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I remember Robotix, both the show and the kits. I couldn't get into the former and never had any of the latter. That said, the toys looked cool, and back then anything involving robots or robotics was cool to me. Except the show, ironically. I had Zoids under both the Zoids and Robostrux brand names. I know I found some in stores throughout the 80s, 90s, and into the millennium, but I think I probably got one or two, especially my copy of Radox, from Sears or JC Penny catalogs. We didn't have TRU near us, but we did have a few dept stores which carried toys, but my mom didn't drive, so the catalogs were her go-tos for a lot of my toys at Christmas and birthdays. I still have this guy packed away in a box somewhere. I probably have 20-30 Zoids/Robostrux kits, mostly the small to medium ones, with Radox, IIRC, being the only large one I own. Well, my Kotobukiya Blade Liger will be on the larger side if I ever get around to building it. This toyline definitely struck a chord with me for both the engineering involved, but also all the mechanical details. How can you say no to robotic dinosaurs and insects, especially when they're done this well? This is definitely new to me, an American. Despite being slightly more cosmopolitan than the vast majority of my countrymen due to my military travels, there are always new things to learn which is why forums like this are such a fantastic medium. Those are some interesting designs, and the artist appears to have taken inspiration from 1950s and 60s aerospace designs like the XB-70 Valkyrie and perhaps some of the Gemini/Apollo stuff, with some artistic flare, of course. Neat stuff! Thanks for sharing! Love that ship in the center, a nice precursor to the NASA orbiter. The spherical tanks, the opening cargo bay, and the long extended forward fuselage impart a sleek yet utilitarian aesthetic that makes for a believable craft. I'm not crazy about the yellow color (b/c yellow is a horrible, horrible color), but everything else is groovy.

Just finished Leviathan on Netflix. As an alternative Dieselpunk pre-WWI history, I thought it was pretty decent. I liked the main characters, especially Dylan/Deryn Sharp. I thought it a bit odd that only Dylan, a Scottish girl posing as a boy to join the British Navy, and all the Brits speak with the appropriate accents. Neither Alek, an Austrian prince, his two advisors/minders, nor the Germans, nor the Serbians, including Nicola Tesla (who was raised in Austria), mischaracterized a bit, IMHO as a bit of a flamboyant megalomaniac, speak with appropriate affectations, but simply speak with American accents. Anyway, the series spans three novels by Scott Westerfeld, so obviously, from my gleanings on Reddit, there are characters and plotlines that were removed to decant it down to the essentials for the anime adaptation. However, the anime piqued my interest enough that I may seek out the books, as I liked the overarching story. I read Westerfeld's Uglies series years ago and enjoyed those, so I'm keen to give these a read as well. My wife has a couple of weeks off for the Christmas/New Year holidays, so I'd planned on a long overdue rewatch of GitS: SAC S1 and 2, which we started after Leviathan. I remember it was a good show, but damn, what a good show. I've never read the manga, so I can't speak to it, but of all the incarnations of the Major and Section 9, this series is the pinnacle for me, and I own Arise and have seen SAC 2045, which didn't impress me nearly as much as the first two seasons. We're about halfway through S1 and we're both looking forward to continuing the adventure!

I know I'm super late to the party, but I finally watched the first ten or so episodes of Demon Slayer. I find it kind of refreshing, being so blunt and straight forward. I think it was someone here who described it as being exactly what it says on the tin, and no truer words have been spoken. These opening episodes don't drag things out at all. We go from character introductions to inciting incident to training arc in pretty quick succession. I also appreciate that, for the most part, the show seems to eschew the intricate magic/skill systems that other shounen come up with. No super saiyan modes, no Amakakesomething-something from Hiten MitsuThis or That style to master, no chakra and the various elemental affinities, etc. Just... build up your endurance and strength through months and months and years of rigorous repetition. Unexpectedly realistic and unglamorous given the fantastical setting. Even the special breathing, the closest that comes to evoking said magic system, is really just slight window dressing on aforementioned rigorous training. I finally see the elemental effects in action, and seeing it just reinforces how funny the controversy is surrounding it. I love it.

I don't really use the like feature either, preferring to actually comment. It's not a major concern, it just struck me as odd that there was no way for me to see who had liked posts, and I got curious as to if that was how the software was designed, or an admin. choice and what the reasoning behind it was. Now I know. Thanks all.

I always thought it was situated within the main body and both legs, to be honest.

Same here; the fit on the Enterprise is okay (snap together and all); I plan on leaving it as "snap" until painting and decals are done. Not going to do any "aztecing" because visually, at the scale distance it would appear, I don't think it would be visible (did that for my 1/537 as well). I don't have Reliant, so not sure how that would fit. Need to do a different stand for the Enterprise, as the dome one that came with it fell apart (some weird kind of "delamination" happened). I'll see about doing one of my famous "black stands". Some really clean work there, WM!! I can never do anything "clean"; I manage to smudge and mess up my paintworks constantly!! O.o A few; I lost one last November though; my friend of over 30 years died of Glioblastoma (diagnosed in April, it killed him in 7 months flat. 😮 ) After that, most of our group pretty much went their own ways and broke apart. Thankful for whatever friends I have here; admittedly, I'm not the easiest person to try to get along with.

Yeah; it also looks like the wing "cuts off" a bit before where the ground would be; I wonder if the wing somehow folds up (like the corsair of WWII fame), but from what I've seen of the YF-19, it wouldn't fold that way, right? Pic is a bit confusing, so I think I'm just going to go with your explanation. It would fit that Isamu wrecked the thing up....

It's one of the biggest scale issues from the series, certainly... Judging from external views, it's hard to imagine there'd be enough open space in the ship for more than a single street. Inside, however, it's like the TARDIS... There are not only multiple streets, but multiple levels of streets... 🤨 ...and by ostensibly situating the city within a single leg, the movie just exacerbates the problem. 🤕

Ive always felt that too actually.

I still firmly believe that the SDF-1 is waaay bigger than just being 1.2km long. Heck even Macross City alone in the leg looks more than 1.2km long just on its own.

Thanks for the answers. So for the above to be true, does that mean Basara was on the 7 from the beginning of its launch from Earth? I mean the Project that Ray and Max cooked up was largely centred around him, right? My understanding is we basically know nothing about Basara outside of whats shown on screen... meaning we know basically nothing about him.

Thanks to this thread I remember some of the sci-fi media I consumed as a kid. One thing that came to mind were the Yoko Tsuno comics by the Belgian writer Roger Leloup which might not be that well known by North-American sci-fi fans. Especially the mechanical design of the vessels are memorable to me. With their large windscreens, small cockpit- and large propulsion-section is distinctly scientific fiction and their design really speaks to me:

It was a fairly popular thing more so at hobby shops since the old zoids were more like wind up kits. I think robotix kinda took off a bit due to a cartoon and more options as far as what the machines could actually do, but price made them more rare unfortunately.

@wm cheng yeah right? Crazy how this turns out. Btw: the j-20s looks awesome! @Papa Rat great build! Fiddled around this morning. Almost done.

Recently finished up this build “Volks IMS 1/100 Vaiola” for a FSS discord contest happening in Jan. I am not a photographer by any means but did my best to take a few phone camera shots that looked alright. Here are just a few. The build was fun and working on a larger scale went better than I had expected. (=

@wm cheng Wow, that’s outstanding! Thanks for sharing. @Urashiman Thanks. I’m excited to see it finished.

@Urashiman I can't believe there's no paint, it looks great and a lot of fun! I might have to pick one up to finally get my bug of just a straight forward build for fun right out of the box out of my system! My current J-20S started out with that intention but my anal self didn't let it go that way 😛 @pengbuzz So glad you are doing something to take your mind off of things. How's the Enterprise kit fit wise (I have that but don't know what to expect from PL kits) and the Reliant because you can't just have one?!?! @derex3592 That B-52 is looking sweet - crazy you got that seam. You must have a pretty cool 1/144 bomber collection going on there (I've always wanted a 1/144 US bomber collection but I'd have to have the B-58 and the XB-70 in there, are those next?) Got a little bit of time to myself after everyone went to sleep and I stayed up letting all the food settle. Got to unmask the canopy finally!!! Man this jet is pretty sleek... I don't get why I always get a tiny chip off the edge of the canopy on my last few builds lately (luckily its small enough for a hand painted touch up). Oh yeah, this is the reason I couldn't just simply enjoy an Out-Of-The-Box build - there were so many exposed internal bays, but they all had so many many ejector pin marks all over and including the doors that I had to either get rid of them or cover them up with detailing. The landing gears were also so simplified that it would have been embarrassing; they didn't even have the torque links on the oleo structs (I've been noticing this detail being omitted from more and more 1/72 scale kits lately). Luckily I had these links to use from my VT-1 Super that was built in flight mode so I had the spare landing gears to use. The hydraulic hoses were added (a first for me but it wasn't as bad as I had feared - painting them was another matter though) and they really did bump up the realism. I think I'm getting old, as something always happens when I build, that's 2 steps forward and one step back! I had to touch up some overspray and I re-masked after I had decaled, even though I had used MicroSOL on the decals and clear coat gloss over them, and then clear coat matte over them. The Tamiya white flexible masking took off my 4 white outlined triangle ejection seat symbols - argh! I had to search through all my extra decals to find another 4 identical white ejection seat triangles. Finally I found a black and white set from a Super Hornet that was the right size, and the english writing on it wasn't so clear so it didn't look too obvious it wasn't in Chinese - oh well. I don't have the last bit (horizontal fold) of the bottom doors glued in yet (gotta let these big doors dry first). Weird for a kit so devoid of internal details and bad profiles that I needed all the internal bracing to prop up the fuselage, it got the slight twisted wing structure bang on from the photos! It does make a cool imposing front view! The rear engines were totally devoid of detail as well. Funny enough, the kit provided these serrated exhausts (for the WS-15 engines) as an option to the Russian AL-31 engines, but both lacked any internals. I'm normally not a stickler for the entire afterburning section but some interior petals/detail would have been nice. Luckily, I had some leftover Phantom afterburning sections from a FindMolds F-4J kit that I used the resin 3D print and these kit cans fit perfectly inside the kit part and provided a pretty realistic opening for the WS-15. You are probably getting the sense that I'm a pack rat, and I save every little un-used scrap/option from every kit I've ever built - the trouble is storing and finding them again to use. I would spend hours going through spare decals and parts sometimes. With so much internal bays exposed, I'm glad I spent the effort to detail them and fill in most of the ejection pin marks. Now which colour scheme for the missiles should I use? All the photos show a light blue missile body with white fins in these bays - what I would suspect to be training missiles or dummies. I think it might make a nice contrast to the grey and white bird. Or do I use live ammunition rounds with just an overall white missiles (which I think might get lost in the bay). There no photo reference at all with this J-20 with live munitions - only blue dummies. I opened up the canopy for these final round of shots for now. I'm missing these two white round tubes (Cartridge Activation Device) at the front of the inside of the canopy that I'll have to scratch build (or scrounge from my parts to find two hydraulic cylinders) as well as the missiles. Weird that they would have these CADs and also canopy det cords at the same time (I guess the PAAF is a belt and suspenders kind of outfit :)) Good night for now... (I'm loving the slight metallic sheen to the grey, really looks light and dark at the same time depending on the lighting - weathering not really showing up though). It was refreshing to paint something so new and very lightly weathered for a change. Don't know how I'm ever going to paint he F-22 😮

Hi, to the best of my knowledge the film called “MegaForce”and the toyline called “MegaForce” are completely unrelated. Presumably a trademark lapsed at some point, or given the state of toy licensing at the time, the toy producers were completely unaware. Lego Space and Robotix are good shouts! I always got the impression “Zoids” was more popular in the UK than the US. We got a pretty good comic book (I think it merged with “Spider-Man” in the UK eventually; it may just have ran as a back up strip there and I’m misremembering) with art by Steve Yeowell (possibly best known for his work at “2000AD” with “Zenith”) and I think one of the “big” comics writers also did scripts for it, I want to say Grant Morrison? The UK comic book continuity was more or less separate from the Japanese background material. When I first started travelling to Japan, I used to see “Zoids” kits all the time (the original Tony releases, not the later even more detailed toys and model kits), really wish I’d picked up a few. I’ve frequented a few local toy fairs recently and they seem to be fairly scarce as “classic” toys go, I’ve only seen one out of half a dozen shows I’ve been to.

After tweaking Stig and Yellow’s angles slightly:

On the plamax VF-1, most of them are hidden. The ones that do show are sanded down. It is also important to use glue which is bonding surfaces by dissolving them and then joining them. Also - clamps. Use clamps to make sure stuff is sticking together until the glue dries. Then I use sanding papers and sponges. 180/320 600 1500 In that order. It won’t go away fully, but most of it.

I tried disabling it many times but they kept bringing it back, so it just sort of hangs out there, some people use it some people don't. I agree with the sentiment of this being more a discussion board and less like a 'here is some cool content, give me a quick vote yay or nay'. But I also understand most people come from the like/dislike world of social media so this is a missing piece of the normal/expected experience. Given the choice of a like dislike, or someone breaking out the 'post' button and making a comment, I personally prefer the latter, even it if is nothing more than a 'hey that's cool'. Just feels more personal to me, but it also probably removes a ton of quick 'likes' because it does take more time and effort, and I know we all do an insane amount of multitasking. I've been reading the next version of Invision Power Board (ver 5) is a big huge giant change from what we are living here today, so we may be coming to the 21st century regardless of me kicking and screaming

Definitely a cool toy for the imagination. I only had a few as a kid, but a friend of mine would find less than complete sets at cheap goodwill type places and would use the motors and stuff to make odd mechanical creations. I always wondered why he never got into the whole battling robot thing. He seemed to have had the concept long before that battle bots show aired

We never had ZOIDS or StarCom where I grew up, but I remember being quite taken with ROBOTIX: Despite sharing much of the writing and production staff (not the mention the voice cast) of Transformers and GI Joe, the short-lived Robotix cartoon was lackluster and all-but forgotten today. 😅

I was thinking HG didn't bother before cuz it was just the Legioss, and really just the blue one since that's the only one with the high production numbers and possible reissues, what with the red and green ones not being as popular. It's entirely possible they couldn't touch the ride armors since they were stylized modern reinterpretations of the original ones from the show. But with the release of the Tread, which has a much higher retail price, plus the upcoming Toyrise Mospeada stuff and the Pose+ and Moshow stuff, they decided they wanted a piece of the action... just my 2 cents. Anyway, I hope things get sorted out soon and the Tread gets reissued and made available from international vendors. I'm really tempted to get the one I saw available on one of the online shopping sites we have here, but for $400.