Chronocidal

20 minutes ago, grogall said:

But the the VF-1D is also marked VT 1023 in the TV series as well 🤪

 

That "1023" doesn't quite make sense either though, since the 3 gets dropped in every other appearance of the plane, and from the comm traffic.

Oh, that is interesting.

Call me satisfied then, I'm curious where the 607 came from as well.

Just now, 505thAirborne said:

Anyone else notice that the VT-1 has a TV style cockpit control stick & HUD. 

Yeah, a bit ago.  I expect they kitbashed the display model out of VF-1D parts.

15 minutes ago, Actar said:

Turning up the brightness/contrast, you can see that it's rather thick, especially with the FAST Pack.

Yeah, I did notice that, although a significant amount of that chonk is the stand.  The packs themselves look hilariously thick to the point that I probably would never mount them.

1 minute ago, wm cheng said:

Wow, that fighter mode just looks so much better than I was thinking (or from previous photos) - the nose actually looks somewhat in proportion.  Did they come up with a new mould or is it just all camera angles/lenses?

I think the more natural angles help it, but it's also completely hiding the badonk behind it.  I think it's going to have both good and bad angles.  I want to see unhindered side and top views.

Yeah, there is no helping those arms, they are jus noodles.  I don't understand anything about what their goal was for those.

At least they don't show in fighter mode.  

Don't know if anyone's mentioned this one, but it randomly popped on me today.  Interesting compromises in both vehicle modes, but still impressive overall.

3 minutes ago, MKT said:

Yeah Fighter actually looks very nice at this angle. Not so much Battroid though, that right knee is at a very weird angle. Pretty sure whoever posed it accidentally activated the Gerwalk joint there.

I'm really not sure what is going on there, the thing doesn't look like it has a gerwalk joint so much as having two separate knees with a big mid-section between them.

Ok, I do want to say it looks at least slightly better with a competent pose.. but those arms and legs look really weird.  

Fighter actually looks mostly decent from that angle, though.  I'm.. cautiously optimistic?  I don't know.  It's a really weird beast.

Yeah, those Sound Force figures are not even trying to transform.

The Fire Valk is just a shrunken Yamato mold though, it's almost identical in proportion and detail.

Excited to see the Ghost though, hopefully that won't be too hard to pick up.

Man.. wish they'd show the jet without the stupid gremlins mounted, but I can at least see the tail mounting holes aren't too obnoxious.. and it's funny they included plugs for the undersides of the wings to match the markings.

Actually looks really good though, I might be suckered into buying a set, just because.

Maybe weird, but I actually think the folding drone base is one of the coolest parts of the kit.  

Edit: Aaaand there's my pair of VB-6s from HLJ

33 minutes ago, grogall said:

I for one hope they do something about the number, 102 was already used for the VF-1D, so hopefully this is just a prototype mistake...

That is a good point, I wonder how that got missed.. well, no I don't, they probably copied from the VF-1D

Though, honestly, I don't think it detracts from the design that much?  Maybe that's hypocritical after all my rage about the reversed modexes on the VF-1s, but it's at least consistent.

Also.. holy cow, Hikaru isn't a midget in this one!  And yeah, they are probably using a bunch of VF-1D parts for the mockup, since it's got the TV instrument panel and HUD.

They definitely look like the shorter tails, but they've never bugged me, because I never display the VT-1 with them deployed anyhow.  

Looks amazing, and kind of vaguely hoping it'll be a web exclusive so I can just buy a couple and be done.

1 hour ago, MKT said:

Super Ostrich is next. Yesss! 

YES.  SO MUCH YES.

That is gorgeous, and I need at least two.  Day is made!

I see they did add some extra tampo.. but those pack markings don't look too gaudy or clashing, so I think I'll give them a pass..  This time  

7 hours ago, jenius said:

Sigh... Such an easy thing for them to fix but they ignore it.

What, and admit they were wrong about something that someone else did better 15 years ago?  

It occurs to me you could easily fix all four of those stupid pegs fairly easily, or at least the arms.  Just notch out part of the thickness of the tab at the base so you have a tooth, and then slide the arms forward or back to lock it.

Or, you know, just make the tabs big enough to actually provide enough friction, you pisswaffles.  

17 minutes ago, grogall said:

I also think that they wanted to do this from the get go, but didn't have the engineering figured out at the beginning, hence them gluing the first release... I'm sure from now on all ValK's will feature (Mechanical Edition) Gimmick. 

Engineering-schmengineering.  They didn't do it because they either fouled up the production and the assembly monkeys got glue everywhere, or they couldn't be arsed to spend the extra money to paint the internals.  There was never anything stopping them they couldn't have easily overcome if they wanted to.

2 minutes ago, MKT said:

Bit of a short downer that the prototype Kakizaki colors were better lol. 

Watch Bandai announce new HMR to be the VF-19 Kai on this coming weekend's live-stream.  

I'd be entirely on board with that if they announce a mini-Arcadia YF-19 and YF-21 for next year.

21 minutes ago, ScrambledValkyrie said:

I believe the 1A space was specifically for Kakizaki. And they did the TV version of the GBP within the last year.

The GBP was one of the earliest releases they did though, it's been around for years.  They just did a re-release recently to match the white plastic and canopy they used for the Hikaru 1S release.

Honestly, for a self-made canopy, even the last two or three would be plenty shiny for me, that's fantastic that you can make them so clean.

My biggest concern would be how brittle they are, since my few experiences with printed resin canopies have all been extremely fragile, and would never have survived any level of polishing.

Has anything even changed on that in the past several years?  I can't read it, but I'm guessing the A-model on there was a combo space for Max and Kakizaki?

I'm hoping for more than one, they've been completely ignoring the VF-1 for a stupid long time.

Watch it just be more Delta-related merch.

Kind of.. two minds about that?

Like first.. WTF?

Second, I could see it being a hilarious pile of memery, kind of in the vein of the LEGO Batman movie.  Could be entertaining.  The art.. "style" is kind of painful though.

11 minutes ago, protostar8 said:

So the colors are identical (markings too) to the earlier releases?  For some reason I was thinking the earlier ones had extra markings b/c they were the "VF-19 Advance" movie version or something?

There have been two Bandai "YF-19" releases so far.  The first was when they used the cameo in the second Frontier movie a a licensing excuse to release the VF-19 Advance.  The second release was a minor re-tool of that release to give it the details and markings (cough) of the Macross Plus YF-19.

The VF-19 Advance had entirely different markings, because it was serving with SMS, and came with the updated boosters and add-on packs seen in the movie.

The YF-19 "Full Set" release saw them pull out all the stops, including every weapon and armor part Arcadia included in its YF-19 set, plus a fold booster and a transforming version of the heavy weapons pack seen used in Macross Plus for about ten seconds.  They also slathered it in extra tampo prints that someone (probably Tenjin) thought looked nice and realistic, but many thought went overboard.  I'm okay with most of them, but feel like the giant wing prints are just ugly and out of place.

The new release is going to be a gutted version of the "Full Set" release, with basically no weapons or armor parts added, and costing... about the same?  I don't know how that's going to work out.  Depending on exchange rates and vendor mark-ups, it may even cost more than the original.

What's actually the most interesting thing about that image is that it looks so close to the original Yamato 1/72.  That was from before I started collecting, so I never had one, but I want to say that gives me at least a little hope for the overall proportions?  I still want to see planform views of it to compare without warped perspectives playing a role, but even matching that well makes me wonder.

6 hours ago, Big s said:

I tend to start with the face in the flesh color and then use either a darker flesh or black as a wash to outline the eyes. I then just get a little bit of flat white in there and draw the pupil with a mechanical pencil or color pencil depending on eye color. After everything is basically colored in I use a gloss coat to add some shine and protect it in case I want to do a little wash for lining eyelashes. You can also do a little tiny spot dab of white on the top corner to give an anime style light glare effect.

At 1/72 scale, I think at that point you're literally working in individual molecules of paint.