Chronocidal

On a more humorous note, I may have found a new sig. Reminds me of a warning image from an old board I frequented (note, this wasn't meant for the same situation as here.. it was more when people were starting flame wars, so if it feels inappropriate here, I'll remove it). But anyway, yah, perfect transformation usually in my mind means "you don't need to take it apart and put it back together again to make it transform." Note, there are many ways for this to happen, but the VF-1 tends to stick with one of a couple tried and true methods. For a very different take on the sequence, there's one that even includes side covers as part of the arm mechanism in a recent post in one of the model sections. It was a very different take on the transformation, but no less effective than the standard Yamato VF-1.

Funnily enough, after seeing so many attempted Lego valks, that may be one of the few methods that would actually work for a perfect transformation Lego VF-1.

Just fyi, they have done this FREQUENTLY, and it's not so much a company as it is a designer for the anime, in this case Kawamori. There are a lot more designs for variable fighters than I think you're aware of. They're not going to redesign the originals (that would just be stupid considering the history they have established), but they've been adding new designs for over two decades now. Honestly, the only "Tomcat" style valks to me are the VF-0 and VF-1, and the VF-1 is even iffy to me, since it's so small (reminds me more of the F-18 in terms of proportions). The rest are very different in what they look like. The SV-51 is a clear descendant of Russian planes like the Su-27/35. The VF-17/VF-171 comes from the F-117. YF-19 takes elements from a mixing of foward swept wing planes, most notably the Su-47 and X-29. The YF-21/VF-22 is an obvious tribute to the YF-23. VA-3 Invader is a tweaked A-6 Intruder. VA-14 Vampire is a modified SR-71. I could go on. Suffice to say, they've already done what you're suggesting, and they've done it a lot. Whether toys are made of any of these is an entirely separate issue from them being designed in the first place. A lot of these designs have been drawn up, but until it gets featured in some new show, there's no reason to make a toy. At that point, you wind up with merchandise for it's own sake (ie, transformers) that might at some point get a series, not something that came from an established anime series, which is what Valkyries are. If this is what you meant by making valks more like transformers, I see your point now, but it's not going to happen. Transformers are "hey, lets make a robot of this because it'll look cool, and we can write a story for it later." Macross is more "hey, lets write this story, and it'll feature people flying these transforming planes." Where transformers will change design over time (Starscream has been MANY different aircraft designs at various points), Valkyries don't, because they have an established history. The VF-1 will ALWAYS be the way we see in the lineart. The only way that will change is if someone decides to reboot the series at some point, or like I said before, if Hollywood gets their grubby hands on it.

Actually not quite, you still have to remove the intake covers, but all the Yamato valks have those now. VF-25 eliminates a couple perfect variable problems by not even addressing them to begin with (they just ignored the intake covers entirely), but they still have interchangeable hands. Yamatos have these too, but they are alternates to the posable ones you can fold out of the arms. This topic really gets debated to death every time a new version of any valk comes out, and people start adjusting their perceptions of "perfect transformation" to match those of the companies producing it. If you really want perfect, you're gonna have to go to the lengths of some of the custom modders here, and make your own changes to a valk to make it perfect in your eyes. It all comes down to how picky you are personally, regardless of how "perfect" a company says it is.

So I was driving to work today, minding my own business, when one of the old Burl Ives songs from that stop-action Rudolph movie came on (station just started playing Christmas music already ). Forget which song it was, but doesn't really matter here. My imagination flashed to those new Verizon commercials with the whole Island of Misfit Toys deal... and my brain decided to do a cut and paste with goofy ideas. I have this picture of the island with all the borked up toys... ..and off in the distance, I see a poor sad group of old broken Valks sitting around a campfire. I almost spat out my morning coffee when the thought hit me, and the idea stuck with me all day, thinking "I should make a movie of this..." So from that basic idea, it grew into a full fledged argument over which broken valk had the worst flaw (as in, the valks sitting there around that campfire on a snow covered island, arguing over who was worst). Starts with a Tab-B YF-19, or something, and basically progresses through all the various problems Valks have had over the years (every brand, not just Yammies, although most would be Yamato based).. armless valks from busted shoulders, v.1 1/60ths who can't stand up from loose hips, etc.. maybe show a battroid Ivanov trying to flap his wings and take off. Then towards the end, a group of 1/48 Angel Birds walks up, and they're just all frustrated (all voiced by girls, just for comical effect). They're complaining because they don't get it... they don't have any QC issues, they're certainly the biggest VF-1, and one of the best sculpts ever, but they can't understand why no one wants to buy them, and their value keeps dropping... Cut to a giant shared thought bubble of all the other valks, and they're picturing all the AB VF-1s with giant bows stuck on their chest plates, and wearing fabric skirts (maybe put wigs on them, or even full fledged heads from girl anime figures)... and they all just point and laugh hysterically, while the AB valks look at each other and scratch their heads. I would love to do this myself.. but sadly I don't actually have any of those valks with those problems, I didn't start collecting until recently. I dabbled in stop motion in high school, and it'd be fun to do this (complete with pasted on facial expressions).. heck, if Yamato was more mainstream in the US, I can see this being a sketch for Robot Chicken. Anyway, I just can't help laughing at this, and it's only in my head. Probably kind of pointless to go into such detail with a random thought, but I'd love to see this done by someone who has the patience and talent. I might try and do it as a comic over time, but to mimic the original misfit toy sequence would be awesome.

Like I said, read the SDF-1 thread. You want stronger plastic? SOMEONE HAS TO PAY FOR IT. You want toys made of plastic stronger than steel??? You must be already living in the macross universe, cuz short of overtechnology, it's not going to happen IN A TOY. If it were that simple, sure, they should just make every valk out of carbon fiber composite pieces, and you'd have your sturdy transformer-ish valk, at a price only slightly less than a new freaking BMW. Materials that strong are usually reserved for military and industrial applications (ie, weapons, armor, automotive parts). You put that in a toy, and no one will be able to afford the stupid thing. Toy companies make toys because they want to make a profit off them, not cater to every hope and dream of potential customers. If they can't make a profit selling them, they simply won't make them at all. I'll repeat, do some research. Read the SDF-1 thread, and see what effect using fancier materials has on toys. There are things called production costs that come into play, and they will KILL the product. The recent rage over the $2000 SDF-1 should make this abundantly clear. And once more.. PLEASE use some freaking punctuation, spelling, grammar, anything to make your ideas more readable. There is no metal called "STEAL." My apologies for this rant, I'm just in a pissy mood today. Laptop bit the dust due to crappy factory included software, and I might have to spend a couple hundred dollars to make the thing work like it should have to begin with.

^ | | THIS. I don't mean to be a jackass here, but remember the old saying: "If you don't like it, make it yourself." People design custom valks all the time. Considering Frontier just came out, it's HIGHLY unlikely that any new designs will get made in the next several years, and even more unlikely that you'll get something so similar to real life aircraft as what you're suggesting. That doesn't stop you from coming up with it yourself as a fan made design. It probably won't ever become a toy or model, but make something fancy and cool enough, and someone might build it as a custom someday. Designing something yourself also tends to give you a very good appreciation of the design process that goes into something like the VF-1, or any other valk. It may look easy at first, and you might get lucky, but it can take a very long time to make a working design (this applies to anything in life really). Btw, I haven't heard anything about a live action macross movie outside of the robotech movie rumors. Frankly, I could care less if the original creator isn't involved at all. But on the other side of things, leave it to Hollywood, and you'll probably get your F-18 valk (seeing as how Transformers already claimed the F-22, Macross was always Navy-ish based, and the standard go-to Navy plane is the Hornet). It may suck monkey butt, and wind up as another bayformer, but you'll at least have your F-18 valk, and maybe some remote bit of satisfaction in getting what you wanted (which I will wager very little of this forum's population will share in ).

Again, THAT IS NOT THE ACTUAL VALK. It's a (bad) photoshop of the Roy. The blank one is all bare plastic/metal, seen in a picture a page or so back.

Just fyi, those are all photoshop jobs. The poses are identical to the VF-1S Roy publicity photos, and you can see where details are missing where they shopped over the yellow and black. Either that, or this valk comes with a single piece chest/canopy shield, because the seam between them is gone.

Go study engineering, manufacturing, and industrial design, get the degree, and do it yourself then. Simple as that. You're not going to convince a major corporation to make something the way you want it just because you think it'd be better. You'll eventually realize that there are trade-offs that must be made, and you'll hopefully understand why the existing toys are made like they are. Sorry to be blunt, but until you study this subject in more detail, you're not going to understand why certain things don't work, or in many cases, are just financially stupid to try. Read the topic on the $2000 SDF-1 for a good example of this. That being said, why make a new topic just to suggest this again? You're going to get the same responses as before, from the same people (that is, if they feel like responding at all).

It's got a macro setting, it's what I was using.. maybe just need better lighting and a steadier hand/tripod. Hopefully with the super packs, you'll have a bit more room to cram things in, since they add so much bulk to the valk. Regardless of where you put the pegs, the tricky part is making them line up. There's a bit of play in the joints, so you can't size the holes exactly for the pegs.. you just have to make the holes a little sloppy side to side, so you can adjust them. It's a lot of trial and error. Locator pins made of metal might do better actually. Given a second kit, I'd probably try that instead. The holes I made are rather messy, and smoothing them will make them bigger, and sloppier. I'm hoping painting will cover some of that up, and smooth over the area.

Oy, I need to figure out my camera.. trying to take a few better pics, and failing utterly. Or maybe the camera just sucks. Nothing really new about more attachment pegs, but I did discover that a big part of getting the upper fuselage to stay together with minimal gaps is just grabbing the fuselage at the hip joint, and squeezing the intakes inwards. The hips tend to pop out when they're moved, and squeezing them together pushes them all the way onto the hip pegs, and makes everything fit better. The hip guns are actually staying in place well, and the wings are completely level now.

I'm pretty sure someone here has a professionally made one of those jackets, it's probably somewhere in this thread. Try reading back a ways, you might find it. I think there were lots of pics of it.

Going by the varous comments, it looks REALLY similar to the treatment most of the characters got between SDFM and DYRL... as in, the focus shifted almost ENTIRELY to the triangle, with much less input from the other characters, even though they still fill out their roles. DYRL was essentially focused on Hikaru the entire time, and split the time half and half (roughly) between Minmay and Misa. This looks like it does the same, taking the events of the series, and tweaking them so that the focus becomes the main 3 again. What I hope DOESN'T happen here though.. I don't want Ozma/Kathy to get relegated to the Max/Milia role in DYRL. M&M got reduced to the bare bones in DYRL, and I think that worked, but O&K (or maybe just OK? lol) had bigger roles throughout the series, and both of them have bigger connections to the main plot than M&M did (I mean, Max wasn't Minmay's legal guardian or anything, and Milia wasn't related to Global ). The relationships between "minor" characters are a lot more fleshed out in MacF, and will need more coverage than in DYRL, since they're key elements of the plot. Fortunately, we've got two movies to do it in. And I REALLY want Klan to have a bigger role than just mourning Michael (which it already looks like she does fortunately). I haven't watched DYRL for a while, but I don't remember if Claudia even had lines.

I honestly don't see any reason why more of these need to be made. Yamato's flooding the market as is, and for a plane that size, 1/100 is tiny (assuming it IS 1/100, like the VF-19, and part of the same line). And I could care less about metal, it just means scratched paint. If this winds up being in the same price range as the VF-19 (if it's not significantly cheaper, Bandai's shooting themselves in the foot), I'll gladly put up the extra few bucks to get something almost twice as big.

So I finally got around to slapping together my VF-25G kit yesterday, after reading some of the build-up threads in here. When I got to the issue of the wings flipping up and the legs tending to droop, I know some people have used magnets. I've never liked the pseudo-sturdy feeling those give though, and decided to try something new. Essentially, I hacked up the kit. What I did amounted to drilling/filing out 4 rectangular holes, and shaping two custom shaped pegs to fit them. I found a nice flat surface where the wing gloves and lower legs meet, and carved out a matching set of holes. Finding a place on the leg to make a hole was a bit tricky. What I wound up modifying was the part that secures the forward hinge on the folding leg panels that hide the ventral fins. That panel has some empty space underneath, it's attached very solidly, and when the wings are folded down level, there's a good sized flat area it shares with the wings. Note, this does screw up the detail on the leg panel a bit, since it's got a hole through it now. The changes don't show at all in fighter (which is how I'll likely keep the model most of the time), but the hole does kill a bit of detail on the outer leg. It might be easy to disguise with paint later, but for now, it's kind of a gaping hole (and still a bit rough, I need to sand down the edges). Anyway, pictures are definitely worth more here. Legs are nice and high in fighter mode Wings aren't quite perfectly level, but close enough for me. Here's what I did, lemme know if anyone wants it highlighted and I can do that. The blue panel just below the knee has a small slot cut directly into it. It's not very deep, but it's plenty to keep the tab I made held in. The edge of the white portion on the wing glove section has a hole cut through it, and the rectangular tab is anchored deeply inside the wing glove. Here's how it lines up when the wings are folded down. The tab isn't much, but it solved two problems at once. The legs are held up tightly against the fuselage, and the wings are held level by the weight of the legs. It's sturdy too. I can hold up the entire model by the lower leg, and nothing moves anymore. The hardest part of this was making the custom pegs to glue into the wing gloves. It's a small piece that I filed to shape from some square scrap plastic, and the shape was hard to make at this size. I can put up a drawing of what it looks like if anyone wants, but it's basically a triangular prism with a tab on the wide end. Think something like this, just stretched a bit vertically: ..._ _| |_ |..../ |../ |/ It just lays against the inside of the wing glove underneath, and doesn't interfere at all with the wing. I can get measurements for where I cut if anyone wants, but the exact location and size isn't as important as just making sure the tabs line up with the holes on the legs. I'm thinking of adding similar tabs to hold on the shield in fighter mode, and maybe the hip guns. Hope someone finds this useful, I gotta clean my desk now, it's covered in sanding dust.

Stupid question.. is there any reason why those booster nozzles are asymmetrical? Frankly, they look retarded that way.. I dunno.. I like the design enough, but the decals look like they'll all have to be painted on to look decent (the ones in the photos look terrible.. looks like it was built in one sitting, and may well have been ), and I wouldn't use that color scheme to begin with. If I ever get one I'll probably wind up doing some sort of random custom.. maybe Milia retired her VF-22, and moved to one of these. Or maybe I'll use a set of Nora decals on it.. Oh well. At least it looks like they made the visor clear green this time.

Actually.. in terms of transformation, it's probably better that they didn't paint the metal. I know many people have done customs already, and they would probably know better than I would.. My thought is that if they really did pre-paint the metal parts, especially the chest plate, it could get rather nasty to keep the plane (or is it a model now?) transforming without problems. The tolerances on this design are so tight, I doubt things would work correctly with too many coats of paint. Yes, this is a disadvantage to people who want to decorate a white valk. But if you're not going to leave anything white, those extra layers of paint could have been a problem for customizers. Also, for the cockpit canopy.. I could care less about the coating, but there's also a good reason to leave the frame unpainted. Real aircraft often have different colors on the insides of their canopy frames, matching with the interior colors, while the exteriors match the exterior of the aircraft. With the canopy left entirely clear, you can do a base coat for the canopy frame interior, then do the outer coat over it, and have different colors inside and out. It's much easier than actually painting the frame on the smooth inside of the canopy glass. That's really no excuse for things like landing gear (which we haven't seen, and might be painted after all), but leaving the paint application entirely up to the owner has its advantages. They wanted to leave everything up to the owner, so what they've done is offer maximum flexibility, even if it does look a bit incomplete. Personally, I might be tempted to get at least one of these, maybe a few. I've always wanted to just do up a few VF-1s in pure late '70s navy markings (US insignia and all, just as a what-if), and while decals might get tricky on transforming ones, I'd rather do them on complete valks than hasegawa kits (don't really have the patience to build so many when I just want to decorate them ). Really, forget this whole "angel birds" mashup, I wanna see VF-1s in actual Blue Angels and Thunderbirds markings.

Ok, um.. holy crap? It seriously looks like they went and reanimated the show... Is this game such a high budget project that they'd do that? Or is there something else going on here, and this is only a glimpse of it? I know it's unrealistic.. but if these clips turn out to be tidbits of some kind of SDFM series revival... *dreams*

I was seriously tempted to get Gamlin this morning, and I coulda.. but I want M&M VF-22s more, and if I get a third I want a YF-21. I could probably afford them all, but I have other things to think about too.. like.. rent... and food.. you know. I just wish I could count on a sale like this for the M&Ms.. And I REALLY wish this sale applied to the Mac0 stuff, they still have the VF-0S in stock, but I don't want to pay that much for it.

Top no... Improve upon?

As much as I love a company as big as Bandai taking a swing at marketing Macross, I've got mixed thoughts. My only personal experience with any Frontier merchandise to this point has been one 1/72 model, and it's barely been started, so I have very little feedback on it (except... bandai screwed up the Michael version color scheme, and you have to paint it, regardless of what they say.. they just flat out forgot most of the white parts on his VF-25G. Not a huge issue, but still irritating). It's a beautiful kit though, and I have no problem making a model to get a nice display piece... I barely transform my Yammies as it is. I seriously hope they don't scrap that 1/48 VF-25 kit we saw a teaser for, I'll buy 10... maybe. The DX's? Gah. I'm a stickler for details, and what Bandai did with these is inexcusable to me. It's not really the shape, or the accuracy of the design that gets to me (although they could use work)... it's the lazyness factor. There is no excuse for the corners they cut. Sloppy imprecise molding, cheapo paint, short-bus landing gear, lousy joint design (seriously? no knee pivot??).. eh, it's all been said before. But it kills my interest in them pretty completely. I'm actually more interested in the VF100s line than the DX, but Bandai can't seem to decide what those are. I'd rather have more model kits than partsformers. The Hi-Metals may turn out better, but at that size/weight, there's really no reason for metal, and you could produce much cheaper and more detailed toys if you went with more plastic. More metal means more paint chipping from transforming.

Maybe this is more what you were thinking?

Actually, I'm a bit relieved Less pressure to buy them before Christmas, when I'll probably blow a bundle on presents for family.

I do want to get at least one VF-1D, but I'll get the trainer first. This'll look just like my Max 1J on the shelf (since they'll probably be displayed in fighter mode), so I'd rather have more unique valks. I may go completist one day, but for now I'm just picking up the iconic TV designs.