Lolicon

Newest figure added; temporary stand-in for Ranka.

Wow1 What a beauty! I might have to reevaluate my stance on flat finishes for mecha models. What custom decals did you use?

Why does eveyone forget that Kawamori never intended for Macross to be a serious war story? Where did this myth that the original Macross is some kind of serious, mature war story and all its sequels are kiddy fluff come from? And why would an adult sci-fi fan dislike the Quarter? Hey did you know the Yamato looks like an ocean-going vessel from World War II? Guess what many sci-fi fans love Space Cruiser Yamato (or its English bastardization Starblazers). A lot of sci-fi fans also love Gundam, and there's way more unrealistic stuff in that. I'm an adult sci-fi fan and I love the Quarter, despite and because of its completely impractical design. It's also not practical to build a gigantic space station the size of a moon, especially with an open exhaust port that some nutcase could drop a torpedo down. Any race that can actually build such a thing would be so advanced that they wouldn't need to. Sorry, there I go again into "serious" sci-fi mode.

Damn I'm impressed with the skill and patience you've had with these mediocre decals. I would've lost patience and just tossed them and painted some of those sections. Up close the dithering pattern is pretty awful, even with the naked eye. Still I really like the finish you have there. I like having that kind of finish on anime mecha, instead of just a plain old flat finish.

They look like generic SMS pilots with rounded helmets. Ranka looks like she's been hitting the gym a lot. The DX pilot figures look 100x better.

I like how they used a pic of the 1/72 model with the hip bars swung upwards to make it look like the jacked up leg placement of the DX.

Quarter arrived today. Finally, Bandai releases a Frontier toy that isn't sub-par! Lots of others have talked about it and posted pics, so I'll just post a quick couple of pics with the Quarter's illustrious predecessor.

Whoa those pics make the crotch look huge and the legs look much higher up than before. Don't like that, but still leaps and bounds better than the VF-25. But the pilot figures look very nice; even better than the 1/72 model pilots. Gonna pick one up for the fighter and gerwalk modes at the very least.

That's great to know! Thanks! I might give it a shot then... after I sand down these parts and see if anything needs patching first.

I like the "paint-less" build but I couldn't live with it; the stress marks on the red-lavender plastic are too noticeable to me, even with the nail burnishing method. Guess I have no choice but to paint it! Though the light pink parts you could get away with not painting, since they're so light already.

That's really damn good looking. How the heck did he manage to hide all the stress marks from where the parts were cut? No matter how careful you are, there's always going to be some visible stress marks from cutting when you're working with colored plastic like this. I guess you can kind of sort of see them in the closeups, but that's still a good job hiding them.

Finally got mine stuck together in fighter mode. Parts fit is just super tight; I wouldn't attempt it after painting it. Slightly larger and heavier than the 25 due to the wings and extra engines, but otherwise it's nearly identical to the 25 in design and transformation (but I guess everyone already knew that). The back is way heavier than the front when mounting on my SMS stand, so much so that it cause my stand to flop backwards at the screw joint. Unlike the 25, the parts used to connect it to the stand are sturdy and secure. Didn't bother with the landing gear; looks kinda funny with the gun split to accommodate the front landing gear. Also looks kinda ridiculous in profile with that huge gun mounted so far forward.

Yeah it's not a design flaw, it's just me being too damn clumsy to handle the much tighter engineering of the 27. I was planning on keeping it in battroid anyway, so I can have him posed in the "about to blow Alto away" stance. I'll probably pick up the DX for whoosh whoosh purposes.

So you're telling me you notice more details in the often low res photos posted on the web versus just seeing said item in person? Like the small photos of the Quarter? Please. In theory yes, you can see more details with a high resolution image. I'd agree with your statement if everyone posted super hi res pics, but that's simply not the case on the web. I'd love it if all these websites had images at a minimum resolution of 1920x1080.

That's why I qualified my statement with the adverb "usually." Anyway, unless the Quarter is tiny like the Wave SDF-1 Macross, I don't think the bent turrets are a case of flaws being magnified by "blowing up" the image. I don't need a magnifying glass to see something obvious like a bent turret.

Details are usually more noticeable in person, not less. I didn't realize I was paying for gashapon quality. I guess if the turrets are removable I can put them in hot water and straighten them out. I really shouldn't have to though.

TV Focker pilot would be great. Or how about a Hikaru pilot with Misa on his lap? (With Misa wearing the helmet, of course.)

Oh what the hell. I could live with the color scheme, but not this crap. Time to look into canceling that preorder...

Almost done assembling my VF-27, but for the love of all that is holy I can't get everything to fit together properly in fighter mode; all I've done is scratch the model up. So I can't comment on the locking tabs. Going straight to battroid mode for this build.

Awww did I insult your precious Robotech? Too damn bad. Nice try comparing me to HG though. Robotech is still a crappy hackjob of a show.

That's where many bootleggers operate out of. Robotech is a bootleg show.

I started doing a test assembly last night on my VF-27. Not sure if it's been noted before, but the kit comes with two canopies. One molded in clear green, the other in the solid red-maroon plastic of the main fuselage. Why? Not sure since I'm not done assembling it.

Gundam marker is too fat and sloppy for any kind of fine panel line work. I use a 0.3 mm mechanical pencil. Though plain lead works fine, on my Yamatos I used a higher density (2H) lead that's harder and draws lighter; I didn't want dark, sloppy panel lines. Not prone to smudging at all, either.

I think I herniated something... that's the best analogy of RT.com ever!

Given a choice between Gundam marker and mechanical pencil, the pencil is definitely the way to go! No pics of my Yamatos atm, but the results are the same as my mostly unpainted Alto.