HMR Macross Zero VF-0D Shin

[sh9000]

Take your HMR to work day.

[Shawn]

How come the white circles (always wondered when I see them on the sheets)
Is the kite inside the red circle clear or something?
Its not like they can't print white

[Lolicon]

11 hours ago, seti88 said:

oh yeah baby! will you be applying the decals?

That's certainly going to bump up the realism to model level.

Yeah, though I'll need to clean them up and scale them down to whatever HMR scale is supposed to be.

 

6 hours ago, Angesdad said:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Now I just have to figure out how to print this as custom decal printing is beyond me at this point but I'm inclined to get set up for it.

I just use an inkjet printer to make decals, though it's more limited compared to a real decal printer.

 

9 minutes ago, Shawn said:

How come the white circles (always wondered when I see them on the sheets)
Is the kite inside the red circle clear or something?
Its not like they can't print white

The insides of the kites are indeed clear. Since it's a model kit, I'm guessing they probably wanted people to have the option of painting it to whatever they like and using the clear insides to match the color of the aircraft.

[sh9000]

The HMR VF-0D is an excellent release that will go well with the rest of the HMR collection.  Bring on the HMR VF-0A, Reactive Armor, and Ghost Booster.

[Lolicon]

14 hours ago, Angesdad said:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Now I just have to figure out how to print this as custom decal printing is beyond me at this point but I'm inclined to get set up for it.

Slightly cleaner copy for ya. (Dusted off the scanner first)

[vladykins]

My 0D showed up. I'm loving it- now I wish the one I ordered from a US supplier would show up so I could set it up in fighter mode, but that's at least two months down the road.

[derex3592]

Got mine yesterday and opened it up this morning, it is a gorgeous figure, however, I'm not quite loving it so far....it's REALLY fiddly IMHO or I have fists of ham because I never transform anything anymore...I got to Gerwalk no problem, but fighter is fighting me, now I'm 100% sure it's me, but it was to the point to where I had to put it away this morning before I got upset and broke something.  Anyone else having trouble getting the head to collapse all the way down for fighter??? Also, like EVERY Macross Bandai release, the ARMS are my kryptonite, especially at this scale. Yamato had SUUUUCH a better system IMHO. I'll wait for a @jenius video to see what I'm doing wrong I suppose.  Still happy I got it, the rainbow canopy is AWESOME, and the color scheme is great. 

[Chronocidal]

Yeah, no, Bandai has repeatedly demonstrated that they are incapable of making a solid VF-1-style transformation into fighter mode.  They do not understand how the arms and legs and backpack have to fit together, and everything feels slightly out of line, and far too fiddly.  The DX is the best at it, but even that feels like things don't quite fit as they should at times (mostly due to the stupid pegs used).

It's honestly bizarre.  It's like they are completely incapable of using the same types of engineering tolerances they have on every other franchise when it comes to something like the VF-1.  Even their model was a disaster of misaligned and ill-fitting parts when it came to the arms, legs and backpack.

Edit - I realized belatedly that you're probably talking about the sliding clips for the shoulders, rather than the rotation hinges Yamato used.  Those generally work mostly okay for me, but the stiffness of the shoulder joints is unfortunately far stronger than the clip holding them on, and they tend to pop off of their rails more often than not.  I've also noticed that the position of those clips actually limits how far back the wings can sweep in fighter mode, which isn't really a problem, just an interesting difference.

Edited August 26, 2023 by Chronocidal

[derex3592]

6 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Yeah, no, Bandai has repeatedly demonstrated that they are incapable of making a solid VF-1-style transformation into fighter mode.  They do not understand how the arms and legs and backpack have to fit together, and everything feels slightly out of line, and far too fiddly.  The DX is the best at it, but even that feels like things don't quite fit as they should at times (mostly due to the stupid pegs used).

It's honestly bizarre.  It's like they are completely incapable of using the same types of engineering tolerances they have on every other franchise when it comes to something like the VF-1.  Even their model was a disaster of misaligned and ill-fitting parts when it came to the arms, legs and backpack.

Edit - I realized belatedly that you're probably talking about the sliding clips for the shoulders, rather than the rotation hinges Yamato used.  Those generally work mostly okay for me, but the stiffness of the shoulder joints is unfortunately far stronger than the clip holding them on, and they tend to pop off of their rails more often than not.  I've also noticed that the position of those clips actually limits how far back the wings can sweep in fighter mode, which isn't really a problem, just an interesting difference.

@Chronocidal - Yeeeeeees!!!!

[sh9000]

I'm leaving one in Battroid mode and another one in Fighter mode so that I don't have to keep transforming them.

[derex3592]

OK....after a solid hour + this morning when I was semi-fresh and the house was quiet, I sat down with this thing. Turns out my problem was this --- yesterday when the arms popped off the 1st time, and MANY times after that, I had been snapping them back on the slide rods the wrong way.  I had snapping down from the top --- NOPE -- gotta snap em from the SIDE, VEEERY hard to tell that from the B&W instruction photos. @jenius didn't cover that in his VF-0 transformation video, which I rewatched this morning.. just FYI @jenius might want to mention that on the OD. Just my .02.  If you don't you will NEVER get the arms to collapse forward enough to peg into the legs.  Other things were just off as well until I got that figured out.  After that, things more or less went together correctly.  I still maintain this one is the fiddliest HM-R's yet to get everything tabbed in tight in fighter mode. It ain't easy, and god help you if you wanna snap in the gunpod at some point..LOL. I think I'll go back to battroid and he can stand next to my Arcadia OD that stays in fighter mode. 

 

Hope this helps anyone else having issues out! 

Edited August 26, 2023 by derex3592

[MKT]

In the early days when HMR VF-0S was out, I couldn’t really relate to others’ experiences about it being finicky & fiddly.

With my initial copy, I had a pretty smooth experience transforming it from default Battroid to Fighter (first time transforming something without Jenius’s videos - not out yet at that time) & everything fit snugly plus aligned just about perfectly well.
Perhaps the only tricky bits were the small flaps on underside of nosecone, the ones that partly wrap around the head which I remember could also be bit of a pain to align even on the larger Arcadia 1/60s.

It was only much later on when I handled my other copy that I experienced the frustration of other folks. The chest plate would pop off, a shoulder would detach, & although everything fit just as snugly in the end, somehow much of the Fighter’s underside bits would juuuuust be little slightly tiny off alignment. In that mode, no amount of massaging of those bits would fix it like other typical VF-1 type molds; it had to be brought out of Fighter & transformed back again.

I haven’t handled them much since, much like most of my toys beyond initial handling for display, but I don’t think it’s the problem of the mold or QC variances between copies. Rather its the design & tolerances have been made very exacting such that stuff have to be seated quite precisely in their places along the way to a good fitting Fighter, & small misalignments cumulatively adds to the frustration towards the end.

In this regard, I must have been pretty lucky moving the bits correctly on my first copy, but not the second.

Bandai appeared to have really prioritised the sculpt to be as accurate as possible for this HMR VF-0, so the plastics are as thin & parts are as small as needed on some areas, but unfortunately it can make the experience fiddly.

We don’t really see this fiddly-ness on the HMR VF-1 because it appears the design is a bit more forgiving - there aren’t as many parts that come together as tightly on the Fighter’s underside, & plastics doesn’t look to be as thin but the sculpt consequently suffers a little.

[Radioguy]

Folks having Toynami moments with these is something Bandai needs to nip in the bud.

[Chronocidal]

30 minutes ago, MKT said:

Bandai appeared to have really prioritised the sculpt to be as accurate as possible for this HMR VF-0, so the plastics are as thin & parts are as small as needed on some areas, but unfortunately it can make the experience fiddly.

We don’t really see this fiddly-ness on the HMR VF-1 because it appears the design is a bit more forgiving - there aren’t as many parts that come together as tightly on the Fighter’s underside, & plastics doesn’t look to be as thin but the sculpt consequently suffers a little.

You don't see that fiddly-ness on the VF-1 because it was designed to be in that scale.  With the VF-0s though, every detail is pointing to them being re-scaled copies of the Arcadia 1/60 molds, with all of the material limitations that process brings with it.  They were never designed to function at that scale, it was just very convenient for Bandai that they happen to work well enough to sell.

[Raikkonen]

6 hours ago, sh9000 said:

I'm leaving one in Battroid mode and another one in Fighter mode so that I don't have to keep transforming them.

I wonder if this was Bandai's plan all along to ensure them extra sales? 

4 hours ago, derex3592 said:

It ain't easy, and god help you if you wanna snap in the gunpod at some point..LOL. 

 

I was on a verge of a nervous break down at this point with mine.

1 hour ago, MKT said:

Bandai appeared to have really prioritised the sculpt to be as accurate as possible for this HMR VF-0, so the plastics are as thin & parts are as small as needed on some areas, but unfortunately it can make the experience fiddly.

This is true. And accuracy along with durability are my priorities, so bring on the next lot of Zero in HMR.

1 hour ago, Radioguy said:

Folks having Toynami moments with these is something Bandai needs to nip in the bud.

I don't have the 0S, but when comparing the pictures there are general improvements, so I think Bandai might address a few more issues in the next models. 

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

You don't see that fiddly-ness on the VF-1 because it was designed to be in that scale.  With the VF-0s though, every detail is pointing to them being re-scaled copies of the Arcadia 1/60 molds, with all of the material limitations that process brings with it.  They were never designed to function at that scale, it was just very convenient for Bandai that they happen to work well enough to sell.

Don't have the Arcadia version, but when looking at the HMR on, and considering the proportions achieved in all three modes, was there really another way for Bandai to design the transformation? 

[Chronocidal]

49 minutes ago, Raikkonen said:

Don't have the Arcadia version, but when looking at the HMR on, and considering the proportions achieved in all three modes, was there really another way for Bandai to design the transformation? 

I don't think it's a stretch to say they absolutely could have chosen a different way to design it.  They just chose not to.  Bandai has done their own (often inferior) take on many things Yamato or Arcadia already did, and for better or worse, Bandai is going to be Bandai.  They're going to make bad decisions, and they're going to defend them to the death.  

The problems with the approach they took are pretty evident though.  The overall proportions of the VF-0s are great, just like the Arcadia ones, but that left them with incredibly tight tolerances to fit within when shrunken down, and it inflated the sizes of some of the parts that were already very small in 1/60.  It also resulted in them copying some of the mistakes Arcadia made.

Notably:
- The landing gear doors are a royal pain in the backside to open.  They left Arcadia's opening door design in, rather than attaching them to the gear, probably because it was less work to not have to design gear door plugs.  They didn't do this with the VF-4, and while I can appreciate the effort to have less spare parts to keep track of, now you have to keep a tool handy to open the doors anyway, and those tiny door hinges feel like they are just destined to break.
- The folding panels that seal around the head in fighter mode were already fragile and prone to pop off on the 1/60.  The hinges here got scaled up so that the pivots are roughly the same size as the 1/60 ones.  They work, but they were already fiddly in the larger scale, and now they're half the size.
- The tailhook colliding with the gunpod was an issue in the first release Arcadia VF-0D, and they fixed that by the VF-0S release, and the later PF VF-0D.  Bandai didn't get the memo, and brought that "feature" to both the HMR VF-0D and VF-0S.
- The VF-0D in particular suffers a bit visually from the fact that the design has a lot of compact hinges for all of the folding parts.  Those had to get scaled down significantly for the HMR, but not enough to make them really look good, in my opinion.  Those are chunky hinges in the wings, and I don't know if there's really anything you can do about that.  Frankly, if they're including battroid-specific wings, I think I would have preferred non-folding tips on the hardpointed wings, because they just would have looked better.

I'm not going to say that I don't love having these little VF-0s around, because they're nicely done, but they're absolutely more fragile-feeling than the other HMRs, and feel more like a model kit in weight.  The plastic is thinner, and there's much less metal than the VF-1, most notably because they didn't redesign the feet so they could be die-cast.  I can understand why they didn't; the VF-0's feet are just more detailed, inside and out.  But reworking them to be metal would have been a big improvement.

[jenius]

I think the arm transformation is a superior design to what Yamato and Arcadia gave us. The problem that I'm guessing Derex ran into, and many other have on both the VF-1 and VF-0, is that the arm, particularly on the first few transformation, doesn't slide on the rail like it's supposed to. If it's stiff and doesn't slide, the clip gets angled and the arm pops off. There's also a hinge that can be overly stiff so, after you've rotated the arms and you go to compress them into the lower position, instead of the hinge rotating and letting the arms sink down, the force is transferred through the hinge into the arms and can again cause the arms to pop off (or just not seat properly making everything look askew). If you luck out and yours aren't so stiff, or you spend some time on them in the first transformation going back and forth to loosen them a bit, the end result is pretty nice. Yes, at a larger scale the whole system would function better, but it does function here... sometimes it just needs some love first. 

[Raikkonen]

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

I don't think it's a stretch to say they absolutely could have chosen a different way to design it.  They just chose not to.  Bandai has done their own (often inferior) take on many things Yamato or Arcadia already did, and for better or worse, Bandai is going to be Bandai.  They're going to make bad decisions, and they're going to defend them to the death.  

The problems with the approach they took are pretty evident though.  The overall proportions of the VF-0s are great, just like the Arcadia ones, but that left them with incredibly tight tolerances to fit within when shrunken down, and it inflated the sizes of some of the parts that were already very small in 1/60.  It also resulted in them copying some of the mistakes Arcadia made.

Notably:
- The landing gear doors are a royal pain in the backside to open.  They left Arcadia's opening door design in, rather than attaching them to the gear, probably because it was less work to not have to design gear door plugs.  They didn't do this with the VF-4, and while I can appreciate the effort to have less spare parts to keep track of, now you have to keep a tool handy to open the doors anyway, and those tiny door hinges feel like they are just destined to break.
- The folding panels that seal around the head in fighter mode were already fragile and prone to pop off on the 1/60.  The hinges here got scaled up so that the pivots are roughly the same size as the 1/60 ones.  They work, but they were already fiddly in the larger scale, and now they're half the size.
- The tailhook colliding with the gunpod was an issue in the first release Arcadia VF-0D, and they fixed that by the VF-0S release, and the later PF VF-0D.  Bandai didn't get the memo, and brought that "feature" to both the HMR VF-0D and VF-0S.
- The VF-0D in particular suffers a bit visually from the fact that the design has a lot of compact hinges for all of the folding parts.  Those had to get scaled down significantly for the HMR, but not enough to make them really look good, in my opinion.  Those are chunky hinges in the wings, and I don't know if there's really anything you can do about that.  Frankly, if they're including battroid-specific wings, I think I would have preferred non-folding tips on the hardpointed wings, because they just would have looked better.

I'm not going to say that I don't love having these little VF-0s around, because they're nicely done, but they're absolutely more fragile-feeling than the other HMRs, and feel more like a model kit in weight.  The plastic is thinner, and there's much less metal than the VF-1, most notably because they didn't redesign the feet so they could be die-cast.  I can understand why they didn't; the VF-0's feet are just more detailed, inside and out.  But reworking them to be metal would have been a big improvement.

Cheers for this insight. What you say makes sense.

And yup, I love this 0D, but as I posted in my first review of it, it does feel like a firmer model kit. 

[Raikkonen]

12 minutes ago, jenius said:

I think the arm transformation is a superior design to what Yamato and Arcadia gave us. The problem that I'm guessing Derex ran into, and many other have on both the VF-1 and VF-0, is that the arm, particularly on the first few transformation, doesn't slide on the rail like it's supposed to. If it's stiff and doesn't slide, the clip gets angled and the arm pops off. There's also a hinge that can be overly stiff so, after you've rotated the arms and you go to compress them into the lower position, instead of the hinge rotating and letting the arms sink down, the force is transferred through the hinge into the arms and can again cause the arms to pop off (or just not seat properly making everything look askew). If you luck out and yours aren't so stiff, or you spend some time on them in the first transformation going back and forth to loosen them a bit, the end result is pretty nice. Yes, at a larger scale the whole system would function better, but it does function here... sometimes it just needs some love first. 

I didn't have this issue, as the moment I saw that internal structure of the arms sliding up and down, I went into extra careful mode as it looks incredibly fragile. Here I believe the bracket with the rods should have been metal, while the clips also in metal but with a rubber inside to maintain position on the rod. 

My biggest frustration came with:

- Fitting the tiny fists all aligned in the backpack.

- Fitting the gunpod during in plane mode. 

PS, eagerly awaiting your next video reviews. Keep up the great work there!!! 

 

Edited August 26, 2023 by Raikkonen

[MKT]

Well, a welcome goal of toys is to have model kit sculpt & tolerances whilst having to retain robust engineering to withstand repeated handling. I think the HMR VF-0 is doing fantastic from this angle. Although it is light with very small parts, the materials used are sufficiently strong with ABS on the small & thin bits. Things pop off but no one seem to have reported any breakage yet, unlike what I'm hearing with say.. the Toynami 1/100s lol. The VF-0D have disproportionately big hinges on the wing flaps, but I can well accept the tradeoff for sake of durability.

Still, as been mentioned over at the VF-0S tread, the plastic-centric lightness really works against it for first impressions out of the box. Bandai should have packaged the VF-0 in Fighter mode like the HMR VF-4, and the impressions should then be much more favorable seeing how snug everything is in Fighter. First transformation experience would not be as frustrating since it is getting out of Fighter rather than into it.

Edited August 27, 2023 by MKT

[Raikkonen]

2 hours ago, MKT said:

Still, as been mentioned over at the VF-0S tread, the plastic-centric lightness really works against it for first impressions out of the box. Bandai should have really packaged the VF-0 in Fighter mode like the HMR VF-4, and the impressions should then be much more favorable seeing how snug everything is in Fighter. First transformation experience would not be as frustrating since it is getting out of Fighter rather than into it.

I'd like to see a weight comparison between the 0S and 0D if anyone has both. 

I believe it was packaged in battroid mode as it was the quickest way to assemble it in the factory. 

[ImChris5115]

2 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

I'd like to see a weight comparison between the 0S and 0D if anyone has both. 

I believe it was packaged in battroid mode as it was the quickest way to assemble it in the factory. 

 

[Raikkonen]

19 minutes ago, ImChris5115 said:

 

Gratitude.

[Radioguy]

5 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

Gratitude.

Yes, I asked for this earlier somewhere too.

So, definitely some added heft for the 0D which might change handling opinions.

[Chronocidal]

The majority of that's probably in the wings, and all the extra folding bits.

Would be interesting to see how much a VF-1 weighs in at, though, if you have one handy.

[Convectuoso]

Just got mine and love it!

Haven't had time to transform it yet, though

[treatment]

still available as of this posting at ami:

 

https://www.amiami.com/eng/detail/?gcode=FIGURE-151323

 

15,090y   (+ whatever shipping-fees to your country)

 

[Lolicon]

Decals are tiny at this scale...

[Raikkonen]

53 minutes ago, Lolicon said:

Decals are tiny at this scale...

Where you get these from? And are they exactly at HMR vague scale of 1/100 - 1/88?

[seti88]

2 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Decals are tiny at this scale...

woah..doesnt look that jagged at all...crisp enuff?

[R0P3-F15H]

4 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Decals are tiny at this scale...

Eh heh the little center console displays are ao cute, absolutely tiny!!

[ArchieNov]

On 8/24/2023 at 11:52 AM, Lolicon said:

I still don't know wtf the difference is between the "Metal Build" and "Metal Composite" line. 

Metal Composite used to be focused on Ver Ka (Katoki Hajime's) aesthetics. After all, Fix Figuration was a line that was dedicated to his style. Not sure about the more recent Metal Composite releases since the last time I purchased a Metal Composite were the Psycho Gundams.

[derex3592]

11 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Decals are tiny at this scale...

My eyes hurt already....

[Lolicon]

11 hours ago, Raikkonen said:

Where you get these from? And are they exactly at HMR vague scale of 1/100 - 1/88?

Printed them myself. HMR is non-scale so I used the Arcadia VF-0D as a reference on how big the decals should be relative to the aircraft. Even then I still had to upscale them slightly to make them look right. It reminded me of Yamato's 1/3000 SDF-1. Instead of doing a straight scale down of their 1/2000 kit, Yamato had to make some tweaks to the SDF-1 to make it look "right" at the smaller scale.

 

9 hours ago, seti88 said:

woah..doesnt look that jagged at all...crisp enuff?

Much less pixelization scaling down vs scaling up. 

[Angesdad]

13 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Decals are tiny at this scale...

Very nice @Lolicon. Did you have to apply a layer of clear on top of it?I managed to break mine and in pieces currently, deciding what to do with it...

Edited August 29, 2023 by Angesdad