Well, VF-25F is completed so it’s time for the gallery of the finished model. While making photos I was testing new backround and camera settings and I hope that the final result isn’t so bad.  But I have still a lot to learn if it goes about photography ^^

Enjoy…

Fighter mode

Gerwalk mode

Batroid mode

Summary

It’s time to write my final thoughts about this plamo. Since now I only collected gundam kits especially those from MG scale and this VF-25F was my first non-gundam kit. I  have to say that it have beautiful design and  is looking good in all of the three modes. But as much as I like it I have to be honest with myself and have to say that it has a few things that I do not like.

First one are the hands, they are made like for some of the 1/100 gundam kits (3 Pairs of Hands, one open, one grasping and one flat palmed)  and if I pay 4,500¥ for a kit then I would like to have them made like for a MG kit…

Also decals provided with the kit aren’t the best, some of them  don’t cover the entire area  of the part what they should cover.  Overall decals for the VF-25 are looking   like we printed them ourselves on a colour copier. They really could done them better. Like all other decals for model kits , they are also quite fragile. That’s why the best would be to leave plamo in one mode since with every transformation the decals are little by little damaged by moving parts. You can of course apply top coat to protect them but still it’s quite risky that during trasformation something can be destroyed.

I was also having problems with stability of the Valkyrie in the gerwalk mode with the reached hands . It easily lose stability in this mode and I had to work  a bit  on the model so it could stand on his own legs. Maybe if the joints could be better then  probably plamo  would have no problems with stability in the gerwalk mode.

But the worst of thing is the problem with the gaps between shoulder plates, you can read about it at the end of the [WIP part2] .

Overall  for 4500¥  I have expected to see a plamo that will be on the level of gundam MG kits and  instead of that we get a VF-25 that  have some elements on a level of  MG kit and some on the level of 1\100  kits… Just look at the latest MG Zaku ver. 2.0 or other new MG kits, they are almost perfect  and sometimes even cheaper then this Messiah Valkyrie. I know that I complain to much about this kit but it was released by Bandai, company that  knows how to made great looking kits and this time I’m a bit disappointed about some aspects of the kit…

So, this is a good model  (that will look even better after painting and the modification of certain parts) but it’s not without drawbacks…

Main body

So here we are, the last   “WIP” post of the VF-25.  I’m still not so good if it goes about this part of the plamo review but with every post like this one I improves my skill if it goes about writting “WIP” posts ^^.

Here are the parts for the front part of the main body.

In the left corner you can see the hatches for the landing gear. By the way, landing gear is still in the proces of painting so I will probably show it in the “Completed model” post…

The rest of the parts for the front body of the Valkyrie.

Like you can see above, I have already painted the frame of the conopy with Tamiya acrylic black paint.  I have used Italeri synthetic round brush “000″ , it’s good for painting very small parts and pilot figures.

This  part in the center of the pic is where the head will be added.

Last thing to do is to add pilot and conopy and the front part of the main body will be completed.

There’s not so many parts for the wings and stabilizers.

Wing and stabilizer  assembled.

Now I only need to add legs and arms and Valkyrie will be almost completed.

This is  the last part that have to be added.  It’s used also as a shield in batroid mode.

Things that need to be done are:  apply rest of the decals, paint the pilot and to improve some of the panel lines. I will not apply any top coat since when I will have airbrush and compressor I plan to paint it. The only thing that I don’t like about this kit is that some of the decals are quite hard to apply and not so good quality, also I have some problems with this parts:

since it not adheres perfectly to the rest of the fuselage.   I have learned from the Macross world forum that I’m not the only one who have this problem.

wm cheng (one of the members from this forum) said:

Unfortunately, nope, you did nothing wrong, its just a really poor fit and Bandai didn’t bother with any good pins or attachment mechanisms. Once you transform it a few times and the joints loosen up, you get the knack of tweaking the legs and upper thighs underneath a bit to get a better fit. You can play with it a bit to get all the shoulder plates to lie a bit more flat, and the gaps will even out a bit, but that IS the problematic area which we all have. I think their solution is the super packs that has an entirely new piece that covers it.

So then,  Bandai make so many great looking gunpla kits  and when it comes about Macross F plamos they made them like some 1/100 kits. It’s a shame, really Hasegawa should do those VF-25 from Macross Frontier and not Bandai. It’s better if they remain at gundam kits…

[Completed model] post coming soon…

Well, this post should be called1/72 VF-25F Messiah Valkyrie Alto Custom: super slow wip XD . Lately I don’t have too much time to work on this plamo so my progress on it is very slow.  I can say that it is almost finished but still have few things  to do…

Head

There is not much parts for the head. There was also sticker for the “eye” sensor but it was looking so ugly that I decided to paint this part with  Tamiya clear green.

Those parts that have been selected with red lines have been also painted because they should be in grey color.

And that’s how the head is looking after assembling and painting. I have to say that maybe design of the head is quite simple but still it’s looking  very nice.  It was good decision to paint  the parts that require this. As a result, the final appearance looks a lot better than if I used stickers and left some of the parts unpainted.

Arms and hands

Front and back of the arm

Together with the model we obtain three pairs of hands. One pair  for valkyrie in figther mode (this  at the very bottom) and two pairs for use in the gerwalk and batroid mode.

Legs

I have to say that feets have been nicely detailed. They also have two functions,one very easy to guess as a feets and second as a exhaust nozzle.

Preview of the inner frame of the legs.

Legs are made very good, with nice details,  proportions and pretty good articulation. The bad things are white and red decals for the vertical stabilizer (fins), after applying the decals the black color of the parts passes the decals (photo below)  and because of that they don’t have ideal colors. That’s why I also have to paint this part of the vertical stabilizer.

There are also decals that don’t cover the entire part and they should do that, just look at the photo below:

I will have to use black gundam marker to cover the white lines  around the decal.  Bandai should be ashamed for making such a bad decals…

Gun pod & assault knife

This part of the gun pod that is selected  with red lines must be painted in red color, or if you do not want to paint it, you can use the decal for this part of the gun pod. I have used it but after few sec it have fall off so I decided to paint it…

Like you can see, the gun pod have very simple design and it’s construction was very easy. It took me only few minutes to assembly it.

If it goes about assault knife, then well it’s looking just like all the normal knifes so nothing special about it.  You will probably notice that in some areas you will see paint, it’s becacuse I was testing if the paint that I have in my house would look good on it but the final effect wasn’t good so I removed the paint and will use silver gundam marker for the edge of the knife. It will probably look much better then the paint that I have used …

[WIP 2] coming soon…

Just like the title of this post says, two days ago the 1/1 scale RX-78-2 was completed. This is the life size Gundam that is being built in Odaiba (Tokyo) and is  part of a celebration for the 30 year anniversary of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series. The date of display for the statue is from July 11th till August 31st. And here are  some of the pics of this statue:

The only thing that is left are lights,beam rifle and shield but like you can see, it’s already looking great. I only hope that when I visit Japan in next year, this statue will be still standing in Tokio so I will have oportunity to take some nice photos of it ^^

Pics from: Punynari blog and Ngee Khiong

It’s a bit late but I would like to say that since last week you can buy, the newest Yoko Kanno album called “Space Bio Charge”. It’s a collection of  the greatest hits  from Seatbelts and Yoko Kanno, featuring the songs of “Cowboy Bebop,” “Macross Frontier,” “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex,” “The Vision of Escaflowne,” “Turn A Gundam,” “Macross Plus” and more on 3 CDs. Below you have the full song list from all 3 CDs:

CD1

CD2

CD3

I will probably buy this collection album since I’m a big fan of Yoko Kanno music.  And for about 41$  you get almost all the best songs that she have created.So if you are a fan of her works then “Space Bio Charge” would be a great addition to you collection especialy that you get 3CDs (48 tracks) for not so high price. I only have Macross Frontier, Ghost in the shell:S.A.C. and Lovers only (from vision of the Escaflowne) CDs so it’s very good option for me ^^ .

You can buy it on: Play-Asia

Plamo info

Price: 4500 yen

Release date: September 2008

Scale: 1/72

Series: Macross Frontier

Box overwiew

Box size is almost the same as those from gundam plamos.

Presentation of all three modes of the Messiah Valkyrie:  fighter, gerwalk and battroid.

Some  examples of the action poses

Box art of Alto Valkyrie is looking quite nice but personaly I would like to see something like those from Hasegawa Macross kits for example like this one^^

Instruction manual

Manual of this Macross kit is similar to those from gunpla kits.  So even if you do not know Japanese, you should not have problems with assembling of this model.

Transformation proces is looking quite easy on the photos but how it will be in reality we’ll  see. I still remember having problems with waverider mode of  MG Zeta Gundam 2.0…

Runners & decals

There are 13 frames of runners +decals

If it goes about the parts, then I have to say that they are very nice detailed. They have good proportions and are molded in proper color. Well, except of few parts that have to be either painted or  covered with stickers…

I’m thinking about painting window and sensor parts in some nice  clear blue. They would look  much better than  in the default clear color.

The kit came with 2 sets of decals, the sticker type (yeah, everybody loves them XD)  and water-slide decals.

1/72 VF-25F Messiah Valkyrie Alto Custom is my first plamo that I bought in this year. It will be also my first non-gunpla kit in my collection.  First I was thinking about buying 1/100 Astrea Type F but then about month ago, I started watching Macross Frontier and just had to have one of the Messiah Valkyrie kits.  I  was always a big fan of modern fighter planes (mainly U.S. machines because of their  awesome design) and this combination of plane which can transform into mobile suit and gerwalk  is  great idea.  I could choose from Alto, Ozma, Michael and Luca units and in the end  I chosen Alto’s Valkyrie since he is main male character in the series and  I also like the color scheme of his unit.

Next I will probably buy Armor pack and SMS action base for this kit, I know that Bandai released also Valkyrie with super pack   (1/72 VF-25F Super Messiah Valkyrie Alto Custom) but lately I don’t have much money to spend on the plamos and that’s why I will buy Super pack together with the S.M.S. action base some other time.

Well, enough for today, next post “work in progress” ^^

Posted in Plamo review Tagged: 1/72 VF-25F Messiah Valkyrie Alto Custom, Macross Frontier, plamo ]]> http://paliodor.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/172-vf-25f-messiah-valkyrie-alto-custom-introduction/feed/ 6 Paliodor Alto Valkyrie Box size Alto Valkyrie back Alto Valkyrie back 2 Alto Valkyrie back 3 Alto Valkyrie Instruction manual Instruction manual 2 Instruction manual 3 Instruction manual 4 Runners Runners 3 Runners 2 Decals http://paliodor.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/mg-exia-confirmed/ http://paliodor.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/mg-exia-confirmed/#comments Fri, 22 May 2009 15:09:30 +0000 Paliodor http://paliodor.wordpress.com/?p=1015 ]]>

Special parts that comes with ignition mode ver.

I will probably buy normal ver. since it’s cheaper (lately don’t have much money)  then ignition mode ver. and the special stuff isn’t worth the money, maybe except those LED diods.

Source of the pics:Ngee Khiong

1/100 00 Raiser Designer's Color Ver.
Price: 5250¥
Release date: May 2009

This newest ver. of OO Raiser is at last avalaible. I posted some additional images of it so you can think if it’s really worth buying. If it goes about me, I think that I will get this ver. since I didn’t buy the first one with the stand and when I look at this Designer’s color ver.  it have quite a lot of new things (like GN sword III, 3 light units, decals) that make this gunpla worth buying ^^

This is probably the best box art just after this from MG Sword Impulse that I saw in this year.

It’s nice that Bandai added decals for this ver. of OO Raiser. They are looking pretty good and have nice design.

GN Sword III is molded in nice clear green color.

Source of images: Hobby search