MacrossJunkie

I wish they included waterslide decals too in addition to or in lieu of stickers, but I make do with the stickers. I think if one takes the time to trim them properly, they don't look that bad: It is very time consuming to trim and line up and apply the stickers though. I think waterslide decals would take me about the same amount of time. Less time trimming, but more work doing the other stuff like you said. I like the Bandai releases because it saves me 5-6 hours not having to apply anything. It's certainly not as bad as the Yamato stickers prior to the Destroid and VF-1 v2 releases. The 1/48 VF-1, VF-0, and YF-19/21 stickers were all made up of multiple layers with a hard, stiff top layer that curled and peeled and were at least 3 times thicker than the stickers they use now.

I didn't see his posts, but I bet he thought it was a neat/novel approach to storing the the landing gear in such a small space. That was my impression of it when I first found out how the front landing gear was stored.

That's so true. Some sort of anchor is usually needed. When Yamato used magnets for the leg armors for the 0, 11 and 19, they all had at least a small peg to keep them anchored in place. Without getting the peg in, they would still slide around. Even if multiple magnets were used, that would still be the case.

Yeah, he's using a different base since it came with an SMS base, even though the valk isn't SMS. I used one of my spare ones that came from either a VF-171 or super VF-27 as well.

Oh okay, all good I usually find it best to start with some pseudo gerwalk mode so that most of the parts are exposed, usually all of the parts of fighter mode and some of battroid, and then move to battroid mode to finish it off. Just curious. What did you use to weather it? To my eyes, it looks like Tamiya weathering master kits (like B and C) were used.

But it's a YF-29B! It's a different variant from the Alto and 30th Anniversary editions! At least that's how I rationalized it to myself because I gotta get one of each valk variant. Just like the VF-11B and C. They look completely identical, but they've got different imaginary avionics... or something...

Yeah, I was just seeking clarification on what missiles were being referred to. An adapter for the HMM and missile pods seems like it ought to be simple enough to do since the holes to plug into those are identical. The green droptanks(?) and the AMRAAM/AIM type missiles would be trickier since an adapter would likely drop those down a lot further and look silly.

That looks good eggy! I'd like to see some more pics of it, particularly in the other modes.

I'd say it's fair criticism given that they are on pre-order now with the price point they are selling these things at with nothing more to go on than badly photoshopped early prototype pics which show a lack of refinement that gives [me] a more immediate impression of it being closer to those old transformable Banprestos in visual appeal than something you would expect for that price. Heh. If only that were possible. Like Graham said, if these aren't being bought now, there's going to be no chance of something better coming down the road. It's quite the dilemma. It's unfortunate their initial foray into the field of Macross toys just doesn't appear to be one where it would be a no-brainer to put down a pre-order. Instead, it's more like "taking one for the team" in the hopes of a better future. With the current pricing, it certainly is a big gamble as well as a big hit on the wallet if you're only getting one to see if they make a better one later since you don't know if enough people still will buy it to make your sacrifice mean something. For the people buying it that are happy with the current incarnation, good on them since they're getting something they want from the get go. No sacrifice there. There's a bunch of factors that are different from the v1 VF-25s though. Frontier had just finished at the time and achieved a relatively decent level of popularity so even though the 25s looked bad, there was a high demand, whereas Mac2 is relatively ancient and wasn't all that popular to begin with (I think?), so the potential market to make the product successful is much smaller. Secondly, the pre-orders for v1 VF-25S and F were sub $100 at most of the "usual suspects" of stores. So they were not as hard a sell at that price compared to the VF-2SS and its price. Another thing is Bandai, being a large company, already had access to talent that could design something better, as seen with their 1/72 models of the 25 which were released around the same time as the toys. Bandai was just being dumb and essentially gave their B-team (Toys for boys group!) the task of making their first Frontier toys thinking it would be good enough. We don't know if Evolution has or can get the talent to do the same or not, even if these are a success.

The SAP would have been nice, if nothing else than to hide some of the shortcomings of the toy. Hmmm, I feel like I said something similar about the v1 VF-25 releases and the super parts.

You mean the Arcadia ones? Because the Bandai ones that come with the 171 armored parts already fit on the 19 and 30 just fine.

No problem. After some debate on which to use, I think I've decided I might just use the Super Lube for the head lasers myself, but that won't be until after I do the weathering and stuff since I don't want to risk any stray grease getting in the way. My main concern was if it would be too viscous for the soft pvc and still end up causing it to twist, but I really don't think that will be the case. Yep, I too enjoy the space sims more than normal flight sims. Played through all the Wing Commander, FreeSpace, and X-Wing games. Now, I mess around with the Battlestar Galactica mod for FS2, Diaspora, or the Strike Suit games, or the Arena Commander module for Star Citizen. I keep almost buying Elite: Dangerous to hold me over until SC is completed, but then talk myself out of it because of how little depth of gameplay there currently is. It seems to me to boil down to repetitively grinding for money and faction in order to get better ships in order to grind for money and faction faster. I'm not holding much hope for No Man's Sky either. My current setup

Try one of these: Super Lube Synthetic Grease with PTFE NLGI grade 2 MolyKote EM-30L NLGI grade 1 I've experimented with a bunch and of the ones I've tried, the two above worked best and won't react with plastic. I've used these to lubricate the plastic parts in the various joysticks and HOTAS I've had to get rid of static friction. I feel the higher viscosity of the Super Lube works better for that, but it could be overkill for a simple part in a toy.

Yep, these pop out too. I was thinking of putting some plastic safe lubricant into the socket so that the ball part of the crappy pvc lasers don't get stuck and just end up twisting around the stem part instead and futilely trying to position the lasers only to have them slowly return to their original position... Stupid PVC diediediedie! Have I mentioned I hate PVC parts? I don't understand why Bandai doesn't include alternative ABS/POM head lasers for this head variant in these later releases like they did with everything else with the exception of the 25F. Then I could flush these PVC ones down the toilet since that's where crap belongs. /rant

Is the valk blue or gold?!!

The ones that look purple are mainly due to color balance. The valk is a dark blue with an almost periwinkle(?) lighter blue and a tiny bit of gold highlights under sunlit or 5500k color temp conditions.

No no. You're reading it wrong. The stand says "ROI30TECH". And no... I don't know what ROI Thirty TECH is either.

What's up with the proportions on that thing? It looks like it forever decided to skip leg day.

Nice shots as usual! BTW, what are they?

Now try squeezing the Isamu from the original Yamato 1/60 YF-19 release in there!

Did they just photoshop in the colors in that pic? Looks the same as the pics originally posted on page 1, but with color. Doesn't even look like it was done well. Bobby's photoshop looks a million times better!

I just looked out of curiosity too and boy are these things expensive for what they are. Couldn't find the one you're referring to on BBTS either or even ebay. I must not be searching on the right terms or the cannon fire ones are not from Bandai? Well, part of the effect behind the blast looks like the yellow "thunder" (it's lightning! thunder is sound!) effect. Just don't know what main part of the blast part is from.

When he heard me open the door, he turned back around. I just said "hello!" It really varies by person. Sometimes I get one of the cool ones that actually stop by later if they find I'm not home earlier that day and deliver it with the rest of the day's mail which normally comes later in the afternoon. Others will hear me coming and wait around for me to answer the door. Today's was handled by someone I haven't met before.

Yup.

That particular brand of Turpenoid (Weber's) that I linked is generally considered safe for plastics used in models and toys. I can't speak to whether other ones are just as safe or not. From what I've read in the past, they're not all the same and so I specifically got the Weber's brand Turpenoid. I think you should be good with this. After you finish panel lining and cleaning it up, I'd probably say to let it dry for a few days so you're not accidentally rubbing it off or wicking some out of the panel lines with your fingers, just in case. Worst case scenario, you'd just have to touch up the panel lining a bit if some does manage to rub off, but that shouldn't really happen except for really shallow panel lines. The Bandai ones are deep enough that you wouldn't need to worry about it.