#yf-19

This is kind of a weird kit for me... It's 1/100 which puts it in scale with the Master Grade gunpla I'm usually building. But it's just a High Grade model kit - which means there's no inner-frame, the details and color accuracy are a little lackluster, and there's plenty of stickers.

There's two sheets of stickers, which I didn't really use... But I kind of wish I had.

The smaller sheet is some normal foil stickers for cameras and stuff.

The larger sheet is very thin, flexible metallic plastic. Reminds me of a mylar balloon or something. It actually conforms to the details and sticks very well... But I didn't know this until it was too late to use most of these stickers because I'd already started with the waterslide decals.

More on that later.

Of course I had to paint the pilot. I always feel bad leaving the pilot figure unpainted when it's actually going into the kit... And this one is clearly visible through the cockpit canopy. So he got painted-up.

This kit features "shortcut change" parts... It's basically what gunpla folks would call a "partsformer". It doesn't really transform exactly, you're swapping lots of parts to make it happen.

So there's whole separate bits for the fighter, gerwalk, and batroid modes.

There's also some landing gear for the fighter mode... And the gun pod. Plus a couple different hands and an effect part for the pinpoint barrier punch.

So... This is really where things went a bit pear-shaped with this build.

My gut instinct was to grab the waterslides because this is a 1/100 kit and I associate that with Master Grade gunpla. Which I like to put extra time and effort into. Paint some bits, waterslides, topcoat - the whole thing.

But these waterslides weren't great. The problem is that a lot of them are basically color-correcting waterslides. And while the color bit is the right size, there's also that little clear border around them - which doesn't fit neatly. So a lot of these decals went on very messily.

And then I had to drench them in Mark Softer... Which made the panel-liner run... And it started looking really bad, really fast.

I genuinely wish I'd used those mylar stickers first and left the watereslides for the markings. Trying to use the color-correcting waterslides was a mistake.

Batroid mode is about what I expected. It looks pretty similar to any other gunpla kit - big bipedal robot thing. Dedent details. Decent articulation. Fits right in alongside any other HG kit.

Gerwalk mode is probably my favorite. It so uniquely, iconically Macross. And it's great to be able to see the pilot in there. The articulation gets a little limited here... I'm sure it'd look better up on a stand, but you can't do anything too dynamic with how front-heavy this thing is.

And then we've got fighter mode... Which, honestly, probably looks the best of the three? Or the least janky?

This kit was definitely a bit of a learning experience, which felt a little weird. I've built plenty of plastic model kits. I've build plenty of Bandai's HG kits specifically. I feel like this should've been more familiar than it was. But maybe that was part of the problem - I went in with preconceived expectations.

I think I'll have more fun the next time around. I'll know what to expect. I'll know what not to do.