Custom VF-17S

[jenius]

Hey everybody, I was fortunate enough to get the original Mac7 toys at a great price. Once they arrived I looked at my reproduction VF-17S and decided to let my hatred of Mac7 bubble out onto it. It always seemed to me to be a toy on the verge of something pretty cool, so I was ready to beat some coolness into it (too bad no one ever did that to Basara...)

Anyway, those of you who have the toy will probably figure out what has happened to it. I'm really thrilled with the results but since I was never thinking about the cosmetic finish I have seriously marred it and would love to hear some suggestions on how to get a nice finish on the plastic. All suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Maybe some resin product I could paint?

[jenius]

Gerwalk is where it really shines (since it hides all the slashing and hacking)

Edited March 23, 2005 by jenius

[jenius]

Gamlin is all that is man!!!

(uh... right... I gave him a non-alcoholic beer for his pose on purpose)

Edited March 23, 2005 by jenius

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

Dude what did you do to mod the legs?it looks AWESOME!

[BoBe-Patt]

you should just repaint the whole thing into miriya's color! Good job on modding the legs though.

[jenius]

Here's a better pic that shows exactly the damage I'm trying to make look better. If I could just put a nice smooth edge around everything I modified I think this could be a really good-looking (and much more poseable) custom.

[jenius]

Doing this was actually a piece of cake. This has to be the easiest valk to disassemble. Everything just unscrews right apart. After it was all apart it was time to do some serious hacking. Cut away the excess plastic around the knees (it's a lot more plastic than you probably suspect) and you get a functioning knee. Gerwalk is my favorite though, that's why I continued up and hacked the large V out where it connects to the hip. This lets the joint go much further forward and actually obtain that classic Gerwalk stance. Unfortunately, there's no room for the thigh to bend in that direction so some extensive hip modification must be done. That part was exhausting. You have to hack a way a curved bottom but retain (or replace) enough plastic to hold the joints in place. That part is NOT fun. A more capable customizer would have replaced the stock joints with naturally more poseable ones (metal ball joints or something), I retained all the original parts and just modified their positioning and housing.

[Graham]

Pretty good, but I think you removed more plastic than necessary from the knees.

Check out the custom in the pic below, which can also bend it's knees back.

Graham

[jenius]

oooh, that custom looks perty! I fidgeted with the knee hacking quite a bit and may have over-done it. At the time though it seemed to need to be hacked down that far. Maybe if there is some sort of resin I can apply I can smooth out the square cuts a bit to make it not look so obvious... I'm definitely hungry for ways to make this thing look better.

Hey, if I do have to repaint the whole darn thing, were there any other alternate color schemes to the VF-17? The Miriya paintjob was suggested but did Miriya ever fly one? No, I'm not painting it green and giving it a sound booster of any kind.

[Graham]

The Miriya paintjob was suggested but did Miriya ever fly one?

Yes, Milia flew a red VF-17S in one episode of Macross 7. It's a pretty cool episode.

I'm actually having a VF-17S toy painted in Millia's colors at the moment. I'll post some pics when it's ready.

Graham

[jenius]

me likey

Any clue which episode that was (number or title)?

[valk1j]

The Miriya paintjob was suggested but did Miriya ever fly one?

Yes, Milia flew a red VF-17S in one episode of Macross 7. It's a pretty cool episode.

I'm actually having a VF-17S toy painted in Millia's colors at the moment. I'll post some pics when it's ready.

Graham

Can't wait to see that, the 17 needs more love

[BoBe-Patt]

yup, there she is. And yes, it was one awesome episode. She was trying to show Gamlin how it's done!

and this reminds me, why is she wearing Hikaru's flight suit? Shouldn't her suit be all red?

Edited March 23, 2005 by BoBe-Patt

[EXO]

yup, there she is. And yes, it was one awesome episode. She was trying to show Gamlin how it's done!

and this reminds me, why is she wearing Hikaru's flight suit? Shouldn't her suit be all red?

I guess she was showing Hikaru how it's done...

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

Hey guys, I am confused after what i read. Maybe because its late night. Who knows. Anyways. Can the Bandai VF-17S move it's legs up and down without mods? Not the knees but the upper legs.

[Godzilla]

yup, there she is. And yes, it was one awesome episode. She was trying to show Gamlin how it's done!     

and this reminds me, why is she wearing Hikaru's flight suit? Shouldn't her suit be all red?

I guess she was showing Hikaru how it's done...

Damn straight!

[jenius]

Hey guys, I am confused after what i read. Maybe because its late night. Who knows. Anyways. Can the Bandai VF-17S move it's legs up and down without mods? Not the knees but the upper legs.

Sorry, i think I caused the confusion by discussing the modification of the "hip" area. Yes, the stock toy can move it's leg forward with no bending any where along the leg (except the knee which can bend the wrong direction). I've added two places for bending along the leg. The first is obviously the knee. The second is below the hip where the thigh meets the hip. Just about every VF-1 has this upper thigh joint but the stock VF-17 lacked it. It doesn't really need this secondary leg joint but I find it makes Gerwalk look a whole heck of a lot better.

[hellohikaru]

That red VF-17S looked exactly like the one CCC President Manfred Brando used in VF-X-2.

[Graham]

That red VF-17S looked exactly like the one CCC President Manfred Brando used in VF-X-2.

No it doesn't. Brando's VF-17S had different a different style of yellow trim and no UN Spacy emblems.

Graham

[MGREXX]

Personally, I would melt it down and use the plastic to build something nice. I nvever was to partial to Bandai's butchery of M7 valks. Damn you Bandai!!!!!!!!! Let's see you mistreat yout GUndam line like that!!!!

[jenius]

Personally, I would melt it down and use the plastic to build something nice. I nvever was to partial to Bandai's butchery of M7 valks. Damn you Bandai!!!!!!!!! Let's see you mistreat yout GUndam line like that!!!!

Well... thank you for that. I still see some potential here and would like to clean it up. I'm trying to find some sort of compound I can apply to plastic and then mold to clean up all the hacked off edges. Something like plaster for plastic. I think I'll try to do that to all the areas I've hacked and then give it the Fusion/Plasti treatment as shown in another thread to try to make the Millia valk suggested earlier.

[Radd]

Personally, I would melt it down and use the plastic to build something nice. I nvever was to partial to Bandai's butchery of M7 valks. Damn you Bandai!!!!!!!!! Let's see you mistreat yout GUndam line like that!!!!

While I agree with you wholeheartedly that Bandai didn't do nearly as well as they could have, the 17's actually aren't too bad. And Graham's posted picture shows that one of these can be turned into something pretty damn nice. I need to grab another 17 sometime, then dig up the thread that custom is originally from to see about doing something like that myself one of these days.

[Graham]

Manfred Brando's VF-17S color scheme in VF-X2 is different from Millia's red VF-17S in Macross 7. See the attached pics.

Note, the yellow trim on the shoulders and wings of Brando's VF-17S is a different more fancy design and the UN Spacy emblems are replaced with what looks like an eye emblem.

Graham

[Ivan]

So Graham, any pics of your re-painted VF-17 yet?

[Graham]

So Graham, any pics of your re-painted VF-17 yet?

Nope, I haven't had time to collect it from the guy I commisoned to do the job yet.

I should be picking it up next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Graham

[wolfx]

Manfred Brando's VF-17S color scheme in VF-X2 is different from Millia's red VF-17S in Macross 7. See the attached pics.

Note, the yellow trim on the shoulders and wings of Brando's VF-17S is a different more fancy design and the UN Spacy emblems are replaced with what looks like an eye emblem.

Graham

Hey...the gerwalk mode on that is wrong?

[jenius]

Does that mean my gerwalk mode is wrong also??

[jenius]

Graham, remember the comment about too much being removed from the knees? All the extra trimming is necessary to make the legs swing that violently forward in Gerwalk mode.

[jenius]

Here's a better pic to get an example of the leg mobility:

[wolfx]

Does that mean my gerwalk mode is wrong also??

Oh...its just that I always see it with its arm cannons up. I know the transformation only so vaguely.

[jenius]

Okay, this is my last post of this thing while blue. The next part of the project? I'm gonna buy some sort of material and apply it to the areas I've hacked away to round the edges better. I am then going to completely disassemble the thing and give my first attempt at Plasticote (probably spelled it wrong). When all is said and done this will hopefully be a very poseable Miriya VF-17. I'm also considering adding a pivot point in the torso region so the upper body can move indendent of the legs... ALTHOUGH, unfortunately I think the back is so broad it might not really add any poseabilty. Also, I'm fiddling with the idea of hacksawing off the fists and replacing with poseable hands... Wish me luck everybody! I'll probably just utterly ruin this thing...

[Graham]

Hey...the gerwalk mode on that is wrong?

I dont know if it's correct to say it's wrong per se.

While it's usual for the VF-17 to use the elbow lasers in Gerwalk mode and keep the gunpod holstered, I don't think there is any technical reason stopping the VF-17 from using it's gunpod handheld in gerwalk mode.

Perhaps Brando's VF-17S did not feature the elbow/wrist lasers. It's possible they could have been removed to make room for the jamming system.

Graham

[Solscud007]

Hey...the gerwalk mode on that is wrong? 

I dont know if it's correct to say it's wrong per se.

While it's usual for the VF-17 to use the elbow lasers in Gerwalk mode and keep the gunpod holstered, I don't think there is any technical reason stopping the VF-17 from using it's gunpod handheld in gerwalk mode.

Perhaps Brando's VF-17S did not feature the elbow/wrist lasers. It's possible they could have been removed to make room for the jamming system.

Graham

Or it was a huge oversight by continuity editors if they had one

[Jasonc]

Pretty good, but I think you removed more plastic than necessary from the knees.

Check out the custom in the pic below, which can also bend it's knees back.

Graham

Graham, do you have the link for the thread that contains the details of that custom? That looks pretty sweet and I like the color used. It seems like a more accurate color and one that should've been the toy color. Anyways, if you have that link, please post it. Thanks.

Jason

[aaajin]

Saw that one earlier...i think its from the collection thread somewhere in this (toy) section...from the looks of it, is it being matt coated?