Chronocidal

The history of the mod I made is a ways back in the old YF-19 thread, but the short version is I made a new wing bracket that mounts solidly in the wing gloves, and completely removes the high speed mode in favor of a simple rotation point.  Takes some minor disassembly, and depends partly on how well Arcadia glued the parts.  I had to really dig at the screw covers on my original release, but they just popped out with no effort on the PF version.

Fortunately, I didn't use Shapeways to make this particular part, and the service I used is still in service.

They don't offer the parts in metal anymore, but the pair of POM brackets I installed in a second YF-19 are still holding up.  They just take a little bit of filing along the long edge to make them fit against the legs.  I still need to go and update the pattern I made for the metal ones to work with POM, since they needed an extra margin added for the plastic that would be burned away by the laser.

Parts seem like they're still available here, but I haven't ordered any since my original batch.

https://www.sculpteo.com/en/print/pom-wing-mount/ii6HRFai?basket=1&noclickredirect=1&uuid=89QWzZybWQJU9fpl8eHUub

I think my biggest gripe with both is the dumb wing hinges, which I was able to just replace on the Arcadia, but Bandai's... everything is just too hard to disassemble.  Feet on the DX would be better if they stuck with the VF-19 Advance design, but I do find myself waffling back and forth on which I prefer.

Arcadia's is leaps and bounds easier to transform though, it's actually kind of a pleasant process by comparison.  

I'm not sure thy could pull off an 89 Batwing without some massive weirdness to use the wings, but that old F-19 concept would make a solid platform for a transformer, just because it's such a solid brick of a plane with not much wing to get in the way.  

Granted, it might wind up needing some Sv-262 style plastic origami to transform into a chunky robot of any sort, but I am surprised we've never really seen that one.

On the other hand, I'm actually disappointed we didn't see them pull out an X-30 Conquest crossover during all of the GI Joe releases.  All they really had to do was repaint this one.

Hah.. not going to go buying bootleg bricks, but I wouldn't mind grabbing a scan of the instructions to examine.  

I think at this point, I'm less interested in more "canon" Legioss designs, and more in new interpretations like we saw with the new Tread artwork from a while back.  Sentinel pretty well nailed it, and while I wouldn't mind seeing an even bigger version, I have no idea whether it would be affordable.

I'd just be interested in seeing what a more aircraft-focused approach would give us.  I'm not going to say I've worked out how any of the transformation would work, or what the proportions would look like, but I'd be interested to see if anyone could make something along these lines work at all.

Would this actually work?  I'm thinking not very well, since it would lose a lot of the chunky charm of the original.  The arms might work, if the whole lower arm shrouded the upper like an extended VF-1 elbow.  The wings would probably need to be much smaller to start with though, and collapse in other ways. 

I would just be interested to see if anyone could come up with something that makes it look more like an aircraft, and less like an almost SD/Joke Machine-esque design, even in canon.  Maybe even if just the cockpit was shrunken down somewhat?  It just looks cartoonishly huge.

Never had too much of an issue with the tails on either the DX or ThreeZero versions, but the gear are an ever-present point of silliness.  

Biggest issues I have with the ThreeZero are just that the arms sag so low in fighter that they plant the gunpod on the ground, and that it doesn't have any transforming hands that can hold the gunpod, which is something even the HMR VF-1s have.  The amount of paint and panel lining is a "concern," but I won't say it doesn't look good.

It's just in this weird middle category right between all of the other releases.

I think the real fun with this one would be adapting the parts to the older VF-25 kits to make a transforming version, but I wouldn't expect this one to have a fully-molded head, or the arm or leg packs to be able to attach them.

12 hours ago, MechTech said:

@Big s Thanks! You are absolutely right! People are SO distracted these days!

EVERYONE! I thought you guys might like this. It's expandable sleeved tubing, or on models, meshed tubing. Perfect for details and builds. It comes in various thicknesses, the smallest being 1/8" or 3mm. It can expand to about 1/4" or more. The photo below shows my example over a mechanical pencil. It costs about .20 cents a foot and you have to buy at least ten feet, so about $2.00 - what a deal! Much cheaper than modeling accessories and you get WAY more! It comes in four colors. I should have gotten white, but didn't see a need for it. This stuff is awesome for mecha detailing and engine detailing.

This tube is perfect with contrasting colored wire or tubing underneath it to add detail and depth. US Plastics sells it along with styrene sheets (and tons of other cool stuff) if you want them LARGE! They also trim the sheets down for a fee. Just thought I'd share this cool stuff!

https://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=133515&catid=1051

Working on the 1/35th Dougram hands now. I cut pieces for the finger joints and test fit with paracord for the core, but will substitute it with coiled springs. A copper wire core will make it posable. You can see the original fist has little detail in it. No other hand options either, so that why I'm making it new hands.

 

 

Thanks for checking in guys! - MT

Really nice idea, I've used that cord for some other purposes in much larger diameters.  Really handy to have, though it tends to shred if you don't melt it or coat it on the ends.

Only question I'd have is whether you intend to make a solid fingertip cap for each finger, or use the wire in some way.

5 minutes ago, Bolt said:

I can't imagine any improvements to Yamato's 1/60 VF-11 design . It was a great toy. 

Shape-wise, no, it's pretty ideal, but the joints in the elbows, knees, and feet could have used a few modern improvements that came from Yamato's later designs, and it could always use bigger tails and rear landing gear, and maybe a more solid cockpit mechanism.

Nice!  Glad you finally have one.  Wish they would have released an update with the booster packs, but just having the updated version is a good upgrade from the first release.

I would actually be really curious to see how Bandai would approach the VF-11 in general, but I'd mostly be concerned they'd pull a Bandai, and decide "they made it this way, so we can't copy them," and change things just to be unique, without any consideration for actually making it better.

They can absolutely improve posability, but I don't think they'll be able to improve much of the transformation or general shape of it.  Maybe better sized tails, and maybe better rear landing gear (which sounds hilarious for Bandai to make landing gear better), but there's really not much to improve from the Yamato design.

I don't think they're going to redo the YF-21 that quickly.  The VF-25 was an exception, because it was their design, headlining their own series.  The YF-21 is a lesser entry from thirty years ago, and took them an exceedingly long time to develop.

Bandai has a very nasty habit of taking the absolutely wrong lessons from all of the mistakes they make.  Why is no one buying the Hayate VF-31?  Could it be that the market is saturated with his from multiple releases, and they should sell the other ones that are showing more demand on auction sites?  Naaaahhh.. they just don't want any more 31s at all.

Should they redesign the YF-21?  No, that would go against Bandai's absolute certainty that they know better than Kawamori how the design was intended to work.  To correct it would be admitting fault.  Nah, that can't be the case.. clearly there's just no demand for the YF-21 at all.  It has nothing to do with people being disappointed in Bandai's design choices.

I think their YF-19 isn't too bad, I don't mind setting that one out on the gear.  It's not great, but I can appreciate the fact that the extra collapsing joint in the nose gear let them give it a waist joint, even if the gear bay looks hilariously undersized.

The baffling thing about the YF-21's gear though?  Bandai just completely misunderstood the entire reason you would rotate the gear at all.  Instead of laying the tires flat to fit into the wing, they rotated them a full 180, made them tiny, and stored them vertically anyhow.  Just.. insert Jackie Chan image here.

The funnier thing to me.. if they hadn't undersized them so badly, they could have actually had room for the gunpods.  The belly isn't so big they couldn't have gotten the clearance for the guns, if they had just stretched the gear a bit further, and pushed out the wing joints a bit further.  Or maybe if they had recessed the guns further into the panels?

It just feels like such a weird beast.. in a vacuum where the Yamato never existed, I think a lot of the issues with the design lessen.  The longer I look at it without looking at the comparisons, the better it seems.  It's chunky, but not un-aerodynamically so.  It's thick, but still looks like it could probably fly (mostly by pure thrust from those massive engines).

I actually feel like an update to the VF-22 standard would be a pretty big improvement, since it would ditch the belly packs and guns entirely, giving us "gunpods" built into the belly, and those should have plenty of clearance.  

For how much they cared about the actual YF-21 design in the first place, I don't even expect them to change anything about the base valk design at all, except maybe leaving out the fast packs entirely.

If they were actually making some sort of effort, they should redo the cockpit to give the pilot some actual controls (and the seat is removable, so it's not like that would be hard), but I'm keeping my expectations at absolute zero.

I'm not sure how well received it's been overall, so I'm kind of just expecting Bandai to quietly let the mold die, and maybe take another stab at the design in another ten years or something.

If this one drops as low as the Max YF-29 did on Amazon, that would be worth picking up just on principle.

Glad to hear this one came out alright!

Now you can basically recreate all three modes it was seen in.. spaceflight, tent-mode, and crashed into the dirt.  

Though I do have to say, the tails look conspicuously normal in that pic.. I almost wish I'd gotten a broken one so I wouldn't feel so bad about disassembling it to use different tails.

Also.. funny, it looks like the VT-1 does have an airbrake in the normal place.  Makes me wonder.. Did Bandai just copy the features from the Yamato 1/48, but skip the brake on the VT-1 because they didn't have anyone to copy this time?  

Back up on HLJ at the moment, if you don't want to wait for Amazon to pick it up, though I can't say for certain whether the price will come out better, unless you're planning to ship it with other items.

https://www.hlj.com/hi-metal-r-vf-4-lightning-iii-flash-back-2012-banc666758

Still fun seeing them again, it gets tough as the thread approaches a thousand pages.  

Also a nice reminder/reference for what parts of the valk are made of different materials.

I was wondering if you were going to add more to the review page for it.   Still looking forward to that, but take your time.  It's been a very busy year.

27 minutes ago, kkx said:

Side Seven finally sent my order and I just got it today.

 

There is no paper tent?

It's in the instructions, Bandai expects you to photocopy it rather than cutting up the instructions, and makes sure to say so (in Japanese, of course).

There are places with the pattern in PDF format to download, and I believe Anymoon.com has it in the DX VF-1 review page segment about the VT-1.

2 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

There you go.  

Now, I'm looking forward to your kitbashed Hikaru Super VF-1A. If you're planning on doing it. 

Hah, I don't know if I'll get that adventurous with it.  So far the only non-reversible change I've made is to repaint a Hikaru figure as Roy, and that's only because I don't need the extra figures for both of my VT-1s.

I haven't looked at the shape of the fuselage to make sure it works, but I think it should work to just snap the 1A head on a 1S and put stickers over the arrows, so I might do that, but I'm not going to be scraping off numbers and replacing them with decals any time soon.  I'm still hopeful we'll get an actual release, but even if we only get a Max 1S, I'll probably call the squad good.

7 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

You know what, I'm already in the same boat as you where I'm already thinking of just buying a DX DYRL Kaki VF-1A, get the head and slap a red sticker or paint on the arrows and ignore the modex number on the plane to have a decent DX Hikaru Super VF-1A, I would call it a day.

Now, if only DX DYRL Kaki VF-1A is soooo affordable. 

You make a good point.. I've got enough assorted copies of each of the releases so far to cobble together a Hikaru 1A between his 1S and a spare Kakizaki (the cockpit donor for my Roy DYRL kitbash).

They even gave us the decals to fix the tails.  

Really though, spare military numbering and lettering decals should be easy to come by, and it would probably be fairly trivial to actually fix all of the numbers as well, so long as you have the rest of the painted red parts from Hikaru's plane.

18 minutes ago, Froy said:

So far TV releases and DYRL have some different tampo markings. They would need to strip some off. 

I don't even care about the tampo, I prefer the TV version in general.. just give us both heads, both pilots, and a swappable cockpit console.

Considering the VF-11s were fair shelf-warmers even before exports were a thing, I think they're perfectly justified in not expecting to get much of a return on the investment.

The VF-11 is simple enough, I'd be happy to just be able to buy a kit like they made for the VF-1.

1 hour ago, Shawn said:

Just give me a TV CF and I'll be happy until the bank account recovers. And just include the stupid missiles like they are doing on the upcoming Tamashi Nations VF-1J
Just include them already.

I'm hoping the fact that they're packing them in for once means they'll introduce a new packaging layout that leaves room for them going forward.

Otherwise, I kind of would have loved to see them paint the DX missiles to the same level as the HMRs.  I'm not entirely sure I really want them with the red fin sections, but they would at least add something more than the black stripe.