MacrossJunkie

Wow, that really is sagging. Mine is closer to the "after" pic out of the box, but there's still a bit of wiggle in the attachment. I feel like they could have designed it better.

I guess worst case, you could sand the surface a bit to make sure the seam is level with the surface and spray paint it white.

Sheesh... that bracket isn't even remotely subtle. It could pass as part of an armor piece. WTF, Bandai?

Where did you order yours from? Mine was shipped from NY on Monday.

I have to agree with everyone. That stand looks awful. Not really digging how the antenna gets in the way of the back folding down. Looks pretty silly like that. This will remain in fighter mode for me for sure.

I think that's due more to people not having it rather than not wanting to put it on display.

I just took mine out of the box to examine it and one thing that came to mind while handling it is that this has got to be the first Bandai release I've ever gotten where the toy isn't covered in grease. I can't find any on it, in fact.

Wow, that was fast. CDJapan shipped mine on the 11th and I got it this morning.

That looks nice even without the tinting. But, I say go ahead and do the purple or blue tinting. It's actually not that hard to accomplish. the only pain in the butt is possibly disassembling part of the valk to get canopy parts off (and if going with purple, finding a suitable clear purple if you don't have one already). You'll be much more satisfied with it in the end. When I painted my Isamu YF-29 canopy, I took the pieces off and stripped off the paint so it was just clear plastic. I repainted the framing first and then sprayed the underside of the canopy for the tinting so that the tinting would be protected from accidental scrapes and such and it makes it easier to remove without having to worry about re-doing the frame if you mess it up. You don't need paint that dries instantly for the tinting and you only really need a few layers at most. I just mixed clear blue acrylic with some future to dilute it and lightly dusted the inside with a few layers using my airbrush (which had a hazy look at first) before finally spraying a thicker coating to get it crystal clear. Alternatively, you could spray coat the inside with clear future first to ensure that there is no bare plastic that might cause the colored paint to pool up or recede. It took me a few tries only because while it looked really light when I had the canopy out in the open, the tinting looked heavier when it was reattached and closed, so I stripped it off and redid the tinting even lighter. But at least it was really easy to do so. I plan on doing the same with the Ozma when I can find the time, but I haven't had much time so far this year.

My v1 Ozma disintegrated without doing anything with it. My v1 RVF and 25G are still intact with no cracks or breaks, however they are as floppy as a rag doll. It definitely seems to be a common problem with the version 1 VF-25S. The gray plastic they used seems to be very poor quality.

I'm not sure I can describe the weathering process very well. You would probably learn more from looking up youtube videos on weathering models. That said, I used primarily an airbrush to do the weathering, but if you don't have an airbrush or haven't had much practice with it yet, you might want to consider getting the tamiya weathering kits first. They give pretty good results and are fairly versatile. I started out using those exclusively before moving on to using an airbrush as I got better with it through practice. As for the VF-19S, the reason the panel lines are more visible is because I did some panel lining on it. This is one of the rare cases that I used a fine tip gundam marker pen to panel line. Because the color of the valk was already pretty dark, the ink from the pen didn't contrast too much. I also panel lined my YF-21 and VF-25G with it as well.

I actually like to take the canards off and reverse them like in the 4th pic so that they're angled back in battroid mode, but just in battroid mode. That gives more clearance for the hips and the hip guns. Otherwise, they tend to get in the way.

Do stores order a bunch on their own or are we talking about cancelled pre-orders that they try to sell off? My impression with past web exclusive releases was the retail availability of web exclusive stuff tends to be pretty low.

In the end, it's really just a matter of practice and experience. I would avoid using the gundam marker for any of the actual panel lining, it's just much too dark and heavy, imo. I only used it in a few select areas that weren't even really panels. I would normally use a wash to do the panel lines, but some of the lines are really fine and hard to get the wash to stay in, so the mechanical pencil worked out better in the end. If you screw up with the pencil, just rub it off and redo, it shouldn't really leave any marks or stains on the plastic. I keep out a piece of paper and after every few lines, I re-sharpen the tip on the paper until it's a fine needle point. The matte coat should be alright as long as you're careful during the transformation. I've transformed mine back and forth a bunch of times. I guess it's important to be familiar with the transformation first.

What? This is going to be a web exclusive? Noooooooo... The one time I want something to be a general release and they make it a web exclusive. My plan was to not pre-order and just wait until it got in people's hands to see if it still suffered from the same breakage problems as the 171 CF. Darn you, Bandai! *shakes fist* Evil bastards.

The panel lining was done primarily with pencil and a bit of Gundam marker in select areas. Weathering effects used Tamiya smoke colored acrylic paint and some snow color from their weathering kit. It was then sealed in with a mix of Future and Vallejo matte varnish.

Not a green tint, but on mine, the yellows are painted on with a very thin coat, so the grays and blacks kind of show through a little.

Got mine yesterday. I definitely had the impression that the color was off immediately when I took it out of the box. It's not way off, but enough for me to notice it without having to do a side by side comparison. I'm sure it won't look as different once I weather and clear coat it. If only I can find the time. I still have my YF-19's to do and I also just got my Ozma 29 in today as well...

This is great news. Glad to see it's still coming.

Dang it. Missed these too. Always opens when I'm asleep. I can't afford to stay up all night like some people can...

I don't know if there's anything else, but the Transformers MP seekers are almost perfectly 1/60 scale (the original ones. Don't know about the newer reworked versions) going by my measurements of the toy and calculations. So at least there's that. I haven't personally found anything else that's in 1/60 scale though =(

I have one from BigInJapan and one from HLJ. Nothing broken, but ankles were loose on both out of the box. They have never been in GERWALK mode ever. One of them has a slightly crooked head and the left arm doesn't slide in all the way and lock at the elbow. On the other one, the underside of the right wing is kind of popped out a little and I can't get it to sit flush. They appear to be fine otherwise, but not what I expected from something of this kind of price tag.

Just got mine. I got a pink slip in my mailbox saying that no one was home for the delivery this morning, but my mailman was awesome and held onto it and came back around after I got home and delivered it to me along with the regular mail. After seeing the issues with Kicker's and Mommar's YF-19's, I was anxious to check mine out. I flipped the lids on both boxes and they looked okay to me. Took them both out and transformed them. Aside from a couple things, it pretty much transforms like the VF-19 releases and thus was pretty easy for me to do. There were some sharp edges on the plastic and I managed to slice a layer of skin on my thumb. A true measure of a quality toy The ankles however are kind of loose and a little hard to get it to stand up straight in battroid. Both of them want to either lean forward or back. On one of them, I can't get the left forearm to slide up the metal piece all the way to the elbow joint and lock in place. I just can't see why. The right arm and both arms on the other one lock in just fine. A bit disappointing, but I guess I know which one is going to stay in fighter mode. Aside from those issues, it seems pretty good overall. Contrary to the opinions of some others, I actually like the feel of the plastic. It doesn't feel cheap to me. I can't wait to find some time to panel line and weather them.

So has anyone who has ordered the 19 from Big In Japan heard anything from them yet?

Wow, that helmetless Isamu figure is a lot more detailed than I expected. The head actually looks like him and not some undefined blob or like a muppet (see VF-19P Basara). The front landing gear could stand to be a tad bit longer, but not by much. The rear ones look shorter than the v1, but I think that's just because the landing gear bay doors are wider thus covering more of the wheel and giving less clearance. The Hasegawa version seems to be nearly spot on compared to the line art.