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Took me a while to find this, but here is the reason red is prominent in TV missiles.

That sounds awesome! The Berserk kit for Guts is such a cool pick — I’ve heard great things about the detail on that one too. And yeah, seeing new releases like the Plamatea kits always gets the hype going; it’s hard to resist adding more to the build queue! slope games

so they're both autobots? i would think car autobot, tails deception 🛩️

That tracks with what I was remembering. I wish I could get my hands on those novels, but local amazon doesn't list them, and US amazon won't ship those books to my country. And anywhere else, I'm going to get hit with Japanpost's postage, plus a 7 euro handling fee, plus 20% import duties, and 25% sales tax on the entire amount including the postage. I don't shop from Japan anymore after I ended up paying 60 euros in shipping, handling and taxes on a 15 euro gunpla. Oh, cool - I missed those. I did remember the Ravens paint job for the VF-19, at least...

While I'm far more a fan of jets than vintage single engine prop-driven aircraft, cartoony or not, a well-done plane alt mode in the Transformers universe is such a rarity that it deserves to be called out as such; in spite of its minor flaws, this is a step above their usual blocky-bot wearing-a-few-plane-bits-and-calling-it-a-plane modus operandi. The kibbly nature of the bot mode, an unfortunate concession, feels as though it could have been managed better. Not everything is perfect with the alt mode either, but between the two, I think the majority will say the plane mode fared better. Despite my liking both the car and the plane, I passed on this set due to preservation of space and a lack of interest in the Sonic brand. That said, I feel that overall execution was done pretty well and despite the various niggles Mike pointed out, I think it achieves the goal of offering a couple characters and their vehicles in a unique way. I'd still like to see a Batmobile repaint of Sonic's car. The plane, too, could prove useful as a repaint/retool, perhaps as a Batman villain or some other character. Both seem ripe for repaints/retools and rereleases.

Yes. Yes exactly!

Sci fi modeling is in these days. Everything from Gundam to Warhammer and Macross to Star Trek. Even the car guys are doing a lot of Mad Max style customs from standard car kits. The historical stuff is still there, but it’s almost a 50/50 thing to the Sci fi these days

Unfortunately times have changed. Used to be able to see knockers fairly commonly, now it’s nothing but sausage on the streaming sites.

Kawamori really is an incredible designer. It takes an astonishing amount of talent to come up with a transformation that's not only believable but can be translated to a physical toy or model with a reasonable level of fidelity. All the more impressive is that Kawamori is not alone in that regard when it comes to working on Macross. He has had the assistance of similarly talented designers like cockpit designer Junya Ishigaki (who also designed the Macross Zero destroids) and destroid, battle pod, and spaceship designer Kazutaka Miyatake. The Battle-class is Miyatake's work. There's a lovely section on its progression from the earliest concepts to the final design and transformation in Kazutaka Miyatake Design Works: Macross & Orguss that starts on page 47. He also has some commentary on the thought process behind Battle 13 in the VF-X section starting on page 81. There are a few references, but they're relatively low key compared to what's in the other media because the TV anime is meant to be maximally accessible with the bare minimum amount of continuity baggage. It is mostly on the level of sneaky fanservice there. Like Ernest Johnson and Grammier Neirich Windermere both having participated in the Second Unification Wars, though only Grammier's service is remarked on at any length. Its most profound impacts are in how it shaped the setting itself, which is more in the realm of the creator commentary track than the series proper. It's much more blatant in the novelizations, manga, games, etc. which are marketed more towards fans. The novelizations of Macross Frontier and Macross Delta practically have too many to name, like making Manfred Brando the sponsor of Mao Nome's expedition to Vajra space and the reason Ozma gets tossed out of the NUNS, Aegis Focker being Ozma's mentor and a student of Jeffrey Wilder, Manfred's Sound Jamming System using fold quartz, and an AI copy of Manfred's mind being an antagonist in its own right. Macross the Ride's antagonist faction, Fasces, is a literal Latence splinter fleet still fighting for the same goal. Macross 30 has a couple of 'em. The game's antagonists, Havamal, are a New UN Spacy VF-X Special Forces unit like the Ravens (the 815th Independent Squadron). Leon Sakaki's homeworld Sephira is the site of one of the Ravens missions in Macross VF-X2 as well. Two VF-X2 fighters are also available in game: the initial type VF-22 and the VF-19A Ravens type.

Good for those that want it, but PC delivers 99% of what I want to play and the rest is first party Nintendo stuff.

No offense taken. I was an even more ignorant beginner at the time than I am now. But much better modelers than me have tried and they end up with similar results - either a fatter spaceship or a too skinny robot. Also - it is mark of Kawamori's skill that his designs require so little anime magic to actually work. The man is an actual wizard, creating so many designs that can actually be turned into toys and perfectly transform without any magic. I'm having a big empty head moment here, because as far as I remember, none of the anime actually *does* directly reference the events of the VF-X2 game in any obvious way. I haven't had time to check all of Frontier because there's so many different political discussions spread out across the show, but I don't remember Vindirance or Lactence, or the 2050 coup attempt, being brought up at all, anywhere in any anime. If you know that it happened, you can see its *effects* everywhere, but if you didn't know about it you'd just gloss over it entirely so it feels almost like sneaky fanservice. (I did verify the one instance in Delta where it was likely to have come up in discussion, which was Berger's exposition in episode 19, but he goes from Macross 7 to Macross Frontier and entirely skips the 2050 coup attempt). And the only things I remember relating to VF-X2 in Macross 30 is that there were skins for the Ravens in there, for the VF-11 and VF-19 if I recall correctly. There may have been something in the descriptions for those skins, but I never bothered pulling up my camera to read those.

Too generic, I pass

@Papa Rat Shrink marks are just immature dents. I'm not terribly social at model shows, but I've never heard a bad word about our beloved Sci Fi.

I'm seeing too much man-booty cheeks!

I've seen several mentions of IPMS. I attended one meeting in the Chandler, AZ area in 2011, the year before I moved back to Japan. I found that the atmosphere there was not very friendly towards sci-fi modeling, as if it wasn't respected as a legitimate form of modeling. Do you guys get flack for being Macross modelers? I've heard that it's pretty hit-and-miss, depending on who's running the local chapter. Some are welcoming of SF modeling while others treat such subjects with disdain.

Yeah, fair, it's a weird mix. I'm not sure what would look more natural, if you can even call it that.

No, I get that's accurate. I'm saying it makes Blue Booster's face look extra weird, is all. I think I'd prefer either more normal Sonic eyes, or a less normal Sonic head.

I mean, this is actually accurate. I'm not sure if you would prefer actual pupils though, or just something more like his normal eyes.

Looks far better than what it looked like from the start. Some little patch ups with the putty will definitely help

First round of primer to check my work. Going to have to do more putty work in spots, but the nose is not looking too bad. Also noticing lots of sink marks that need attention.

lol

I'm personally disappointed the airplane propeller doesn't become his butt, so he could spin his tails like a propeller.

Yeah, last year didn’t have much to offer other than Hundreds of Beavers.

This is true, but in all frankness I believe you're overthinking things here a bit. Personally, I don't buy the argument that dingy and desaturated means "realistic". I lived through the tyranny of "realistic means it looks like you're viewing it through a used coffee filter" in gaming and other entertainment and I want nothing further to do with it. In practice, it doesn't really matter if you paint your space warship bright and garish colors or flat gunship grey because without an external light source shining brightly on the hull you're only ever going to see it illuminated dimly by reflected light from large nearby objects (e.g. planets, moons) or illuminated only by its own running lights like the Macross at the very start of DYRL?. That's different in atmosphere, but in atmosphere people are going to notice the giant F-off kilometers and a half long super-carrier no matter what color it's painted. If realism were that important, Battle Galaxy wouldn't be painted magenta. Likewise, I don't think there's any concern with the Battle 7 potentially overshadowing other ships when it's on screen. It's going to do that no matter how you paint it, because it's simply the biggest damn thing in frame 99% of the time. It might be an issue if you had multiple Battle-class ships in frame, but only if it's not the "hero" one. I think there's a much simpler explanation that works on both Watsonian and Doylist levels: stylistic preferences change with time. Battle 7's comparatively bright and colorful design is representative of mid-90's anime, but can also be said to be the preference of the 37th Fleet at the time it launched in 2038. The Macross Gigasion was designed decades later in both Doylist and Watsonian terms, so naturally it more closely reflects the tastes of the period to which it belongs. My favorite example of this principle in action is the TNG episode "Relics" and the DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations". They don't retcon the rather dated stylistic choices or bright, garish colors of Star Trek's Original Series from the 60's into something more in line with the more subdued neutral tones of the 90's shows, they simply acknowledge that (both in-universe and out) that was The Style At The Time and that stylistic preferences changed as time passed. Macross Frontier and Macross FB7 both flirt with the idea a bit, but not to the same extent. There is no reason for anyone to do that, though. Satelight's animators working on Macross Frontier and Macross Delta weren't superfans working on a fan film. They were professionals there to do a job. They have no reason at all to care about what was done in prior shows. They have a stack of animation model reference sheets, storyboards, and screenplays that spell out what to draw, how to draw it, and when. All the decisions about how things should look or what things should be in the story happen way before anything gets to them. That's the job of the various designers who work on development of the project. If an older design is being brought back and refreshed, they don't need to go back and look at the old animation because they have the animation model reference to work from. The master key to the art design. They can make any necessary tweaks using that as a starting point without the need to waste tens of hours trawling through old VHS tapes and DVDs. Not wishing to cause offense, but your results are not necessarily indicative of the outcomes that a professional animator would produce. And yes, many transforming designs involve a certain amount of "anime magic". It's just the cost of doing business. As far as I know, sales figures for Macross VF-X2 have not been made public. The game's events have been referenced so often by so many different Macross works from Macross Frontier onward that I can only assume it did pretty well for itself back in 1999 and in that limited 2002 re-release. Enough to justify Macross Frontier and Macross Delta and their spinoff works tying into it as heavily as they have. It's been referenced in anime, other games, light novels, audio dramas, and even model kits. Regardless, I don't think the measure of success of Macross VF-X2 necessarily means anything WRT the Doylist explanation... a simple desire to make the new Battle-class in the new story visually distinct. Macross VF-X2's dev team had a story that called for an "evil" Battle-class, so they took the basic design and made it bulkier, spikier, redesigned the bridge to look more menacing, and gave the whole thing a darker and more ominous-looking paintjob of purples and dark greys. Similarly, when the time came to make Macross Frontier in the mid-2000s, the story called for a "hero" Battle-class and a "villain" Battle-class, so they needed to update the Battle-class design to mesh with the 2000's visual aesthetic and to produce a single base design they could customize to make the heroic Battle Frontier and the villainous Battle Galaxy. Nope... and I am intensely annoyed about it. The obvious Doylist explanation is that it's CG model reuse and they forgot to remove or change the hull number while they were adding bits to it. When it comes to a Watsonian explanation, we're stuck with a lot of assumptions. The obvious answer is that the Battle Astraea is another ship from the same design generation as the Battle Galaxy and/or that it was upgraded with some of the same kind of technology used in Battle Galaxy when Cromwell's crew disappeared with it and had the Epsilon Foundation refit it. Why its hull number is the same as Battle Galaxy's... that's anyone's guess.