I’m an old nerd at this point. Which means I was a young nerd in the 80’s when there were a bunch of mecha and transforming robot animes being localized and aired ad nauseam.

Macross/Robotech was a major component for me. Especially the VF-1 Valkyrie because what’s not to like? It’s a fighter jet that can transform into a robot. And they sometimes have extra thrusters and weapons mounted on them. Also space!

So yeah. Technically I can consider this “House Cleaning.” I originally got these models with my Amazon gift cards I got end of 2020. Back then, I started building both the fighter and battleroid models. Worked on them over a few days before going back into work. Started with the fighter form and then the battleroid. In both cases, I was pre painting parts and got them built up into segments that were mostly ready to get fitted together to finish them.

There were two reasons I stopped. One was it was a good stopping point for their respective days. Two, they each had a sheet of decals that needed to apply. It looked like something that would be easier to do with them in segments but also I knew it would become a big task. There were literally HUNDREDS of decals on each sheet because it included variants for multiple configurations and pilots as well as tons of TINY details you would see written across military aircraft. So that became a task “for later.”

As it played out, “later” went for a long time. Four years to be precise. Two nearly finished models and all the newspaper lined workspace just sitting on my dinning room table taking up space as a monument to procrastination. Finally I decided I really have to clean things up in my house “for real this time” and that included getting back to finish these blasted models. An afternoon/evening for each of the fighter and battleroid models.

And then I still had the Gerwalker model. That one was an extra pain with some of the assembly being extra fiddly with tight fits and challenges getting supporting connections to seat and adhere properly. Also the decals were being an extra PITA by adding breaking in addition to the usual desire to fall off or slip around. Needless to say, I decided to not bother with the extra tiny decals.

Oh and did I mention the instructions were in Japanese? I mean, it was mostly graphical but Google Lense became my friend for things like what the paint colors were and some of the specific instructions that were key to get it together correctly.

But yeah, so they’re finally done. Chose the Roy Folker colors. While it’s nice to have them and can eventually put them up with my other Macross figures, I’m certainly not going to try to build any more models of this sort any time soon. Perhaps I’m too fresh off the frustrating parts to properly judge it. I’ll say that the other Valkrie figures I own are capable of transforming where these models were dedicated to one form each.