Jump to content

Chronocidal

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    10822

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Chronocidal

  1. Chronocidal
    FedEx went faster than even they expected, mine got dropped off this morning on my doorstep. Probably won't watch until the weekend though, too much other stuff to do this week.
  2. Chronocidal
    Just be glad they learned (some, at least) from the early v.1 DX VF-25 releases. Michael's valk had the entire lower half of each wing section and the entire gear doors molded in blue paint, and then painted over with white, because they didn't break out the molds correctly to allow them in separate colors. Sadly, the Renewals didn't even escape this entirely.. Michael's was fine, but for some mind-boggling reason, they molded the lower halves of Ozma's wing sections on a different mold than all of the other pieces molded in that color, and then painted over them... and the results were not great. If the wings weren't covered by the armor anyhow, they'd be rather ugly.
  3. Chronocidal
    Honestly, I'm just happy they're actually doing bundles.. after.. oh, what's it been now, over ten years? Seriously. I paid for my first Alto DX renewal in July of 2011, and the packs were released something like a year later. Everyone wanted bundles from the start, but noooooo, gotta make everything web exclusive to let the scalpers milk the market for over a decade before kicking all the people who've been overpaying for all that time squarely in the cajones. I'm not personally salty about this, because I jumped through the hoops to get in on group buys for the super and armor packs for both Alto and Ozma, but to change course now just makes me want to slap them. Won't stop me from at least attempting to pick up both an Alto and Ozma bundle, of course. I just hope they follow through and at least do both Alto and Ozma so all the people who picked up later runs of Ozma can finally get an MSRP armor set for him.
  4. Chronocidal
    This is the part that baffles me. There's been no limitation on them doubling up on the 1/72 kits to this point, which either means the licensing got screwy, or Bandai intentionally handicapped themselves into making a worse product... because let's face it, going to 1/100 is making one of the most complex valk transformations just that much more difficult. You can see from the parts photos that they've already crippled the painting process by molding half of the pilot into the cockpit. Even their 1/100 VF-25 and VF-29 non-transforming kits didn't go that far. It's bad enough painting a 1/100 pilot (and let's face it, this is Bandai, so it's actually more like 1/120, because they have no sense of scale for pilot figures), but now you have to paint the pilot's arms and lower torso already molded into the seat and consoles. Edit: Actually scratch the entire full transformation gimmick idea, you can see from the parts trees that it has to parts-swap the torso. They molded everything from the nose sensors inside the nosecone back to the full spine as a single piece. I guess I never really had that much hope, but no, they can't do a perfect transformation at this scale. I guess all they wanted to do was make a modern take on their old 3-mode Macross 7 kits.
  5. Chronocidal
    I'm... torn. I wouldn't mind getting another pack set, as well as an excuse to get one in a matte finish. Hmmmmm.
  6. Chronocidal
    Don't know why they felt the need to go 1/100.. and not match anything else they've made in the past ten years. Seriously, I've had easier times unscrambling gordian spaghetti code than trying to comprehend Bandai's thought processes. This does look like a completely modern mold though, judging by all the color breaks and what we can see of the assembly in that mold picture. I'm just really wondering if they're going to even try and do a perfect transformation, or just give up and parts swap the torso.
  7. Chronocidal
    I'm still irritated that Bandai never made any transforming kits of these. Given the issues with the DX, I'm not really surprised they didn't.. who knows how they could have made that work.
  8. Chronocidal
    Yeah, though I think that's something they never would have done on purpose in the original F-14A. That thrust differential is how you go two-for-two with shoving your RIO through the canopy.
  9. Chronocidal
    Can't really call it hunting, this is just a crazy awesome coincidence. It's actually a classic MacrossWorld tradition for someone to acquire the early prototypes for a new valk toy. I'm happy to see that's still potentially possible with Bandai.
  10. Chronocidal
    Quite possible, I never considered that they were numbers, it looked like someone making initials, or Japanese characters. I think it's fairly clear that D3 is the Figure King interview copy, but that display may be of two others.
  11. Chronocidal
    I had to
  12. Chronocidal
    Yeah, nothing to say for sure about the second one, but that first one is a dead ringer for all of the details you've pointed out. I would be really interested in finding out where the red-lettering on the flaps came from though. Odds are they fell out, and were swapped with another copy, but I don't remember anyone using red to begin with.
  13. Chronocidal
    Yeah, I was thinking this will be much harder to prove. I'm wondering if those two had their parts swapped in and out over time, because the battroid display one has a white heat shield still, and the chest marking was on the fighter display with the fogged canopy. That stress mark does look like a good match though. Interesting about the molten plastic, I'm thinking more work with a soldering iron, just pressed flat into the back of them, probably like a brand to keep track of them.
  14. Chronocidal
    Hah, it could, I actually just wondered if it might be someone's initials. It does look more like a "D", but I always wondered if it was the Hiragana for "Riro."
  15. Chronocidal
    I love the concept of that one, but boy does it ever have some of the weirdest design decisions.. Always preferred the first "Fand" or whatever that was called, since it looked like some sort of advanced F-16 evolution. It would have been amazing if they just hadn't made the cockpit do this.
  16. Chronocidal
    So, further proof, and I'm surprised you didn't see it. There's a weird scrawled gash in the upper left of the chest that looks like it was melted with a hot pen or something. It's less clear in the store display photos, but you can make out some weirdness that looks similar in that area of the fighter-mode display. I specifically remember that mark being called out when the early production photos were circulated, because people complained about it, and someone replied that it looked like a mark to specifically distinguish it as a pre-production article. I'm pretty sure you have this valk, right here, which was used in the early promo videos. The other details of that sample match up as well, including the nub of plastic at the top edge of the intakes. You can't see the missing paint or the frosted canopy, because they're covered up in that battroid display. Link to the original post in the announcement thread is here. Only thing that doesn't quite match up is the markings on the wing flaps, so I wonder if those were swapped out at some point.
  17. Chronocidal
    I really haven't paid close attention to anything since 2019, honestly. All I remember was what looked like an awesome trailer, and then hearing the story was going to have nothing to do with anything shown in the trailer.
  18. Chronocidal
    I think the worst part of this was the bold-faced bait-and-switch routine they pulled, advertising the entire thing with a pure OT X-Wing and flightsuit vibe, only to pull the rug out from under it and go, "Oh yeah, no, this is after the new movies." Yeah, screw you dipwads. You had the golden goose in your hands, and you dissected it to throw the entrails in the fanbase's face.
  19. Chronocidal
    I can honestly say that the quality varies widely between Bandai's own kits as well. The VF-25 kits were messes, no locking mechanisms, and they were missing some absolutely essential joints for posing (no hip swivel at all). The VF-31 kits improved on that.. but then the landing gear were garbage, and various snap on parts just did not stay on. I think their SV-262 is probably the best of the bunch. I've built.. I think 8 of them now? They're far more posable, and much easier to transform than the DX versions. Still a bit fragile, and some swappable parts, but they have always felt a step or two above the other transforming kits. (And let's just not talk about the VF-1.. that needs to remain buried. )
  20. Chronocidal
    Considering how Hasegawa put out a 1/48th YF-19 kit a long time ago now.. and has yet to even touch the YF-21 again? I feel like, despite him being more of a secondary main-character/anti-hero in Plus, Guld fell into the unwanted villain mecha trope, and no one wants to bother with him. Maybe the demand for it just isn't there. Considering how many times Arcadia has reissued their YF-19, and has yet to touch the YF-21, I'm thinking they just can't justify the gamble.
  21. Chronocidal
    This. I know lots of people love the better legs, but it feels like that's the only thing they actually got right.
  22. Chronocidal
    You know, I'm not sure if it's been obvious for forever, and I never saw it, but I just recently realized that the pattern of the plugsuit shoulder pads is.. basically an angel's face.
  23. Chronocidal
    Not something I'd be horribly invested in, but could be amusing. The latter half of the trailer went more into fantasy, but the first half had me thinking of something I suddenly desperately want to see: A fairytale princess version of "The Money Pit." I want to see a fairy godmother handle this:
  24. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    I don't even care about the super parts, I just want them to re-release the original Kairos. That entire release was just such a cluster... Really though, it's sad, they just pretty much abandoned a successful product line. Not like they don't have a history of it, of course.
  25. Chronocidal
    Bandai somehow managed to screw up their molds between the normal 31s and the AX releases. The tabs don't fit. Only real solution is to file them down smaller until they seat properly.
×
×
  • Create New...