[Papermodelers] VF-1J Valkyrie

 

The VF-1 Valkyrie was created and designed by the great Shoji Kawamori in the 80s for the Macross TV show. The mecha design was inspired by the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle and Grumman F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft. Even the name "Valkyrie" was inspired by the real-world XB-70 Valkyrie, which was an experimental supersonic strategic bomber. The Valkyrie is different than other transformable aircraft in the genre (i.e, Transformers) because of its ability to transform into three different modes for different combat purposes - Fighter mode, GERWALK mode (or Guardian mode in Robotech), and Battroid mode (or Battloid in Robotech).

The fighter mode is the Valkyrie's basic mode and is primarily used in aerial and space combat. The GERWALK mode allows the aircraft to land in a combat zone with maximum defensive ability. GERWALK mode also allows the pilot to engage in low aerial combat as well as flanking maneuvers on the ground. The battroid mode folded up the airplane to resemble a 12.7 meter-tall (42-foot-tall) humanoid. Its primary purpose is for ground hand-to-hand combat, which enabled Earth forces to fight the giant alien invaders on their own scale. The Valkyrie in battroid mode can easily defeat an average Zentradi soldier in unarmed combat.

This papercraft is based on a VF-1J, a variation of the Valkyrie for the squadron leaders. The "J" indicates that it was produced in Japan. The papercraft was remodeled by the folks at papermodelers (Getter 1, Janx, and Legal01) based on the papercraft by Shunichi Makino, which I've posted before. These talented modelers make changes to the original papercraft which is only in fighter mode to be able to transform into battroid and GERWALK mode as well. The papercraft is not fully transformable per se, it was designed modular so you'll need some reassembly to transform between the three modes. 

Click below to download the template.