Bandai 1/60 DX Chogokin Macross Plus YF-21

[Chronocidal]

As I'm thinking about this design, and what bothers me about it, I'm hitting this weird crossover point between accuracy and aesthetics.

For comparison purposes, I'm thinking of the old and new BSG Colonial Viper.  I love both designs.  Is the updated MkII Viper accurate to the classic?  Not in the slightest!  But I still love the way it looks, because it's a good design.

Bandai seems like it has managed to pull off the opposite.

For all the functionality they may have cooked into the design, I just don't think it looks good in any mode.  It looks like they sacrificed the aesthetics of both fighter and battroid for the sole purpose of cramming those massive legs in, and every mode is worse off for it.

If they're going to diverge from the lineart, that's fine, and I can appreciate the effort, but if they're going to make changes that make the whole thing ugly, I'd rather they diverge even farther from the lineart to make something that looks better as a whole.

 

 

[Knight26]

20 minutes ago, Berkut said:

Thats what I think too, I do think Bandai has room to extend the nose cone and correct cockpit shape even though it'll be slightly off-scale from the linearts/technical specifications. Its crazy this is a ver.4 so maybe by early next year they will have a ver 5 and 6 ready to display at the WonFest maybe or next Tamashii Nation/Shizuoka Hobby show event. 

You know, that might the solution right there.  Beef up the forward section and design in a way that it can still fold and "shrink" to fit the battroid proportions.  Yes, it will be longer than it is supposed to be, and might end up scaling closer to 1:48 in fighter as a result, but it could correct the proportions issue.

[MKT]

Some random thoughts:

1. Yamato's fighter mode engine nacelles & booster may be too small, but overall proportions seem much truer to line art or even the beautiful fighter-only Hasegawa kits.

2. The arms on Bandai's not only too small, but they do not seem to be long enough, such that in fighter mode, the vertical stabilizers are a bit too far forward, so it feels like a bit too much mass hanging off the tail.

3. If viewed directly from front / back, the wing angle is too straight, and not canted downward enough. This was also a problem with both Yamcadia's and HMR VF-4?

4. It would be great, if Bandai could implement some sort of foldaway mass-reduction pieces on the legs for a slimmer fighter mode, something like the folding calf panels they did for the YF-19 / VF-19 Advance. Technically may not be line art accurate, but the legs are entirely hidden in fighter mode anyway. The pieces would then fold out and form a bulkier leg for battroid mode. This will borrow a bit from current Transformers figures design, but why not since so much anime-magic is involved.

 

 

[Knight26]

7 minutes ago, MKT said:

Some random thoughts:

1. Yamato's fighter mode engine nacelles & booster may be too small, but overall proportions seem much truer to line art or even the beautiful fighter-only Hasegawa kits.

2. The arms on Bandai's not only too small, but they do not seem to be long enough, such that in fighter mode, the vertical stabilizers are a bit too far forward, so it feels like a bit too much mass hanging off the tail.

3. If viewed directly from front / back, the wing angle is too straight, and not canted downward enough. This was also a problem with both Yamcadia's and HMR VF-4?

4. It would be great, if Bandai could implement some sort of foldaway mass-reduction pieces on the legs for a slimmer fighter mode, something like the folding calf panels they did for the YF-19 / VF-19 Advance. Technically may not be line art accurate, but the legs are entirely hidden in fighter mode anyway. The pieces would then fold out and form a bulkier leg for battroid mode. This will borrow a bit from current Transformers figures design, but why not since so much anime-magic is involved.

I agree with most of your points, but I think the origami legs will be an issue with their rounded design, still it would help with the bulkiness if they could work it out.

Your last line hits the nail on the head though, the YF-21 had a lot of anime magic in its design.

[Chronocidal]

1 hour ago, MKT said:

Some random thoughts:

1. Yamato's fighter mode engine nacelles & booster may be too small, but overall proportions seem much truer to line art or even the beautiful fighter-only Hasegawa kits.

2. The arms on Bandai's not only too small, but they do not seem to be long enough, such that in fighter mode, the vertical stabilizers are a bit too far forward, so it feels like a bit too much mass hanging off the tail.

I don't think Yamato's engines were too small though.  Bandai has bulked them up so much to make room for the legs underneath them.

Far as the arms go, yes, they're just way too short.  This is one of those changes they made that actually hurts every mode, for no discernible reason.  The arms look terrible in battroid because they're too short and skinny, and they look bad in fighter for moving the tails too far forward.  What's worse is that it looks like there should be plenty of room to stretch them out, because of all the extra back end they added to the fighter mode.

It's really kind of impossible to know what they're going for.  As much as I want them to make significant changes to the whole design before actually releasing it, I'm not getting my hopes up, since the product looks so finished.  

[Ignacio Ocamica]

I don't get why they made the arms so short since the body of the plane is mashed forward (as Mommar poinyed out). The intakes and wingroots are far up, so there is no excuse for such short arms.

I like it, it's a different take on the YF-21 design, but there's a lot of room for improvement.

[nightmareB4macross]

Lots of room for our improvements the for sure, but this seems more inclined toward the Battroid versus fighter mode.
 

Sure, there is a lot to be perfected and desired, but it looks pretty damn good to me.

 

[jenius]

I really wish they had prioritized shrinking the backpack for battroid. Not sure how they could but it would have been nice.

[M'Kyuun]

Compared to my old Yamato, I much prefer this, but then I'm a battroid guy.  I think the proportions are much better done, and I don't mind a slightly shorter nose or a bulkier fuselage to accomplish it if means a more balanced battroid proportionally. It's still not perfect, but the -21 benefitted from very liberal anime magic , both in Kawamori's lineart, and in the final animation, and until we have smart materials that can elasticize to mimic those changes in proportion, I'm willing to accept concessions to the design in a toy. 

The Yamato does have a fighter mode that will be difficult to beat, but then that was the focus of that toy, much to the detriment of the b-mode, especially those disproportionally skinny legs. Again, the Bandai looks much better to these eyes. I hope I can score one on PO night, whenever that may be.

[jenius]

I really hope Bandai at least fixes the vertical stabilizers. They're huge and not even the right shape, apparently so they can have control surfaces? They should shrink them way down and it'd look better in both modes.  It'd also be a big plus if they could figure out how to narrow the waist... it has that 'riding a horse' wide hip thing going on. 

[Shizuka the Cat]

5 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Compared to my old Yamato, I much prefer this, but then I'm a battroid guy. 

Unfortunately, I am a fighter girl, so I am finding myself preferring the Yamato version much more.

*sigh*

 

[M'Kyuun]

Between the Bandai and Yamato, I guess both camps will have a toy that suits them, although the ideal would obviously be a toy that gets both right. That's a tall order with this particular valk.  To whit, there's still no release date, so there's time for feedback and changes , and although I doubt they peruse this board, one hopes they're receiving similar criticisms from the Japanese fanbase, to whom I hope they have an open ear. Fingers crossed that there'll be some improvements before final release.

 

Doing my own visual comparison, the arms don't look too short to me- the hands come to the knees, as they should. However, the forearms are lacking bulk. Also, I believe it was Chronocidal who pointed out that the vertical stabs are too large, the wrong shape, and their rudders are inexplicably truncated for hinging. Odd choices all.  The too-small forearms accentuate the size of the vertical stabs, so that may be the real problem; fatten those forearms by a few millimeters and it may look better proportioned.  I also see complaints of the forward fuselage looking 'smooshed forward', however looking at the  lineart, it seems to me that everything forward of the intakes is close. I think the problem is that there's a design dichotomy between shrinking the forward fuselage to better suit the battroid aesthetics, while everything aft of the intakes seems like it's a larger scale, and then of course, the fuselage is swollen beyond the impossibly thin lineart profile to accommodate the larger legs. Someone pointed out the 'scale' differences in an earlier post (I apologize, as I forget your name), and I agree with that assessment.  It creates the illusion of being smooshed, but  as I look at it, all the waypoints, if you will, line up forward of the intakes. to where they line up on the lineart. Aft of the intakes, the plane just seems too large, giving the whole an unbalanced look. Basically, it's a tiny head on a big body. That's my impression.

As to the YF-21 design itself, I've always wondered why Kawamori didn't design the belly plates to conformally mold around the bell bottoms, leaving them exposed on the underside , but blended with the engine nozzles to compliment the shape and reduce the magic requisite to give fighter and battroid modes  their profiles. The -21 is a shellformer in this regard, hiding the legs which are generally always the powerplant in the majority of his designs. I think he could have maintained that design continuity if he'd eschewed the backpack engines and let the legs fill that role.  Given their rounded shapes, I think it would have, or could have been made to, work. Alas, so much proverbial water. Anyway, I hope some of the inconsistencies will be addressed before final production and we'll end up with a pretty nice update. I'm already pleased with how the battroid mode is looking, but it could still use some finessing. As a few others mentioned in earlier posts, I hope this YF-21 is a more solid toy- easier to pose and transform- than the old Yammie. I finally retired my Yamato to its box b/c it could barely stand, so loose were the ankles, so dainty the feet, and so heavy the back. At least this figure holds out promise of standing more solidly on the shelf, and the legs compliment the rest of the battroid proportionally, so I'm getting excited. It's been a long wait.

Edited November 13, 2019 by M'Kyuun

[David Hingtgen]

On ‎11‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 3:56 PM, Chronocidal said:

You know what is amusing to me.. No one seems to be able to get the shape of the tails right.  They're clipped, MiG-style.  Yamato kinda skimped on the angle, but Bandai's flat out ignoring it, which is all the more ridiculous when you remember that the tails contribute absolutely zero influence to the transformation.  They hang out on the arms and do literally nothing.  Also, kind of painful that they literally cut the rudder in half.  I have no idea why they even bothered to include those, but again, the tails have no bearing on anything else on the design, so why not do them correctly?  

I'm wondering--does the -21 even HAVE rudders?  Looking at the original line art, that looks a lot more like a panel-line, than the cut-line for a moveable control surface.  It'd be a very oddly-shaped and proportioned rudder.  And since it is clearly intentionally copying the -23 there----the -23 doesn't have rudders, they're all-moving slab tailplanes.  I suspect the -21 is, as well, and that Bandai/Yamato (and maybe even Hasegawa) have always just mis-interpreted that panel line, adjusted it to 'look right' and "made it into a rudder".

Need to rewatch flight scenes...

Also--no one's ever gotten the shape of the -11's tailfins right, either.  (though I suspect part of that is because the "official" side profile lineart of the -11, seems to blatantly contradict "every other angle Kawamori drew of it").     I'm assuming the official side-profiles are drawn by draftsmen etc, who specialize in blueprint/schematic-style drawings?  And either Kawamori didn't catch it, or didn't sign off on it in the first place.  

[slide]

Just now, David Hingtgen said:

I'm wondering--does the -21 even HAVE rudders?  Looking at the original line art, that looks a lot more like a panel-line, than the cut-line for a moveable control surface.  It'd be a very oddly-shaped and proportioned rudder.  And since it is clearly intentionally copying the -23 there----the -23 doesn't have rudders, they're all-moving slab tailplanes.  I suspect the -21 is, as well, and that Bandai/Yamato (and maybe even Hasegawa) have always just mis-interpreted that panel line, adjusted it to 'look right' and "made it into a rudder".

Need to rewatch flight scenes...

The '21 has wing-warping technology, why wouldn't she do the same with the rudders?

also the 3-D Thrust-vectoring might negate the need for a large rudder surface/large range of movement if they are all-moving.

[Sildani]

Whelp, having looked at the 21 pre-flight and takeoff sequence again, the wings still have discrete control surfaces despite their MAW technology. 
 

And, looking at an “official, in-anime” front view of the 21, those stabs are huge. 

[jenius]

Maybe it's not a control surface on the stabilizer but a means for folding it over to make it smaller for battroid and they just didn't do that at the display.

[Chronocidal]

1 hour ago, jenius said:

Maybe it's not a control surface on the stabilizer but a means for folding it over to make it smaller for battroid and they just didn't do that at the display.

But.. the tail hangs out and doesn't interfere with anything, and the hinge isn't a double fold like the YF-19's rudder.  Besides, why would they need to fold part of the tail smaller?  The biggest part doesn't change any.

 

4 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Doing my own visual comparison, the arms don't look too short to me- the hands come to the knees, as they should. However, the forearms are lacking bulk. Also, I believe it was Chronocidal who pointed out that the vertical stabs are too large, the wrong shape, and their rudders are inexplicably truncated for hinging. Odd choices all.  The too-small forearms accentuate the size of the vertical stabs, so that may be the real problem; fatten those forearms by a few millimeters and it may look better proportioned.  I also see complaints of the forward fuselage looking 'smooshed forward', however looking at the  lineart, it seems to me that everything forward of the intakes is close. I think the problem is that there's a design dichotomy between shrinking the forward fuselage to better suit the battroid aesthetics, while everything aft of the intakes seems like it's a larger scale, and then of course, the fuselage is swollen beyond the impossibly thin lineart profile to accommodate the larger legs. Someone pointed out the 'scale' differences in an earlier post (I apologize, as I forget your name), and I agree with that assessment.  It creates the illusion of being smooshed, but  as I look at it, all the waypoints, if you will, line up forward of the intakes. to where they line up on the lineart. Aft of the intakes, the plane just seems too large, giving the whole an unbalanced look. Basically, it's a tiny head on a big body. That's my impression.

I think that was also me, saying it looked like they glued a 1/72 nose on a 1/48 back end.  

I actually don't think the tails are too big, I think the arms are just far too small.  It might just be the diameter (and the freaking tiny hands aren't helping at all), but I'm also looking at that line art, and thinking that while the hands do reach the knees, the angle of those arms isn't the same.  The line art pic has the arms in a much more aggressive pose, angled both outwards and forwards.  The elbows on the Bandai display don't look bent forward at all.  Maybe a better pose would help, because right now they just look whimpy and limp.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Chronocidal

[M'Kyuun]

8 hours ago, David Hingtgen said:

I'm wondering--does the -21 even HAVE rudders?  Looking at the original line art, that looks a lot more like a panel-line, than the cut-line for a moveable control surface.  It'd be a very oddly-shaped and proportioned rudder.  And since it is clearly intentionally copying the -23 there----the -23 doesn't have rudders, they're all-moving slab tailplanes.  I suspect the -21 is, as well, and that Bandai/Yamato (and maybe even Hasegawa) have always just mis-interpreted that panel line, adjusted it to 'look right' and "made it into a rudder".

 

8 hours ago, slide said:

The '21 has wing-warping technology, why wouldn't she do the same with the rudders?

also the 3-D Thrust-vectoring might negate the need for a large rudder surface/large range of movement if they are all-moving.

Maybe they're trim tabs- really large trim tabs. Joking aside, David makes a valid point, one that I should have caught- the entire stab is a moving surface on high-speed aircraft, usually controlled by extremely fast and precise servo-actuators linked to an air data computer. So, the small apparent rudders on Bandai's YF-21 are superfluous. We should send them a letter.

Chronocidal, you make a fair point about the position of the arms betwixt lineart and toy. The toy still looks ok in the length regard, to me, but I'll concede that the forearms and hands need to be bigger to nail the look. Feed that thing some spinach. 

Using words like wimpy and limp to describe a Zentraedi's war machine- dems either fightin' or cryin' words, depending on the Zentraedi in question. I think we know which way Guld would go.

 

 

[MKT]

15 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

 ..I think he could have maintained that design continuity if he'd eschewed the backpack engines and let the legs fill that role. 

Just thinking that for battroid, it is supposed to look like the Q-Raus, hence the backpack engines

 

I don't think Bandai has ever commented before how many times they revise a design before showing it, so back to the link in preceding page, where it was mentioned the shown design was already in 4th prototype, indicates how much Bandai seem to care about getting the design right for this. I hope 'release is undecided' is codespeak for 'possibility of further major revisions' instead of just very minor tweaks..

 

 

 

 

[seti88]

 

Gonna just say, dont make the forearms too disproportional...

 

 

[ridgebacks]

I think matching to the lineart is just impossible giving that the lineart/battroid mode picture are too inconsistent in proportion from picture to picture. In that battroid mode picture, the nose cone somehow just "shrinks" compare to the size of the rest of the frame. Then with the side/rear profile, the main fuselage is impossibly thin to contain all those legs and arms and what not.

[Dirtyboy]

Why not have more folding panels like the new transformers masterpiece figures to create those extra volumes that then fold away? 

[Slave IV]

3 hours ago, Dirtyboy said:

Why not have more folding panels like the new transformers masterpiece figures to create those extra volumes that then fold away? 

Please no!

[borgified]

5 hours ago, Dirtyboy said:

Why not have more folding panels like the new transformers masterpiece figures to create those extra volumes that then fold away? 

 

1 hour ago, Slave IV said:

Please no!

The more folding panels you add to the transformation, the less collectors are going to purchase it or skip it all together (like the DX 262 Hs, FT Koot and maybe MP-36/44?).

The simple it is, less parts to deal with and with less breakage [or do you want to be like Agent 539 on the TFW2005 boards and take your MPs apart to see how it's assembled  (and not be able to put it  back together ?) ]. 

Edit: Agent 539 has not failed to put his official and 3rd party TFs together as of now. 

Edited November 17, 2019 by borgified

[M'Kyuun]

For what we pay for these premium toys, Transformers or Macross, the last thing I want to do is take them apart. In my mind, it's gulling if there's a factory/design error necessitating the disassembly of something to make a fix. Those sorts of things should be caught by QC, but history proves otherwise.

I agree with Borgified in minimizing panel-formation on Macross toys. While it's necessary in some areas, the majority of valks don't require it. I do, however, think it'd be beneficial to mimic the leg compression design of MP-36, as that was a great solution. Hopefully, Bandai's not done tinkering with this thing yet, and I hope they take as much time as they need to really strike a good balance. I don't think it's possible to get it exact to the lineart, as every mode is drawn in a way that flatters it,  which means that proportions change from mode to mode to best suit , and little thought was given to the practicality of a transforming model/toy.  I think Bandai are doing a pretty decent job thus far with this take, although as we've all pointed out, there's room for improvement. I just don't want another super skinny-legged YF-21 that looks awkward and misproportioned.  For a better battroid, I'll take a little extra caboose in fighter.

Edited November 19, 2019 by M'Kyuun

[ridgebacks]

On 11/13/2019 at 1:10 AM, jenius said:

I really wish they had prioritized shrinking the backpack for battroid. Not sure how they could but it would have been nice.

Pretty sure it's impossible. The official drawing doesn't even have consistency. There's just no way that small of a backpack has enough room to hide all those legs. Also the plane nose somehow shrinks in battroid mode compare to in fighter mode.

 

The YF-21' design is just too hard to translate from 2D drawing to actual 3D model with consistency. 

[jenius]

The way I imagined it would be to have one more hinge in the backplate... But yeah, maybe it'd have to be a much bigger, more complicated toy to be over engineered to the point of mimicking stylized art.

[Mog]

Yamato shrank the backpack in battroid by having almost half of the fuselage collapse into/slide over itself.

To make the backpack shrink more would require more panel origami.  (Some sort of three panel/section folding?)

[rematron]

Perhaps the stubby front fuselage and nose could be improved by engineering the nose in such a way so that it could be pushed in a little in battroid and extended in fighter mode. If that were the only part of the mech that folded in that manner then perhaps the over all structural integrity wouldn’t be a huge concern. 

[Dirtyboy]

Do we have anymore info regarding the pre order for this? 

[borgified]

4 hours ago, Dirtyboy said:

Do we have anymore info regarding the pre order for this? 

Nada, zip, zero, nothing as of now.

I'm sure that something will big will pop up sometime next year. From what I read and understand, this version has gone though 5 revisions so far and further tweeks are done with the designer's and Kawamori's approval.

[Mommar]

Why do people keep giving Kawamori's approval any weight?  He approved the V1 VF-25, he constantly tells Mikimoto to change the designs when he does new artwork and he's openly stated me prefers for the look to change with the medium.  So why would he care if this one looks different now?

[Lolicon]

Kawamori will approve anything if you drive a dump truck full of money to his house. And so would I. 

Kawamori isn't made of stone. 

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by Lolicon

[Slave IV]

21 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

Kawamori will approve anything if you drive a dump truck full of money to his house. And so would I. 

Kawamori isn't made of stone. 

True, but do you think Bandai or anyone else is dumping a truckload of money off at Kawamori's house to get him to approve something against his artistic integrity?

[Lolicon]

5 minutes ago, Slave IV said:

True, but do you think Bandai or anyone else is dumping a truckload of money off at Kawamori's house to get him to approve something against his artistic integrity?

Absolutely. "Selling out" is an integral part of of the industry. 

Had a good chuckle at "artistic integrity" though.