Yamato 1/60 VF-11b under development

[kensei]

I think that this time the Battroid mode was mainly emphasized.

The toes looks like they have articulation. Funny.

I believe that the head looks fine. Any bigger would look dorky.

I think that this design has benefited from the development breakthrough of the YF-19.

Wonder how the heatshield works.

I'm glad they preserved the awesome knee joint of the YF-19 on this design. There hasn't been much chance to use it.

Edited November 7, 2008 by kensei

[badboy00z]

No you are not the only one, that foot joint is horrible.

And I completely disagree that Battroid mode looks good.

The head is too small, the whole chest/fuselage area is too big (homage to 1/48 ?) and the feet are too small compared to the legs they are sitting in. And lets not even talk about what looks like minimal articulation on the hip area like with the VF-0.

Again, all in the name of fighter mode. I was very disappointed with the over-emphasis on fighter mode for YF-21 and the shitty approach to Battroid mode and it doesn't look like it's going to change this time around.

I agree to disagree about battroid. Lol.

They should've released a set of bigger legs for the YF-21 for use in battroid since the legs can come off in the first place.

And is it just me or is the pilot really big? Looks like there isn't a lot of room for Isamu to move around.

Edited November 7, 2008 by badboy00z

[kaiotheforsaken]

I really don't mind the feet. I imagine it might have been done to help improve the surface area touching the ground. I really don't think it detracts from the look.

[kensei]

And is it just me or is the pilot really big? Looks like there isn't a lot of room for Isamu to move around.

That is probably due to the size of the 11.

I wouldn't be surprised if it is the same mold as the YF-19 Isamu.

[Dante74]

Would anyone care to translate the text in the pics for us? I noticed the VF-1 being mentioned in the third pic.

[mcpaz]

Wow, looking good.

But, well, this is macrossworld, a funny place to rant against everything which is not 100% anime acurate and zero-dollar cost.

So, back into the rant thing, even though it's obviously a huge improvement over my soooo-lovely-highly-twinked 1/72 vf-11b, I need to point out:

- tailfins seem a little small

- that "isometric" view of the fighter... it looks the new vf-11 suffers from the "yf-19 fat belly syndrome"

- me wants gimmicks... the boosters? (not FAST packs, nor the VF-11c heavy armor, but the white rockets when isamu chases Guld on the first omega-1 demonstration...)

- finally: it doesn't matter how much I turn my head when watching these pics, but 90% of the time it's like looking an oversized copy of the old 1/72.

Other than that, damn, it's soooo kewl!!! :wub: :wub:

Me wants!!! :-)

[kaiotheforsaken]

They always have that same shot when we first see the valks. Gives it that "broken back" look that was really evident on the first shots of the SV-51. Personally I think they should take some different photos. I suppose we'll see other angles soon enough.

I'm not sure that it looking like similar to the old 1/72 is a bad thing. My biggest gripe with that one was the insanely wide shoulders with those super stylish metal pins. I imagine it'll be very familiar when you get it out of the packaging.

It seems like they improved on the shortcomings of the original across the bored though (even if they aren't as improved as some people might like). I got the impression from Graham that it's sleeker in person, so I'm looking forward to some more pictures. Though I imagine this will be a must buy for me, even it's the only must buy I can snag for a while.

[mcpaz]

I think that this time the Battroid mode was mainly emphasized.

The toes looks like they have articulation. Funny.

I believe that the head looks fine. Any bigger would look dorky.

I think that this design has benefited from the development breakthrough of the YF-19.

Wonder how the heatshield works.

I'm glad they preserved the awesome knee joint of the YF-19 on this design. There hasn't been much chance to use it.

After looking pictures closer, some thoughts:

- The transformation process seems to remain (mostly) the same as in the 1/72. Only the arms placement in fighter mode seem to change (90 degrees rotated, so the long elbow part is facing down; this might help covering the back of the head a little more, since it doesen't look like there's that piece which holded the gunpod which also covered the head).

- This provides justification for the hole on the upper side of the right forearm: placement for the shield's attachment peg.

- Heatshield: looks like it splits in two: a front part, sliding into the front nosecone (you can siee a little orange behind the cockpit), and an upper part, which seems to slide... damn, I don't know where! Maybe you need to take out the cockpit or something... Have to think a little more about this.

- Maybe... maybe you have a spring under the cockpit, you press it down, and the upper part of the heatshield gets revealed...

Good work, Yamato!

Edit: fixed some mistakes, and daltonism (red is not orange).

Edited November 7, 2008 by mcpaz

[Slammer]

hotdamn! gimme a preorder possibility already damnit! sides, I get the feeling this isn`t the only VF-11 release we`ll see what with the M7 style escape pod cockpit... hmmn... I could go for a low viz VF-11 or perhaps one in VF-84 colors?(Jolly Rogers people, Jolly Rogers.)

[Shaggydog]

You people are freaking crazy, this thing looks awesome. I HOPE my fellow Bandai DX VF-25 fans wouldn't be so stupidly petty and immature to attack the VF-11 in retaliation. Then again, you can never overestimate stupidity on the web.

edit: Is there anyone out there besides me that thinks the YF-19 was the worst looking of the three Mac+ 1/60 valks? Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy to own it, I just think that of the three (based on these first pix of the VF-11b) the YF-19 did the worst job of capturing the 'feel' of the valk. Am I the only one?

edit2: The lineart comparison makes the difficulty faced by the VF-11b clear - look how long and narrow the nosecone is in the lineart of the fighter mode, and how short and stubby it is in the lineart of battroid mode. As others have said, this new toy seems to nail battroid mode, which will inevitably make the nose look stubby in fighter mode, and give it an overall impression of being 'chunky'. Yamato should sell some fighter-mode-only GNU toys to satisfy those who want a perfect fighter mode.

Edited November 7, 2008 by Shaggydog

[jenius]

I see the Bandai DX VF-25 haters don't like to let the people who are okay with the VF-25 be the only ones who seem petty...

Edited November 7, 2008 by jenius

[diabloM]

You people are freaking crazy, this thing looks awesome. I HOPE my fellow Bandai DX VF-25 fans wouldn't be so stupidly petty and immature to attack the VF-11 in retaliation. Then again, you can never overestimate stupidity on the web.

edit: Is there anyone out there besides me that thinks the YF-19 was the worst looking of the three Mac+ 1/60 valks? Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy to own it, I just think that of the three (based on these first pix of the VF-11b) the YF-19 did the worst job of capturing the 'feel' of the valk. Am I the only one?

edit2: The lineart comparison makes the difficulty faced by the VF-11b clear - look how long and narrow the nosecone is in the lineart of the fighter mode, and how short and stubby it is in the lineart of battroid mode. As others have said, this new toy seems to nail battroid mode, which will inevitably make the nose look stubby in fighter mode, and give it an overall impression of being 'chunky'. Yamato should sell some fighter-mode-only GNU toys to satisfy those who want a perfect fighter mode.

agree that yamato yf-19 does not have the 'feel' of the valk , that's y i refuse to own 1

[ghostryder]

edit: Is there anyone out there besides me that thinks the YF-19 was the worst looking of the three Mac+ 1/60 valks? Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy to own it, I just think that of the three (based on these first pix of the VF-11b) the YF-19 did the worst job of capturing the 'feel' of the valk. Am I the only one?

edit2: The lineart comparison makes the difficulty faced by the VF-11b clear - look how long and narrow the nosecone is in the lineart of the fighter mode, and how short and stubby it is in the lineart of battroid mode. As others have said, this new toy seems to nail battroid mode, which will inevitably make the nose look stubby in fighter mode, and give it an overall impression of being 'chunky'. Yamato should sell some fighter-mode-only GNU toys to satisfy those who want a perfect fighter mode.

Agree - I think there's definitely some leeway in making the nose cone longer and thinner, and still not affect the battroid looks. Comparing to lineart, looks like the toy's crotch is even a hair shorter.

Still looks better than the YF-19 overall - you gotta admit that when lining up all these 1/60 M+ toys , the YF-21 will look out of place, with it's super sexy fighter mode and stick-legged battroid mode.

[Vic Mancini]

edit: Is there anyone out there besides me that thinks the YF-19 was the worst looking of the three Mac+ 1/60 valks? Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy to own it, I just think that of the three (based on these first pix of the VF-11b) the YF-19 did the worst job of capturing the 'feel' of the valk. Am I the only one?

I don't really agree. I think the 19's G-mode is flawless. The F-mode, although just a touch gullet-heavy, is pretty flawless too. I actually think Hasegawa's sculpt looks weird to me now. B-mode is a bit off. The chest is too long/pointy, and the legs are too bowed with that John Wayne been riding horses all day stance, but what can you do? You have to make compromises somewhere and there is no way the shapes used in the line art of B-mode could actually transform into a nice plane. Anime magic. Blame K-man for that.

[eugimon]

I see the Bandai DX VF-25 haters don't like to let the people who are okay with the VF-25 be the only ones who seem petty...

like I said numerous times in the DX thread...if Yamato had made the DX we would be in front of yamato HQs with torches and pitch forks ready to run them out of town.

[Valkyrie addict]

hahaha...the day we don't bitch about something Shawn will shut the site down

I remember when the first CAD of the YF-21 came out, everyone bitched and moaned about the hood and thin legs, and how they couldn't take Graham word that it will be very sleek...and I mean EVERYONE, and now the YF-21 is considered one of Yamatos best

I agree with a lot of posters here that these initial shots aren't the best, some compromises were made (but not butchered like Bandai's take to Macross), but we all have to remember, the Macross Plus mecha rely heavily on anime magic and I believe Yamato will do a good work

as long as it's not a floppy mess and nothing explodes on me...I'll take it

[Dobber]

I'm on the fence so far. The fighter mode does seem....off for all the reasons already stated (a little stubby, very plain looking, a little boxy looking, and small stabs). I agree with Shin, that I'd have prefered inaccurate transformation, to accomidate larger stabs, to these punny things. Maybe, it's just the perspective, but the intakes look huge in that picture too, (think 1/100 VF-0). I am glad to here Graham say that the picture looks off to him as well, seeing as he's seen the vf-11 already, so I'm still hopefull. Also, looking at the CAD the intakes do look smaller than they apear to be in the pic.

If not, I guess the days of having awesome fighter modes are comming to an end in favor of Batt mode. Sad for me, but good for others I guess.

Chris

Edited November 7, 2008 by Dobber

[HG Blows]

Wow, I really like this 11. No complaints here. Just take my money already Yamato...

[mcpaz]

hahaha...the day we don't bitch about something Shawn will shut the site down

I remember when the first CAD of the YF-21 came out, everyone bitched and moaned about the hood and thin legs, and how they couldn't take Graham word that it will be very sleek...and I mean EVERYONE, and now the YF-21 is considered one of Yamatos best

I agree with a lot of posters here that these initial shots aren't the best, some compromises were made (but not butchered like Bandai's take to Macross), but we all have to remember, the Macross Plus mecha rely heavily on anime magic and I believe Yamato will do a good work

as long as it's not a floppy mess and nothing explodes on me...I'll take it

Hahahaha!!! Good point!!!

"Ranting, bitching and complaining: official Macrossworlder's sports!!!"

"every single new Yammie or Macross-related stuff is subjected to all those sports by a huge crew of highly skilled people finding flaws where others only drool..."

God, I love this place!!!

And yes, I will also pick at least one!

[MacrossJunkie]

I think overall it looks pretty decent. The smaller tailfins don't bother me as much. It's still proportionally bigger than the 1/72's. In fact, the first thing I noticed wasn't the tailfins, it was that the top intakes and and back of the legs were very boxy. If you look at the 1/72, the line art, and various other models, those areas are rounded off which fits the style of the rest of the fighter. For that top area to be boxy flat surfaces instead of the smooth curved surfaces that they should be, it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb and spoils the aesthetics.

It doesn't even have anything to do with having to compromise due to anime magic like the tail fins. For some reason, they just arbitrarily decided to do it that way which is why it bothers me.

[m0n5t3r]

i was wondering why the vf-25 thread slowed down... this thread might get to 100+ pages too before x-mas...

[diabloM]

imo, the valk doesnt look right because the tampos are not on...

guys...wait until it is fully tampoed...

[Chronocidal]

You know, while I don't care for the tails, I think that's honestly my only complaint about this one. I'm sad that they didn't use a combo fold/slide rotation to get them bigger and further into the legs, but the mechanism I suggested earlier is pretty complicated, so I have to give them credit for making them as big as they did this time.

Now the feet... that is odd, but I bet I know why they did it. It looks like the feet don't extend, they might just fold out. The double joint lets the feet be flat on the ground without dropping out of the leg. The big question is, is that the only reason the tails are as big as they are this time around? Removing the sliding mechanism to extend the feet would probably free up a lot of room in there for the gear and tails.

I agree the nose could be longer, but I actually think it looks fine as is. It's a good compromise... it looks about midway between the fighter and battroid lineart, and they avoided the annoying duckbill shape that you sometimes see on VF-11s. Plus (and I'm REALLY relieved about this) they didn't oversize the sensor bulges. They actually look comparable to real streamlined aircraft ones, not like someone glued giant blobs to the nose.

What'll make me really happy is if the wings sweep normally in fighter mode. There's really no reason they shouldn't on the VF-11.

Btw, I don't see anyone mentioning the obvious improvement in the way the wings mount.. looking at the 1/72, I don't see any sign of that bulky hinge under the wingroots on the new one.

I gotta say bravo for now. But it still makes me sad they couldn't get the YF-19 even half this sleek.

Edited November 8, 2008 by Chronocidal

[macrossnake]

That is a really bad squashed up pic. Looks like it's been photoshopped to make it all squashed looking. Real thing looks 10x better.

Graham

Hey Graham,

If this pic is being squashed, could you find the offical source of the 'right' pic, please?

[anime52k8]

No you are not the only one, that foot joint is horrible.

And I completely disagree that Battroid mode looks good.

The head is too small, the whole chest/fuselage area is too big (homage to 1/48 ?) and the feet are too small compared to the legs they are sitting in. And lets not even talk about what looks like minimal articulation on the hip area like with the VF-0.

Again, all in the name of fighter mode. I was very disappointed with the over-emphasis on fighter mode for YF-21 and the shitty approach to Battroid mode and it doesn't look like it's going to change this time around.

first I'm going to say i like the skinny legs on the YF-21, even if it makes it unstable. also I would have been fine if they had put all the emphasis on the fighter mode for the VF-11, but to me they didn't. it really looks they've gone the same route as the YF-19 where they went for a "balance" between the three modes, which equates to every mode having something drastically wrong with it.

to me, if they get the Fighter mode to look spot on and good, the batroid mode will look good even if it's not anime accurate. this whole "balance"/compromised approach still isn't anime accurate, and it looks bad.

edit: Is there anyone out there besides me that thinks the YF-19 was the worst looking of the three Mac+ 1/60 valks? Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy to own it, I just think that of the three (based on these first pix of the VF-11b) the YF-19 did the worst job of capturing the 'feel' of the valk. Am I the only one?

+1 from me, I didn't end up getting the YF-19 because of how bad it looked. the batroid mode looks as crazy skinny, but the fighter mode is still stubby and fat. the only good looking mode was GERWALK mode, but that mode didn't lock together well at all.

[Nani?!]

Can we stop ranting and bitching about.... "ranting and bitching"??

I mean c'mon... We know. We know.

"Ranting and bitching" is the thread that ties MW together~

We waste a good 25% percent of each thread to people saying "MW is such a bitchfest forum"...

bitching about bitching is bitching folks... Stop.

As for the 1/60 yf-11b. hmmm, I~~~~

like it. Ditto on the puny P.O.S. vertical rear fins that actually look as tiny as the CAD drawing had me fear and the slightly small head and feet that remind me of whore-shoes, but overall..... I like it. It's mine.

And Graham... errr..... pardon me but...

I'm sure this looked ten times better when you had it in your hands to flip around and view from all angles...

but c'mon now~~ the pics are not distorted & squished.

Edited November 8, 2008 by Nani?!

[Chronocidal]

Same here on the YF-19, they just killed the sleekness of the aircraft with that gullet (among other things). I may still get one to get a complete set of Mac+ Valks, but this VF-11 is leaps and bounds ahead of it in terms of looks.

I'll probably get a YF-21 and VF-11 first, and hold out for YF-19 Version 3.

Edited November 8, 2008 by Chronocidal

[ruskiiVFaussie]

Yes, buy 2, to get 1 for Isamu vs Meltrandi(zentran?) moon run and full armour version.... this deserves the saucy label....

[nightmareB4macross]

HOly Cripes!! This is one nice looking valk albeit the V-Fins and the slightly husky and stubby fighter. Yet, you can clearly see why Yamato decided on finding a balance for all three modes.

I'm really curious to see how the heatshield works, as well as, the rest of the transormation sequence.

The big plus is that this sucka comes with fast packs and a removable escape capsule. And is larger than it should be, GO SK!!

As far as other attachements, like the rocket booster and the armour I would expect those to be released in two seperate packs.

Damn, I have get at least three of these.

[Shaggydog]

Would people quit bitching about the bitching about the bitching, already? I mean, damn...

[MacrossJunkie]

If you look at the fighter mode pic, you can see a bit of orange under the cockpit. My guess for how the heat shield works is that the cockpit pushes in to allow the heat shield to slide up over it. Despite how it looks, it could possibly still be a one piece heat shield that is hidden in the nose cone. I can't see it fitting anywhere else. In any case, it's more ingenious than the SHE model where the heat shield flipped over on a hinge from behind the cockpit and light years better than the cut-it-out-yourself-and find-your-own-damn-way-to-attach-it heatshield of the 1/72.

Edited November 8, 2008 by MacrossJunkie

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

If you look at the fighter mode pic, you can see a bit of orange under the cockpit.

I think it might just be something simple where you push down on the back of the cockpit, and the shield is on the bottom, so that by swiveling 180 degrees, the shield emerges.

[Valkyrie addict]

ok...to detract from the bitching about bitching about bitchin a little, hahahha

I superimposed the pilot figure from the ejector pod on the image of the full vf-11 and did a piss poor job comparing the pilots to see the size that is more o less having, it does appear a bit bigger than the original 1/60 size since it's originally meant to be slightly bigger than a VF-1

here's the image and a chart of the valk sizes

[Sumdumgai]

Don't forget that Kawamori retconned the size of the VF-11 to be larger than the data originally given (larger than VF-1 size).

Very curious to see a non-squished picture of it in all modes, and also curious to see what method they used for the heatshield...

[Fatalist]

Don't forget that Kawamori retconned the size of the VF-11 to be larger than the data originally given (larger than VF-1 size).

Very curious to see a non-squished picture of it in all modes, and also curious to see what method they used for the heatshield...

I think I see how they're doing the heatshield. In the new pics, if you look at the very front of the canopy, you can kind of glimpse a bit of orange. My guess is that you push the whole cockpit piece down and maybe back a little, and then the heatshield slides out from inside the nose. Kinda like a reverse VF-1 method.

I'm not going to judge anything about the fighter mode pic, simply because its already been stated that it looks "squished" in being scanned or something. The only thing I will say, as I've previously stated, is that the tailfins blow. The point of doing a v.2 of something is to IMPROVE on the previous design. And those fins look like they haven't even been touched or thought of.

Oh well, I'm sure someone will make some new fins from styrene or something to cover those abominations just like we did with the v.1 from sooo long ago.