MacrossJunkie

I wasn't speaking of the fighter length. And yes, the parts are shifted a bit like the VF-1D and other double seaters. The heatshield is definitely a bit longer and chest piece is up higher and shows the LERX underneath whereas they are hidden by the chest piece on the A and S variants. That has caused the torso to look a bit longer compared to the A or S toys which look comparatively wider.

Much better than NY's price. Thank you!

I love it. The panel lines look much finer than the deep canyons the older VF-0's had. The chest piece looks proportionally narrower too, although when I compare to the 0S, it looks about the same. It could just be the longer torso due to the double seat cockpit. The older Zeroes look kinda squat in comparison. The ankles look like its a bit more like the VF-17 or 19 implementations rather than the simple sliders for the VF-1's and older VF-0's. The knee area looks a whole lot better, lacking the visible gaps and just shaped better over all. I really do hope they keep the die cast in the arms. We wouldn't need to worry about the shoulders or arms disintegrating. I''m a bit concerned about the fins sticking out of the hips/intakes. They could like they could snap off easily by accident while handling it during transformations or even if setting it down in fighter mode without the landing gear deployed. It will just have to be one of those things people have to be careful with I guess. The alternatives would probably be to put them on ugly hinges or have them plug in somewhat loosely so that they come off instead of breaking off. Neither of which sound very good to me. I also hope they improved the locking on the gunpod handle. None of the gunpods on my VF-0's could really lock the handles into place very well (or at all). They were loose when extended for battroid mode handling or collapsed for fighter mode.

Boooo. I missed out on this.

Actually, most of them are far in excess of 1080p (with the exception of the pre-renewal ones) with many of my recent ones over the past year or so being over 4900 x 3000 resolution. The Alto Durandal is one of my older ones so some of them may be smaller when I was trying to conserve bandwidth and space. I still have the originals, so maybe I should replace the ones in the album with the full sized versions. The viewer window resizes the images to your screen size, but clicking the download button gets you the full sized image. Can't help with the black backgrounds though, sorry. Takes me long enough to do all the weathering work and shoot the photos If anyone wants to photoshop backgrounds into them, they are more than welcome to do so.

The Quarter definitely would need to be redone if they would want to release it again. There's large, visible screw holes everywhere, among other things. But I'm not fond of the carrier mode. I agree that we need more capitol ships and I think they ought to do the New Macross class carriers. The carrier mode for those look pretty awesome, imo, and I can guarantee they wouldn't be floppy as there is nothing in that mode to flop around. They'd be even more solid than the SDF-1 in cruiser mode since they don't even have the arms extending down the sides. I think the attack mode looks better than the Quarter's as well. Oh yes, and I think I'm going to wait until after release to get the YF-25. This is a rather obscure valk in comparison and not tied to a major character. I think there's a high chance this will be easily available after launch.

Personally, aside from the obvious placement of the Diamond Force insignia and the UN Spacy kites, I took some inspiration from actual F-117's, which is where some of those stickers were derived from or taken straight off of. In addition, I looked at the scant few pics that can be seen of the VF-17 from the master file books for further reference.

Just like your VF-1J, this is another brilliant piece. I think that paint scheme is one of the nicest VF-1 schemes I've seen. It certainly beats the ones from Macross the First.

There's no diagram or anything for sticker placement. You just put them where you like.

What the hell? Basara is shooting and firing lots of missiles at things. Isn't that completely out of character? He had a massive guilt trip just firing a couple leg missiles in the show. Why isn't he flying around and singing at your enemies?

Thanks guys. I was concerned whether or not a white valk like the 25F was left displayed in the sunlight for an unknown period of time.

All I know is If they ever release any more variants/color schemes for the 171, like an RVF-171 or EX cannon fodders, I definitely won't be pre-ordering them. I'll wait for the ones who are [brave | feeling lucky | fools | suckers | ignorant of past breakages] to get them and report on any problems they've had with any new releases before I even consider getting one. The fact that Bandai's customer service is utter shite in regards to fixing problems of their own making and making things right for their customers makes it an easy pass for future releases of the toy.

When they say "storefront item", what does that mean exactly? That it has been taken out and displayed for a while in the store front window and then put back in?

It seems like the toy version can as well because it has the hardpoints visible under the wings or on the side of the arms in battroid mode. It seems strange that they decided to do that for a valk that normally doesn't carry external missiles when Bandai usually leaves out that feature or goes out of their way to initially include wings that have no missile hardpoints and then sell the ones with them separately for the valks that do carry under wing accessories or missiles

Yup, the only problem is the mismatching colors.

Well, these days, I've switched to Vallejo Matt Varnish instead of Tamiya Flat Base. My answer above was in reference to what I sprayed my 25F with. Everything just comes out looking better with the Vallejo varnish and is more forgiving with how you spray it compared to the Tamiya base and I don't run the risk of occasional white specks of undissolved flat base all over what I'm spraying. It can be sprayed by itself if you want something dead flat. It can also be mixed with distilled water or, as I prefer, Future. My mix with the level of flatness I want with Future and Vallejo tends to be a ratio of 5 drops of Vallejo to 11 drops of Future. Flatter mixes will be about a 1:1 ratio. Examples of the results of it can be seen in the pics of my König Monster (my first attempt with this mix so I was still figuring out the ratios, it has since been resprayed to be flatter), Isamu YF-29, RVF-25, Super packs for the RVF25 and 25G, 25A, my 2nd 171 and armor parts, and Macross Quarter with the panel lines all drawn and done up in the past pages of the 1/48+fp's, 1/60+fp's, 1/72 and now 1/2000 and 1/3000 Picture G thread or the album in my sig. Prior to those I mentioned, I was still using the Tamiya and Future combo. Edit: Further explanation on what I mean by the Vallejo mix being more forgiving. If too much is sprayed and it pools a little or it spatters, after it dries it still looks uniform. If the same thing happened with the Tamiya mix, the result is obvious and terrible and you have to remove the coat and redo it or try to fix it as best you can. It can also be brushed on without visible streaks. I do this with the canopy frames. When I did this with the Tamiya mix, it would dry unevenly with streaks or swirls of white. It's much easier to fix mistakes or accidental scratches too as it just blends better. Multple coats of the Tamiya mix, especially in a localized area, just tends to get whiter and whiter, the more you spray it while the Vallejo doesn't.

I used Future mixed with Tamiya flat base. Future itself has some anti-UV properties which probably help.

I did notice that the clear sensors closest to the canopy on the top of the nose seemed shorter but I wasn't sure if that was a trick of the camera angle and distance from the lens. I do notice now that it's shorter because they remolded the top black piece on the nose so that it covers/replaces half of the sensor. The front end of the canopy appears to be unpainted too where the ones on the VFs have a thick black frame around it. It's hard to tell from the pic itself if it's actually shaped any differently. The part of the canopy that lifts up still appears to be the same though going by certain reference points. The model version is clearly longer, especially the rear most portion of the canopy. On the toy version though, that part looks the same length as the VF. It's possible the middle section of the canopy is longer if only by a mm or so if at all. Still it's hard to tell. It still looks like it stops right where the production version does. I think Bandai may have just taken the lazy way out and not made changes to the fuselage.

The white areas are bare plastic except for the die-cast parts like the shoulder blocks and hips/intakes. My first release renewal 25F is still pristine white. But the fact that I keep it enclosed in a glass display cabinet and also have the whole thing clear coated may affect results. Sorry to hear that. Wish we could have helped more. Hopefully your old roommate will take it off your hands.

My advice is just calm down and put it down for the night. Getting frustrated with it is just making handling it worse. Have another look at it tomorrow after you've got your head clear. I'll see about taking some pictures tomorrow. I still think the sliding neck base is jammed on yours which might also make sliding it back for fighter mode difficult and prevent the hip and crotch piece from fitting back in. You might want to try my suggestion above tomorrow.

I think the "VT-102" is just an easter egg. When Hikaru was in the VF-1D in episode 1 of SDFM, the side of the cockpit also showed VT-102, if I recall correctly. In the scene you describe in DYRL, the 102 flashes quite clearly for like a frame when there's really no reason why it should. Just like the beer can missiles, I think the animators just did it to see if people would notice. I would just go with the 607 since it's already tampo'd on the wing.

It definitely looks like you don't have the base for the head and neck pulled back all the way. If you're struggling to pull it back further, it means that it's jammed on something and is likely the source of your frustration. I had that problem with a couple of my older 25s. I had to take out the two screws on the underside of the chest and take the chest apart to get at the base piece. I then sanded down the round nubs on the side of the part that slides along the track to create more clearance. If the walls of the track look kind of rough or have some plastic sticking out along the way, grab an emery board and sand it down smoother. If you try it, you'll know what I'm talking about when you look at it. After I put it all back, it slid back and forth much easier afterwards. Otherwise, this all should be a cakewalk to transform.

Yes! Finally. I've been waiting for these. I want to get them for both the G and F. I dislike the super parts on my 25G.

I think the paint job is just throwing you off. The LERX is the same length as the other VF-25s. The canopy and everything else looks the same to me also. The only thing physically different that I can see based on those pics is the head and the removable top plate on the chest and the backplate which is different for each variant anyway to fit their respective head units in fighter mode.

I have 1 pre-ordered from each of those places as well. I'm thinking I will keep my HLJ pre-order because this version just looks a better than the v1 in all modes, battroid in particular, and thus I will be retiring both of my v1 1/60 YF-19s from my display cabinets once these come in (or at least after I get around to weathering them and such).