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Greetings everyone! First time poster here at MW. Been lookin at this site for a while & thought I'd jump in with all you fine folks! So, like many of you guys, I got the new 1/72 BANDAI Variable Valk kit & was, well, a bit dissapointed. But I have to say, coming from a long time modeler's point of view who does it mainly for the love of it, its not that bad of a kit. Sure it has its problems but we as modelers can just do what we do best...improvise, adapt & overcome right? So saying, I'm planning a little something "special" for my kit but first I need to address some of the problems it has...parts fit, looseness, lack of detail in some spots etc etc..all stuff I'm sure you guys have already come across! The First thing I tackled was the wonky fit of the legs in fighter mode & how they don't fit quite perpendicularly to the fuselage. The main problem is, like I'm sure most of you have figured by now, the grey retention tabs that lock the arms in place in fighter mode. The top edges of these are rubbing the sides of the legs & keeping them from sitting in where they should. Instead of cutting these off entirely tho, I thought if I could shave down one side sufficiently on a diagonal angle it might allow the leg to seat better & have a more perpendicular angle to the fuselage when viewed end-on. Here's what I shaved off: Secondly I thought, again, like most of you I'm sure, that the arms are too spindly & need fixed. I plan on beefing up the upper arms, shoulders & forearms. The first thing I started with was the degree of bend to the elbows. With a little tweaking of the lower part of the upper arm where it joins with the elbow joint, I was able to give it a lot more bend, so much so that now the Battroid mode will have the ability for the Gunpod to actually touch the shoulder armor: Next ( because I'm a hopeless scratchbuilder & can't leave anything alone straight out of the box ) I'm gonna lite this guy up with micro LEDs. The first thing I worked on was the optics section on the head. Since this particular build is gonna be a "one-off" style, i wanted something different. He's gonna be a predominantly really dark low-vis Valk & I thought he'd look kick-@ss with a blue Optic sensor: A veeeeeery long time ago, when the Hasegawa VF-1 kits came out, the only way you could get a pilot figure was to get the add-on weapons set. So, I got one & and while the figure wasn't bad, it could be remade better. Now, don't get me wrong, the pilot figure the new kit comes with aint bad but I'm anal when it comes to miniatures & detail & I looooooves me some detail work... at that point I remembered my old VF-1 Hase pilot. I dug the little guy outta storage & I think with a little tweaking I can make him fit in the new kit: So, thats where I'm at right now. Any ideas or comments are heartily welcomed & appreciated! Thanks for lookin guys n Cheers!! ~BK