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That’s the great thing about the hobby, keep it fun.

I'd also recommend Vice Principals on HBO, there's only two seasons, but they're pretty damn funny. McBride and Goggins again, they work well together.

@Big s @Gabe Q @Thom Thanks. I was planning on hand painting the whole thing but fell back into the airbrush routine. I still have sooooo much to learn about airbrushing and hope to develop my own style esthetic eventually. Time will tell. I still have lots of details and masking to do on the Glaug along with panel lines, decals, washes etc… it’s a fun one so far.

Greetings @everyone Now that most of the 1/48 PHAT LYNX orders have been shipped, I'd be curious to know if there would be sufficient interest to offer the (blue) PHAT LYNX variant with the alternate head seen in the anime? I would offer just a few examples of this kit (5-8 maximum) just enough to complete the mold cycle. It would consist of the same body parts/weapons load-out as the existing PHAT LYNX, but with the old head searchlight replaced with the alternate camera head. Please note that the new head is not being offered separately on its own, but as a complete kit only. Can I get 5-8 people out there to commit to this project? Please DM me to ket me know, thanks

I paid for my Tread order on the first days of the month so far no new mails from them. I'd try contacting them directly first to know it is legit. Had some few oders from them in the past and weird issues so far.

Uh.... what? That's uh.. really wild. I've ordered from them several times in the past, but nothing like that has ever happened. The only time I've ever seen that rigorous of an ID process used was for getting my driver's license renewed.

I ordered mine from Amazon, I may not get it until October, but from these initial reports it’s going to be cancelled. I hope these are just the few bad ones that escaped QC.

Hi! Nin-Nin wants me to verify my identity by submitting pics of me holding my passport, and then close-up pics of my passport, along with a utility bill. Is this really a standard procedure? I’ve never had to do this with any other importer.

That is looking so good! And I just noticed the graffiti on the bomb!

Great on paint and weathering!

@Papa Rat Agreed, the colors are looking goof.

Big Chap. The Joker.

Did not know this video existed but its pure 1980s, lol.

Oh, absolutely. General Galaxy managed to clout its way into having the New UN Government recognize one of its subsidiary companies as a government itself, turning an entire emigrant fleet into a flying company town where the Macross Galaxy corporation had total authority and could engage in all kinds of human rights and ethics violations in its R&D while hiding behind the autonomy granted to emigrant governments by the central government. There's more straightforward political corruption and all manner of corporate crime too from the megacorporations. SMS did send several Macross Quarter-class ships to assist the Macross Frontier fleet in the movie version of Macross Frontier, but they weren't a rogue operation. They arrive as part of the joint SMS-New UN Forces reinforcements that were dispatched from other nearby emigrant governments to reinforce the Frontier fleet. They were almost certainly activated under whatever defense contract they have with the emigrant fleets they were attached to, and dispatched alongside the New UN Forces reinforcements from the fleets in question. That SMS has such powerful ships is certainly grounds for concern, though Macross Chronicle suggests that even those ships may technically be considered to be "on loan" to SMS rather than "owned by" SMS and that they're also essentially the limit of what SMS is allowed to operate by law and government regulation. They're also quite expensive, so they're not just the limit of what the law permits, they're also likely the limit of what SMS can actually afford to operate despite Macross Chronicle explicitly marking them out as being The Biggest among PMCs. SMS is never shown with other ships besides the Macross Quarter-class ships, barring one case where the branch in question is meant to be low-key and covert. At least four at the start, yeah... Elysion, Gigasion, Megasion, and Grasion. That said, the Elysion-type Macross doesn't seem to actually be all that powerful as a warship. One of the several reasons I privately suspect - in the absence of any hard statements either way - that the Elysion-type is an older generation of Macross than the Macross Quarter-class is that its greater size doesn't seem to afford it any significant advantage. It has a few more beam turrets than the standard Macross Quarter-class, but is outclassed there by a variant Macross Quarter-class from the movies. Neither its turrets nor its Macross Cannon seem to be particularly powerful either... and it flat-out lacks an equivalent to the Macross Quarter's gatling buster. Perhaps most tellingly, despite being twice as large it seems to have only about 1/2 the mecha capacity of its smaller counterpart. The New UN Spacy's smallest standard carrier is home to around 40 aircraft in normal operating conditions. The Macross Quarter-class supposedly holds around 60 mecha in total, counting emplaced unmanned destroids for air defense, Ghosts, Valkyries, and Battle Suits. The Macross Elysion's only home to twenty Valkyries between its two support carriers Aether and Hemera, presumably having room for around 30 in total without Walkure's special equipment getting underfoot. That's pretty darn small for such a large ship. Doubly so considering that one ship is Xaos's only force covering multiple inhabited planets simultaneously whereas a single Macross Quarter-class is covering a single emigrant fleet. On that basis, I don't think they really have enough firepower to take over the Brisingr cluster solo... I think they'd probably get taken out through sheer weight of numbers in a similar way that Windermere IV did once Heinz was out of action. It probably wouldn't be a particularly large fight. Macross Chronicle and Master File both mention in passing that the New UN Government imposes regulations and restrictions on PMCs that limit things like the size of PMC forces and what weapons they're legally allowed to purchase for their forces. SMS's Macross Frontier branch and Xaos's Ragna branch are both either implicitly or explicitly quite substantial as PMC forces go. SMS's Macross Frontier branch was supposed to be a heavyweight force of elites intended to tackle the threat of contact with the Vajra, and Xaos's Ragna branch was basically sector headquarters covering multiple planets under contract with the company. Both forces amount to a single well-armed warship and a few dozen Valkyries... and even that is disproportionately heavy since they're equipped with state-of-the-art weapons on loan from the NUNS. Odds are the much less impressive forces like Xaos's Pipure branch in Macross E are closer to the norm, with a few platoons of previous-gen Valkyries and not much else. A good deal less power than even the smallest regular NUNS carrier can project. Macross Chronicle suggests a lot of PMC forces are still primarily engaged in their original business of protecting the cargo shipments of their parent companies from piracy, so if one PMC did attack another odds are it'd likely be a quick battle followed by the defender's parent company suing the aggressor's parent company for damages rather than a big fight that's outside what the NUNS can put down. Yep... though it seems like they're trying to declaw the concept a bit in the Macross Delta era by acknowledging that a hypercompetent PMC like SMS is quite unrealistic and most are... substantially less impressive. Macross Delta as a whole is essentially set up as a war between two bush league forces, a third-rate PMC and some disorganized local NUNS remnants vs. a planetary defense force that has high-end gear but almost no experience. It's pretty telling that when a renegade force from the central NUNS shows up, both sides get pounded into the ground like tent pegs in the first five minutes. That's true for any contract worker... you don't want to hire someone who's making a lot of noise and causing a lot of problems. Not so much? Each emigrant fleet has its own New UN Forces escort detail that protects it in transit and becomes the local New UN Forces once they find a planet to settle on. The only exception we know of is Macross 29, which deliberately disbanded its defense force after adopting an official policy of pacifist total nonaggression. As noted above, large PMC forces with state-of-the-art weapons are the exception rather than the rule. We've gotten two different takes on what exactly drives demand for PMC services in Macross: Macross Chronicle suggests that demand for PMCs like industry leader SMS started with companies establishing internal security forces for interstellar cargo transports and eventually spun those divisions off and diversified them into providing support and training to local New UN Forces who suffered from a decline in the quality of training as the result of the Second Unification War and overreliance on unmanned fighters. Macross Delta era materials and Master File take a rather less kind view that PMCs were a workaround for chronic manpower shortages in the era of space emigration. PMCs are a way for the New UN Forces to ring-fence and indirectly make use of people who don't meet the military's exacting standards but have useful skills, talents, training, and experience. Sort of a way to recycle people who've been kicked out of the military for various reasons and use folks who couldn't hack it there in the first place.

@Papa Rat Chicken! I can't unsee it! Looking good!

The colors are looking great they will be appreciated

Comparison of 22S this toy (Doyusha VF-22S) and this model (Bandai HG VF-22S). I'm contemplating repainting a fleet of 1/100 or 1/144 Macross fighters in boring real life colours. I think it'd be neat to have a fleet of low viz comprised of all the different fighters, but I'll for sure be limited with either scale. I know there are VF-1 options in both scales, but for 1/100 there are VF100 VF-25s, and for 1/144 there is a VF-11B and a VF-171 model.

Getting closer, and closer as this chicken starts taking shape. So far so good, but t’s larger than I had anticipated.

There will be more as I get to work on it. 👍

Thanks for posting these pics

After three years shelfwarming, new Avatar product was the last thing I expected to see. 😯

Doesn't matter if you're talking Target or Walmart, all the stores around me are the same story- a buttload of unsold Transformers One, some Devastation Optimus Primes and SS Q, and if you're lucky maybe a Bonecrusher or two. Amazon, fortunately, has come through with the rest of the current wave of Age of the Primes. Minus package refreshes, that's just a pair of Deluxes for me, starting with the one you guys are most likely to be interested in- Vortex. For me, Combiner Wars Vortex was kind of a dud. I mean, I get that they were going for toy colors, but even then the purple instead of pink,, blue shoulders, gray combiner peg, and weird yellow missile arms didn't really capture that for me. Age of the Primes Vortex, though, understood the assignment. Cartoon colors? Check. Cartoon details like the weirdly round forearms, intakes on the shoulders, and mostly-black shins? Check again. Too bad some of that black didn't end up on his toes, though. While I've seen some third parties do some impressive engineering to get to a cartoon-accurate Vortex, it's clear that was maybe a bridge too far for Hasbro in a Deluxe-class figure that taking some cues from Hasbro's recent stabs at the Aerialbots and Stunticons. To that end, some compromises had to be made, mostly in his arms. It looks like half his hand is missing, while the backs of his forearms are absolutely loaded with kibble. I find the kibble a little extra annoying, simply because it doesn't really lock into any position and keeps getting in the way. Vortex comes with a trio of guns, the designs of which are again pretty cartoon accurate. The only note I'd make is that they should be mostly blue, with just the barrels of the smaller guns black. Vortex's head is on a ball joint and can tilt up, down, and sideways a little in addition to swiveling. His shoulders swivel and move 90 degrees laterally, his biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist articulation. Depending on how you're posing him, you may find that the intakes or the tail kibble hampering your ability to pose his arm. His waist swivels. His hips can go forward and backward 90 degrees, and laterally over that. His thighs swivel, his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet have some slight upward bend, and his ankles pivot 90 degrees. For cartoon accuracy the small guns should plug into ports on the outsides of his forearms, and he holds the larger gun in either hand. All the guns use 5mm ports, though, as does his main rotor, so there's nothing stopping you from having him dual-wielding the smaller guns, sticking the main rotor onto his forearm like he's Bayverse Blackout, and stowing the larger gun on his back. Transforming AotP Vortex's lower half should feel pretty familiar... fold the toes down, open the shins, fold the thighs into the lower legs, close the shins back up. The upper body, though, takes cues from the G1 toy, where the arms fold up around his head to make the tail, with just a few added steps to line up the intakes. The resulting helicopter is mostly good. Cartoon accurate blue stripes on the nose, intake/exhaust nacelles, four main rotor blades, etc. My main gripe is that while his legs, back, and arms do a pretty good job of being a helicopter, his head and the front of his torso do not. His head and chest are just kind of an awkward block, which could almost be passable were it not for a gap between his legs and chest where his waist is tapered in. I get why they did it (better-looking bot mode), but would it have killed them to stick a flap on him that could have folded out to fill that gap? You have options for weapons storage. The instructions suggest using tabs on the sides of the guns, and sticking the smaller ones into slots just below the shoulder hinges with the barrels pointing backward (though there's no reason they can't point forward), and using one of the similar tabs on the larger gun to plug it into either side of the nose. It also seems like the small guns were actually meant to go on the helicopter's chin, though. They're not identical; one has the tab on the left, the other on the right, and you can arrange them so that the 5mm pegs touch with the tabs facing upward, and they'll plug into matching slots under the chin. For cartoon accuracy, though, the smaller guns should plug into the 5mm ports on the tail boom. Then ideally you'd want the larger gun, or at least the barrel of it, on the helicopter's nose. I guess the designers gave up here, though. Using the tabs, you can plug it into one of the slots on the chin, or you could even plug the 5mm peg into one of the combiner ports on his shins, but both of those options leave the barrel off-center well below the nose, so low that it interferes with Vortex's ability to sit on his molded, non-functioning wheels. AotP Vortex is a lot like the Aerialbots and Stunticons that came before him... much more cartoon-accurate and a major improvement over the Combiner Wars version, but still severely hampered by a limited budget for engineering. I suspect, for a lot of collectors, being a little better than Combiner Wars Vortex will be enough, as long as the combined mode is better. And while we're a ways off from next year's Commander-class Onslaught and seeing how Bruticus will work, based on their work on Menasor and Superion I feel comfortable telling you that you should get ready and pick Vortex up.