A very Macross Toy

Finally, another target has been achieved. This was a toy I have set my eyes upon when I first saw it in Sungei Wang many years ago. Unfortunately, the owner does not want to sell it to me even if I offered a good price for it and even prepared to wait for the 'display period' to be over. Many months later, I found out it was sold. I was very angry with that fact and I was ready to walk up to the owner to give him a piece of my mind. But what do you know, revenge comes in mysterious ways and yep, his shop closed down.

And so, its one of those things that I have to keep in mind when I go to places. And just so that it happened that it was being sold on eBay, and it was the cheapest of the lot. The others were being sold almost five times the amount excluding postage.... yes, a rip-off.

And after three weeks, it arrived on my office's
desk. All in one piece, luckily.

When I first took it out, I was a bit skeptical because
the design of the box looks very much like those used
by resin recasters in the 90's.

Its good that I was wrong and so, guess which figure
I was after?

Yep, its the pilot in the cockpit. Roy Focker, the
hero's mentor in the original Macross series.

My memory escapes me but it was such a long
time ago I have watched a single Macross from
the RTM station. But I knew the cockpit wasn't
that cramped. Still, in this toy, its almost 10cm
long or 4 inches. So, its very big.

First thing first. Assemble the stand. Its
a three piece and looks quite solid.

One big surprise is that the base of the stand
is actually transparent but coated in black.
yep, idea forming in my head already.....

Looking at the main piece, its actually comprised
of other smaller parts which were glued during
manufacturing. But basically, you have the main
craft, the pilot and seat plus part of the craft again.

And it looks very impressive when set up!
Now, all I have to do is to find a nice clear
display box to show it off.

I am not sure but even the canopy have HUDs!

A Closer look
Now, lets examine the toy more closely. I thinks its a combination of clear (resin?) parts and vinyl rubber, with the letter being not very long lasting. I have this fear as they are apt to disintegrate after some time and more importantly, the clear parts tend to yellow. And so, what can I do? Of course the natural response would be to store it a container and keep it away from daylight 9source of UV).

But the other side of me is itching to re-cast them into clear parts, something which I have though about (resin casting, I mean) but have never done it before. The closest was in '93 using plaster. I got hold of a Horizon Terminator (Arnold Swarzenegger) vinyl model, and cast his face. It was nice but at that time, the only casting material available to me was Plaster of Paris. When I tried resin, well, it failed miserably, turning out to be The Stickynator instead.

So, as you can see, most of the parts are clear.
However, some of the material is not plastic
but clear rubbery stuff. This would be nice if
I could recast them all in clear plastic.

They painted over the clear parts to give it a
solid presentation.

And as far s the console goes, the front is made
of clear stuff painted over and glued to a solid
vinyl. So, why am I obsessed with making the
items all clear? Apart from making them last
longer, it can be lit up! I mean, imagine how
the cockpit would look like if it is lit up. Exactly.

Oh, and if you look closely at the helmet, its
just a clear part and there is no Roy Fokker
in there.

Here is another look at the Pilot seat. Here, roy
does not look too crouched but you can see him
craning his neck. However, if you put him back
into the cockpit, its a different story.

And yes, the whole toy is 1/32 scale. I
compared it with Moebius's Viper pilot
which was incidentally, 1/32.