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Yeah HLJ is ridiculous for Bandai stuff, I gave it another chance for the YF-21 but it was yet another fail. Ended up cancelling and just buying it off of a US seller on ebay, got it within a week. Cost $50, but with shipping from Japan, I would have paid the same from HLJ anyway.

Progress on trying to improve the proportions of the 21 - I think just raising the backpack makes the biggest impact, thankfully that's relatively easy to do. It's a bit high now compared to the lineart, but playing around with it, I thought that was preferable to it hanging so low at the bottom. Without it in the background, I think the legs get emphasized more:

I think Bandai is just reusing those thruster effect parts from a different kit. Looks like the ones they made for the 1/144 RG Nu Gundam. It's funny that they even have action base holes on the bottom to display the fin funnels in flying formation, which make no sense in this application!

I was mocking up an add-on piece to keep the dang wingtips from drooping down, and figured I might as well extend it to add a couple hard points for missiles. I can't remember any reference to the YF-21 having them . . . but surely they must exist, to compete with the 19?

Loving the YF-21 so far, solid kit and fun build. Longtime pet peeve of mine is that no one seems to proportion the battroid mode to the lineart, torso and leg placement is always more in line with human proportions than the leggy and alien Queadlunn Rau/Rea look. Gn-u Dou is close but legs are still too low and I don't love the bulky torso block behind the fighter nose. Bandai also went with the bulky torso block, as well as lengthening the torso, I guess to make it look cooler (I noticed the YF-19 also lost its stubby torso from the lineart). Thankfully the rest of the proportions are impressively close (minus the backpack, but I guess that was unavoidable) so it looks like some very small modifications/replacement parts should bring it in line. Here are my preliminary attempts. I'm also going to try raising the backpack up, can't do anything about the size but more accurate placement should help the silhouette.

I'd say model kits are more like microwave dinners, yeah you've got to heat them, but the bulk of the cooking's already done for you. In Bandai's case, they've almost perfected the microwave dinner, you truly only have to heat them to get something you can eat. In Tamaiya's case there's more preparation you have to do to get an equivalent result. Either way, a model kit is more comparable to a coloring book than some kind of a venerable art form, and I think it's silly to argue that since one coloring book has more legible lines that it takes all the challenge out of filling in the colors and that it's not true coloring at all. The entire point of a model kit is to make model-making easier. I'm sure when injection kits first came out, modelers didn't consider them 'real' models either. Of course, props to those who can make a fill-in-a-color page look like a Rembrant, and those who add their own lines etc., etc.; I'm not trying to devalue their work, I build kits too, I'm just calling it as it is. EDIT: yeah, back on topic, any word of a Q-Rea kit? I kind of have a feeling Banda will go through all the Valks and the Vajra before getting to them, though

Itoya FinePoint System pens are fairly cheap and come in .1 mm varieties. Just make sure to get the permanent ink version. I've found it best to just make a rough line over the panel line, making sure to actually get the ink inside, then getting a cotton swab and some rubbing alcohol and lightly brushing perpendicular to it to wipe off the excess. This is over bare plastic; if you're doing it over paint, it's tougher to wipe off, and depending on the paint (particularly flats) it might smear, so in that case I'd just try to get an accurate line from the start. Sakura Microns are OK, but they wipe off easier. Not too much of a problem once the ink's safely inside a panel line, though, and if you're doing it over non-glossy paint it'll prolly stick no matter what. Also cheap. Rapidographs give you the finest lines, but they cost a ton. You can probably find all three at your nearest craft store. Here's a MG Turn-A I did using an Itoya FinePoint (that hand is about a centimeter wide) so you know it works:

The Revoltechs have a 3D torso joint, which I think is pretty critical to dynamic looking poses. I agree that the hip joints are lacking, but in terms of good looking poses that doesn't seem to have as much of an effect as the lack of torso joints on GNUs. The pivot point on the thighs help immensely as well--you can't really do the Revvy YF-19's flying kick pose on a GNU YF-19 because of it. Kaiyodo seem to have a lot of experience at strategically placing joints for the most dynamic poses and working around limitations. In all other counts though, the two lines appear equal in articulation (okay, minus the GNU YF-19's crap knee bend). GNUs have ball joints where they count, such as at the shoulders, hips, and ankles, and all Revoltech joints are--functionally--ball joints as well. Big plus for the GNUs is that, having actual ball joints, they're much easier to pose and have a finer range of motion. Revoltechs are more difficult to pose (as evidenced by the YF-21s in this thread that look like they've had their limbs broken and/or half pulled apart) but they hold better plus the whole modularity thing. That said, the way the GNU YF-21 looks at 3/4th profile is atrocious, I can't believe they screwed it up that badly even though the lineart shows it at that angle. And someone must've been drunk when they came up with the placement of the YF-19's leg skeleton in relation to the armor, if they'd moved it up a centimeter it would look practically the same and have almost twice the range. The Revoltechs don't really have glaring/obvious/stupid errors, but their sculpts are definitely funkier than the lineart and of course the intrinsic disadvantages of PVC (ABS? POM internal skeleton? Why THANK YOU YAMATO). You can really tell that Kaiyodo's guy's actually a designer though, and recognized and captured the spirit (if not the exact proportions) of the lineart, while whoever did the GNUs sort of mechanically tried to copy the lineart exactly.

GNU upper body plus Revoltech lower body would yield a near lineart-perfect YF-21 battroid. Damn, so close! And as far as I can tell in regard to scale (my YF-21 hasn't come yet) using the height of the stands as a common reference, the 21 and 19 are the same height, and maybe even a smidgeon shorter, than the VF-1s. The GNUs actually look like they might be in better scale with the VF-1s, though something in between would be most accurate.