MKT

I've only just been reading the general responses to the movie, and I get the feeling the experience will carry over some sourness to the merch haha.. I guess the Mattel line is the most accessible way to get the other ships, so I should pick up some of them myself too. Oh watching the trailers again, the Chogokin should have implemented the air brakes, and the way the cockpit opens on the toy is also wrong as compared to on-screen. I don't know if I am expecting too much, yet these are stuff that can easily be implemented without affecting the price much (if at all).

I got my hands on the Chogokin Lightyear XL-15 Spaceship today. The following are some impression with pics: This was something I impulse PO’ed, when I saw how the many XL spaceship concepts and designs recall memories of old-school side / top scrolling shooting games, how FWS wings seem so cool & avant-garde at that time, with the various engine nacelles & boosters slapped onto the sides of the fighter ships looking like X,Y, A-Wings and whatnot. Heck, the XL-7 will fit right alongside the Vic Viper in Gradius. Upon unboxing and pulling the clamshell out, there was initial disappointment in its smaller-than-expected size of the toy. Yeah the size was mentioned by Bandai in the listings, but visually when half the box area is taken up by the stand, it just feels like space padding by Bandai when they have always been very space efficient in their packaging before. The stand look a lot like what is being used for Gundam Metal Builds, so although it is beefy, from others’ reviews it just looks too big for the XL-15 to the point of being distracting. I just left it in its clamshell. I did a quick comparison with a Yamato 1/60 VF-1 I happen to readily have in display. They are both actually the same length, at about 240mm. But the XL-15’s heft, with almost all its upper body (except the engine & vertical stabs) being diecast, at 375g makes it almost double the VF-1’s 195g. Are they the same scale? Looking at the sizeable difference of the cockpit glass area, it doesn’t appear so.. or is it? Since there doesn’t appear to be any published in-universe dimensions of the XL-15, I lined up the included sitting and standing Buzz figures with the Yamato 1/60 pilot & ground crew figures. They do seem to scale rather well with each other, so the XL-15 does appear to scale quite well with most of our favorite Macross toys. Bandai as usual, are generous in tampo prints. There are many spread throughout, even the underside, and the smallest & tiny ones appear crisp to my tired, 40+ years eyes. Paint is adequate, with Bandai having done a good job matching the shades of paint between the plastic and metal areas. It would be sweeter though, if it came a bit weathered like what they showed off on the box art. There are small gripes with the general design though. Mainly, the very wide cockpit glasshouse, coupled with the rather steep downward wing cant, gives it an SD-ish appearance from certain angles. Although, this is just nitpicking, as spaceships can basically be any shapes they want. The wide cockpit means Buzz has plenty of room inside, and it looks like he can have generous armrests on both his sides if he so wishes. In the earlier pilot & crew comparison pic above, sitting Buzz actually has his legs all stretched forward, so I can imagine him just reclining the backrest for some bit of first-class space travel comfort.. Another gripe I have is the totally unexpected way the landing gears work. The bay doors are integrated; they open but only to reveal peg holes for the separate landing gears to plug in. At this size, the whole affair should really be integrated. I believe this is also the same arrangement for the upcoming HMR VF-0S. On the plus side, the wheels do roll. The fronts are plastic wheels, while the bigger rear wheels are rubber. It so happens this is the second butt shot I took within the space of a week, perhaps I have a fetish for nice rear ends. The XL-15’s rear section does have lots of detail going on there, from what I assume to be the some sort of power unit between the boosters, the secondary exhaust vents below, and the rather intricate molding of the booster nozzles themselves. In a nice touch, Bandai also bundled in Zurg. For its size, the molding & paint details are quite crisp, such that I initially thought there’s some articulation in key joints (it doesn’t). Overall, I’m quite happy with this purchase. The diecast-heavy heft of the whole thing quickly subsided my initial disappointment of its size, and off the top of my head, I don’t think there have been many or even other companies actively making diecast sci-fi fighter ships in this size or scale. The nearest comparison would be diecast 1/72 fighter jets, else in spirit I’m comparing it to my old Aoshima Cheyenne Dropship, the Aoshima 1/48 Airwolf and the 1/32 Organic Blue Thunder. I’ve not seen the Lightyear movie yet, but am still attracted to the spaceships almost purely from their design standpoint & what little I know of Buzz from Toy Story. I do hope Bandai continues this line, I really would like to see them releasing the XL-7 next..

Chogokin Lightyear XL-15 Spaceship. I impulse PO'ed this, and now it's here... (I wonder how long before my luck runs out from Amazon JP's really economical packing). Some impressions of it here.

As always, love seeing these customs..

LOL!! And provide them a huge sticker if they want to correct it..

I think, most of us are now generally familiar with the MCU Iron Man aesthetic. Here is an Iron Man suit looking somewhat quite different than we are used to seeing: This suit is an interpretation of what Howard Stark wears in the comic book, specifically the House of M story arc which I understand to be set in one of the many alternate-verses.

3rd on this haha.. This is really nice! Is the pilot supposed to be a hologram?

Was just gonna say that the Gundam-esque feet immediately stood out.. I'm all for redesign, but part of the Ride-Armors' appeal to me are the simpler lines and blocky 80's mech aesthetic. Sentinel seem to have struck a nice balance between that with some nice choice updates (or rather, the Mospeada Complete Art Works book cover they were based on). MoShow's redesign seem to have swung a bit too far off.. If may work better if they did this based on some hypothetical new ride armor. But doing it as Stick's just looks weird. It's recognisably Stick's, but it doesn't feel like Stick's..

Ah apologies, I confused myself. I keep thinking the Hs in the series was his and not Keith's. Well, bring on the Ba, Bandai!

Do you mean his red & gold 262Hs? Yeahh agreed, more 262 will balance out the avalanche of 31s so far.. Although, I prefer the normal 262Ba the rest of Windemerean Knights used, with the more normal looking wings..

Hmm it should be on track to release by end of this month.. if it was delayed we should have some sort of announcement by now.

Still haven't got the whole group together yet. Just messing around with Stick at moment..

Huh I legit thought my favorite Fatal Fury character is now a transgender in some latest game lol.. until I saw the 'Fatal Cutie' on the cap. So its a more a what if version of Terry..

I’m happy and sad. Happy because I have Arcadia’s SV-51 Nora, sad because it seems already obsolete after seeing @Macross Junkie’s fantastic weathered specimen.

Having run out of display space some time back, the purchases thereafter inadvertently stayed in their boxes waiting for their day to be out for the indefinitely delayed display expansion. So, decided to dug into storage to bring the Yamato QF-2200 Ghost boosters out for some fiddling. I think of all the Ghost unmanned fighters in Macross universe, these look the best due to their simpler lines. It is great that Yamato made both variants the QF-2200-A and QF-2200-B, as individually the colors look realistic, yet contrasts nicely with each other. When I first saw it mounted on the VF-0 Phoenix in the final episode of Macross Zero more 20 years or so ago, the series which incidentally was my first re-introduction to the Macross universe, my first thought was that it was such a cool concept to augment the base valk. Although in this pic, it is not fully canon as I did not mount the missile pods. I thought the missile pods tend to break the sculpt overall a bit too much and makes the whole thing look just a bit too busy.. But it would be the following pic that fires up my imagination the most, and showcases the whole set up's trust vectoring capabilities, as glimpsed in a few shots of Shin vs Nora's final battle. Incidentally, I think there aren't (or I can't recall) any other Yamcadia or Bandai valks that showcase nicely painted details in the booster. I hope Bandai follows up the HMR VF-0S with the Ghost booster before they do the armor. It would be fun to army build a few of those.

Great pics @tekering !

Haha that big feet and somewhat cartoonish teeth just about make it quite charming. Never enough a fan of dinos, but agreed that at this price it looks like lots of fun to be had.

CM's Dark Ride Armor.. Gotta thank @jenius for his mega helpful write up on his site to identify which variant this is.

Always wondered if I should pick up some of the Sentinel Fighting Armor series, but I kinda think the line would look strange if they were all put next to each other, owing to the same base sculpt and consequently the exact same height. In meantime, just enjoying the existing Re:Edit Iron Mans which to me is unique enough among the sea of MCU Iron Man's..

Can't disagree there, I guess styrofoam off-gassing is the only possible irritant factor left, as some others have also speculated. Clearcoat likely helps too because I know of other toylines that re-issued with clearcoat in attempt to tackle the yellowing problem of initial release. But base plastic formulation is still has to be the #1 factor.

Recently noticed that some of Frontier valks (v2 onwards) have started to turn ever so slightly yellow, even though they have been kept MIB in their boxes since day 1 away from the triple bane of sunlight, heat & humidity. Pretty upset at first, but it is what it is. I conclude Bandai plastics for that generation of valks probably only lasts about 9-10 years before they start yellowing. Whereas Yamato / and early Arcadia valks of those years are still pretty pristine white in the same conditions. So, I gonna start taking some pics of the whiter colored scheme valks to preserve their glorious colors in memory, starting with the YF-29 30th Anniversary (Roy) which is pretty much my top favorite scheme of all the YF-29s..

Even though it is still WIP, the weathering does add lots of depth to the toy. Battroid has never looked better!

Close call but luckily no damage @treatment. I received mine in exactly same packing from Amazon JP. Curiously for smaller packages, items are a shrink wrapped with a piece of cardboard HLJ-style, but not for bigger packages like these.

Nora arrived today. Had a quick fiddle out of the box in Fighter, and it’s immediately obvious the wings have been tightened up even more compared to Ivanov’s. When I wanted to fold them inward for submarine launch position, the wing root joints were so stiff that I felt I might snap something whilst trying to move them. One of the things I like about Arcadia’s mold, is the pair of wings being slightly bigger than Yamato’s. It gives Fighter just a tad more balanced look, although admittedly only more noticeable from top down angles. And oh, the box loses the front flap & window that were present in Ivanov’s. So weight savings of 150g to be had there, which should go some way towards lower shipping rates.