Cyclone Trooper

Well...here's another way to look at it... What the U.N. Spacy essentially did was use Minmay as a tool of psychological warfare. Once it was established that the Zentraedi and Meltrandi had no real concept of music, art, TV, fraternization, sex, or anything else we humans commonly associate with being "cultured", it was easy for us to demoralize the enemy be exposing them to something they couldn't wrap their minds around. These are giant clones manufactured for a single purpose: warfare. Then you also have to factor in the millennias-old standing order to avoid any "Protoculture" at all costs. This doubly insures that no Zentran or Meltran is "contaminated" by something they are psychologically unable to cope with. In effect, someone's iPod would be like using a WMD against them. Now, in the Gundam universe, sure something like this WOULD sound absolutely ridiculous to you because (usually) both sides fighting one another are roughly the same in terms of the level of "culture" they share. Aside from political ideology, most Gundam adversaries are understandable, no matter what the tech level. So I can see where you're coming from, but as someone who cut his teeth on Macross, I've had many years to see it for what it was supposed to be. Not fully understanding the reasons behind the "Minmay Attack" can make it look a bit silly to those who prefer other mecha shows. Hope that helps at least a little...

Okay. Got it. SMS's Skull is in no way affiliated with the U.N. Spacy's Skull (or N.U.N.S's Skull, if there IS one). This was something that was never really made clear to me just going on watching the series. And as far as the differences in insignias, fighter groups DO update their insignias every so often...so I figured that within the 50-year timespan between Space War I and the Vajra Incident, Skull just adopted a new one along the way. Why the Jolly Roger was replaced by a cow skull was beyond me...so that should have been my first clue that the two squadrons were independent of one another.

Redwolf, normally I'd agree with everything you've ever said in this area, but considering how Toynami somehow got its hooks into the DYRL license by releasing them in 1/100 scale (complete with Strike FPs, which I'm sure confused several fans of said dead franchise), I'm not so sure DYRL is safe from a certain HG...but that discussion is for another thread.

Okay, so here's another sub-question for you all...I'll post it here instead of creating another thread. If MacrossF (and all sequel series for that matter) is supposed to be based off of the original SDFM TV series only, then why is Hikaru's DYRL-style red/black VF-1S featured on the top of the school instead of the TV-style yellow/black paint scheme? Every time there's an argument made that everything is based off of the TV series, there's something that pops up that throws a DYRL reference into the mix to make you second-guess everything. The other blatant DYRL reference is at the beginning of most of the first handful of episodes is Bodolza's DYRL "flying pumpkin patch" flagship during the narrator describing the origins of Space War I and subsequent colonization attempts instead of the original asteroid-like construct. Is this just another example of SK and company pulling elements of what they like from past projects, continuity be damned?

I guess this is a case of opening my eyes (or in this case, ears) for the first time onto something I've previously not allowed myself to enjoy.

This isn't really a question directed at anyone in particular, because I don't think the information on this was ever shared with the general public by SK himself. But then again, I may be wrong... I know that, by 2059, the U.N. Spacy was reorganized into the New U.N. Spacy (N.U.N.S)...an anacronym that, to this day, sounds like a military division of the Vatican to me...but I digress. After SWI, Skull Squadron pretty much became the poster child for anything remotely related to the U.N. Spacy. We even see glimpses of this fact in MacrossF in the form of Hikaru's DYRL VF-1S (or a replica thereof) being used as a statue atop Alto's school. Being such a well-known Valkyrie squadron and symbol of the U.N. Spacy, you would think that Skull would have remained part of the N.U.N.S. military forces as one of its heavy strike squadrons. But instead, somewhere between 2010 and 2059, Skull became an independent paramilitary outfit...and by all definitions, basically a mercenary group hired to field test prototype military equipment. I just find this odd, but maybe Skull's history and reputation has allowed it to operate "as it damn well pleases" in the new government? Anyone have any specifics on this?

I've been one of the staunch holdouts here on MW who has loathed MacrossF for all its fanboy pandering. That much is no secret. But on a whim (or out of morbid curiosity, I don't know which), I "procured" a copy of the soundtrack...and man, did it make me sit up and take notice! The musical scores are honestly right up there with anything John Williams ever did. Now before anyone scoffs at my comparison, here's why I say this... A great musical score is supposed to illicit an emotional response from the listener, evoking mental images of the action going on in the movie the score is overlayed on. When I watched the series the first time through, I largely didn't pay much attention to the background music because so much visual "eyecandy" was going on onscreen. I'm not talking about anything Ranka or Sheryl performed, but the background incidental music. Scores such as "The Target" or "Zero Hour" are absolutely incredible works of music! "The Target" paints mental images of epic dogfights in space, and even seems to have a similar cadence to Williams' "Imperial Attack" from SW Episode IV. "Zero Hour", to me, is an awesome piece because it was the music playing during the Quarter's captain's speech prior to the final battle. This particular score could have even been used in the original TV series or DYRL just prior to their respective final battles...at least in my opinion. It has an energy to it that invokes images of flight crews preparing for the worst yet carrying on with a heroic spirit. I am amazed at how well-done the entire musical score for MacrossF was done. The soundtrack has more of a motion picture sound to it rather than a weekly TV series. Color me impressed...and a tad surprised.

When it was first announced and started making its rounds at the hobby shows in Japan, Yamato reps were quoting an MSRP of 50,000 yen. As of today, the exchange rate puts the price at $522.77 (plus probably $30 to $60 for shipping, considering the nearly 2 1/2 foot length of the thing). But no "official" price has been given yet. So there ya go...a ballpark figure to shoot for. ...plus an extra $75 for the exclusive "Bomba" paint scheme.

September...

Okay...using the techniques shared by anime52k8...and by proxy, Talos as well, I present Diamondback Leader's Strike Valkyrie. It turned out quite a bit better than my first attempt. The panel lines are so much smoother and show up well, even on the midnight blue paint job. Now I just need to work on my gradient shading. Again, thanks guys...

Thanks Mr March and anime52k8 for everything! The pointers you gave are working out beautifully! I'm currently working on the Diamondback Strike Valkyrie and its turning out awesome using the techniques you suggested. Now if I can just track down the Elintseeker schematic, I'd have everything I need! I know it exists...I've seen it at least once floating around on here.

...not to mention the most expensive V2 Valkyrie to date. And I believe the "private parts" is supposed to read something to the effect of "Valkyrie-specific" parts. lol Gotta love online translation software...

I got a quick question pertaining to Photoshop... How do you overlay panel lines over objects like the UN Spacy logo, the insignias on the tailfins, etc. I've tried layering in various ways, but I can't seem to achieve the desired effect. If it helps, I'm using Photoshop CS-4 Extended. I'm not a professional Photoshopper by any means, so any tips you guys could give me would be appreciated. My Diamondback Leader has all of its logos sort of "floating" above the surface panels of the Valkyrie...

That's awesome! I can even remember back to when my roleplaying group got ahold of Mekton II and Roadstriker. The humor written into the skill descriptions alone was worth the purchase price for these RPG books. One in particular that I remember is "James T. Kirk from Star Trek has a Leadership of +11...but you never will!" Classic!

I roleplayed Mekton Zeta for a few years about a decade ago...even attempted to half-ass convert it to Macross, but found it easier to go with a Gundam-style game instead. Sounds like R. Talsorian is gearing up to publish an all new MZ? Is that what I'm reading?

Well, here's my first offering... Back in the late 80s, when I used to roleplay Macross with friends of mine, we created the U.N. Spacy's version of Diamondback Squadron. The guy in our roleplaying group who became "Diamondback Leader" insisted that our squadron be the antithesis of Skull Squadron in both appearance and demeanor. Our Valkyries were to be dark in color, as opposed to Skull's brightly-colored paint schemes. The result was a paint scheme that, amazingly, damn-near copied the Dark Birds...years before I was ever aware of that particular squadron. There are only minor differences in the paint jobs, with the nosecones being a light blue-gray color instead of dark midnight blue. When I came across a pic of the Dark Birds on Macross Mecha Manual, I was kind of shocked that I had unknowingly plagerized an existing squadron. But here's Diamondback Leader... The other thing about this particular squadron is that, back in 1987, no one in our roleplaying group was aware that there is a real-life Diamondback Squadron. We just thought it sounded cool back then. But several years later, I learned that the Diamondbacks have flown everything from F-18 Hornets to F-14 Tomcats. So I "borrowed" their existing logo and modified it for the world of Macross... Here's the squadron logo as it appears in real life and as it appears aboard the SDF-1... I've seen some amazing Photoshop work in this thread, so my work will look EXTREMELY amateurish in comparison...but it does bring back fond memories...

Awesome, Mr. March! Thank you!

I've searched through the nearly 40 pages of this thread and have found most, if not all, of the links to the clean black & white schematics for the VF-1, VF-1 Strike/Super, VF-4 VT-1 and VE-1 Elintseeker to be completely dead. If anyone still has copies of these clean schematics, please PM me! Any help in trying to procure a set of them would be greatly appreciated like you wouldn't believe! I've caught the Photoshop bug, but alas, I can't find anything...

I'm not complaining, per se. Like Phyrox said, good sci-fi only suspends belief in one or two areas and grounds the rest firmly in the realm of reality. Macross, to me, is good sci-fi. With that in mind, I've always tried to fit some of the less fantastical aspects of the anime into "real world" perspective...and then ask myself, "Why'd they do that?" Even the less-than-realistic transformational aspects of the Valkyries were explained away as a potential defense against giant aliens. They could literally go toe-to-toe with the Zentraedi. But stuff like the submersible/semi-submersible supercarrier (I've seen both terms used) never really made sense to me from a practical point of view. Now as for storytelling purposes, having both sea-going vessels be somewhat self-contained makes it easier to believe that they could survive the lack of atmosphere in space. This very argument against the believability behind the Prometheus/Daedalus being self-contained environments and being jury-rigged into the "arms" of the SDF-1 MAY have contributed to the decision to go with ARMD platforms as arms in DYRL instead of just updating the look of the carriers. I just figured some more learned Macross enthusiasts would know something I didn't about the purpose behind the Prometheus...

Exactly. If the opening sequence to the DYRL video game is any indicator, the semi-submersible aspect wasn't even given a chance since the Prometheus was sliced in half like a loaf of bread within seconds of Skull Squadron launching. And the diving depth info isn't canon at all...it was given in the old Palladium RPG books, so that depth was most likely just pulled out of someone's butt because it sounded feasible at the time. That's what I've always believed, to be honest.

Image courtesy of Macross Mecha Manual One thing that's always bothered me about the Prometheus dating as far back as my less-enlightened Robotech RPG days is the fact that the Prometheus was designed to be a combination aircraft carrier/submarine. The logistical aspect of a vehicle of this nature is mindboggling enough, much less the design aspect. I've asked several ex-Navy personnel over the years about how "realistic" a submersible aircraft carrier would be...only to be outright laughed at for asking such an asinine question. Suffice it to say that the US Navy doesn't have such a design on the drawing boards anytime in the foreseeable future... But that sort of reinforced my thoughts on the Prometheus...what exactly is the purpose of submerging a carrier? It's not exactly designed to be stealthy, nor is it small enough to bypass active sonar underwater. Its supposed to be the largest carrier class in existence by 2009 in the Macross universe...and just happens to have the ability to withstand a diving depth of 1.2 miles? Some will be quick to argue that this feat is accomplished by using Overtechnology, but from what I've seen, metal alloys in Macross don't seem to have any more resilience than their real-life counterparts. But that still doesn't answer the main question as to why someone even conceived of such an idea. Just because something CAN be done, doesn't necessarily mean that it SHOULD be done. Submerging would be a colossal pain in the rear to do...having to move every single aircraft belowdecks every single time before you could go underwater... In contrast, the Daedalus being designed as a submersible beachhead landing craft makes more sense. It actually resembles a large sub in many ways and is fully designed to make shore-based infantry (if you want to consider 35-foot-tall Destroids as such) debarkations. But the underwater aircraft carrier idea has always seemed silly to me. I DO understand that the submersible idea made the whole "aircraft carrier in space" idea a bit easier for viewers to swallow...but still... Anyone else's thoughts?

As far as Ranka's hair being anime accurate or not, you have to remember that Minmay's hair ranged from jet-black to a dark purple color, depending on the in-universe pin-up you were looking at. Her hair even appeared purple in Flashback 2012... So I'm going to go with the "It's Artistic License" group...

If you REALLY want to split hairs here, ANY head unit could support a two-seater configuration. I never understood the idea that each pilot had to have a separate and dedicated sensor suit in the head when one set of sensors could have multiple input/outputs...sort of like networking two clients (each pilot) off of the same server (the head unit sensors). Look at the VE-1 and VT-1 as prime examples. The VE-1's head unit is little more than an oversized single-lens camcorder by all appearances; and the VT-1's head unit looks more like a very small ELINT dish than a head unit. Neither of these birds have dual optic/sensor systems, but feed all this data to both the pilot and copilot/intel officer. At the risk of angering the mass of 1D lovers around here, I've always thought that the VF-1D was a tad "overdesigned" where the head unit is concerned. The dual sensor suites in the head are redundant and really not needed...at least in its current configuration. If you MUST have such a setup, a few realistic ways (and I use "realistic" loosely where giant transforming robots are concerned) is to either give a two-seater Valkyrie two heads (this would look absolutely ridiculous) or to have the VF-1D head unit's upper half rotate independently of the bottom half. While halfway practical in keeping with the dual independent sensor idea, this would look really strange in execution.

Nope. The Elintseeker is like any other Valkyrie with FPs. Fully transformable with no parts swapping or removal.

I had this very same model kit back in the 80s when it was released here in the US under the Revell Robotech line of models. I remember the Tomahawk was molded in dark brown and the Armored VF-1J was a light gray color. And the box was enormous, even for a 1/100 scale diorama. I can't wait to see how your take on it will look.