Xigfrid

@Lolicon Beautiful beasts !

In a manner, I think the nose portion of the 30 is more old-fashion, more imposing, compared to the 31A. But the 31A looks superior technically. Hard to decide which is a better valk design

2 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Did you get a chance to play with it yet?

I tried to transform mine and it fell apart.

I don't know where this  yellow tooth pick goes ! 

It is really a beauty! Did you air brush the panel lines or you used the tamiya weathering kit? I think the later but it looks so clean

5 hours ago, jenius said:

I wouldn't mind a PF 0D also... and if they desaturate the blue, even more so! 

Instant buy for me too 

That’s simple it is impossible:

1) you can double fold the shoulder bar and have the shoulder bar facing backward

2) you can single fold the bar, rotate it 180’ then fold it one step again as suggest by @wmkjr. The bar would face the same way as the line art, but you would have the left hand at the right. And you know the left and right hands can’t be inversed

And the canopy details, I wish FUD was more solid and print all the VF-9 like that!

@wmkjr great catch about the “double pivot” of the shoulder bar. My model only fold upward for battroid. Unfortunately there is an ambiguous situation there for the gerwalk mode because if you double fold the bar, the bar should face the other side. 

See my gerwalk bottom view, the bar is oriented in the correct direction? But without the double folding. I can make the double folding to push forward the hands, I just don’t know yet how solid this articulation will end. And thanks for the tip!

I will Noel

My 31A order is 488741 and still not shipped, placed on 6th October. Really NY pisses me off, add to that my VF-31F super parts that were not delivered back in December and I am still waiting them to reimburse at least the insurance amount ($20 or so)

15 hours ago, electric indigo said:

Do you think it would be possible to have a larger chamfer on the lower arms to make them appear less blocky? 

That's a great idea, I remember I did it really small because of a pin insertion, but I can work around and see if there is another way to insert the hand pin

15 hours ago, Urashiman said:

But if you want a final build, you should choose the more expensive materials.

Nevertheless, great work Xigfrid!

I don't really see any alternative for a working toys, at least with Shapeways materials none would work better, except HP plastic but the improvments doesn't worth the price Shapeways ask for it. Let me know what you are thinking of please.

15 hours ago, valhary said:

impressive with this little adjustments looks even better

Hey thanks for the comment, I hope this version will be final !

14 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

One thing that looks slightly off to me currently is that the wings look like they're slightly too far forward.  The shape and size look great, but my balance/stability senses are tingling, since it looks like the center of lift is a little too far forward.

[...]

Whatever you decide, looking great!  I think the little extension in length is well worth the change in profile, while still looking not too big for 1/60 scale.

Thanks for spending so much time on my design, and you got a sharp eye! In fact I have moved the wings forward because the line art have them much more forward than that. I will trust your vision/feeling of the lift, and guess what? The new position that you are proposing is even better for the battroid mode, so I will adopt it in an heartbeat.

I am still amazed how much the printed prototype nose looks different compared to its 3D model once printed. 

Here is the preliminary fixes:

1) Legs and Top intake (that become the Backpack) were greatly enlarged
2) clear canopy height reduced and it starts lower in the nose.
3) new nose profile. I largely preferred the nose to be longer in fact... I don't understand why it was proposed to be shorter
4) wing span and size even more greatly enlarged

In red the new version

15 hours ago, Kuma Style said:

I usually don’t post here, but this photo is just wow! Very nice thought for all the fathers around the world! Thanks

@Tage thanks for the kind comments. I agree with most comments. 

There was something that I didn’t want is to modify the canopy, but I have to admit it can be less protruding then making easier the cover with the wing in battroid. The nose is a part that can be modified easily compared to the rest of the fighter, because it has a lot of empty space. 

Btw, i understand the arm looks too far away from the body, but this is because there is a wing portion missing there. It should come in a few days, and I will assemble it and take a few more pictures. 

@Pulltoeject, the Vf-9 will be scandeously small compared to a Yf-19. And printing a VF-9 the size of a YF-19 would cost three times the actual price!

@valhary thanks for all the pictures, it really helps, preventing me erasing the model files  

As @Chronocidal noticed, my model moves forward the nose to open a latch that helps holding the wings in place for battroid. I think it also looks better with a forward oriented pelvis. And because of that I can easily make the nose thinner without changing too much the battroid look

Not sure what you mean about the thing between the engine, but perhaps if the legs go 1cm longer as I plan to do, it will look better don’t you think?

@Chronocidal I totally agree with your mods, and that’s what I had in mind for the wings.

However, I need to double check about the nose. I can’t size down the nose (because the head would be too small) but I think that it was supposed to go deeper inside the “fuselage” and reducing its perceptual size. Anyway I can try to change it that way. 

Anyway great inputs there, I will take them into account. 

@arbit I don’t think I can make a video in English, or if I try, you will hardly understand anything due to my accent !

My main grip about my design is that the VF-9 looks too damn tiny. I was shocked by the legs size and in particular the air intakes and thighs parts. I mean that my model looks very similar to what the line art shows in battroid but something seems off, and it may comes from me I need to double check too if I don’t have a scaling factor just before exporting for the printer... that would explain a lot of things...

Apart from that a few things are too thin, and then would flex too easily giving a “cheap” feeling. 

My objective now is to simplify a lot the transformation and to make larger, solid parts. 

Hey guys, guess what, I have 3 new addons for the missiles:

-"Single missile Pylon for Arcadia Hard Points"
-"Triple missiles Pylon for Arcadia Hard Points"
-"Arcadia Hard Points", that you can glue anywhere you want to attach my missiles

Because I can't imagine all the possibilities of these new products, I tried to synthesize a few things I could imagine with this graphic: (click to enlarge)

Hey guys, I am planning to redo the work of the VF-9 (almost) from scratch. 

I will keep the current good articulations and change the ones I am not really happy with. But that means that I can also adapt the global shape of the VF-9. 

Any suggestions?

I am planning to add 10 mm at the legs, making the battroid and fighter modes a bit longer and making it easier to add articulations inside for the knees. 

I think I can beef up the air intakes, and would you think the legs need to be larger too?

i dont think that the upper fuselage needs to be enlarged.

About the air exhausts, Do you think they are enough far from each other? Or would you prefer them to be farther like the VF-1?

i am planning to make the wings 2-3 mm larger, not much to change, what do you think?

7 hours ago, valhary said:

so this means is ready for purchase?

Sorry my friend, but I was looking at the work I must do on this model, and I couldn’t make an approximative lead time. The model is way too far from my expectations right now. 

Once I got this thing more sturdy, I will know where to attach an adapter, but it can already use a flat adapter (such as Yeti Vf-0’s) if needed. 

Thanks for your input Chronocidal, in fact the cockpit is as small as I could make it and still feel it in scale with the VF-1 and the whole design has been a little compressed to match the official 11.20m length. I think my model ended at around 12m long. But I agree that this design deserves to be longer, at least 14.20m like the VF-1 if not a bit much more. 

It was a great challenge to make the gerwalk pose so enjoy it!

Today's updates : I have received the parts (most of them ) I am missing the wings' flaps and I have one shoulder flipped. I have good and very bad news.

The good news is that the model is pretty enjoyable in battroid, the articulations can be tighten at will thanks to the screws and he can be posed quickly.

The BAD news now...
1) This thing is small, so small that it can hardly be a great toy. It was difficult to 3D modelise small tabs and small details and once printed, these details are almost smoothed out. That tells me that SLS is not anymore a viable option for this kind of model. Perhaps HP Multijet would do a better job.
2) Floppy mess in fighter: the arms are floppy (working on it) and couldn't be locked with the tabs I made on the legs. bummed. Also, because of the Gerwalk gimmick with the canopy rotating, the nose is somewhat not locked as firmly as I wished.
3) The knees that really need a better system than a sliding mechanism.
4) I have 2 difficult transforming steps that need to much force and flexing the plastic parts, when rotating the arms and pushing the backpacks backward. I need to review these steps and find a way to smooth it.
5) This model is really complex to assemble, and too much pins... I have learn during the assembly that I don't want to cut that many of M1 pins anymore... My next projects will only use standard size pins, or standard screws! I have also just bought around a thousand of different size M1 pins of eBay.

At the current state, I've already ordered the missing wings' parts and new versions of the shoulders and the landing gears.

I still need to finish the assembly, then fix a lot of things, adding bigger tabs, modifying a few articulations before considering to sell this model.

That’s an amazing model @Chthonic