Bandai 1/100 VF-25

[Taylor_VFA122]

honestly I think that particular graphic has the spotty look on purpose. I'm looking at the decals and stickers that came with the original VF-25F kit as well as the original set of Sheryl itasha decals and neither of them have that dotted look from any reasonable viewing distance. (If you look at them under a magnifying glass or take a picture of the decal with a macro lens then yes, you can see the dots but with the naked eye you're not going to notice it.)

:edit:

of course this is with them still on the backing paper, not actually applied to the model. It could change when you apply them but I doubt it.

:edit: :edit:

It just occurred to me that I bought both my VF-25F kits and those decals when they first came out in 2008, and I still haven't built either of them. I haven't even taken the parts/decals out of their individual bags.

that sucks

Since you own this kit are the stickers as bad as they're being made out to be? Would you recommend it? I was going to get the bigger transformable kit, but in all reality it was going to stay in fighter mode anyway.

[anime52k8]

Since you own this kit are the stickers as bad as they're being made out to be? Would you recommend it? I was going to get the bigger transformable kit, but in all reality it was going to stay in fighter mode anyway.

The stickers are as far as I can tell the same as what you would get with most other Bandai kits (i.e. Gundams). They're decently thin, flexible enough to conform to curves and panel lines when pressed down with a toothpick, and stay adhered relatively well.

Bandai stickers are better the stickers you'd get with a Yamato Valkyrie or a Kotobukiya kit, but they're still stickers. you're still going to want to trim them to get rid of excess film and you're always going to have a visible raised edge to the sticker once it's applied.

The 1/72 kit does come with decals which are going to look a lot nicer when applied. Again, they're typical bandai decals (much like the one's they sell for gundam kits) so they are in my opinion well printed and use a relatively thick carrier film. the heavy carrier film bandai uses is a good thing and a bad thing as it makes them a stronger and harder to damage when applying but you need stronger stuff to get them to hug down to complex surfaces.

I can't speak to the quality of the actual kit since I haven't built it yet. maybe in a couple months

[Chronocidal]

I do remember many discussions of the decals for the 1/72 kits having problems, either by way of not being the right shape, or just refusing to conform to the surfaces of the model. Some types of decal setting solutions also refused to work at all, while others had better success. Searching through the old 1/72 kit topics should bring up those discussions, and help you know what works ahead of time.

As for the printing quality.. I'd put the decals on the lower end of Bandai's ability really. Granted, I haven't built a lot of other Bandai kits, but I've never seen decals printed that way in any model I have ever bought. I think I remember people with experience in building Gundam kits chiming in that the printing for decals in those kits was much better, without any of that speckled look.

[Lolicon]

I've built six of the 1/72 kits and I can tell you that the decals are pretty piss poor. Chronocidal covered the bases on that. The dithering is easily visible to the naked eye. You don't need a macro lens to tell it's some shoddy print quality.

The stickers have the same poor print quality and fit issues, but have the added minuses of being thicker than decals, more difficult to conform to surfaces (no such thing as "sticker softener"), and worst of all, the pigment/coloring/whatever is thin as hell, meaning the stickers are actually translucent. It's not an issue on a white surface, but it becomes obvious when you try to apply a sticker on a darker surface, say a white sticker on Michael's 25G, or a white sticker on Alto's red YF-29, which ends up looking pink.

I'm currently building building a Sheryl and Ranka YF-29, and I threw the stickers aside in favor of just painting all the stripes on.

If you just want a fighter mode model, I'd get the 1/100 scale kit. It's cheaper and fewer parts and no transformation mechanism to deal with. In addition to being expensive, the 1/72 kits are pretty laborious to actually build because of the transformation feature. Plus it's a pain to actually get all the parts lined up in fighter mode, and you'll still end up with some unsightly gaps. Oh, and you'll probably end up with at least some paint and decal damage while fiddling around trying to get everything in place.

[tetsujin]

As for the printing quality.. I'd put the decals on the lower end of Bandai's ability really. Granted, I haven't built a lot of other Bandai kits, but I've never seen decals printed that way in any model I have ever bought. I think I remember people with experience in building Gundam kits chiming in that the printing for decals in those kits was much better, without any of that speckled look.

Quality in that regard is pretty inconsistent in the Gundam Decal line. On some sheets, for instance, gray is printed as gray ink. On others, it's printed as dithered black and white. I think it has to do with how individual sheets are set up.

But just about any time you have something with a lot of color range in it (gradients, photographs, or even just a lot of colors, like character art) you'll probably wind up with dithering. They would have to set up a large number of colors for printing in order to avoid that effect in such cases.

[wm cheng]

aren't most decals screen printed? I mean thats what a water-slide decal is isn't it

No, No, No... definitely not. Most decals are spot colour printed - meaning that they have solid colours representing the true colours that the design intends to be. Well, most reputable companies like Hasegawa, Tamiya or Cartograph. Screen printing whereby using a limited pallet of colours in dots/screening to simulate other colours is just a cheap way to give you the likeness of other colours without the true expense of paying for those inks to be printed. It's the difference between a photographic coffee table book and a colour photo in a newspaper! It just underscores to me that Bandai doesn't really pay that much attention to Macross models - if you look that closely, a whole world of problems open up! Just my humble opinion ;-) Did I mention how much I hate their MF decals?!

[Taylor_VFA122]

No, No, No... definitely not. Most decals are spot colour printed - meaning that they have solid colours representing the true colours that the design intends to be. Well, most reputable companies like Hasegawa, Tamiya or Cartograph. Screen printing whereby using a limited pallet of colours in dots/screening to simulate other colours is just a cheap way to give you the likeness of other colours without the true expense of paying for those inks to be printed. It's the difference between a photographic coffee table book and a colour photo in a newspaper! It just underscores to me that Bandai doesn't really pay that much attention to Macross models - if you look that closely, a whole world of problems open up! Just my humble opinion ;-) Did I mention how much I hate their MF decals?!

WM Cheng thanks for shedding some light. I was kind of hoping you'd post in here sooner or later. I just read your build of the 1/72 scale Alto Custom. Fantastic job with that. I think if I get this kit I'll do a Gilliam-type, which is basically the same as the Alto type minus the paint on the head of the robot.

[Lolicon]

Everyone seems to have accepted that as canon, but I'm pretty sure it was just an animation goof. Why? Because when Alto bails on his VF-25 in the last episode, it's also missing the head stripes.

EDIT: Either that or the last episode was goofed. Either way, someone made a mistake. (Doesn't matter to me really, just noting it.)

Edited June 24, 2011 by Lolicon

[Taylor_VFA122]

Everyone seems to have accepted that as canon, but I'm pretty sure it was just an animation goof. Why? Because when Alto bails on his VF-25 in the last episode, it's also missing the head stripes.

EDIT: Either that or the last episode was goofed. Either way, someone made a mistake. (Doesn't matter to me really, just noting it.)

I dunno man there's quite a few screen caps and its not there. One of which is when his VF-25 is banking in to go after the VAJRA that busts into the Frontier's city center. You get a big full shot of the top of the plane and it has no markings on the robot's head. Also I have early promo shots of the VF-25F that have no markings on it as well. I kind of like it that way though. So that's what I'll likely do.

[Chronocidal]

Makes me wonder if Gilliam's VF-25 was an entirely different model, rigged for different animation types. Technically they're the same plane, but Gilliam's never had to go into battroid mode at all, so it could have been a dedicated model to use in gerwalk mode scenes, and possibly rigged to break up / smoke / burn. Now I'm tempted to go look and see if the head was unpainted any time Alto went into gerwalk.

It probably is a goof, but not painting the head stripes does remove one rather difficult step from the process of painting the kit.

[Talos]

Makes me wonder if Gilliam's VF-25 was an entirely different model, rigged for different animation types. Technically they're the same plane, but Gilliam's never had to go into battroid mode at all, so it could have been a dedicated model to use in gerwalk mode scenes, and possibly rigged to break up / smoke / burn. Now I'm tempted to go look and see if the head was unpainted any time Alto went into gerwalk.

It probably is a goof, but not painting the head stripes does remove one rather difficult step from the process of painting the kit.

Just checked on the GERWALK and Gilliam's VF-25F in the second episode definitely lacks the head stripes. It's very visible when Ozma shows up and checks out Alto shooting at the Vajra from above. In episode 12, after they land on Gallia IV, you can see the head stripes on Alto's plane in GERWALK.

Likewise, the head stripes are missing from Gilliam's Super VF-25F in episode 1 too. I'm inclined to think it's not a goof, since it extends over at least three models now (the CG models for his plane in fighter, GERWALK, and fighter with super packs).

Edited June 27, 2011 by Talos

[Taylor_VFA122]

HAHA! I knew I was't seeing things!

sorry, simple things excite me lol

Anyway as I said before there are a few pics, mostly promo pics that I've seen for magazines and such that have floated around here a few years back of the VF-25 without the head stripes. There's also pics in the Wallpaper section of this forum, screen caps rather, of Gilliam's fighter missing the stripes. I like the look of it that way.

[Taylor_VFA122]

the long wait for this kit to arrive . . .

[Kyp Durron]

I'm hoping mine will be here by this Saturday, otherwise, it won't be coming in till after the 4th. Has anyone here built one yet?

-Kyp

[Taylor_VFA122]

I'm hoping mine will be here by this Saturday, otherwise, it won't be coming in till after the 4th. Has anyone here built one yet?

-Kyp

We should have an assembly race to see who finishes theirs first!

In all seriousness though I've only seen pics of this kit built once by someone on a PLAMO blog. I think the builder is a member here actually, but at the mo the user name escapes me. Are you going to go with a custom finish or anything?

[Taylor_VFA122]

Extremely fast shipping from HLJ. I just got my kit today!

[Chronocidal]

Oh, by the way, more head stripe weirdness. The one Alto crash lands near the SDF on Gallia IV? No headstripe there either. Just randomly watched that scene the other day and noticed it.

Seems like the stripes tend to be missing if you get a lot of close-up shots of fighter/gerwalk, but never in battroid.

[Taylor_VFA122]

Oh, by the way, more head stripe weirdness. The one Alto crash lands near the SDF on Gallia IV? No headstripe there either. Just randomly watched that scene the other day and noticed it.

Seems like the stripes tend to be missing if you get a lot of close-up shots of fighter/gerwalk, but never in battroid.

I just watched that episode last night and didn't catch it. I've noticed two things about this stripe thing. It tends to only happen when the plane has its fast pack on. Weird. I'm still likely only to do this kit in the way it shows up in promo shots, minus the stripes because thats how I first saw the thing. Also because I don't really like Alto as a character. I think he's a bit weak. I was always partial to Michel (or Mikhail, or Michael, or how many other variations to his name there are), whom I have a 5" miniature version of his plane already. I just didnt want to spend 21 usd plus shipping on the Alto version when the vf-25g was significantly cheaper. We'll see how this kit goes, hopefully I don't ruin it. Its been a while since I've built anything.

[Kyp Durron]

Extremely fast shipping from HLJ. I just got my kit today!

Mine will be here today. I will start on it immediately, lol. I doubt I'm going to paint the pilot, the 1/72 Ozma pilot was bad enough, IMO. Going to also paint the canopy frame, I have a feeling that's going to be a pain in the ass, though, but it has to be done. I can't stand to leave that unpainted.

-Kyp

[Taylor_VFA122]

Mine will be here today. I will start on it immediately, lol. I doubt I'm going to paint the pilot, the 1/72 Ozma pilot was bad enough, IMO. Going to also paint the canopy frame, I have a feeling that's going to be a pain in the ass, though, but it has to be done. I can't stand to leave that unpainted.

-Kyp

Canopy frame and pilot are a must. Are you going with a custom color scheme or are you going to do an OOB on it? I'm still going to do the Gilliam thing as I found a pic of a 25 done up that way without the striping on the head of the Battroid and it looks awesome. I also found a really cool custom 1/72 done up with the color scheme of an F/A-18 fighter wing. We'll see.

[Kyp Durron]

I won't be doing the pilot, I had a hard enough time with the 1/72 Ozma pilot as is...this is simply too small for me. But, I will paint the interior Grey, at least...or I might just do like others have and spray paint the underside of the canopy silver and just paint the canopy frame and be done with it.

Also, the black stickers that go on each sides of the fuselage, I may just leave off. I've seen build ups and it looks like the stickers won't lay flat enough to suit me. I also don't trust my ability to mask that section off and spray paint it black, either. It's a dilemma I wouldn't have had to face, had Bandai been smart enough to INCLUDE WATER SLIDE DECALS in the first place! Idiots!

I'll probably start my build up this Sunday.

-Kyp

[Taylor_VFA122]

I've been putting off building mine in favor of something more practical. I have a Tamiya 1:32 F-14A Tomcat I've been thinking about starting, but also time and money have been an issue the last few weeks, and space. 1:32 is a pretty big scale, and 1:32 of a plane that's already huge to begin with will take up a ton of room.

As for the VF-25 I like it, but I'm starting not to like this kit that much. Looking at it and looking at what others have done with it to make it look right seems to be too much of a pain in the @ss to want to deal with. It takes a lot to make this kit look good and at that point it would probably be easier to make it look good in a larger scale.

[Chronocidal]

I just ordered 4 of the little suckers yesterday, along with 4 YF-29 kits, armored Ozma and Alto, and a spare plain Alto kit to experiment on. Not to mention a Hasegawa YF-21.

I might spray them in the end, but really all I wanted was something to experiment on with various paint schemes. I'll probably just slap one together to see how it goes, but I'll probably detail them all decently over time. I don't feel too bad about doing a half-assed job on one though, since they only cost me about ten bucks each.

Edited July 30, 2011 by Chronocidal

[Kyp Durron]

I've been putting off building mine in favor of something more practical. I have a Tamiya 1:32 F-14A Tomcat I've been thinking about starting, but also time and money have been an issue the last few weeks, and space. 1:32 is a pretty big scale, and 1:32 of a plane that's already huge to begin with will take up a ton of room.

As for the VF-25 I like it, but I'm starting not to like this kit that much. Looking at it and looking at what others have done with it to make it look right seems to be too much of a pain in the @ss to want to deal with. It takes a lot to make this kit look good and at that point it would probably be easier to make it look good in a larger scale.

It takes quite a bit of effort, let me tell you, but the results are worth it. The Black on the sides of the fuselage, were masked off and spray painted Flat Black. It actually looks MUCH better in person, my camera picks up even the slightest imperfections.

In the third pic, you can see the intake fan section, I was quite proud of being able to paint that and not go outside. You need a really fine artist's brush, and steady hands.

I did most of build this Friday, I had the energy, and decided to get most of it done before I had to go to work that evening. I haven't got all the decals put on, when I do, I will take final pictures, but I'm pretty damned proud of the way it turned out.

Now...WHERE THE HELL IS MY 1/100 OZMA, Bandai?!

-Kyp

Edited July 31, 2011 by Kyp Durron

[Taylor_VFA122]

Kyp, did you paint the head of the robot or did you use the stickers that came with it? actually did you use them at all?

[Kyp Durron]

I didn't use the stickers for the head, I painted that part Red, believe me, using the stickers for that section looks like crap, you're better off painting that part Red and be done with it.

-Kyp

[regult]

I still can't believe that at this price tag, they don't include water decals (or those Gunpla transfer markings) nor landing gears in the pack.

[Kyp Durron]

I'm pretty sure they never intended this model to be anything other than a "In flight" display model. I do agree with you about the water slide decals, that's total B.S..

-Kyp

[Taylor_VFA122]

I was really excited to build this thing and then lost all motivation when i started reading more and more stories about the stickers and such, and to make it worse, I don't have an air brush. I saw a build of someone's YF-29 and they used the stickers that came with it and I was mortified.

Kyp what exactly did you paint on yours from what you didn't?

[Taylor_VFA122]

Scratch that, I just figured it out. Did you do a wash to do the panel lines?

[Kyp Durron]

I used a Grey Gundam marker for the panel lines.

-Kyp

[Chronocidal]

My HLJ order got here yesterday afternoon, and I was finally able to peel myself away from the Fire Valk to fiddle with a couple of these kits. I picked up 4 each of the VF-25 and YF-29, since I intend to do a few custom schemes. I would've gotten the Sheryl version YF-29, but it was out of stock.

Have to say, I can't remember ever getting a Bandai kit before where I didn't need the instructions. It was nice and relaxing to just trim the parts and slap them together. Overall, I think the VF-25 is slightly better than the YF-29 kit; fit is a bit better, and less gaps to fill. I just snapped together one of each quickly to have something to sit on my desk.

I don't plan on using any of the included markings for any of either kit though. Stickers just suck, and besides, I've got the 1/72 kits to build in the SMS scheme. These are going to be for fancy paintschemes I wouldn't want to scratch up with moving parts and such. May have to get some decal paper for printing custom ones though, or stock up on 1/100 aircraft markings. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do some old style squadron markings for both, but haven't decided what to use yet.

Btw, did a quick modification to the VF-25, and it is possible to get the wings to sweep nearly straight out. Just requires a little cutting around the pivot ring on the wing, removing the little tab that stops it from moving forward. I could never understand why the 1/72 kit is the only version of the VF-25 that can do this, since it's clearly done in the show.. not to mention on every swing-wing aircraft in existence.

[Kyp Durron]

Does anybody know if they're going to come out with Ozma's next?

-Kyp

[Chronocidal]

Honestly, I'm a bit doubtful they'll even make any of the other main character's schemes. This series of little kits just seems like a tiny marketing stunt to make up for the lack of new kits for the movie (so far). Really, Alto's all-white plane is ideal for a simple aircraft kit, because it gives aircraft modelers a nice clean aircraft to start with, and decorate how they want, without any of the complications involving all the other colors the other VF-25's use.

Here's what I've done with my first kit so far, it's really just my half-assed "slap it together and paint some details on it" method. The cockpit is all done, so that's out of the way, but the rest of the kit isn't sanded, glued, or filled at all. I'll probably glue it all together later, and fill the more visible seams, but some of those seams actually need to be there for the transformation details.

Here's what I modded on the kit, the wings normally don't go farther forward than parallel to the leading edge of the wing glove. I just snipped away the tab ahead of the pivot, and they can achieve a nice low-speed position.

I also painted the intakes solid black, I really don't care for seeing the compressor fans that close to the front.

Funny, I think I actually was much less frustrated with this cockpit than either of the 1/72 kits I've done. I think having a white pilot to start with makes things much easier to deal with, since you can just scratch off the excess paint on the white parts if you go over. I love painting with acrylics.

I don't know if I'll ever glue and sand this one, I may just hand paint some fun markings on this one and call it done, but I plan on experimenting with the others, and making a few low-vis or tribute schemes.