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But it would be the wrong shade of grey!

Exact same feeling here... I was so hyped for it and when I got it I was thoroughly unimpressed. The bare bones presentation carried through with the VF-0D and took a week of my hard work to bring it back to the point where I could look at it. So I'm not that excited about these VF-0 (they are just too expensive for what you get - I don't mind paying premium for a premium product, but IMHO, they are not) and I swore off Arcadia until something changes. But the Reactive Armour has me thinking as I never did get a VF-0S in the past. I'm just not sure and sitting on the fence for now - but definitely not getting too excited as I've been burned by Arcadia twice now in two toy issues.

All I know is the Alclad gloss black primer is enamel - or reactive to mineral spirits (even though it says lacquer like the Alclad) - remember my Cosmo Zero that was distroyed when I tried an oil panel line wash and the turpentine when through the Alclad lacquer (which I guess was too thin) and attacked the gloss black primer beneath. That's when I switched to the Flory Pro Modeller's wash which is just inert clay and water - so its safe for every base coat. My guess is its enamel as its supposed to cover over lacquer, if it was as hot as lacquer, wouldn't you think it might attack the metalized lacquer base coat which is super thin and delicate? I really have no idea though - just my 2 cents.

Thanks Tochiro so much for relaying your conversation. I love this MacII design so much - it was the thing that got me back into Macross after all those years! I really love the VF-2SS... but the aircraft mode is everything too me and the reason I love the VF-2SS is the sleekness and the unique nose. I'm finding it really hard to like this toy (even thought I'm really trying!), the aircraft proportions are just so wrong, the nose needs to be wider, more "sculpted", the heat-shield needs to blend better, instead of making a "double" hump from the canopy and the leg/intakes are just so chunky. I've followed this thread with so much interest but just couldn't get myself to pre-order or even contribute anything till now. Sorry, its not really a contribution, just my personal gripes with the current design. The Battriod mode is looking better the more I see the pictures though. When the toys first came out, my fantasy wish was for a VF-4 and a VF-2SS - but I secretly knew it would never happen! Well, 50% of it just proved me wrong, so now I'll never say never when it comes to Macross Toys.

YES!

So is it released as a separate add-on or will there be a bundle with a VF-0S included?

Well, If they are decals, where are these waterslide decals in the box then?! Are you referring to the wing root tabs over the leg fastpacks? That's small potatoes IMHO... or is there something else I'm missing.

Beautifully done eggy!

I don't get why Acadia keeps teasing us with toys with all these markings on the prototypes, but give us just bare plastic toys with maybe a UN Kite symbol is all Why don't people cry foul and complain about mis-representation on Acadia's part - or is it just Bandai is evil and Acadia-can-do-no-wrong! - argh

Gorgeous as always! Like the new BG.

Yeah, I don't think that's saying much - he's an artist, not an aircraft mechanic (hopefully an aircraft enthusiast). I deal with concept artists all the time that are amazing painters, but nothing makes sense because the creedo is; "...as long as it looks cool!" In fact, most of these markings are jibberish for their main audience who are Japanese, its just some interesting gak that makes it look a little more "complicated". I'm just glad Bandai spent the effort, it really makes the Arcadia offerings so bare and sparse.

Sorry to hear that MJ! I would second Chronocidal's suggestion and make one yourself, its just the end tip, you can sand yourself a piece of styrene - layer it up to the right thickness, sand the edges a little bit round. Use a pin-vise and drill a little hole in both the existing piece and the newly made replacement and stick a piece of paper-clip wire inside and crazy glue it on so the paper-clip is like a re-inforcement (used to do that all the time when "pining" resin kits) it will greatly increase the strength of the glue joint on such a small area. Take the $40 and buy yourself something nice! I'm keeping quiet till I get the toy in my hands, luckily its paid for and sitting in my Private Warehouse - but I'm leaving for vacation for 2wks, so I get them to ship it when I get back. It looks real good though, I can't wait!

WoW!!! What a great kit!, I love it, I guess I'll have to get one too (my wallet doesn't thank you Great work on it so far.

Woohoo!!! So excited I just got payment for HLJ! I just love this interpretation, so sleek, all the proportions are to my personal preference and all that nice Tampo - it just puts the Arcadia to shame (and cheaper to boot!). I think I'll keep my chunky Arcadia in Battroid and display this proudly in the sleek aircraft mode or dump that Arcadia crap (especially hard after all that work I had to do it to get it looking acceptable) and get a second Bandai for all the cool extreme Battroid poses too?! Hmm decisions, decisions...

Thanks for all the kudos! It certainly was a learning experience. The hardest part to judge was how much effect you need to go, only to be toned down by the gloss coat (glossy clear coats tend to darken the finish) and how much would come back when you flat/matte clear coat it all in the end again (flat clear coats tend to lighten the finish). I was a bit timid being the first time trying this method and I think I error-ed on the subtle side - now looking at how much I liked the effect, I wished it was a bit stronger to see all the effort went into it and I wished it was overall a bit lighter. It looks great under strong lighting or outside, but inside in dim lighting, I'd wish it was a bit lighter. At least I know exactly what to do with my Hasegawa VF-0s and F-14s when I finally do get around to them.

Here ya go! This is what I did to make decals for my Arcadia YF-19 and VF-0D. I re-built all the decals by tracing them over in Adobe Illustrator so they are vector sharp files. If you can print white, then they'll even have an underlay of white. You could send the file to be made into "rub-on" transfers - its a photographic process and very expensive, but it will look awesome. I only did a test one colour process (white only) to test it out and used that as an underlay for my laser printed colour decals. You can see the results here; http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=35120&p=1203668 Let me know how the file works out for you guys. Good luck! (p.s. I'm offering this file free as payback to this wonderful site that has helped me so much over the years, I hope no one takes this and goes out to make money off of it please.) YF-19 Rub ons (outlined).zip

Note: in the fourth photo, if you look inside the leg (my feet are extended in prep to paint the burnt exhaust) you can see two bright orange screws... the only drawback to the salt weathering was these two screws rusted instantly... weird that all the other metal parts seem to do fine, there was one pin in the landing gear hinge that looked a little rusty too, but I was able to brush that away - this toy will be kept dry from now on, so the "rusting" wouldn't be an issue anymore (I hope). No more ocean dives for my baby!

OK, I got the chance to decal this baby last weekend and matte/flat clear-coated this weekend. When I was making up extra decals for my YF-19, I did the same for this baby - with special thanks to the white slime markers to a wonderful friend here on these boards (you know who you are - thanks so much!). I love the finish (hated all the effort that's required to bring an Arcadia up to snuff) - of course now I like it more than my Bandai Valks, which were pretty much a bit of pencil smudging weathering out of the box and a clear coat protection and that's it. This was a little more involved, it took about 4 weekends, but I do like the colour of blue it finally turned out into and the salt weathering method. Now I know how to finish my F-14s from now on. This is the amount of Tampo that should have been on a toy of this price range. It's 90% there, I just need to do a bit of Aclad burnt exhaust on the feet and intakes, dark wash the landing gears and paint the silver shock struct and weather the ordnance a little to match up with the plane - however they will be very light as they aren't usually as weathered. That will be sometime in August - we have a family vacation to attend to I'll do a proper photoshoot of this and the YF-19 in the summer. BTW, does the site re-size the attachments when I upload them? They're all blurry - they were "razor" sharp when I took them, but when I click on them, they all look soft, not like Subaro amazing photos - how does he attach them?

Beautiful photography! Was there re-issues of this? Mine has the rainbow canopy coating, which issue was that?

Hey, the canopy when blue again... and pretty opaque too. What's the actual colour of the released toy? I hope its not that frosted milky finish some of us go on the YF-30.

Yes I agree 100% I get hosed with customs and duties being Canadian and NY saves me so much on that - I don't mind giving the money to a store that will get me something I want other than paying a government that does everything in their power to prevent me from ordering what I want. If it wasn't for NY - I wouldn't even get any of my Frontier renewals.

Cool! You left the raised salt edges eh... neat. I wonder how the actual salt will look if you clear coat it, I wonder if it will dessolve into the clear coat. I removed my salt completely so I was left with a really smooth finish. Well, I'm stupid and stayed till 1am on a work night (I was wrecked the next day at the office!). But now that I'm on a roll, I really want to get to the decal stage. Basically the panel lines are way too faint to hold any wash as per Arcadia's usual - plus they are inconsistent, some are deeper, some are shallow all in the same line - argh! Why even bother to mold the panel lines when they are so shallow?! Anyways, I basically drew them all in with a really sharp 4H mechanical pencil. Then I used the pencil shavings and a smudge stick and smudged it all around the panel lines, lighter on the white surfaces and darker on the blue surfaces to essentially do a "post-shade" to pick them out a bit. Everything is still quite exaggerated at the moment because when I spray the Clear Coat with Future, it will even a lot out. I need this glossy clear coat to provide a nice smooth base for the decals because the plane is dark, I don't want any silvering to happen. Everything is darkened up due to the glossy clear coat at the moment. Once I decal it, the next step is to clear coat the decals again, maybe hit it with a very light mist of grey/blue to tie it all together and a final matte/flat clear coat which will lighten everything back up and blend in the decals. Can't wait to take the masking off!

I found some salt crystals or re-dried salt water within the joints as I semi-transformed it - but nothing to worry about. Salt is pretty inert on the plastic. I wouldn't recommend using a toothbrush to brush it off as the paint layer is so delicate and thin that it might leave tiny swirls and scratch marks from the bristles. The water rinses the salt off just fine. I just have to handle it delicately until I can clear coat protect it with the Future.

Yeah, that was my thinking exactly...

Argh! Probably...