Chronocidal

Yeah, I'm expecting to hear from them any day telling me they have no stock. Paid for my NY orders though, so hopefully they go through soon.

Don't try to understand Bandai's marketing strategy.. that way lies madness, and unexplained production shortages.

That independent pinky is actually an old feature that the VF-0 and 1/48 VF-1 shared.. I don't recall many people actually liking it though.

While I agree Bandai seems to be able to design ankle ball joints better, their ability to design joints that keep their tension consistent in a general sense is still pretty lacking. While my VF-19s' ankles may be on a variable scale of "tight" to "limp noodle," they haven't changed over the time that I've had them. On the other hand, every joint on all of the Bandai valks may start to have the staying power of soggy tissue paper after a year or so, even if the valk never left the box. I've kinda gotten past ankles being an issue though. They might not be great, and I might need to come up with ways to tighten them eventually, but I leave them in fighter mode so much it really hasn't become a problem.

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=33217&p=860058 I honestly could not believe how hard it was to find that topic... the search came up blank for everything I tried, including "VF-0", "reissue", and "droop." The forum search function is just extremely picky in what it thinks matches the criteria you type in.

I think I've shut mine down for various reasons, and I don't think there's really any harm in that, as long as the software isn't trying to send data to it. I usually just make sure the software is closed, and then turn the power off. I've actually thought about this process quite a bit, but more about the cleaning process itself. One recommendation I saw with regards to extrusion printers in general was to soak the metal nozzle head in acetone to clean it out. Heating and extruding would seem to help a little, but that seems like a good way to cook the excess plastic onto the nozzle, which is what mine looks like it has done.

Certain numbers historically get skipped for various reasons. I'd think 26 would since it's a multiple of 13, which always gets ignored. 20 though, I don't know. There was an F-20, so there's no historical reason really.. though there was no real YF-19 (that we know of).

Given how tightly my few prints from Shapeways tended to turn out, I'd lean toward the 0.2 mm on both sides, as long as it doesn't compromise the structure.

Thinking back, I acquired most of my Yamato VF-1s for under $100, even without sales going on. The fast packs bumped that to about $130, which felt reasonable for the amount of detail that was in those packs. But if Bandai tried to do a VF-1, would they follow the same pattern as they have with the VF-25s? That would most likely result in a bare VF-1 with an ugly-as-sin stand for about $120. Then the fast packs would probably come later as a web exclusive, and include all of the missiles, along with hard-pointed wings. I can't speak for anyone else, but I would much rather skip the stand entirely, and get some missiles from the start, because it's highly unlikely I'd ever use an included stand. Neither Arcadia nor Bandai can seem to design a stand I'd ever want to see, let alone make room for, on my shelves. Now.. as far as this YF-19 is concerned, I'll be interested to see how they design the transformation differently, and might buy one just to have one in SMS markings, but I'm not looking forward to the hoops I'll have to jump through to order one.

That's actually one of my concerns about this design.. those bits of shoulder armor really don't look any good at all. I mean.. they're not terrible? But I really hope they can be removed to just leave the normal shoulders. They don't even really look anything like the shoulder covers seen in the movie, which just seems really half-assed of them to do, given they practically own the movie. First impression though, just from the promo shots so far, it looks like they covered the thing in stickers ten ways from Tuesday to put all kinds of "aircraft-ish" markings on it. I don't know how that'll look once it's actually sitting on the gear... especially if they stick to their usual style of landing gear.

See, thing about that is, Bandai is insanely risk-averse, and extremely character-focused. They likely won't even touch the obscure designs, because they don't appeal to the larger viewing audience. It's something of a miracle that we got the YF-25 as a general release. Given how saturated the market has been with VF-1s, I would bet they're itching to release one to cash in on the craze, but they also have to consider trying to compete with how utterly complete the Yamato VF-1 line was. Bandai probably wouldn't even release half of what Yamato did, and the hardcore fans will want matching collections. I wouldn't mind seeing different takes on a few designs, but I don't know what I'd be willing to buy them again.

Indeed, I'm eagerly awaiting more details And anyway, I guess dont take what I said too seriously. All I mean is that it's evident to me how much attention Yamato/Arcadia gives to the little details that aircraft enthusiasts appreciate. But in Bandai's case, it's like they're trying to cater to aircraft fans by imitating Arcadia, without realizing they should be looking directly at the actual source material: actual aircraft references. They are getting better, but it just seems like they're not interested in being accurate, as long as it looks flashy and detailed. Slapping aircraft decals all over every panel and seam on a plane only goes so far before people who know something about aircraft will be going "you're doing it wrong." Bandai does that a lot.

Just because something is incorrect in the original CG doesnt give bandai a pas for copying it wrong Really, I just get the impression that the people they hire to do this stuff have no personal interest or passion for what they do. They aren't hard things to fix, but it's like no one cares enough to speak up about them (or they're actively discouraged from such things, whichh culturally may be entirely true). Thing is, it's like once Bandai does mess something up, they will cling to that error for literally decades, like it's some sort of trademark.

Those slots were actually there on the original VF-0s as well, they just weren't quite as deep/defined.

The "no step" bits would be better if Bandai tried to mimic how they actually go on aircraft, in terms of orientation, and location. They put all those nice markings on the leading edges of the YF-30's wings.. and completely forgot the main control surfaces. They also love sticking them on backwards, upside down, or on the underside of things where no one would be walking to begin with.. I do suppose there's some benefit for zero-G environments, but that can only go so far. The RVF-171 has the "no steps" along the leading edges (top and bottom).. and more "171" logos all along the trailing control surfaces of both sides.

The gunpod issue is directly dependent on the gullet, or lack of it. If they can keep the belly level with the undersides of the arms it'll be no problem, but that will require a massive amount of streamlining underneath, or possibly bulking up and/or lowering the arms themselves. That might have something to do with why the crotch plate is so flat.

There's really not enough room to pull that off if you consider how much stuff is crammed in that leg. I took apart my old Yammie YF-19, and the knee joint, gear bay, and ankle mechanism pretty much met in the middle of the thigh.

The thing I think I'm most curious about.. there's no cutout in the back of the thighs. Every other YF-19/VF-19 I've seen has those cutouts for where the sides of the chest plate sit... except one. That custom blue Supernova schemed Hasegawa kit used a system that let the sides of the chest slide inward to make room for the intakes. The chest there looks too solid to allow for that kind of mechanism, but I'll be interested in seeing how the intakes are kept whole in fighter mode.

One thing that I can say with certainty about this.. for better or for worse, this is a big step for Bandai, because it's the first time they've actually had to translate a non-CGI valk into a toy of this scale. They've had it relatively easy with the VF-25 series, and all the further designs in Frontier, because they're already physically defined by the animation models. This'll be their first really challenging transformation in quite a long time. Whether it turns out well or not, I'll be interested to see another approach to this infamously difficult design.

Really? I've absolutely never felt that way about any Bandai valk.. I transform all my Yamato/Arcadia ones regularly, but hardly touch the Bandai ones. I'm just always paranoid of screwing up the paint, or having them disintegrate in my hands. The VF-25s aren't -too- terrible, but the entire chest/neck system always felt terribly designed to me. The VF-171 is a crime against mecha collectors, and structural engineers. Bandai definitely has a way of making some brilliant innovations, and then blowing them away by pairing them with engineering decisions made by brain-damaged monkeys.

Eh, just as long as I can remove it to make the fighter mode a bit less ungainly, I'm good. Picked up my pair a few minutes ago, only opened one so far, been going over it with a fine-toothed comb. So far, no explosions, but the right knee joint definitely has a hairline fracture forming along a pour-line in the plastic. Bandai just needs to ditch their stupid metallic plastic, and get something that'll not explode. Knee isn't loose at least, but I don't plan on transforming it much. The strain on the knee joints from going between gerwalk and fighter will be sure to destroy it eventually. Black triangles look ok, but there's definitely some bending going on in the pieces, and the lower half of the NUNS triangle looks warped. I'm pretty sure what's going on is that their ham-fisted assembly gorillas have been over-tightening the screws before jamming the pieces over the metal shoulder joint. Loosening that screw relieves some of the pressure, and might keep your pieces intact a little longer. Another thing I'm actually very glad they missed.. they completely forgot to glue one of my shoulder covers together, and they managed to strip out the screw on top of it, so I've got easy access to the entire shoulder, without having to break or stress anything. I might go buy myself a caliper to see about duplicating the parts in CAD for the purposes of making more. The lower triangles, I can't really even begin to tell if they're going to shatter. They're just two pieces of plastic held together by a spring pin, so you have to wonder if any little scratch on the plastic is actually the start of a crack.

Heh.. suddenly, I'm remembering the bit from Forest Gump about "magic legs." I'm planning on doing a thorough investigation into the parts on mine when they arrive, just to look for cracks and such. I might never even attach the dish at all, just so they match my Alto, and make a nice 3-ship group.

I also seem to remember hearing that they got Isamu's original VA back for that clip, and that he was credited for it, but I only remember that discussion happening when the movie came out, and can't read the credits myself to confirm that.

Really? I hope we get a VF-19EF out of this, or possibly an Active.

I'm really hoping that isn't the case... but I mean, Bandai saw how the Arcadia one sold, so they know people will shell out for the design. Question is, are they going to trust addicted fans to buy them again, and produce a lot, or will they play it safe and figure people who bought the Arcadia version won't buy it again? Seems like they should just do a web exclusive and test the waters. They seem so freaking terrified of overproducing in even the slightest amount, I don't know why they don't do that for everything. Would save everyone a lot of stress.