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VF-1D Valkyrie Trainer / Orbot

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11 comments posted
I had a few of these when I

I had a few of these when I was a kid, and I remember them being a nightmare to build. I got glue everywhere, nothing fit right, and I never painted them, so you can imagine how it looked. Still, those lazy summer days were occupied by model building, and its an experience I won't ever forget.

Thank god for modern model building technology! No paint and glue!

Awesome review Leonardo!

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CollectionDX Admin

JoshB's picture
Posted by JoshB on 8 October, 2008 - 08:46
Robotech Defenders

Thanks! I just read your Dougram review from 2007 about your Dougram Soltic action figure and Robotech Defenders DC comic book. For some strange reason I still love that comic book, it was well done and it still stuck with me all these years later. A belated great review to you as well.

I've must of built most all of the boxed Revell Robotech model kits. In all reality that was the only way Anime model kits officially showed up on department store shelves in the USA. Later I discovered shops like Funny Business and Pony Toy Go Round that carried the original Japanese Model kits...that blew my mind!

I have a couple more model kits to review coming up!

Thanks again

Leonardo Flores
CollectionDX Staff Writer-West Coast Bureau

Showapop's picture
Posted by Showapop on 8 October, 2008 - 11:04
Great review, Leonardo! But

Great review, Leonardo! But it sort of stinks, too, since now maybe I'll have to lay off Sanjeev for slacking on some of his projects I've seen sitting around the last couple of years. Now he can just say "at least it's not taking me 15 years like Leonardo!" Hahaha

"This must be settled the way nature intended....with a vicious, bloody fight!"
Onyx Blackman
Principal, Flatpoint High

NekroDave's picture
Posted by NekroDave on 8 October, 2008 - 11:40
HA!! I win again! Great

HA!! I win again!

Great review, Leonardo! I like how you essentially dry-brushed in some shading to give the surfaces depth. That's not easy to do with Testors enamels. If you have a scrap kit laying around, I'd strongly recommend trying out Tamiya acrylics (water-based paints). For kits like these that require a more "organic" finish, acrylics work the best.

I find that enamels (oil-based paints like Testors) are good for car kits or other machines with very even, slick surfaces with hard edges. Everything else, from people to weathered vehicles, acrylics are the way to go. You'll find the mixing and dry-brushing infinitely easier with acrylics than with enamels.

Anyway, I also love your scratch-built hands. Are you planning on cutting joint lines into the right hand? They came out great on the left hand and if you made them match, they'd look stock!

The last variable kit I took on, I think, was either the Bandai 1/72 Fire Valkyrie or the 1/100 VF-2SS. Both were neat, but nothing compares to these guys! Leonardo, have you ever tried your hand at one of Bandai's variable 1/100 VF-1 kits? One of my buddies growing up completed about 85% of the Super -1S before giving up. Despite my pleas to see it completed, he never went back to it, so I never got to see how it turned out!

--
Sanjeev

Sanjeev's picture
Posted by Sanjeev on 8 October, 2008 - 14:42
Tamiya

Thanks for the comments on the VF-1D!

I used a combination of Testor's dry brushing and Wilson Burnt Umber oil paints. I had so many coats of paint on the wings and fighter style nose pod that it all bled out from the panel lines. I'm not real happy with the wings and nose pod but again I've spent so much time on this one that it was time to move on.

I have a love hate relationship with Tamiya, some colors look beautiful but others look too "wet" when they are applied to the model. I painted my Porco Rosso 1/72 Folgore with all Tamiya paints, I should have that review up in a week or so. The red came out great but the Tan was kind of blah. Tamiya paints are also a bit translucent which is great but hard to get used to. That's why tank builders use it as they spray a darker undercoat on hinges and hatches and when the over spray is applied it had a very deep quality to it.

Testors paints on the other hand are very thick and a pain to thin out correctly. One paint that I have tried recently that I've really liked is Hubrol. It airbrushes perfect and hand brushes well. I might head that direction.

For figure painting everybody is telling me I should use Andrea Miniatures acrylics from Spain which I will use when I start building Hayao Miyazaki's Akuyaku 1/72 tank shortly. It comes with about 20 pig soldiers to paint.

I painted up and modified the right hand at the last minute, I actually have a third hand that modified just like the left hand. I forgot to mention that the kit comes with four hands two closed and two open. One of the closed hands holds the gun pod.

Yes I have built that 1/100 scale Valkyrie when I was a kid, and it fact it was another VF-1D (although it was a super valkyrie version which I also got for my birthday from my parents) Arii actually scaled down this Imai kit to 1/100 scale, a great kit and really the only way to go in 1/100 for a Valkyrie because Arii other Valkyries were so badly made. I'll will build another eventually!

Thanks again!
Leonardo

Leonardo Flores
CollectionDX Staff Writer-West Coast Bureau

Showapop's picture
Posted by Showapop on 8 October, 2008 - 16:22
Wow~

Wow! You actually build and paint an Imai kit... I bet you chew with ease these days model kits (snap fit and very little gap to fill)

Berserk's picture
Posted by Berserk on 8 October, 2008 - 19:17
Nice! One of my first, too

Nice! This was one of the earliest Macross kits I ever built, back in the Robotech kit days. (My avatar is the Robotech Zoltek kit I built back then, painstakingly done in proper Dougram colors!) I didn't have much trouble with it then, but I didn't bother to fill any seams and just used the stock orange for most of the body.

Sadly, it got traded away long ago. I'm thinking of getting the recent Bandai re-issue, though.

Amazing that the Robotech releases of so many of these kits sell for so much in comparison to the original - or even more recent reissue - Japanese editions. Are people that dumb?

AcroRay's picture
Posted by AcroRay on 9 October, 2008 - 13:12
Zoltec

Berserk,

you have a point there. Today I'm sure if they were going to release a new 1/72 Valkyrie it would be engineered so much better. For it's day it's a demanding kit but it was the best of what manufactures had to offer in kit technology. Today it would be pre-colored, polycapped, etc.

AcroRay,

Great looking kit! I build that one as well, but painted it silver like the box, how was I suppose to know! I sold what was left of the Robotech Defenders / Dougram models I built on Ebay a few years ago, but they were very fun to build.

For $17.00 I would pick one up, they are actually cheaper now then when they were first released. Most of their Bandai reissue model kits are on sale right now on Hobby Link Japan, now is a good time to to pick up some Macross kits at blowout prices.

It's odd that people price things so high! I was so close to buying that VF-1D on Ebay right now for $60 but I didn't want to build another one. Luckily one of my IPMS club members had a vacuform machine and was able to pop me out a new window.

Good Building!

LF

Leonardo Flores
CollectionDX Staff Writer-West Coast Bureau

Showapop's picture
Posted by Showapop on 9 October, 2008 - 16:40
I'm Inspired!

Honestly, I've been inspired lately to try to buy one of these variable and re-live a bit of my founding anime fandom years! This review helps! :-)

HLJ's entry for the reissue kit:

http://www.hlj.com/product/BAN956862

My Zoltek/Dougram, still intact after all these years!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7988711@N02/979517462

AcroRay's picture
Posted by AcroRay on 10 October, 2008 - 11:34
Great review!

The build looks really good.

Unfortunately I've never been a fan of these transforming kits--they always have to sacrifice some looks to make the transformation gimmick work, and they end up having all kinds of big nasty seams and parts that don't quite hold together (i.e. nose section in Fighter mode, backpack in Battloid mode.)

Also, is it just me or does the aft part look too "fat" in Fighter mode? The arms seem like they're too thick, and that spreads the legs out too far. (Of course, it might be that the Hasegawa VF's I'm used too are too "thin"...)

****

One trick that might fix the backpack would be to use magnets. Put a small magnet under the spine, and then a piece of metal in the backpack for the magnet to grab.

****

Those hands look AWESOME. I agree that the squared-off fingers are better than the rounded ones; although there is some precedent for that in hard-SF. Rounded, streamlined structures with lots of panel lines and rivets were commonly seen in 1970's-era SF stuff. The idea continues today; see the "Lockheed Lounge", for example.

RobotBastard's picture
Posted by RobotBastard on 10 October, 2008 - 17:00
Berserk ...

Sorry for off topic but what is the female figure in your collection called? It looked very nice!

ntsan's picture
Posted by ntsan on 21 November, 2008 - 21:48