physioguy

I've been meaning to do these customs ages ago, but have been busy with a new family and new business. Anyways, here they are: Low Viz 19, Stealth 11B & VF-22! I should have posted a comparison pic with the 21, so you could see the different shade of blue used for the 22.

Just picked one up (the Millia version), and it's a great toy. I have a question about the central cockpit hatch, though. It doesn't click into the closed position, or snap shut in any way. Is it supposed to be this way? Just wondering. Thanks.

You have to play with the side shoulder hatches, shifting and rotating them so they sit "just right", and then the central hatch fits snug, but no click.

Very interesting find solscud, I love threads like these, its not often that we get a glimpse into the history of the chunkies.

If Kawamori designed the transformation for the 1/55, then he is a freaking genius, it was one of my favorite toys as a child via Jetfire, and one of my favorite toys now. I wonder if he designed the original Diaclone Acrobat F-15, which later became Starscream. If thats the case, its no surprise that he was called in by Takara to design both MP Starscream and THS-01 Convoy.

Coincidentally enough, the Energon Shockwave from 2004 had a head that was very reminiscent of the VF-1J Takatoku sculpt.

1/60 = 10 pcs.

1/48 = 2 pcs.

my two 1/48s are custom jobs

What materials did you use to make this?

The cellphone and the green creature were made from scratch (super sculpey), while all the other parts were just me repainting various Pinky Street doll parts. (Yes, go figure, I'm 32 years old, married, have a son, and I collect Macross toys and a few Pinky Street figures?!?). The hair was a bit of kitbashing though.

Here is my latest custom Ranka Pinky Street doll, and I decided to make a binch of accessories too, like her phone and the little green creature that chases her around. I even went so far as to make the "boob" buns she embarassingly served one episode.

Enjoy

I was going to post my own custom Ranka Pinky Street doll, but I guess I should do that i another thread.

Love the Zeros Where'd you get the SMS decal/stickers? It'd be nice to have Ozma's skull decal on the heat shield as well. Hmmmm..... (looks at his own Bunny Squadron 0A)

I downloaded an image, touched it up, then printed it on sticker paper. If you print up the attached image here, just buy adhsive paper to print it up on and then cut them out with an exacto or scalpel.

Here are pics of my latest 3 customs.

The VF-1S Stealth is from a few months back, but I just touched up some of the small details. The VF-0A and the Rau are new. I tried to make the Rau head like the heads from Frontier.

Just got a review of the YF-19 up on my site. I was fairly impressed with the GNU but I think it prices itself out of the international buyer's realm. Here's a nifty scale comparison for everyone though:

Visit www.anymoon.com for the review. I'll be putting up a Revoltech review and then pitting them against each other soon(ish).

I remember waaay back when I just heard rumblings of a toy company planning on making a YF-19 toy in 1/72 scale. I was sooo excited, and now your pic reminds me that they (Yamato) has made 4 of the 5 toys you modelled, and the only one I don't really care for is the original 1/72 that I was so excited about early on!

I was just digging through old pictures as I'm in the process of selling many of my non-macross toys on ebay, and I found this one of my on Aquarion figure from Bandai. He's long since been sold, but he was great, very well made, and I think the new Bandai Macross Frontier toys will fit in just fine with the Yamato 1/60s.

Don't get me wrong

I'm happy to buy the ones I want, and I can happily afford it. I only have a few years left on the mortgage, and my new clinic is going well. I don't own or play video games, I don't own my dream sports car, I don't blow my money at the clubs (anymore). I just think it's funny that even once i sell all my other toys, limiting myself to just some of my favorite items, thinking I'm being responsible, and when I sit back and add it up...

...it's still almost $2,000 (depressing and funny, but trust me, I'm sooo happy we are in this golden age for macross fans!)

I should have put in my original title.

Its coming along nicely...

But am I the only one who feels that the visor is huge?

Also I guess this might just be an odd angle but is either the cod piece is too low or the legs too high?

Heres a picture I photoshopped a few changes with the visor and cod piece. Looks closer to the official art imo.

I guess its not a huge deal but itll be nice for them to tweak the details. It doesnt seem like something that'll be that hard to change... but then again, I'm not positive on the transformation works so I guess the cod/leg thing might be difficult. Who knows...

The mods you did are great! It would be tough to modify the crotch piece on the final toy, but changing the visor size makes it look waaaay better. I'm sure (hope) Kawamori changed the same things.

I've been collecting toys for awhile now, and over the years I've sold a lot of my stuff on ebay, about 75% of my collection. Now the only non-macross toys I have are some old Diaclones, Binaltech, and my Masterpiece Convoy (Kawamori, so kinda Macross). I've even sold off all my extra Macross toys so I only have 1 of each model of valk (ie: the 0S, 51, 19 & 21) and my airbrushed 1/48 GBP-1J. I did all this so I could afford new Yamato Macross toys.

With the new releases coming out, I got to thinking about all the upcoming 1/60 scale toys I would get if Yamato makes them, and I figure it would cost at least $1,700.00 (more than my first car), plus the monster, which I couldn't even imagine the cost (but I would still get it)

The following is what I would get if they made them, because I'm soo partial to the original series:

And even though only the 1S and Tomahawk are confirmed, there is little doubt that would at least make the other small destroids and all the valks on my list, so I'll be spending at least half of my projected cost (not even incluing the monster)

Well perhaps those who peddle into piracy are the underpaid factory worker for these toys.

Great point!

I know it's a minor point, but I think this toy would look sooo much better if just the antennae weren't so far apart. I believe that's the main thing that makes this toy look not so well designed, even though the engineering behind it is fantastic.

Details guys, details.

joints are pretty tight. They are just ball and socket joints, but because the plastic is hard I don't expect them to get sloppy.

My only GN-U complaint is no stands. And sure, they are pricey, but just like the bigger Yammies, They are awesome toys. The cost has been our collective issue with all Yamato's stuff, but we keep buying them.

The Audi R8 is around 150,00 dollars, crazy expensive, but if I had the money...

Here's the famous pair with a few panel lines added. And please, if you do panel line them, don't go crazy and make them too wide or dark. I sue a grey gundam marker, and then a toothpick immediately after to wipe the excess away.

Here's a challenge to fans of revoltech:

Pick a pose that your revoltech toy can do and post a pic of it. And then see if graham can replicate that motion on the GNU.

This will determine if comments like "oh it's too rigid looking" have any basis in fact or it's just a myth just because revoltechs were just better-presented in a pic from the person spending time trying to pose it.

Many times I have seen toys just not posed well and it affects people's impression of that toy because time wasn't spent trying to make it look right. I can make my bandai 1/65 chunky munky vf-17 look pretty good if I put in the effort. But majority of the time when you look at a pic of it, it's just in the neutral standing pose because that's what the person likes to leave it in. Not that it can't do better poses, just that time and effort wasn't put into it.

One of the things I was drawn to with the banpresto valks, is although they are POS in holding together well they seem to have great poseablity. Crouching, rising and lowering of shoulders, A stances, one-leg bent for stability stances, etc all thanks to the ball joints. But when you look at it standing upright in the box, you wouldn't think much of that and wouldn't be able to appreciate unless you spent time trying to pose it a lot.

totally agree!

If you pose them well, even chunky monkeys, more people tend to like them, but when some suit tries to pose a transformable toy for a trade show, I honestly think they reduce their sales. That's why Akihabara is great. Every shop spends time posing their toys in display cases, and it sells products.

I'm just finsihing some fine panel lines and detailing on my GN-Us and I'lll post them all well posed later.

Nice customs physioguy! What's that VF-11 you have in the pic of 3 M+ valkyries?

Bandai 1/144 VF-11 from the Macross7 line of plastic models. Matched well with the 21 and 19, but alas, I sold all those too.

I've sold all my 1/48 except 2 custom jobs (displayed here), and I've decided to keep 1 pair of each version of the VF in the 1/60 line. It's the only way I can still afford this hobby!

I listed the VF-1J only:

http://cgi.ebay.com/CUSTOM-Macross-25th-An...1QQcmdZViewItem

I like the Stealth VF-1S too much.

Thanks. I've always though the VF1S is much darker than the Stealth. If I'm not mistaken, the Stealth is like Midnight Grey and the VF1S is more Blackhole black, I just couldn't confirm it thru the monitor until now.

actually, you are right. the darkest "black" parts on the stealth are not totally black. It's funny though, the extra posed hands that come with the stealth are totally black, but that's the only part.

Nice! Are the blacks for both 1S & 1J the same shade?

nope. semi-gloss on the 25th anniversary one, and flat black and various shades of grey on the stealth.