Bandai HG 1/100 YF-21 & VF-22

[Convectuoso]

5 minutes ago, Mommar said:

Built Gamlin Saturday.  Very simple. Instructions aren't written nearly as well as the Gundams kits are, however.  Their parts forming solution for Fighter and Gerwalk/Battroid has essentially been my recommendation for the 1/60 toys to get a proper fighter proportion.  Actually looks correct in all three modes.  And next to its 1/60 counterpart makes the DX look like an absolute joke.

Did you paint it or applied the included stickers/ decals?

I'm still trying to understand why, if the set comes with black and gray pieces, there's a black part that needs to be covered with gray decals.

[Mommar]

1 hour ago, Convectuoso said:

Did you paint it or applied the included stickers/ decals?

I'm still trying to understand why, if the set comes with black and gray pieces, there's a black part that needs to be covered with gray decals.

I don't understand where you're going with this.

[Chronocidal]

It is kind of a dumb issue to have, but it really comes down to how the part arrangement on the different sprues works out.

So for instance, the YF-21 comes with the jagged yellow markings over the intakes molded in yellow.  That's a separate piece.  That's great to not have to paint that part.

But then you get to the M&M VF-22s, and suddenly that part needs to be the same color as the main body.  Whoops.

You're left with two options here.  Either you're going to include alternate sprues of the correct color for that part with each version, or you're going to take the cheap way out and tell the customer to paint it, or include a sticker to cover it up.

Bandai has done both in various kits, and I have to assume it just comes down to what makes the most financial sense.

The HG Fire Valkyrie kit includes several sprues lifted straight from the YF-19 release for some of the joints, and even includes parts that won't be used until they make a normal VF-19F/S.  You get a ton of spare parts, but that's something that works into the price.  The Mirage Sv-262 was hilarious for this, because the dual white and magenta scheme basically meant you had another half a kit's worth of unused parts when you were done.

In the VF-22's case, I'm just guessing it didn't make any financial sense for them to include an entire sprue in gray, rather than letting the modeler paint or decal over a single black part that needed to be gray.

Edit: Just opened my kit to look, and I'm assuming this is about the upper arms.  Yeah, they're the color of the main body, because the upper arms on the YF-21 are blue, and each of those two parts are spread across two of the larger sprues containing a large amount of the main body of the valk.  Including a spare copy of those sprues molded in gray would be been incredibly excessive, and very likely increased the cost of the kit substantially.  Otherwise they would have had to make a dedicated sprue mold of just that part for this release.

This one was already a massive price hike over the YF-21, so the extra cost to include those parts in their proper color just wouldn't have made any sense.

Although... I'm really curious why they included the barrier punch effect in gray.  That's just really strange.  

This won't be a problem on the M&M versions, since they have their upper arms molded in their main body color like the YF-21.  However, like I said above, they don't have the upper intake zig-zags, so we're getting stickers for them the same way.

Edited November 11 by Chronocidal

[IronRaptor]

On 8/23/2024 at 4:34 PM, KOG Water Dragon said:

I agree with all this so hard. 1000%.

I don't hate Bandai kits for what they are... it CAN be nice to have a stress free experience where you can focus on other aspects of finish like painting or decaling or weathering or whatever. Not having seams that cut right through complicated details is good. Increased parts separation cuts down on the need for hours of masking (though it's good to know how to mask well).  And of course it's nice to not have parts that just don't fit together well.

But. I hate how Bandai kits have shaped the expectations and mindsets and learning paths of great swaths of the modern mecha modeling community. Bandai is not seen as something that goes above and beyond in order to be beginner friendly and attainable for kids and beginners... it's seen as the standard that defines what a model kit should be. Lack of need for glue, quick snap-fit, everything moulded in color. And these days, full of gimmicks and hyper-articulation. This is an issue because anything else becomes seen as sub-standard and a 'problem'. Those conditioned by Bandai will, a lot of the time, not want to try something outside the Bandai box. Which is a shame, since there's so much other neat stuff out there.

Who remembers when the original MGs had opening hatches and optional add-on greeble parts? That felt special. And now the MG line is all but dead. What a downfall.

Now pardon me while I go adore my Eduard aircraft kits with resin details, photo-etched detail sets, fantastic waterslide decals, all packed in the box. But not moulded in anything but grey. 😁

I agree that the trend toward a lot of kits being snap-build and color-separated (especially mecha kits) has conditioned many modelers into expecting too many model kits to be easy. It must be a real shock for someone who has only built Bandai kits to learn that some models require glue and *gasp* painting.

Still, For me as a Gundam fan the large abundance of well-engineered kits in a subject matter I enjoy is a very nice perk.

As a Star Trek fan and fan of aviation models. I honestly think a lot of companies could learn a thing or two from Bandai in terms of mold quality and part separation. Mostly because most Star Trek kits are kinda poorly engineered, and have not been updated in decades. Save for the new discovery and SNW enterprise that has been released by Polar Lights.

What I'd really like to see more companies adopt is a middle-ground position. Well-engineered kits that are sensitive to things that are more of a pain than a challenge to deal with. Like having to re-scribe panel line detail when a part seam runs through the joint of two finely molded parts, or ugly mold seams that could be easily eliminated if the part breakdown on some subject matters was along natural seamlines. Thoughtful engineering is always a plus. Never a negative IMHO. It's also been my experience that Japanese model companies like say Bandai or Hasagawa are just better model makers than a lot of other companies. So much more thought and love seems to go into the crafting of their model kits.

On the other hand, not everything has to be color-separated, especially when it overcomplicates the model and in some ways reduces the structural integrity of the model as a whole.

 

Edited Wednesday at 09:09 PM by IronRaptor

[Big s]

3 hours ago, IronRaptor said:

I agree that the trend toward a lot of kits being snap-build and color-separated (especially mecha kits) has conditioned many modelers into expecting too many model kits to be easy. It must be a real shock for someone who has only built Bandai kits to learn that some models require glue and *gasp* painting.

Still, For me as a Gundam fan the large abundance of well-engineered kits in a subject matter I enjoy is a very nice perk.

As a Star Trek fan and fan of aviation models. I honestly think a lot of companies could learn a thing or two from Bandai in terms of mold quality and part separation. Mostly because most Star Trek kits are kinda poorly engineered, and have not been updated in decades. Save for the new discovery and SNW enterprise that has been released by Polar Lights.

What I'd really like to see more companies adopt is a middle-ground position. Well-engineered kits that are sensitive to things that are more of a pain than a challenge to deal with. Like having to re-scribe panel line detail when a part seam runs through the joint of two finely molded parts, or ugly mold seams that could be easily eliminated if the part breakdown on some subject matters was along natural seamlines. Thoughtful engineering is always a plus. Never a negative IMHO. It's also been my experience that Japanese model companies like say Bandai or Hasagawa are just better model makers than a lot of other companies. So much more thought and love seems to go into the crafting of their model kits.

On the other hand, not everything has to be color-separated, especially when it overcomplicates the model and in some ways reduces the structural integrity of the model as a whole.

 

I do think a lot of companies are moving in a better direction, like Wave, Hasegawa and Max Factory. But it’s still gonna be a while before the really small companies get on board. Many of the things that make a Modern Bandai Gundam kit simple are very expensive. It takes a lot of cash to get these molds made and with separate colors on the same runners. Even a lot of complex aircraft kits don’t have that many runners and that requires less molds which are the big expense . And a company like Bandai brings in cash from several routes that help offset the cost.

Many of these smaller companies would have to completely change their equipment to be able to get the kind of extreme quality that Bandai does. It could easily backfire and send them into bankruptcy just trying to keep up mechanically. Although, I’ve seen some newer companies kind of popping up that seem to e trying to get there. Most of those seem to be Chinese companies that either are knock off brands or made their money from selling knock off products to produce their own stuff and 3rd party items. 

Things are changing, but a little slowly, but they’re catching up. It may take another decade or two before everyone is At Bandai’s level or at least current level, but it’s definitely moving in that direction 

[IronRaptor]

Here is my YF-21 build up. Real nice kit IMHO, better than the YF-19. Proportions are great in all modes in a way that could only be achieved with parts forming.

 

And yes, I know, gold and metallic colors are not realistic for a military craft. Sue me. I think it looks pretty 😛

[jenius]

Over compensating much with those guns? They look huge! 

The metalic paint on that build totally gives me 70s/80s metal toy vibes. 

[Big s]

3 hours ago, IronRaptor said:

Here is my YF-21 build up. Real nice kit IMHO, better than the YF-19. Proportions are great in all modes in a way that could only be achieved with parts forming.

 

And yes, I know, gold and metallic colors are not realistic for a military craft. Sue me. I think it looks pretty 😛

I like it a lot. And I wouldn’t worry about it looking tooo vibrant for the military since it’s a test machine. There have been some pretty wild colors in some past test and demonstration machines 

[Convectuoso]

Here's my VF-22 Gamlin build. I'm yet to build the parts for the other modes. I'll post pictures when I complete those

[Big s]

17 minutes ago, Convectuoso said:

Here's my VF-22 Gamlin build. I'm yet to build the parts for the other modes. I'll post pictures when I complete those

I get it, it can seem a little repetitive sometimes building the extra parts.

[kajnrig]

Those red triangle stickers that fold over the backplate/wings really are annoying, aren't they? They're not nearly as bad as the ones that came with the Plamax fighter mode VF-1, but they still peel off all the time; if I weren't replacing my YF-21's ones with paint anyway, I probably would just cut the sticker in half along the fold and deal with it maybe revealing a bit of blue plastic along the wing edge.

Very clean, very pretty build. Am I seeing it right, the hand guards did indeed end up being gray plastic with yellow stickers on top as hinted by the preview pics?

[Big s]

3 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Am I seeing it right, the hand guards did indeed end up being gray plastic with yellow stickers on top as hinted by the preview pics?

They’re the same as the 21 and grey. You can even see in his picture the grey is showing under the thin yellow 

[Convectuoso]

6 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Am I seeing it right, the hand guards did indeed end up being gray plastic with yellow stickers on top as hinted by the preview pics?

Yes, the hands are gray and stickers were applied. A similar thing was supposed to be done with the biceps. It came in black with gray decals to cover it, but I chose to just paint it.