, exactly this. Both the Yamato and HMR versions have them painted, and pretty much every source I've seen (at keyframe animation quality, anyhow) generally shows them. Bandai engraved their outlines to look the same size as on the HMR, and then just forgot to color them in. Again, not really a huge deal, they'll be very easy to paint in. Just weird that they missed them, in this singular case where they are twice as prominent.

I'm pretty sure the majority of the orange is painted, including the chest. Judging by plastic translucency, I'm guessing the parts that are molded in orange are the tails, the underside of the backpack, the outer panels of the legs, and the leg strakes. I don't think you have much to worry about for the backpack scratching the chest though? Only because there's really no reason you have to press the tail flap flush against the spine of the aircraft. That flap on mine is actually pretty stiff to move, and it would take a conscious effort to try and rub that panel against the spine. Otherwise, there's no plastic on paint grinding between the backpack and chest, or packs, that I can see.

Happy to report my second copy from AE came with an unbent laser. I immediately removed it, and stuck it in the cubby for the hands and engine petals.

I am... minorly annoyed... I just noticed that they forgot to paint the wingtip lights. Is it too late to cancel my pre-orders now? Really surprising though, considering all the other details. They didn't miss them on the HMR. Maybe the tweak to the mold upset their standard operating procedure enough that it slipped away from them. Not hard to fix really, they're clearly marked, so I might just mask them off and take a metallic gundam marker to them, since it'll bug me now that I noticed it.

First copy from AE just delivered, and she's a real beauty. Glad to finally have this design in this scale. I did notice one interesting thing though, and I'm wondering if this is an actual change, or I'm just imagining things. I know someone pointed out that the arm tabs for fighter mode still were not working to hold the arms up in a review, but unless I'm mistaken, I think they did redesign those tabs. I was concerned a moment that they looked shorter, but I also noticed that they look like they've been given some ribbing for higher friction, and they feel tighter. The arms didn't want to press on them all the way at first, and I needed more force to get them secured, and more force to pull them loose. I have to wonder if this is a specific change for this mold, given how much junk the VE-1 hangs from the arms, but I'm pleasantly surprised how much tighter they feel. Also, one thing I'm really happy to see.. the color matching on this is about the best I think I've ever seen Bandai pull off, and on top of that, the color breakdowns make sense. I took a close look at the tails, and noticed a fleck of tan paint on the trailing edge of one tail (easily scraped off). They actually did the logical thing, and molded the tails in orange, with tan paint for the tips and root edges. I wasn't planning on using those tail clips on the chest plate anyway, but that means that connection will be plastic-on-plastic, with no paint involved. And.. I know this is a minor detail, but I think this one has the most solid canopy lock of any of the DX VF-1s. The canopy clicks closed with a really solid snap. It's just a really satisfying tactile thing. In hand, this one is feeling like the best release of this line so far.

Is it just me, or does every single YF-21 thread eventually circle back to the Omega Pants?

Glad to see someone with this in-hand (though I was practically screaming at the screen at how many times he tried to mount the wing backwards before looking at the box ). Actually a little smaller than I was expecting, but I can't even say that's a bad thing, and I was glad to see it's actually got landing gear. It's funny to me exactly how tiny this original Batwing was. It always seems slightly weird to me when a vehicle like this is actually designed to be made into a toy, and the proportions work out perfectly for an action figure. It's a really nice alternative to getting horribly gonked-up vehicles that have their proportions mangled so they can fit a standard figure.

This situation is so prevalent they should just be mass producing spare lasers and sending them out to anyone who received stock of the 21. Really just stupid on every level. There should have been spares in the box, or they should have been detached in the packaging. Did they just forget how many other releases have had this exact problem?

They should have included an exclusive Jeans Guy figure with that one.

Anything's possible if you don't care about it being permanent or not. Seriously though, the Yamato's legs already just pop off, and I'm sure with the right amount of plastic surgery the Bandai's could easily be mounted on the Yamato's posts. I have to wonder if the images are color-matched though, that looks closer than I would expect the two to look pasted together.

Oof. Given the options, I'm starting to think the best idea is just slapping the Bandai legs on a Yamato and leaving it that way in battroid permanently.