Chronocidal

Assuming I don't part it out to make a white VF-19S, I might just restripe one of the 19Ss and make it into a Max custom.

What's so funny is that it's literally just causing the nose to point down a few degrees, but it suddenly matches the VF-19 so well. If I ever do get around to making a shapeways mod of this, it'll probably replace the cockpit section and lower fuselage flap entirely. Just need to get stock YF-19 parts to experiment with, since I didn't want to buy another of this mold.

The articulation looks impressive, but I have no idea how they expect to manufacture that in 1/72 and keep the parts from snapping in half if you breathe on them. The 1/72 VF-25s are bad enough, and this is even smaller, and looks extremely intricate. Unless that entire inner framework is metal, I don't know how you'll ever be able to actually transform it without pieces snapping off every direction. Do appreciate that they're actually including all the weapons it seems, even some atmospheric missiles with the fins deployed. FAST packs are definitely wonky though, and way too small. Hope it's not because of weight issues.

I am glad the prices on the VF-19s dropped a little (in part due to the yen climbing back up to 96 per dollar), but they're still on the high end of anything I've gotten. I was really hoping the 19P or 19F would get overproduced like the VF-22s, and wind up on clearance. I seriously would have bought 4 more of them if that happened, let alone the 4 I would have bought if they made a low-vis.

Yep, it's like the Ginsu knife of valks. Just be careful of the trailing edges, they're really really thin, and could probably dent or snap off if they get hit by something at the wrong angle.

Ditto Now the long wait for the super packs begsins.

Ok, so here's pictures of what it looks like so far. Still need to do a lot of filling/sanding/painting before I could call it done, but I think it's a huge improvement to the overall shape of the YF-19. First off.. you know something about this is right, because look what it does to the stance of the plane on the gear. If the plane plane suddenly is lined up near perfectly with the VF-19 when on the wheels, something's working much better. Before, the nose of the YF-19 was way up in the air, but now it's level with the VF-19. Plus, you can tell that even underneath, the profiles aren't that different. The YF-19 is a bit chunkier in the gear area, but that's due to there actually being a lot of extra space around the front gear that the VF-19 doesn't have. Minus that bulk, the profiles are nearly dead-even. I think it's because the front gear well on the YF-19 just isn't as finely tuned, and takes up more room. The gear bay on the VF-19 is much shallower. Here's a close up of the parts I've added so far. It's just a flat plate of plastic held in temporarily to make sure the whole thing lines up, and to get the proper shape I need to cut out of better plastic. Eventually what I'd love to do is rebuild the entire nose section in Shapeways, and fix it to mesh better with the parts. So far, this is a pretty gappy hackjob, but it's effective at what I wanted it to do. As far as transformation goes, it's hard to tell if this has any effect at all. Since I added about a millimeter of plastic to the upper edge of the torso, the chest plate doesn't seem to sit as securely as it did before, but that' not saying much. Doing this might have caused some minor alignment issues, but it's nothing that prevents transformation.

So, I started this mod in a moment of frustration about a year ago now. After seeing how much better the nose on the VF-19s looked, I got to thinking maybe I could just make the nose drop. So I started cutting away plastic. In hindsight, I wouldn't have done it on the only YF-19 I have, but sadly that's too late to remedy now. Here's the basis of what I did. Hopefully it's all visible, but that red line is the place I made all the tweaks. If I'd thought it through better before hand, I would have documented everything I did, but it's pretty simple. You cut out a chunk of the lower edge of the forward nose, file down a bit off from where the front of the landing gear is so the chin flap can angle down a bit (tricky to file down with the chin flap attached, but it's easily removed), and remove some plastic from the gray pieces under the nose so you can drop the nose further. Once that's done, you need to make a few pieces to fill in the gaps. Mainly, you need a wedge shaped piece of plastic to fill the gap behind the nose where it rotated, and it needs a slot cut into it for the tab on the back of the nose section. That's all I've gotten so far, but it's holding the nose at a much nicer angle now. I've only tacked down that wedge of plastic with a dab of super glue, so it'll probably pop out fairly easily. I'm hoping to find some tan plastic to better match the YF-19's color, but either way a proper finish to this will probably involve repainting the entire nose section. Been wanting to do that from the start anyway, since the black stripe over the nose section always felt uneven to me. I'll post a comparison pic of the actual plane soon.

Not by a longshot. Most of the Yamato valks are disappearing off the shelves as people speculate about the company going under. Funnily enough, they're still much easier to find than anything Bandai makes. Far as collecting.. I buy what I think looks cool, trying not to duplicate paint schemes unless I really love a mold (mmmm.. VF-19s... )

I'd actually think customizing the P might not be too bad of an ordeal, as long as you keep away from painting the main fuselage. Stripping the red stripes off, and repainting them another color would probably be safe, as would repainting the ankle rings and head/lasers. I'd love to get a set of white S/F shoulder covers to replace the normal ones on the P though. Painting over the yellow plastic on the lower half would probably get ugly from rubbing against the rest of the valk. On the other hand, if you could find something that would actually soak in and stain those parts, I don't think they would look bad black.

I think the only one I actually regret not having is the Virgin Road VF-1D. I didn't buy it at the time because I didn't want to get duplicate paint schemes, and already had M&M VF-1Js, so it felt redundant. In hindsight, I might have picked up a VF-X and Angel Bird though.

Don't let Kicker join you. Even with beer, I'm not sure he would survive the ordeal.

Well, I should clarify.. I prefer the 1/60 Yamato YF-19 in gerwalk, because it hides both the gullet and the goofy hip design. Though, I finally got up the nerve to start filling the gaps on my YF-19 mod... and I think it's actually going to turn out quite well indeed.

I'm not seeing it.. says no record found... and when I search for the actual item, it shows sold out at $426... And actually, I'd argue the YF-19's best mode is gerwalk. It hides all the things people get annoyed with in fighter and battroid.

The non-EX variant has a scheme just like that in red, so you can do Millia's too.

Hard to say. I saw a few of those even up to about $100 on there, but then again, that is ebay for you.

Holy crap, people have gone insane... YF-19's are sitting between $700 and $1000 on ebay for buy-it-now prices. Are we seriously already getting back to the early 90s with the old Takatoku prices again?

That's the YF-21, and Angolz has those still, last I checked (a few minutes ago). I'm still really on the fence about bothering with a YF-19 anymore, but I feel like I should get one in good shape to save, even though I think the shape of it stinks. The newer VF-19 mold is such a quantum leap above it, it's almost painful to think about displaying them together. I know people love it, but shape aside, it's from the VF-0 generation, and has some of the same issues with cruddy plastic.

Well, right at the moment, only things I'm really thinking of picking up is a standard YF-19, and maybe a Virgin Road VF-1D. Anyone sees good YF-19 deals (with fast packs would be great, but not necessary), I'd appreciate any tips.

Wait, seriously? That's rather amazing. Their site has seemed incredibly dead and unresponsive to anyone for the longest time.

Oh, uh, I don't think that site is actually working anymore. Overdrive has been completely dead for years now. Yeah, that news post about the clearance sale is dated from 2010. On the other hand, Angolz has the Gamlin VF-22 for $98 Tempting, but I don't need more VF-22s.

Holy crap dude, that's gonna be big enough to ship yourself in.

I still want to see what those other YF-19 prototypes looked like.

I wonder if the delay for HLJ is that they're more focused on marketing to the US, not so much to other parts of Asia. Usually my HLJ orders arrive in around 3-5 days, assuming I don't order on the weekend. Kind of the reverse for me with HKC, but I can't complain, my 19S shipped out early this morning.