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Bandai 1/72 Scale Transformable Macross Δ Kits


IXTL

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Battroid mode, standing, 360 view:

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For decals I don't think so. I've seen a professional modellist friend of mine make his own decals with appropriate paper and a laser printer. Bandai and Macross aftermarket items can be better robotic hands, photo-etched parts, and other things maybe. I plan to do the paintscheme with an airbrush... It should look better and will be more "permanent", more durable.

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new to these Bandai kits - does "aftermarket" ever come to the rescue with better decals for these?

Samueldecal of Hong Kong made decals for the VF-25F and S kits way back when, and may have done so for the others too - I can't tell because their main site is down, and only their old site (last updated in 2011) and their facebook page are up currently. I haven't seen these decals with my own eyes, but a lot of people use their other products.

They mainly do decals for Gundam kits, typically stuff like replicating the Metal Build, Master Grade or Fix Figuration looks in other scales, like High Grade (which seldom gets decals in the box). I think they also do water decals that replicate the massive RG sticker sheets for people who're fed up with those.

At any rate, it looks like I need to find myself a pair of needle-nose tweezers, because I'm going to need them...

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Did you use sticker or decals? How are they?

I'm using the stickers. The blue horizontal stripe below the cockpit in my photo is the only sticker I've applied so far. Quality seems fine to me, it seems to adhere well enough.

I'm just snapping this kit together as quickly as I can and using a Gundam marker for the panel lines.

I'm not skilled or patient enough to use paint or decals.

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Sweet funky moses, that's a lot of decals/stickers. They've got so many large (badly-printed) panels, the entire thing looks more like a papercraft model than plastic. Seriously, there are so many panel lines printed on the stickers, I don't know how you could even make this look passable without fully panel-lining it.

I don't know.. I've got one ordered so I can slap it together for a quick build, but that might be all I do. The color breakdown on those parts is just nasty, I would have preferred everything in a single color to what they did. The thing's already 90% covered in labels to color it, why not go the last 10%? :p

I'm also dreading the inevitable wing droop, when the hinges on the wings stop holding them level. Might be better to just leave it in battroid, and wait for a Hasegawa kit for fighter mode.

I also wish they'd at least try and put a thigh swivel in these kits. It would be such a huge improvement for gerwalk mode if you didn't have to mimic the v.1 DX VF-25, and detach the legs to get the feet into any kind of stable stance.

Edited by Chronocidal
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I'm using the stickers. The blue horizontal stripe below the cockpit in my photo is the only sticker I've applied so far. Quality seems fine to me, it seems to adhere well enough.

I'm just snapping this kit together as quickly as I can and using a Gundam marker for the panel lines.

I'm not skilled or patient enough to use paint or decals.

ohh not bad looking for a sticker. I may decide to pick this up.

Never worked on a Macross kit but have done a fair share of Gundam models. Keep hearing such bad things about the sticker/decals that I was thinking of not getting it, but so far seeing it fully done makes it really hard to say no.

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Mine arrived today. I will likely do a quick build using the stickers. I ordered a 2nd, and if the first build goes ok, I will paint and decal the 2nd one once it arrives. I gave the sprues a quick glance and it looks to be an improvement over the VF-1S/A kits Bandai put out before the frontier kits. So I have my fingers crossed.

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Eh. The stickers on the -25s are just as good as recent Gundam ones. It would make absolutely zero sense for Bandai to make them otherwise. The decals do suffer from the dot-matrix problem - also known as half-toning - but if you're going to be using the stickers anyway, that's hardly something to worry about. (The problem, at least according to my aforementioned tetsujin post, is that Bandai throws a whole bunch of colors onto the same decal sheet, and so markings that should be solid colors using specific color ink printers instead have to be printed on all-purpose printers which is where the dots come from.)

The problems I see with the kit so far, almost all of them identical to the -25 kits:

- Ugly landing gears, need replacing with F-18 ones.

- Ugly nose gear bay design, too, and entirely inaccurate. I get that this probably makes for an easier and simpler build, but it's a serious design flaw nonetheless. At least on the -25 those doors actually folded downward and you could see them when the gears were extended.

- Bad cockpit design. Should have gone the Hasegawa route and molded the seats and pilots separately. It's not like it would have made the kit substantially more difficult. Because I might want to display my -31 on the runway with canopy open. Speaking of...

- Canopy can't be built open. Boo.

Come on, Bandai. You were already going for full transformation, why not make these small improvements as well? It's not like you don't know how; your DXes are evidence of that.

I'll be snapping mine together, then fiddling around with it for a bit, then more than likely I'll just get rid of it and wait for the Hasegawa version.

EDIT:

I gave the sprues a quick glance and it looks to be an improvement over the VF-1S/A kits Bandai put out before the frontier kits. So I have my fingers crossed.

They released the -1S/A kits way after the Frontier kits, I believe. I think the -25s were 2007ish, during the run of the show, and the -1A/S was like 2013?

Edited by kajnrig
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Yeah, your right on the release dates ( 2013 for the 1A/S and VF-1S), which makes the 1S/1A kits that more pathetic! I was so Frustrated with the Focker 1S I nearly threw it against the wall!

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I don't blame you. Bandai consistently overengineers their kits (hence my trepidation with the -31 kit), which is great for an initial wow factor, but they make for damn terrible models... or even toys, for that matter. The various Hase/Wave kits continue to be better models, and the various DXes/Yamcadia releases continue to be better toys.

EDIT:

A question, somewhat related: I seem to recall the Tamacolle keychain stands with the model kits behind them. Does anyone know if they come with a small stand and/or are otherwise capable of supporting VFs? I know the Figure-rise busts are supposed to be compatible with either Action Base 1 or Action Base 2 (for smaller kits), but I forget if it's the same with the Tamacolle stands. I'm considering picking up the Kaname stand (because Kaname) to pair with my -31J.

Edited by kajnrig
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Sweet funky moses, that's a lot of decals/stickers. They've got so many large (badly-printed) panels, the entire thing looks more like a papercraft model than plastic. Seriously, there are so many panel lines printed on the stickers, I don't know how you could even make this look passable without fully panel-lining it.

I don't know.. I've got one ordered so I can slap it together for a quick build, but that might be all I do. The color breakdown on those parts is just nasty, I would have preferred everything in a single color to what they did. The thing's already 90% covered in labels to color it, why not go the last 10%? :p

I'm also dreading the inevitable wing droop, when the hinges on the wings stop holding them level. Might be better to just leave it in battroid, and wait for a Hasegawa kit for fighter mode.

I also wish they'd at least try and put a thigh swivel in these kits. It would be such a huge improvement for gerwalk mode if you didn't have to mimic the v.1 DX VF-25, and detach the legs to get the feet into any kind of stable stance.

There IS a thigh swivel (yes there is, I'm absolutely positive!!!), check the instructions from 1999.co.jp (Hobby Search) ;-) Which makes leg-spreading possible.

Regarding the paint scheme, basic airbrush skills (+ masking tape) should make it possible to avoid the huge stickers (or decals). But I really appreciate that Bandai provided those huge stickers sheets for those of us who don't wish to acquire (or don't have yet) a basic airbrush setup.

Regarding the wing droop, I won't worry too much, as the external wings are small, shouldn't be too heavy, and thus, shouldn't droop too much. Beides, if you check the instructions, there seems to be some sort of a locking mechanism for the external wings so that they stay in place...

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Did a bit more tonight. Doing a little every night.

Forward fuselage and chestplate done.

That's enough for tonight, now off to watch episode 10 of season 6 of Game of Thrones.

Have to say what little I've done so far locks together well in Fighter mode and no real need to use more than a couple of dabs glue so far.

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Kinda weird to see that that nose cone rotates for Battroid mode. My early impression was that it just folds down. :lol: But it still have that origami-folding-feel-to-it from the YF-30 which is nice. ;)

Though the knee landing gear still feels like an after-thought design. <_<


Forgetting for a second how decal heavy this kit is to look good and proper.. That Super Seigfried looks awesome!

I assume the super parts will be sold stand alone as well and released at the same time?

Yes. It was mentioned a page ago. ^_^

Edited by no3ljm
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Another nuther (speed build review, in the beautiful tongue of Kawamori):

https://youtu.be/Yd_3kJqDfj4

https://youtu.be/CxoCfrqN6RE

https://youtu.be/qFXLwjiuhwc

Edited by Skypoet
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Kinda weird to see that that nose cone rotates for Battroid mode. My early impression was that it just folds down. :lol: But it still have that origami-folding-feel-to-it from the YF-30 which is nice. ;)

Though the knee landing gear still feels like an after-thought design. <_<

Yes. It was mentioned a page ago. ^_^

I actually like the twisty nose design, it's actually a nice way to bend it without leaving the nose to flap around if the connection gets sloppy.

The landing gear though.. there's just no excuse for those in any sense. The front gear doors make no sense at all (are they actually like that in the show?) and the rear ones are seriously just afterthoughts.

Whether the designs are even viable or not as seen in the show, it looks like no one with any actual comprehension of how aircraft work designed the kits... oh right, it's Bandai. :p I'm starting to think Kawamori phoned this one in though, and let Bandai's mecha-monkeys work out the details. I don't think anyone with any sort of engineering degree could ever come up with that design, and be able to keep a straight face.

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1) The front gear doors make no sense at all (are they actually like that in the show?)

2) it looks like no one with any actual comprehension of how aircraft work designed the kits... oh right, it's Bandai. :p

1) No, they are not. (I asked the same thing in the DX thread.)

2) Ding ding ding ding! :D

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Whether the designs are even viable or not as seen in the show, it looks like no one with any actual comprehension of how aircraft work designed the kits... oh right, it's Bandai. :p I'm starting to think Kawamori phoned this one in though, and let Bandai's mecha-monkeys work out the details. I don't think anyone with any sort of engineering degree could ever come up with that design, and be able to keep a straight face.

You mean like aerodynamically it wouldn't work? or you refer to something else?

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You mean like aerodynamically it wouldn't work? or you refer to something else?

There are several videos of successful attempts at making radio-controlled replicas of the VF-1 and SV-52 fly... Aerodynamically it seems to me that the VF-31 would fly.

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You'll notice that they very pointedly haven't shown us whether the modular pod on the super VF-31 is the same as the normal one, or the speaker pack... and that they haven't shown us whether those pods on the back open. Pretty sure they do, given how similar they are to the VF-25 super parts. but they probably have smaller payload.

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