Tag: macross delta

VF-31J Siegfried – 35th Anniversary Cosplay

As someone with an eye for the slightly unusual, this figure appealed. However, let’s start with the less unusual part:

She wasn’t too bad of a built but yeah… those stickers on her chest… They really don’t stick well, and the middle blob is actually her belly button. Yes, they sculpted it, then gave you stickers to cover it… Still considering peeling these stickers off and painting her, as it looks so bad. 

Her face was prepainted, but they give you a blank one, should you wish to paint your own, which I thought was a nice inclusion. 

Side:

I like the fact the hair is articulated, and the pink pieces in her hair. The headset looks good… but the bits on her hips are annoying. Not entirely sure what they’re supposed to represent, but for mine, on one side, it was hard to get it to sit right on the pegs that are there to ensure it articulates correctly. Also the stickers… they like to unstick themselves on this bit. If you look underneath the hip parts, you can see a sticker freeing itself – the parts that fold over on the stickers like to unstick. 

Back:

I like the look of the design back here, barring the escaping stickers. 

For balancing her, it’s a bit tricky with her small feet, but possible. Wouldn’t recommend – was a pain for these photos, so I’d recommend either displaying her with the VF-1 or fabricating some kind of stand/using putty to get her to stay.

And now for the pièce de résistance:

Here she is, riding the VF-1 in Gerwalk form! You initially make the plane in flight mode, but where’s the fun in that? She can be assembled into a walking mode, but it was such a pain to do the transformation, I couldn’t be arsed to change it to see what it looks like – and this is the main downfall of the kit. It pretty easily falls apart, which is so very annoying. The handlebars she’s holding can pop off, and then some of the associated parts can fall off. Some of the wing parts are also easy to knock off. 

The plane form is a bit flopsy from the ability to take it apart and “transform” it. 

And the stickers have the same issues as the ones on her body – they’ll peel and unfurl in places, especially for the ones that fold over a part. If you do want to paint it though, it comes with water decals, so you can use those for the writing after painting it. 

Left:

She does pose reasonably well on it, though getting her legs onto the stands is a bit of a challenge. Here you can see where one of her feet isn’t actually in place. D’oh. 

Right:

And here she is, standing almost properly. The nub on the foot stands does help to keep her in place whilst you pose her. I do like the way the legs are folded out for her to stand on. 

Back:

Booty shot :P. Looks OK from the back, not too much to see here. Getting the entire thing to balance can be a bit of a pain – at certain times, the plane did try to nosedive onto the mat. If you get the feet in the right positions, it should stand up OK though. 

Overall, I really like the unusualness of this kit, and it does look decent when built… if you ignore the stickers peeling off :/. I’d probably recommend this more as a kit that should be painted, rather than stickers due to this. And the not very helpful guide of how to stick them on – some are done during the build process, but the vast majority there’s some large pictures numbering all the stickers at the end – and one of them did require disassembling her to get it on properly. Some parts of the build were a massive pain in the butt, so I’d be prepared for the damn thing to fall apart at least once on you. 

I’d only recommend this kit, if you really want the end result. I wouldn’t class it as a particularly fun kit to build. 

VF-31F Siegfried (Messer Ihlefeld’s) – Macross Delta – Bandai Model Kit

Now for my new “thing” – model kits! I bought two larger kits from one of my favourite series, and stuck this in on a Mandarake order on a whim. 

After a lot of bitching at stickers later, I had this:

Next time I’m totally going to be using my tweezers to help out with the stickers, and there will be a next time! The pictures were pretty easy to follow, despite me not reading a word of Japanese. You do need to look carefully to work out what’s going on though, if you can’t read what’s being said.

Here it is from the other side, similar angle:

Quite happy with the end result, but I would’ve liked to get that cockpit sticker a bit flatter. It’s amazing how the stickers transform it from being a boring, grey and white plastic model to something quite colourful. 

From the top:

Looks pretty neat from the top. Not sure if the logo is quite in the right place – I did centre the logo on the centre of the plane, but the wing does just touch that black line on the other sticker. Also you can see where the cockpit doesn’t quite align. 

Side shots:

Looks nice in profile. Some very small stickers with writing on, to tell you that it’s a VF-31 Siegfried. One cool thing about this stand is that the peg that goes into the craft is on a ball joint, so you can angle it however you’d like and turn it around. 

From the back:

Engines look OK, though lack of fire :P. The small block on the back of the stand can go into the bottom of the fighter, if you don’t wish to have it on the stand. I love the fact they provided a space for this block on the back of the stand, so you don’t lose it. What I love less is the fact that I ended up putting this block in during the building of this craft, then I had to get some hooked pliers to get it back out again :P. Wasn’t so bad as I had some on hand. I guess the instructions may’ve said something about what it was for, but oops. 

After completing it, I quite like this craft. It is very small (10cm/4″ from the engines to the tip of the cockpit), but it cost me the grand total of £4.08, so I can’t complain about the price. I enjoyed building it enough, that I’ve ordered some more. They’re quite quick to build (at least for a model kit), so if I’ve got an hour or so spare, then I can entertain myself with building one of these!