MacrossJunkie

Thanks everyone! Yeah, it's mostly because the legs extend more at the knees and allow more knee movement. Also the ankles come out a bit more and allow for more sideways articulation. Final pics. As usual, click the thumbnail for the for the larger pic. Edit: added a photo from a "ground level" view

The rest of the pics I took. Done with this for now.

Yeah at first I thought that too, but it looks to be plastic or at least a different color white than the landing gear. So I didn't mention it since it could be a separate piece that's potentially moveable.

Finished with my Nora SV-51. Will take more pics tomorrow. Too tired right now. Click the thumbnails for the larger versions.

Is it actually retractable though or do the bay doors open and then you have to peg in or remove the landing gear? The front landing gear actually looks longer than the bay itself.

Yeah, everything is just tighter on the Arcadia version. In addition to what Lolicon said, the panel lines look a lot finer, there isn't an empty gap below the head in fighter mode, the limbs have more range of motion and the shoulders can be angled properly and also stay in place for gerwalk and battroid modes. That said, fighter mode is close enough in look and with some kiki loose joint fixer, it can keep the wings from flopping. The Yamato one also seems to have plastic that can degrade, and crumble or break on its own without even touching it. I and other people have experienced that first hand so also keep that in mind. It's too soon to tell if the Arcadia version would have such an issue, but hopefully not.

Almost done. Some final touches I want to do with it and also have to do the boosters. Sucks though, after I sprayed a clearcoat on, most of my subtle weathering disappeared underneath it, only somewhat visible from certain angles, even on the rocket pods. Trying to photograph it is even harder. Oh well, most of the time, you could barely see the weathering on Nora's SV-51 in the OVA either, so mission failed successfully? I'll likely finish by the weekend and try to take some proper pics. Edit: Some close ups. I wanted to give some hints of underlying metal along with wear on the joints. Taken from my phone and it was hard getting it to focus properly where I wanted it to. Bonus Nora's dirty feet pics 😛

Ah, okay. I wasn't focusing on that part and was just trying to help out on getting the HLJ site to show JPY. I did have the same problem with Paypal though. There was no longer an option to change to pay in JPY and let my credit card company do the conversion. I used to be able to do that. When I saw that, I had backed out and switched to credit card payment instead. Because F Paypal for that BS.

I was responding to Chronocidal about how after changing the payment method to JPY, it was still showing as USD on the site.

This was pointed out in the Ivanov thread for how to get the site to show prices in Yen

Man, I just realized while putting on some decals that this new sheet is of lower quality than the one I had before. On the old one, I didn't have to cut out all these tiny little decals, they were all individual decals. I just cut out a block of decals and dip in water and they slide off. This new one I got is decals printed on single sheet of film where you have to cut and trim out the decals you want to use. I didn't realize this and cut out a block and dipped in water and tried to slide one off and everything else came off with it since it was all one piece...

I can't tell if the necks snapped on some of those or if they were simply disassembled. One is missing a wing, possibly broke off. There appear to be various legs, arms and a head laying about, but I doubt all those were broken off, likely just disassembled.

Depending on what store you got it from, it might be easier going through them rather than dealing with Arcadia directly.

That looks taro ice cream colored. Now I want some taro ice cream... Bandai must be doing collabs with ice cream shops

I wonder if it's the styrofoam that the Frontier valks were stored in or some other factor. My v2 Frontier valks like Alto's are still pristine white. One is an original release, the other a re-issue. But then I also have mine covered in layers of clearcoat, so I maybe that's helping in my case?

Test shot to see how it looks in battroid mode. Lots of areas covered or hidden that were exposed after transforming it that I needed to do. I can't find my stipple brushes and sponges so work is halted until I my order for replacements come in.

Thanks. I'm actually taking it slow. This is my 2nd attempt, to be honest. My first try, I didn't like how it was turning out as it looked too heavy handed, so I stripped it off with a towel and rubbing alcohol and started again. I'm just freehand spraying with an airbrush to achieve the mottling effect and mostly going off of the screenshots I took for inspiration. I'm hoping to finish either this weekend or next, depending on how much spare time I can muster. Next week seems more likely.

My work-in-progress Nora. Tinted the canopy, panel lined, and started doing some weathering. Still got a long way to go.

Yes it is. I think it turned out great on my Ivanov SV-51. I'm in the process of weathering Nora's so I'll be using my second sheet soon.

I put my thoughts on Nora's SV-51 in the Nora thread. Long story short, I have some complaints with it, but overall not too bad.

That breakage looks consistent with it having been taken out of the packaging and dropped by someone and it landing on its left side. Definitely not like that from the factory unless a worker dropped and broke it then picked it up and tossed all the parts inside and hoped no one noticed.

For me, I think it may depend on how much they are featured in the Zettai Live movie. Honestly though, I'm not a huge fan of the full armor for the toy. It feels so clunky, not fun to transform, and I can never find a good place to put my fingers without constantly knocking pieces off. In fighter mode, the design looks more at home in some side scrolling Sega or Konami shoot 'em up from the 90's. At best, I'll put them on for display purposes, but for handling, the super parts are superior.

Here are pics showing how the gunpod is bowed. On one side, it's arched in the middle. Flipped on the other side, the ends are bowed upwards This results in the gunpod not pointing down the middle in fighter mode. I'll have to see if I can use a heat gun to soften it and straighten it out.

Yup, thanks! I knew that didn't sound quite right.

If the patterns were a font, the Yamato ones would be Arial and the Arcadia version is Arial Bold font and they hit the bold button to bold it even more.