The official Virtual-On model kit thread

[chunkypuff31]

There is no such thing as too much 10/80.

[Viper2]

Wave 1/144 Raiden Black Onyx - quick review:

This kit has Some Issues that it likely shares with Wave's other Raiden injection kits.

The kit is a good representation of Raiden, but does lack some detail that is featured in the box-art. Both shoulder lasers can deploy, but they are a bit floppy once deployed. The wrists feature a neat sliding system that allows the right hand to extend to better hold the bazooka (which sadly does not fit properly in the hand, so you'll need to shave some plastic off the hand). I had some trouble properly assembling the shoulders, as there's a flat plate-like polycap that is used in the laser-deployment system that needs to be pushed into its mounting holes properly. And that takes some fiddling. Another minor problem is that the ankles are a bit tall. A more serious problem is that Wave screwed up the alignment of the pegs and holes in the legs . The upper legs can be corrected with some putty and sanding, but the halves of the lower legs are off by 1 mm or so. So I sliced off the pegs and glued the leg halves together (same with the knee caps). I also had to sand the lower arms to make everything fit a bit better. Articulation is quite good, but Wave's polycaps do not hold poses very well (especially the ball joints).

Although the kit has a chrome finish that is good enough in general, parts will require touch-up because of the places they were attached to the sprues. This is not much of a problem if you have gloss black and gold paint. Obviously, the legs required a lot of touch-ups due to the aforementioned problems. The instructions don't provide any additional painting instructions, so you'll need to use the box-art as a guide if you want to have an accurate Black Onyx Raiden.

Wave's decals are very thin and flexible, but also fragile. Taking this into account, some of their decalling choices leave me baffled. According to Wave, each shoulder takes a long thin gold line decal that goes entirely around the shoulder, and that needs to be cut up after application. Furthermore, some strangely-shaped decals are to be fit to the exhausts on Raiden's backpack. It's easier to mask off these parts and paint them than to apply the fragile decals (painting also gives a more accurate finishing). Another decal needs to be applied straight over a part that needs to slide out when the lasers are deployed. Wave also forgot to show in the instructions where the long white stripe goes (it goes on the barrel of the bazooka). Incidentally, the decal sheet has decals for different squadrons.

Mini-Z-Gradt with deployed cannon is very small and simple. Just a cute little extra.

Conclusion: Raiden Black Onyx is an okay kit, but it needs some work to look decent.

waveblackonyxbuilt3.jpg

waveblackonyxbuilt1.jpg

[chunkypuff31]

Hmm, kind of sucks to hear about the misallignment of the pegs in the legs. I guess I've been a bit spoiled with Bandai's excellent quality control.

Also, is the Black Onyx Raiden rare? Considering that it's given a chrome finish, I imagine that it was given a limited release, similar to the chrome Temjin you posted earlier. Should I expect it to be about the same price?

[Viper2]

Black Onyx is a limited release in number of kits produced, AFAIK (just like the 2nd player versions of Temjin, Viper II, and Raiden). It was released in shops normally, unlike the chrome Temjin. You should be able to find it for 1,500-2,800 yen.

Wave 1/144 Viper II review:
This kit builds very nicely, and has excellent fit and generally good detail. I glued it together nonetheless, as some parts fit together quite loosily. Only minor sanding is required to get all the glued joints nicely smooth. The kit does not include any translucent parts, and the stickers that are included are very thick and don't stick very well, so it will require painting to look good. I decided to paint the kit in one of the official alternate color schemes (gold and orange), as the default schemes get boring after a while. I still used the stickers that go on the underside of the wings, because masking off the green parts there would have been a pain in the ass due to the shallow panel lines separating those areas from the rest of the wings. Articulation in the legs and arms is so-so, however the wings are properly articulated.

waveviper2built1.jpg

waveviper2built2.jpg

Wave 1/144 Temjin (version 1) P2 review:
Gods, this kit sucks. Entirely the opposite of Viper II. I understand why Wave later produced an improved version of this kit. If my comments on the Black Onyx Raiden made that kit sound problematic, then this thing comes from the depths of hell
Nearly all of the parts have either quite a bit of flash (excess plastic), ejector pin marks in the wrong place, holes and dimples where they don't belong (usually in pain-in-the-ass locations), misaligned pegs and peg holes, some other kind of alignment issue, pegs that are too long, or simply don't fit together properly. Nearly every limb half that takes a polycap for a balljoint won't fit together properly with the other limb half. The lower arms are the wrong shape and interfere with Temjin's weapon holding. The feet, ankle guards, upper legs, and arms have a combination of alignment issues and gaps when their halves are pegged together. The lower legs have misaligned pegs and peg holes. The hands have horrible holes and ejector pin marks that will need filling. The two bombs are a nice inclusion, but not when their bottom is hollow and requires filling. The V-converter unit (backpack) fits together very loosily and lacks internal detail. The upper body has one misaligned peg that makes it impossible to attach the upper half of the chest. The head has one of the most stupid assembly designs I've ever seen: the front half of the head is sandwiched between the visor (a translucent part) and the back of the head, and will require glue to remain properly aligned (okay, except that a translucent part is involved, so that complicates things). Temjin's beam rifle has alignment issues and doesn't fit together properly.
I chopped off the following pegs before glueing parts together: all pegs in the lower legs, pegs in shoulder pads, peg in chest. I used as much glue as was possible (without limiting articulation) during assembly. The backpack was so loose I ended up glueing it together in closed position. Test assembly so far has revealed limited articulation in the ankles, interfering parts in the arms, and extremely loose knee joints. Building this kit will take some time to get a good result. It has some good points: choice of two left hands, bombs are included, and it has translucent parts.
However, considering the big, BIG list of issues, I am really wondering if this was Wave's first styrene kit...

So, having finished it, the list of issues continues with knee and elbow joints that have such tight tolerances that the paint will scrape off (and you'll need to paint it) if you move them. The beam launcher fits so tightly against the arm that there's only one position (more or less) in which it will fit, and the hand holding it can't be popped fully into the balljoint. So this kit essentially is fixed pose after completion.

Added pics of the assembled kit below (again, one of the alternate color schemes).

wavetemjin2ppreassemble2.jpg

wavetemjin2front.jpg

wavetemjin2back.jpg

So, what was changed between Wave's first styrene Temjin kits and the later ones?
- Better manual and stickers
- Polycaps from a better material
- New parts: feet, ankle guards, upper legs, lower legs, lower arms, head, waist, hands.
- Improved parts: upper arms.
- Improved molding quality.

[MentholMoose]

Thanks for the impressions. I have a couple model kits and I should really assemble them sometime!

[chunkypuff31]

I found the website for one modeller who painted and modified various Gundam model kits to resemble different Virtuaroids from VOOM and VOOT. Here are the ones that he has done:

Raiden (Gundam Virtue)
http://fis1.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gallery/virtue.html

Cypher (Gundam Kyrios)
http://fis1.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gallery/kyrios.html

Viper II (al-Saachez's AEU Enact Custom)
http://fis1.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gallery/enact.html

Specineff (Gundam Throne Drei)
http://fis1.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gallery/throne13.html

Dorkas (Tieren)
http://fis1.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gallery/tieren.html

Viper I ver.α (Over Flag)
http://fis1.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gallery/flag.html

Bal-Bados (GN-X)
http://fis1.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gallery/gn_x.html

Oh, and he's done normal Virtual-On models as well: http://now-closing.hp.infoseek.co.jp/fi ... ry/vr.html

So, what was changed between Wave's first styrene Temjin kits and the later ones?
- Better manual and stickers
- Polycaps from a better material
- New parts: feet, ankle guards, upper legs, lower legs, lower arms, head, waist, hands.
- Improved parts: upper arms.
- Improved molding quality.

You forgot one major difference: they based the model off of the High-end CG of the Temjin instead of it's actual in-game appearance.

[Viper2]

This site has some really nice Hasegawa kit build-ups (even though it's entirely in Japanese):
http://www.warpfor.com/html/val_index.html

This one has some Hasegawa kits and some older Wave kits (in the "Lost...' gallery - apparently he lost a whole shelf of kits in an earthquake ):
http://homepage1.nifty.com/Mirage/gallery/index.html
He also has an assembly page for the Wave Angelan resin kit:
http://homepage1.nifty.com/Mirage/workshop/vo/

Here's a site with some garage kits and customs based on Wave's models:
http://www.geocities.jp/dcpsoheidi/miniature/vr/

And this one shows a TON of garage kits, resin kits, and styrene kits, many with custom color schemes:
http://www5.pf-x.net/~kumander/
His Wonder Fest galleries also show lots of interesting kits.

[Viper2]

Wave 1/144 Temjin OMG-version (newer kit) review:
This kit turned out to be less good than my first impressions told me. First, the misaligned pegs strike again: nothing in the legs aligns correctly, and the lower arms were not good either. So I chopped off all the pegs. In the shoulders, the inner pegs cause a misalignment and need to be chopped off (the outer ones are fine). Note that in my eyes a misalignment is already one when the difference is about half a milimeter. Another thing I had not realised is that the newly designed parts do not use any translucent parts anymore, but require the lights to be painted on . The inaccurate backpack is not fixed, and will need glue to keep together if you want to display it in opened state. The disc still lacks a hole in the middle (so I drilled it). The shoulder shape has been improved but still is not accurate, just like the upper part of the chest. The hip pegs seem to be located a bit too far back and are very loose, just like the upper half of the knee joints. Another annoyance is that the lower arms and lower legs are molded in rather dark blue but need to be painted white (Joy...not ). Good points are that the new kit needs less puttying than the old kit (still a lot though), the articulation is generally better with no parts that scrape against each other, and the detail is better than on the original (including detail behind the visor). And they fixed the shape of the lower arms. One thing that surprised me is that this Temjin is slightly shorter than the original Temjin kit. Two bombs are included, like in the old kit.
The pictures below show it next to the old kit:

wavetemjincompare1.jpg

wavetemjincompare2.jpg

wavetemjincompare3.jpg

Wave 1/144 M'My Salpen Raiden Custom w/ twin flat launcher (One Man Rescue):
So this kit is near perfect. Upon first inspection I had not noticed that Wave had remolded all of the sprues to fix all of the alignment issues. And they redesigned the upper legs so they are more accurate and easier to assemble. Some puttying remains needed due to dimples, depressions, and leg and arm halves that are a slightly different size. The flat launcher is nicely detailed, except for two unsightly hollow parts that will require filling using styrene card and putty. The shoulder lasers can be deployed, but once painted this becomes impossible due to too tight tolerances. Articulation-wise, see the Black Onyx Raiden review. I used the optional decals instead of the stickers.

mmysalpenraiden-_front1.jpg

mmysalpenraiden-_front2.jpg

mmysalpenraiden_back.jpg

M'My Salpen Custom Raiden next to OMG Temjin:

waveraidentemjincompare.jpg

[Fredo]

Hey, a new model Temjin model kit /figure was announced on the official VO webpage:

http://tamashii.jp/special/compositeverka/index.html

looks great, too bad it's that old version of Temjin, I hope they'll make new ones.

I want a VO model kit, but there's no way I can find one in France and the fees for foreign import too important...

[Viper2]

Hasegawa's 1/100 model kits can be had from online shops like http://www.hlj.com . I don't know how high France's duty-free import value is, but if you buy one kit and have it sent by SAL (not EMS - that always gets checked by customs in Europe!) it would surprise me if you had to pay any import taxes...

[RVR - 42]

O_O That Viper II. *melts* Such a beauty. I need to get me a Cypher. that Gundam converted over to Cypher looks fantastic. Even got the stripes right.

[chunkypuff31]

Hey, a new model Temjin model kit /figure was announced on the official VO webpage:

http://tamashii.jp/special/compositeverka/index.html

looks great, too bad it's that old version of Temjin, I hope they'll make new ones.

That's actually an action figure, not a model kit. I made a thread for it right here.

And yes, it's very sexy.

[Fredo]

Thinking about those old Wave model kits, this one should not be forgotten as it is the most imprssive Raiden of all time. It inspired my Blue & Yellow Raiden color scheme on VOOT

I want to play a Raiden that has a gatling, really, I do.



Does anybody have a hi-res version of the artwork on the box, so freakin' awesome @_@

If I have money and time someday, I'll buy a Kotobukiya Raiden a paint it my way /o/
(and same thing for a VO4 Apharmd T)

[guarayakha]

Ask, and ye shall receive:






I have a collection of OMR/FP stuffs similar to these that I found years ago, perhaps I'll upload them to rapidshare or something...

[Fredo]

If you upload all that, I'll mary you.

[RVR - 42]

What Fredo said. Hope you're a polygamist, Guara. xD!

[Fredo]

In fact I've already married the guy who sold me my Dreamcast VOOT, the one who sold me his Dreamcast TwinStick, and I shall mary Menthol soon because I love him since the day he showed me how to mod a Twinstick for 360. I've sent him the papers but I ain't got any response. How dare you break my heart Menthol !

[RVR - 42]

xD! I'm already married to my Dreamcast...and my car and Wii. Talk about cross species marriages. But yes Menthol...how dare you! Be a man!

[guarayakha]

Here you go:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?hllyl34k42ie0qw

Not the best collection, it appears I'm missing the hi-res box-arts for SDK-04 Shadow Temjin & Black Onyx, but w/e, enjoy the random bunch of OMR.

I'll upload the tiny FP collection I have tomorrow

On a side note, digging up old VO stuffs can be so fun; here's my Specineff tackling a SLC dive back in the arcade's 5.2:

[chunkypuff31]

Forgot to mention this, but that new Guarayakha model came out a few weeks ago. Edited my first post to show it.