Chronocidal

Maybe Bandai won't chicken out, and actually release the MAX-L and VF-17T.

Hopefully they'll do a little more with it this time, instead of just sticking it against a wall where you can't get any good photos. Or maybe a battroid pose? That would be a lot more interesting to compare with the Yamato one. I wouldn't mind HMRs of all of them either, though.

Shouldn't be that long, looks like Kakizaki has a 10-19 release date, while Max is 10-31. Unless you meant that they both regular releases put up for sale at the same time as TWE items, which I wasn't keeping track of. I was actually hoping to get duplicates of these, just so I can get some extra TV missiles, and those particular tinted canopies.. and having a spare Max for a Q-Rau battle pose is always necessary.

Interesting, it looks like there are multiple color variants as well. I might have to pick up another one to check. Not a huge investment, in any case. I just wish they made a standard F-22A, instead of the YF-22 version.

Yeah, no, I just checked my VF-25F. There's one small nub on the pivot that gives absolutely no friction when rotating the chest plate. They didn't make those same changes to the most recent VF-25 Alto. I do think there were three separate ratchet points on the YF-29 Max though. Will have to wait and see whether they did that with the Michael re-release when I get mine.

As a follow-up, it feels wild to exist in a time when I can order a Bandai DX valk from Amazon, and have it on my doorstep in two days. Good news is, this one has none of the fit and finish issues of my first copy from HLJ. The weird news though.. Did I miss a whole bunch of improvements to the VF-25 base transformation? I ran this through a quick fighter-gerwalk-battroid-fighter cycle, and was incredibly surprised and pleased by the fact that the entire chest transformation is ratcheted now. The chest plate has three distinct detents: one for fighter mode, one for battroid mode, and one that holds it in a solid position to rotate the nose into place under the head. I'm a little blown away by this, because I don't recall this even being part of the recently re-issued Alto VF-25. Have they been making stealth improvements to this mold in between release cycles? Because this was by far the easiest time I've ever had transforming a VF-25-based valk.

Out of curiosity, do the wings on yours tip up towards the tips? I don't know if that was on purpose, or just a molding/warping issue.

I have the Dragon one myself, and it's decent, good fit, but pretty light on details. I know my dad has an Italeri one from the same timeframe, and it definitely was a different mold. You know what's actually wild though? This thing. I've seen at least four or five separate packaging versions of this same toy, all different companies. It's absolutely a toy (in HMR scale, amusingly enough), with simple retractable gear, but it's honestly not a bad little display model. I picked one up in 2003, in Disneyland of all places, for about $6. I keep that one on my desk at work. Also, just looked, looks like the Hobby Boss kit is still available on Amazon for $55.

Screw it, I grabbed a spare. Maybe it'll be less of a lemon than the one I originally got.

Ooh nice! I saw that one pop up on the market long ago, is it still being produced? But yeah, looking like they did markings for a theoretical production model on that one, based in Florida, if I remember my tailcodes correctly. I'm getting to the point where I can appreciate the smaller kits a lot more. I grew up loving 1/48th for all the nice details, but 1/72 is a whole lot easier find room for.

Still waiting on that Hikaru 1A as well.. maybe that'll just come as a bundle as well? One can dream.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they reissue it or a DYRL version at some point. If that happens, the TV version will probably start cropping up all over the secondary market.

Boy oh boy.. minimum effort indeed. At least the box was honest and showed that there's literally no paint on the underside. In fairness, the shape of this one looks more accurate overall. Better contours, more accurate shape on the nacelles, looks like the saucer is a bit thinner, so it might make a better base for upgrades than the old one. Sound effects have a bit of decent variety, even if a couple are kind of odd. Credit for the saucer separation sound, at least. Downsides, yeah, there's no paint at all on the underside (literally the entire bottom of the ship), deflector looks incredibly derpy with that orange paint, the cobra head is butt-ugly, and the plastic around the lights is painfully transparent, and looks horrible in the dark. Stand looks ready to snap from the strain at any moment. Maybe a decent fixer-upper? I don't know. Might pick one up if I find it for the same cost as the original, but it feels kind of like ten steps forward, ten steps back.

I thought kaki was a tan color?

Yeah, Wave uses hilariously large boxes. I got all four of my VF-4 kits in one box. When you say wings "with and without pylons" though, are you saying they molded the pylons onto the wings, or just added slots/holes to mount them? I don't figure they would do something so boneheaded as molding them on, but I've seen dumber things.

I'm mostly just irritated that they screwed up the valk itself with attachment ports all over it for the dumb.. I don't even know what that is. A heart with bat wings? They started doing this back with the second release of the Kairos with the goofy fish attachments. Maybe they still include wings without all the holes? Yeah, ditch the garbage that screws with the valk that way, and I'll be plenty happy to get an HMR-ish Kairos. I could really care less about having the figures, but they do make a nice quick build when I'm bored.

All of this just makes me miss the older pack designs. I was never a real fan of having the boosters so high above the wing on the original VF-31 because it felt off-balance, but there's no denying those packs probably had the most solid attachment of any super pack in the history of the franchise.

Man, Rhino 3D takes me back.. I grew up on that, before I had to move to 3DS Max for the plugins and animation tools for flight sim models. I still miss how useful and intuitive a lot of its UI was, especially allowing transforms like rotations and scales to just snap to an object to give you an exact match. It would probably be a better tool for making printable models as well, but I've made Max work for me, at least most of the time. Blender is truly an entirely different beast, but that model is looking good!

I would say Bandai did prep the HMR VF-0s to use the ghost boosters and weapons.. but considering they just copied the Arcadia mold that never made use of the features, I don't know if I can give them credit.

It's really kind of funny to me that I think the side profile is actually the least of this figure's issues. It really doesn't look bad from that angle, but the proportions fall apart when you turn it, and see how far forward everything is, while the back end just keeps going for miles.

Decided to go back and actually build a cockpit tub for my old Excalibur model (and scale the whole thing up to 1/72 in the process), and been testing the limits of an FDM printer. Now if only there was a way to print transparent parts. Depending on how melting properties compare, I might just try printing a two piece mold, and pressing a heated piece of bubble packaging between them to make one.

Not the Grissom, but they do have the XL Pegasus back in stock, if you're just after an Oberth.

Interesting they went with the custom Walkure schemes and not the ones in the show, but maybe they're just alternates? And half of them seem to be Kairos-based, which I can't call a bad thing. They actually don't look bad, I might have to grab a couple... I just hope the tops of the fighters aren't screwed up with all the attachment ports for the little animal bits they've started including with these.

Yeah, they are really not very big. They scaled the YF-19 to 1/100 by fighter mode, without taking into account how short that makes it in battroid, and it's tiny compared with the YF-29 version. Still, it's a good size. I still want an HMR pair of those two, but I'll definitely enjoy having a small YF-21 for my desk.

Well now.. let's hope the scale is close enough that people can use that to convert the old transforming 1/72 VF-25 kits.