Jump to content

MacrossJunkie

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    3234

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by MacrossJunkie

  1. MacrossJunkie
    I think in addition to making vf-25 v2 style changes to the hips/crotch positioning and angling lock, I'd like to see the shoulder block mechanisms use the v2's style as it is simpler and more stable/less fidgety.
  2. MacrossJunkie
    That's how they are colored in the show. Alto's, Luca's and Michael's valks have orange SMS logos while Ozma's is yellow. Incidentally, 1/60 Version 1 of Luca's RVF-25 has incorrectly colored SMS logos with them being yellow instead of orange.
  3. MacrossJunkie
    Awesome. Thanks for the heads up!
  4. MacrossJunkie
    ARGH. Dammit! Missed the HLJ preorder...
  5. MacrossJunkie
    It's on the oval bump on the stabilizer part of the left arm coming from the area that looks like a hinge or something.
  6. MacrossJunkie
    I wish Bandai could just have shops and dealers go forth and take as many pre-orders as they can for x amount of days/weeks. Then start manufacturing and do whatever they need to schedule the factories to produce enough to fill the pre-orders plus a little extra to go stores and such for those who miss pre-order while it was being done. They could then set the release date based on how long it will take for them to manufacture and assemble the toys and get them out. That way they wouldn't be leaving money on the table by not producing enough to meet demand or way over producing beyond what the demand is. I mean isn't that what they're essentially doing with their web exclusives already?
  7. MacrossJunkie
    I literally just refreshed the page on HLJ and it went from not being there at all to it showing Order Stop. Does each store only get 1 copy or something? This is beyond ridiculous.
  8. MacrossJunkie
    Awesome. They're finally making the VF-171. I'm both ecstatic and a little disappointed with this first release. I'm super happy that they're making it at all, but I'm a bit let down that they aren't including the particle cannon and missile pack which should be standard armament for the EX variant and not part of the super packs. It would be like leaving out the sniper rifle for the VF-25G and giving it the standard gunpod only.
  9. MacrossJunkie
    It's great that they got the vents in which were missing on the previous version as well as the missing markings. Seems like the chest missiles are painted, but the leg and shoulder missiles still look like single molded pieces of red plastic to me. Doesn't matter as much to me though since I rarely have those open. Looking forward to this.
  10. MacrossJunkie
    I want Bandai to come out with a VF-171EX before another VF-27 as well. The VF-27 looks perfectly fine in fighter and GERWALK mode. It just needs a tweak to the battroid to use the same crotch angling lock and swingbar lock mechanism as the renewals, but I don't think the v1 looks particularly bad even in battroid mode.
  11. MacrossJunkie
    Well, I did mention that it was on par with having to remove the shield for Yamato's VF-11 and plug it into a different hole as well.
  12. MacrossJunkie
    The way I see it, it's not really much different from valks like the VF-11 and VF-25 having to remove the shield and put them in another place. At least it has somewhere to go in all modes. The crotch armor for the VF-25 super and armor packs for the version 1s more or less had to be removed for fighter mode and placed somewhere. Sure, you could kinda leave it attached in fighter mode, but it left things misaligned and I think stressed the plastic even more than it already was while in fighter mode. It was just ill fitting if you tried.
  13. MacrossJunkie
    Got mine yesterday. Overall, I'm fairly satisfied with it, but I like the Alto version better. My main gripes are the distinct differences in the grays where they ought to be the same color. Could be my eyes tricking me, but I could swear the painted grays have a mint green tint to them. It's not even remotely close to the molded gray plastic. Also while the paint application was cleaner than my VF-25F, they managed to fudge it up in a different way. The yellow stripes on the LERX are not the same shade of yellow. The one on the right side I think has a thinner coat so the black is showing through more, leaving the yellow on the left side distinctly more vibrant in comparison and matching the yellow areas elsewhere. If I recall correctly, the right shoulder was like that too with not enough yellow applied. The pvc head lasers were loose and floppy, but that was no big deal since I hate pvc parts and immediately swapped them out for the infinitely better hard plastic ones which stayed in place. Despite the color mismatches, it still looks good and ultimately, I'll be putting the armored parts over it anyway, so it will all be moot.
  14. MacrossJunkie
    I just used model masking tape (a bit thinner than normal masking tape) to cover any parts that needed to be glossy like the canopy, sensors, lights, visor, etc. and trimmed with a hobby knife.
  15. MacrossJunkie
    Yup. I use an x-acto/hobby knife to trim the stickers to the edges before applying them. It's pretty easy to do. It's just more time consuming, but well worth the extra time spent for the results.
  16. MacrossJunkie
    Thanks. I also wasn't too keen on the out of the box pastel-ness of the box, but I saw the potential of how good it could be after weathering. For this particular valk, I didn't use an airbrush at all. I just used the tamiya weathering kits and a can of flat clear coat. The kits are really nice and are easy to practice with since you can wipe it off if it doesn't look right. I have found that they can still be rubbed off by fingers if the grooves are not deep enough. I've had it rub out of shallow lines just from handling some toys panel lined with it, but that's when you clear coat it to prevent that from happening. To be fair, even using normal paint mixed with thinner can rub out of shallow lines, so it's just something you have to deal with or be careful of while handling.
  17. MacrossJunkie
    Wow, that custom VF-1S is pretty cool. I like the camo pattern on it, although I think the bright yellow spoils it a bit.
  18. MacrossJunkie
    I agree. Basically all their stickers starting with the 1/60 VF-1 v2 were using the much improved thin stickers. And if you trim the excess off the stickers right to the edges you can hardly tell they were stickers and they look very good. The old ones were indeed terrible. I hated those because they were so thick and made of multiple layers, of which the top layer often would start to peel at the the edges. While it would have been nice to have some tampo printing, It wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me personally since I sticker everything anyway. It's just a lot more work, especially trying to make sure the stickers are aligned properly and symmetrically on both sides which is something you don't have to worry about with tampo printing, unless they mess up the aligning themselves (which unfortunately has happened with both Yamato and Bandai macross toys).
  19. MacrossJunkie
    Any chance on having it also available as an unassembled kit like they did with the 1/3000 SDF-1? I would rather have had it as an unassembled toy if it meant saving money on it. These things are just getting too expensive and I bet the VF-4 will be no different. The unassembled SDF-1 was nearly half the cost of the assembled toy and included more stuff to boot (still miffed about that btw, since I've been unable to get the glowy stickers or the photo-etch stuff).
  20. MacrossJunkie
    I put this up in one of the picture threads back in October . Link I love it. I think it looks great in all the modes and isn't a floppy mess that Yamato's version is.
  21. MacrossJunkie
    They are sending out the emails by order of when the pre-order codes were redeemed. So basically first come, first served, or so Bioware says. But they say a lot of things.
  22. MacrossJunkie
    Sweet. I got my early access today. Guess I'll need to make at least 2 characters. One to play with my friends so I don't outlevel them and one to play on my own time.
  23. MacrossJunkie
    Wow. I don't understand how these things are just flat out disintegrating. It's not even like it's under a whole lot of stress. I found one of the "U" clips on my 1/48 Milia VF-1J had also sheared off just like Graham's so I'm not sure if we should expect more failures like that over time or not.
  24. MacrossJunkie
    While I prefer matte finishes, I found the look of the gloss on the VF-19S to be acceptable. The thing that annoys me greatly about it is that it is such a fingerprint magnet and shows every little scuff or scratch on the surface. I rectified that with the Bandai valks by clearcoating them with future which seems to repel fingerprints far better and fills in the scratches and scuffs from the factory. But I couldn't even do that with the 19 because the nose cone would have the clear coat scraped off vertically every time it is transformed to battroid due to the way you have to squeeze it into the chest area for it to lock it into place. So no offense to all that like the gloss finish, but I hope if a YF-19 is remade, that it is done with their usual semi-gloss finish or at least they come up with a different way to lock the nose into the chest that doesn't require physical scraping between two parts.
  25. MacrossJunkie
    That's what I did, although I should have just gone to some of my other sticker sheets from previous valks and pulled a couple white U.N.SPACY's from there. They are pretty good. They are at least as thin as the VF-1 stickers that Takatoys used to make on those 3M sheets, but with a matte finish. I've had no issues with placement thus far and are capable of holding to the contours and going in panel lines if you press them in with the edge of your fingernail. As long as the surface has been wiped clean of grease before you apply them, you shouldn't have problems with adhesion. As much as I normally dislike the results from using gundam markers, I had to use them this time because the panel lines were too shallow for even paint thinner mixed with a little black enamel paint to work. The worst was going over the yellow parts with them. I had to scrape off as much as I could with my fingernail so that the lines didn't look too thick or heavy. On the relatively darker blue plastic, the marker doesn't look too bad. I used gray enamel and paint thinner with the white head guns though. I also tinted them very lightly them with a tiny bit of gun metal color to take the edge off the whiteness, although it doesn't show in the pics due to the lighting.
×
×
  • Create New...