Chronocidal

Yeah, I'm not expecting anything even remotely "good." I mean, just from the concept. You're mashing up a line of robots that transform into vehicles.. with a vehicle that transforms into a robot. There is nothing to "mash-up" about this. The thing you're combining it with is the thing it already is. "For my next trick, I'll turn this Swiss army knife into a screwdriver!" The only "good" way to do this would be to re-style an existing Fire Valk toy with Transformers aesthetics and maybe a head mold. Otherwise you just suffer the curse of the standard TF jetformer: a robot glued underneath an airplane.

I don't really mind having extras of this scheme, it just opens up alternate display options. I just wish Bandai would.. you know.. They have teased exactly how many versions that we have seen nothing of since the original tease? Seriously. Just finish a line for once, Bandai. I might even forgive you for abandoning Delta if you just give me the rest of DYRL Skull Squad, M&Ms, and finally give us a brownie VF-1A.

I think the only thing that bugs me about it being just a custom VF-1 is the upper intakes being red, which is completely an "I'm 6 years old, I have a marker, and I'm not afraid to use it" sort of detail. I did convince myself to get both versions, so I might take each in the opposite direction. Clean up one to look like a normal VF-1 (very minimal), and tweak the other to be fully Jetfire.

Yeah, screw you too, Bandai. Should have had the missiles from the start.

I mean, I would say these are mushy by design, because Bandai doesn't understand gravity and material properties, but that's maybe too cynical? But no, if by "mushy" you mean that the arms just pop back off, yeah, that's how they're designed. Same for the legs to some extent. Nothing ever locks together on the DX VF-1, it just fits "mostly snugly" and you pray it doesn't squeeze itself out of place over time. If you're careful with a nail file, you can help this a little by sanding down just the base of the tabs. They behave as if they're tapered smaller at the tips, so you basically have to invert that taper, and make them narrower at the base. That way, the mushiness will work in your favor, and the natural "squeeze" direction will actually keep the arms in place better. I only did this a tiny bit on the VT-1 to get my arms to stay in place better, and only on one copy that was especially mushy. Also, keep in mind, this is Bandai we're talking about. The sloppiness is by design. No, I'm not kidding. The "properly seated" position for the legs and arms with the fast packs installed is NOT fully pressed onto those pegs. That's why they're sloppy. They left wiggle room because, for some reason, they're just incapable of making arms, legs, and fast packs that lock into a solidly defined position. I really wish I was kidding, but you can see for yourself when you mount the leg packs. With the leg packs mounted, it is physically impossible for the legs to fully seat on the pegs, because they collide with the underside of the backplate. The slop is completely on purpose, because if the tabs locked solidly like the Yamato version, the leg packs would never snap in place with the packs mounted.

That is absolutely a work of art, bravo! And I'm guessing that joint is a magnetic ratchet? That's a really nice way to get smooth motion, and solid positions without having gears and teeth that can wear down over time.

Generally complete vehicles, with varying amounts of detail and parts. I think the simpler one was the model I got to print an Arwing from Starfox 64, and I actually simplified it and shrunk it down to make an easier to display model, since the intended size had a two-foot wingspan, a full cockpit, and even mechanically linked swing wings. I closed the cockpit, and turned the wings into simple pinned hinges. I might make the bigger one later, but it's a shelf hog. The higher end file is one intended to print a 1/12 scale X-Wing for use with displaying the larger scale figures. Now, I have no intention of making one that big, but the model is beautifully designed, with a lot of very logical parts separation, and some good mechanization for the wings. I know I'll lose some detail, but my intent is to print out a studio scale version at 1/24.

I'm not enough of a transformers fan to recognize shapes in general, but I was kind of wondering what character they would even use for such a crossover. The first thought I had was something like one of the sound bots (and now that I think of it, Blaster does use the same colors), but I'm mostly wondering if they would go ahead and base him on a decepticon for more jet options. The other idea was that they could just retool/repaint Armada Starscream into a VF-11, since it's more than halfway there already. I think it's safe to say that whatever they actually do, it's not going to look much like a fire valk in jet mode.

I'm not even going to pretend for a moment that this will wind up looking good in fighter mode, but I could see them having fun with the name. JetFire Prime?

Nice! And I can't say I've ever tried chalk myself, but I think I've heard it mentioned here (or possibly other modeling sites) as an option for making different tints of weathering if you plan on clear-coating afterward. If I'm wrong, I hope someone here will correct me before someone makes a messy mistake though.

Yeeesh, what even is that? That's definitely huge. I think at that scale, you're going to need more subtle weathering like pre-shading and airbrushing to do it justice, but that's a project and a half. If you're sticking to really simple and low-cost, maybe some chalk or colored pencil rubbings would bring out things a bit more. I would suggest graphite, but I worry that would get very messy quickly, and colored pencils would give you a little more variety of shades.

I can't speak for how well they're advertised, but I've picked up a couple of very high quality CAD models for printing myself. Whether the work put into them can be effectively represented by the prices they'll sell for in that format is up for debate though, as most of the ones I've picked up have been in the $20-$50 range, depending on details and options involved. Granted, it's much easier for digital models to just be pirated, so there's always risk involved there of having the model spread out of your control. No digital asset of this nature can be reasonably secured to the point that someone can't just email someone else the files, and going beyond that would require much more complex and expensive licensing systems for their use. The real benefit though? Having the files to make your own prints means you aren't limited by the intended scale. You'll have to make adjustments obviously, but if you have the know-how, you can easily resize and edit completed models to make something more customized to your liking. It's completely understandable why folks who design these wouldn't want to be sharing their work in that manner. I just wish there was an easier way for these Experten kits to be distributed beyond conventions, and especially beyond single-digit production runs.

I wonder if Bandai is releasing this now as a way to gauge whether there's enough interest to re-release Keith's for the wider market.

I'm starting to think one of the worst aspects of Delta as a whole is that the massive pile of characters, and resulting popularity contest amongst the fandom, pretty much nuked the chances of getting a lot of the better variants from the beginning.

What's kind of amusing in a way, specifically about the decals... Anyone who started building Bandai's Macross kits with the 1/72 Frontier line remembers how terrible the decals were. I don't remember seeing those ever improve, for any of the general releases. I have to wonder if all of the negative feedback those garnered drove them to not include them in the first place, since they really aren't good for anything but the garbage bin. I'll be curious to see if the ones in this generation of kits have ever actually hit a passable quality standard.

Thanks for the details, though that tail gap is weird. Are you sure the tails don't slide inward to close it up? That's been the mechanism for pretty much every VF-1 in recent memory.

Edited for emphasis, and this is the best part of the first movie. I liked the series up until they nuked the planet, and they took the plot with it. The movie trims the bloated plot down to something that almost makes sense, because it just bypasses a bunch of the unexplained/nonsensical bits completely (including the nonexistent triangle, which is especially ironic considering the name of the series), and completely avoids a bunch of payoff-less setups that made the entire series feel like dangling thread spaghetti. That's not to say it fixes the second one though.. it had its moments, but that one just felt so freaking weird, and I don't think I even want to understand the ending. Far as this release is concerned.. it's weird how good and bad it is simultaneously. The 262 is such a bizarre product. It's a beautiful and unique design, but such an overengineered mess of flippy folding bits. I still would buy the heck out of a Ba variant, but after building several of the transforming models, I'm mostly convinced that Bandai can't figure out how to make that head design into a playable feature. It's a fragile mess of tiny panels on ball-jointed armatures that is prone to shed parts freqently and violently. Far as this one is concerned, considering the market for Keith's, I expect this one to either be extremely easy to pick up on the secondary market, or insanely rare because no one is going to order them. I'm frankly very surprised Bandai is even revisiting this mold at all, and will be interested to see if they improve anything about it.

For how few of these ever seem to get produced, I have to wonder if they'd actually be better off sold as printable CAD models for people to produce themselves. At least then people without access to the conventions would get a chance to appreciate their existence.

Went ahead and ordered one.. I just like the red. Still utterly disappointed Bandai can't be arsed to finish out all of the other lines they've left dangling. No Chuck/Arad super packs from the original series, no Chuck/Arad 31AX from the movie, no Ba (Windermere or Mirage), no Elvis... I think Delta was just so overstuffed with characters they couldn't even support them all with merchandise, the market hit saturation point before they finished, and they just decided to cut production losses.

Up on AE as well, as of a few minutes ago. https://anime-export.com/index.php?product=82987

They doing this one as a webshop exclusive? I don't see how they can really expect it to sell, otherwise.

Eh.. I'm not going to complain about the decals too much, I'll paint most of the details on these anyhow. What does tick me off a bit is how much better this one is than the YF-19. Like seriously, it is so bad by comparison, the VF-19 mold is better in just about every way. Fixes the dumb thick seam on the nosecone by making it a single piece, fixes the stupid gray hip block by covering it entirely with the fighter forward fuselage, fixes the borked-up feet by making them actually fold shut, and even adds an ankle extension in the process. It just makes me want them to redo the YF-19 from scratch and bring it up to snuff, it just looks bad by comparison. I think they tried to do a little too much with the YF-19 mold, making some of the details on the fuselage molded in color, and the shape suffered for it. The gullet is definitely bigger on the Fire Valk, but it's still a streamlined shape, and it's a much better alternative to the naked hip block on the YF-19. But yeah, looking at the parts breakdown, this kit is clearly prepped for a quick turn-around to produce the other VF-19 variants. Already includes the gunpod, shoulders are prepped for the VF-19P shoulder fins, and the sprue groupings are such that they can just swap a couple in and out for the other heads and wing shapes. Hopefully the Emerald Force versions will be a little cheaper due to the lack of the sound booster, because I'm going to want to buy a small fleet of these. Though this just makes me realize.. do we even have any regular fighter mode VF-19 kits? I wish Hasegawa would tackle some of these at some point.

Was that the reason they cut out the blood in some scenes? That seems like such a stupid excuse, especially considering how that game was such a let-down compared with the better systems we got in Macross 30.

Finally got to dig into a copy of this kit, and Bandai is well on their way to producing the VF-19F/S/P, it includes the normal gunpod, as well as a couple of trees copied directly from the YF-19 version. Some will probably wind up as P-Bandai exclusives like the VF-22s, but boy, if we get a P model I will struggle not to go bananas with custom schemes. I have wanted a white 19F with black stripes from the Master File ever since that book came out. I might try and get a spare tree of the feet so I can get usable heels for the YF-19, since these actually fold properly. Could maybe scratchbuild, print, or recast them as well, but the molding precision on these kits is so high, that would be pretty difficult.

Judging by the notes on where it's coming from, I'm not sure this will actually exist at all. I'm okay with the normal one I think though, I'll happily toss the subtitled version in the fancy case from the previous blu-ray release.