HMR Macross Zero VF-0S Phoenix

[Angesdad]

damn my second copy arrived today from AmiAmi with quite a bit of transit damage beyond my level of acceptance. The item box inside was crushed and folded badly from impact side to side. It was shipped with DHL. I emailed AmiAmi to make a claim, anyone with the experience?

[Angesdad]

So I’ve decided a little bit of detail up work on my copy. I don’t usually bother with panel washing but the HMR 0S was screaming for one. Much less tolling to mess up a HMR than a DX anyway.😆

Starting with the head cannon details drilled holes and red stripes added.☺️

Edited October 29, 2022 by Angesdad

[Lolicon]

5 hours ago, Angesdad said:

So I’ve decided a little bit of detail up work on my copy. I don’t usually bother with panel washing but the HMR 0S was screaming for one. Much less tolling to mess up a HMR than a DX anyway.😆

Starting with the head cannon details drilled holes and red stripes added.☺️

Looks so much better now!

I've never liked how inconsistent Bandai's paint work on their HMR valks have been. They cut so many corners that they end up looking like half-finished models with lots of obvious details missing. I had to put in a lot of work to make the VF-4 look decent as I thought it looked kinda anemic out of the box.

"Arcadia doesn't put enough tampo on their non-PF valks."

Bandai: Hold my beer.

[MKT]

5 hours ago, Angesdad said:

So I’ve decided a little bit of detail up work on my copy. I don’t usually bother with panel washing but the HMR 0S was screaming for one. Much less tolling to mess up a HMR than a DX anyway.😆

Starting with the head cannon details drilled holes and red stripes added.☺️

 

Drill holes on a piece so small? I wish I got that steady a hand.. Nice work! 

[MacrossJunkie]

8 hours ago, Angesdad said:

So I’ve decided a little bit of detail up work on my copy. I don’t usually bother with panel washing but the HMR 0S was screaming for one. Much less tolling to mess up a HMR than a DX anyway.😆

Starting with the head cannon details drilled holes and red stripes added.☺️

Did you use a pin vice to drill the holes? The red stripes look pretty clean and uniformly done. Looks good overall!

If you want to add a little a little more detail, you could also add the arrows that should be on the circular part of the head laser.

 

[Angesdad]

8 hours ago, MacrossJunkie said:

Did you use a pin vice to drill the holes? The red stripes look pretty clean and uniformly done. Looks good overall!

If you want to add a little a little more detail, you could also add the arrows that should be on the circular part of the head laser.

 

Yup I used a pin vise with the smallest drill bit I could find and carefully drilled out just enough material for black wash to set in. The red stripes at the tip I attempted to paint at first but it didn’t look straight thus went with a decal instead. 😉 Wish I could cram in more details as you suggested but it is just too small that you can only do key details to make it pop.

[MacrossJunkie]

13 minutes ago, Angesdad said:

Yup I used a pin vise with the smallest drill bit I could find and carefully drilled out just enough material for black wash to set in. The red stripes at the tip I attempted to paint at first but it didn’t look straight thus went with a decal instead. 😉 Wish I could cram in more details as you suggested but it is just too small that you can only do key details to make it pop.

Yeah, I was mostly kidding when I suggested that and would have been very surprised if you actually tried. 😄

The red stripes look good regardless of how you accomplished it. It definitely would have been difficult to paint it, especially on something that small of a scale.

[Angesdad]

Updates. I’ve been using Tamiya light gray panel wash because the blackest black panel lines against the white makes it look horrible as we all know. My finding though after messing around a bit, intended subtle panel wash doesn’t really work effectively on the scale of HMR and all my efforts to payout ratio isn’t that great. Spraying top coat also kills the wash a bit…Time to try regular gray wash.🤪

[fenrir72]

On 10/29/2022 at 4:36 AM, Angesdad said:

damn my second copy arrived today from AmiAmi with quite a bit of transit damage beyond my level of acceptance. The item box inside was crushed and folded badly from impact side to side. It was shipped with DHL. I emailed AmiAmi to make a claim, anyone with the experience?

I believe the issue is with DHL and not amiami.

[no3Ljm]

On 10/28/2022 at 1:36 PM, Angesdad said:

damn my second copy arrived today from AmiAmi with quite a bit of transit damage beyond my level of acceptance. The item box inside was crushed and folded badly from impact side to side. It was shipped with DHL. I emailed AmiAmi to make a claim, anyone with the experience?

Sorry that this has happened, @Angesdad.

7 hours ago, fenrir72 said:

I believe the issue is with DHL and not amiami.

I'm thinking the same. I wonder what happened during transit to dent the box like that knowing that Amiami's boxes is thick and sturdy?

[Lolicon]

16 hours ago, Angesdad said:

Updates. I’ve been using Tamiya light gray panel wash because the blackest black panel lines against the white makes it look horrible as we all know. My finding though after messing around a bit, intended subtle panel wash doesn’t really work effectively on the scale of HMR and all my efforts to payout ratio isn’t that great. Spraying top coat also kills the wash a bit…Time to try regular gray wash.🤪

Now that's the VF-0 we should have gotten out of the box! Especially if Bandai insists on overcharging overseas customers. 

[Angesdad]

17 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

Sorry that this has happened, @Angesdad.

I'm thinking the same. I wonder what happened during transit to dent the box like that knowing that Amiami's boxes is thick and sturdy?

Thanks @no3Ljm, yeah it's the first time receiving stuff from AmiAmi in this manner as you say their box is on the studier side. DHL must've thrown my box around.

AmiAmi responded to my inquiry and offered a replacement or refund. Either way it's trouble I shouldn't have had in the first place.

[DewPoint]

That's some impressive damage!  As others have said amiami boxes are pretty sturdy.  The 2 times i used DHL my boxes came to me in a similar condition.  Although my boxes were shipped from Amazon.jp and their boxes are rather thin.  Since then, I'm extremely reluctant to use DHL for anything unless I absolutely have to.

[Arthurius]

In robot mode, does this one look as pristine and awesome as the vf2ss (without armour) and vf1s?

[Froy]

 

[treatment]

13 hours ago, Arthurius said:

In robot mode, does this one look as pristine and awesome as the vf2ss (without armour) and vf1s?

from Wotafa's video above...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrVzVyJ-ooI

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by treatment

[Convectuoso]

Loving Gerwalk mode!

[nightmareB4macross]

6 hours ago, treatment said:

from Wotafa's video above...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrVzVyJ-ooI

 

Very inconsistent scaling. This is quite a turn off for me. The VF-0S should tower over all.

[sh9000]

On 10/27/2022 at 11:24 AM, Convectuoso said:

I just got mine

Battroids look nicer together in @Convectuoso's pic.

[TheLoneWolf]

3 hours ago, nightmareB4macross said:

Very inconsistent scaling. This is quite a turn off for me. The VF-0S should tower over all.

That chart is wrong. The VF-0 is 14 meters tall in battroid mode, but that chart shows it at a whopping 16 meters.

[nightmareB4macross]

1 hour ago, TheLoneWolf said:

That chart is wrong. The VF-0 is 14 meters tall in battroid mode, but that chart shows it at a whopping 16 meters.

You’re right. But the VF-2 and the VF-0 should both be the same height at 14m.

At HMR scale those too still appear a bit too large.

[vladykins]

7 hours ago, nightmareB4macross said:

You’re right. But the VF-2 and the VF-0 should both be the same height at 14m.

At HMR scale those too still appear a bit too large.

Looks about right in @Convectuoso's picture, so I'm thinking there is something weird with the video shot. I may take a look at mine (though I don't have either standing straight up).

[sh9000]

My total for 3 came out to $331.53 shipped or $110.51 each shipped.

[treatment]

On 11/2/2022 at 11:11 PM, nightmareB4macross said:

You’re right. But the VF-2 and the VF-0 should both be the same height at 14m.

At HMR scale those too still appear a bit too large.

 

On 11/3/2022 at 6:30 AM, vladykins said:

Looks about right in @Convectuoso's picture, so I'm thinking there is something weird with the video shot. I may take a look at mine (though I don't have either standing straight up).

still too lazy to do my own, but here's another snapshot from Wotafa's video:

[ValkAddict]

Mine arrived yesterday. It's pretty nice for Hi-Metal and does not disappoint. Thinking about getting a second one.

[sh9000]

[jvmacross]

1 hour ago, sh9000 said:

[MKT]

Received the VF-0S today.

To be honest, I had some trepidation because there have been little rumblings here and there on the quality not being up to usual HMR standards. These were mostly to do with how cheap the plastic feels & how thin the plastic is until light shines through easily, stuff that were never an issue with previous HMR releases like the VF-4. Some quick impressions:

In hand, the plastic feels.. different than other HMR VFs, but not necessarily cheap. In fact, the texture feel very similar to the new plastics used for the recent VF-25 WWM and YF-29 Max. I've only handled Battoird & Gerwalk so far, and find some parts do look quite thin, with joints & hinges around the chest area flexing a bit more than I would like during mid-transformation. But none of the parts feel as though will break easily - on contrary they are quite strong. I'm thinking Bandai is really going for accurate proportions here, so perhaps some parts are smaller / thinner / finer to achieve that for this size. 

Where other feeling of cheapness may come from is its weight. It is only 94g, compared to the VF-4's 110g and VF-2SS's 122g (the VF-1 is 80g). So it does kind of feel lighter than expected for its size.

Once I start putting it through its paces though, its quickly apparent that that the tolerances are pretty much top notch. On my copy at least, all joints move with consistent fluidity and mostly appropriate tightness depending on area, making this toy a pleasure to handle. I feel this aspect is the hallmark of excellent engineering, more so given its scale. Kitz Concept would do well to take copious notes here for their 1/72 VFs!

Only the cockpit shield was much tighter than it should be; on the upside it does cover the canopy completely in Battroid (I was afraid it wouldn't, seeing quite a few mis-transformed examples before this).

Unfortunately, the plastics appear to have some unwanted levels of translucence. This is the complaint by some, but the way I see it, wrongly attributed to plastic thickness but is due to the plastics color itself. It's not noticeable during normal handling, but the moment some light gets behind it, the translucence becomes quite apparent, like the following pic ..

   

 

After Battroid, I moved on to Gerwalk and have to agree with others who mention this is the best mode. The range of articulation & balance here is really nice, and I attempted to have it emulate Roy on one of his moves during his Gerwalk melee with Ivanov on the aircraft carrier deck.. 

 

 

It is really a treat to have the rainbow cockpit canopy here again, after losing it from Yamato's valk days. For now, I'm leaving it in Gerwalk for display..

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by MKT
Tweaked & added pic

[sh9000]

On 11/7/2022 at 2:26 PM, jvmacross said:

Thanks.  I'll probably do a version 2 of all of the poses I've done so far.  I usually would have the reference pic in front of me while posing the figure.  Unfortunately none of the VF-0S toys can angle its legs like that.

[Lolicon]

Really like the rainbow canopy tint Bandai added. Hope it becomes a regular fixture moving forward. Much better than the glitter tint of the 31 line! 

[jvmacross]

1 hour ago, sh9000 said:

Thanks.  I'll probably do a version 2 of all of the poses I've done so far.  I usually would have the reference pic in front of me while posing the figure.  Unfortunately none of the VF-0S toys can angle its legs like that.

Haven't handled mine enough to know...but not surprised if it can't do those extreme poses

[MKT]

16 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Really like the rainbow canopy tint Bandai added. Hope it becomes a regular fixture moving forward. Much better than the glitter tint of the 31 line! 

I do agree, the VF-31 heavily opaque canopies are quite a turn off.. 

[TheLoneWolf]

22 hours ago, MKT said:

Unfortunately, the plastics appear to have some unwanted levels of translucence. This is the complaint by some, but the way I see it, wrongly attributed to plastic thickness but is due to the plastics color itself. It's not noticeable during normal handling, but the moment some light gets behind it, the translucence becomes quite apparent, like the following pic ..

Tbh, Arcadia's VF-1 toys have been sporting similar transluscent plastic for years and there haven't been any durability issues. I agree that it's likely due to the color of the plastic than thickness, since it's not that apparent on any non-white parts.

Attached photo is courtesy of davidwhangchoi.

[no3Ljm]

Anyone attempted on painting their VF-0S chin?

 

[Angesdad]

3 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

Anyone attempted on painting their VF-0S chin?

 

I've done it already. Will post some WIP photos this evening.😁