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  2. Star Wars EP3 - 1:6 Kit Fisto Blogger Photos
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  4. What’s the story with Luna Park?
  5. From Nin-Nin... It's Etienne again, from Nin-Nin Game. We have some important news for you: --- Resumption of FedEx & DHL Shipping Methods for US We are pleased to resume FedEx and DHL shipping to the U.S, following extensive testing and feedback ! Orders placed from June 6th onward using FedEx or DHL will ship normally and won’t be held. Orders over $800 USD will still be held by default. To keep an order on hold intentionally, simply write “on hold” in the order comment section when placing your order. Customers with current orders under the “On Hold USA” status who wish to ship via FedEx or DHL may now contact customer support to request shipment. You can find more detailed information about this update in our Freshdesk FAQ. If you want to check your current orders for any "ON HOLD USA" status, please head over to your Order list: https://www.nin-nin-game.com/en/order-history Thanks a lot for your loyalty, and see you soon! Etienne Nin-Nin-Game.com co-Founder etienne.denoual@nin-nin-game.com Instagram: @etienne_d
  6. We can see what @Lolicon's referring to in the following video: Taking a still from the video, if we look at the lower leg there are 2 new slots flanking the original single, bigger slot in the center. The conformal tanks now attach to these 2 new slots instead of the center one. The original release only has that center slot for the conformal tank (pic from jenius's site): Correspondingly, the pegs on the conformal tank have been adjusted to suit. The updated one: As compared to the old one: I'm not sure why Arcadia changed this part in first place, the original design is cleaner and the tank doesn't fall off easily, at least on my copy. Is this the reason why the Reactive Armor won't fit this new 0A as per Mr. K's post? Well, based on another video I watched, the Reactive Armor doesn't appear to use this slot at all, so there must be another change somewhere at the legs that makes the Armor incompatible, and I can't figure out yet based on watching LP's video.
  7. Definitely out - Akihabara today.
  8. No, it's an animation error if it's off-model without an in-story or production explanation. If it's off model and it has an in-story or explicit production explanation, then it's not an animation error. (For instance, Max's vertical stabilizer missiles in the original series are an attempt to address an animation error after animators noticed mid-production they drew more missiles being fired than the VF-1 actually carried.) Whether it affects the plot or not is irrelevant. Mistakes happen. My good fellow, there are real world aircraft carriers in service right now that are the same size or smaller than the Northampton-class. The Northampton-class stealth frigate is 252.5m long according to its Macross Chronicle Mechanic Sheet. France's Clemenceau-class aircraft carrier, including the French navy flagship Charles de Gaulle, clocks in at just 9 meters longer than the Northampton-class at 261.5m, they're both around 60m across at the maximum cross-section. The Charles de Gaulle carries 30-40 aircraft on average. The Italian navy's flagship, the aircraft carrier Cavour, is smaller than a typical Northampton-class at 244m long and 39m wide at maximum cross-section, and still carries 10 F-35B's and 12 helicopters as standard. Spain's Juan Carlos I-class is 231m long and 32m wide and typically carries about 23 fighter/attack aircraft. That's not by any means an exhaustive list. The Northampton-class is plenty big enough to function as a light aircraft carrier at 252.5m long. Most aircraft carriers are around 250m long. 300m+ is pretty much just a US, China, and Russia thing. Well, maybe just a US and China thing since Russia's only carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, is drydocked and rotting. Even Circle FANKY, who came up with their own light carrier version of it for their doujinshi, found enough internal space to fit a round dozen or more VF-11s into the Northampton-class's unmodified hull. Their own fanmade carrier variant, which is the same size as the official version, just slaps a carrier deck on the underside and holds 25. Or... and hear me out... you are operating under more than a few misconceptions in a variety of areas. As we've demonstrated above, key areas of your argument do not stand up to fact-checking.
  9. Well... I haven't checked Pulse, since all their dates were already like November, but Amazon has been emailing me left and right moving around shipping dates for both Studio Series and wave 2 of Age of the Primes. Looks like AotP is moving up from later in the fall to September, which is cool... except then this guy just randomly shows up today- Voyager Class Heatwave. Heatwave is a retool of Legacy Bulkhead, and normally I'd wait to cover him in a repaint roundup, but 1.) the only other repaint is Crasher, from the Kingdom version of Mirage, but she's actually a package refresh from the previously Walmart exclusive Velocitron line, 2.) the rest of the wave seems to be new molds, and 3.) the rest of the wave is far enough off that I don't think there were even preorders for Onyx Prime yet. So... we've got new fronts on his shoulders, a new torso cab, new head, new thighs, and new outside edges of his forearms... ...oh, and one new flap, since he doesn't have the wheels on his back that Bulkhead does. But the rest, including the inside edges and backs of his shoulders, are the same. For the most part, I think it works ok. He's a bit fat, due to his cab sticking out so far and alt mode details normally formed by the Rescue Bots' hands being permanently present, but I've always thought details of the mold (especially the alt mode) seemed a bit off for both Animated and Prime Bulkhead. At the time I wrote it off as "g1-ifiying" him, but now I wonder if they had Heatwave in mind all along. Heatwave does get brand new accessories, namely a ladder, an axe, and a gun/sprayer nozzle. Articulation is the same as Bulkhead's. The sprayer nozzle fits over his hand, and he can hold the axe via the 5mm handle with the other. The ladder can be plugged into his arm as a (very ineffective) shield, like Bulkhead's tarp, but you're better off plugging it onto his back. That's where the Rescue Bots version of the character keeps his. Plus, with the ladder on his back, tabs on the nozzle and axe allow you to plug them onto slots on the ladder for storage. Transformation is 99% the same as before, except with Bulkhead you don't have to remove his tarp and you have to fold out the wheels on his back. Heatwave's ladder doesn't stay plugged into the same spot. Instead, you have to partsform it so that slots on one end fit into tabs on the backs of his thighs, and notches on the other end allow it to sit over his feet. This leaves the ladder resting at an angle, higher at the back and lower near the cab, which is how the ladder sits on the Rescue Bots toy/cartoon. The cab comes off pretty well, with the grill, windshield, and yellow flashers being quite close to the original design. The back of the truck works less well. He's got the fuel tanks from Bulkhead; not sure why they didn't remold those parts to better resemble the panels (presumably where the hoses would connect) that were on the original toy. Likewise, there's the visible robot thighs and crotch kibble, and the "bed" of the truck that's gray instead of red and devoid of fire truck details. There's also the flap that Bulkhead's tarp would sit on. It does nothing but hang of the back of the cab as obvious kibble. To me, it seems like it'd be a good place to mount the nozzle, so Heatwave could spray fires in alt mode. But no, since the nozzle is designed to cover Heatwave's hand the 5mm peg can't reach the port on the kibble flap. It might have worked if you flipped it upside down, but that peg-like protrusion on top is smaller than a 5mm peg (but, near as I can tell, bigger than the 3mm ones used for Core-class figures). No, according to the instructions both his axe and his nozzle are meant to tab into the ladder again, like bot mode. However, the slots on the ladder happen to be about the same size as the slots on the back of his legs, where Bulkhead's tarp would plug in, so you can technically plug them along size the ladder as well as on it. Heatwave is, ultimately, and alright figure. On some levels the mold almost feels like it was meant for Heatwave more than it was meant for Bulkhead, but in other ways it almost seems like they didn't remold enough and a few more minor tweaks would have really made a big difference. It's kind of neat to see Rescue Bots original characters being brought into the G1-esque fold, but Heatwave doesn't seem to have gotten the extra sauce that Chase did. And for the largely G1 crowd here, a remolded Voyager of a Rescue Bot is likely a harder sell than an original Deluxe. Ultimately, I think it depends on how much you like seeing the Rescue Bots as members of the G1 team. If that appeals to you, then Heatwave is a perfectly serviceable companion to Legacy Chase. I wonder if they'll get around to Blades and Boulder to round out the main Rescue Bots cast? To be honest, as someone who's been saying we need more garbage truck Transformers and who's always down for more fembots, Salvage and Quickshadow would be welcome, too. Maybe more*. But if Rescue Bots really aren't your thing, G1-ified or not, then I don't think you're missing too much if you just skip this guy. *Titan-class High Tide?
  10. So yeah, this is my first go with a MG kit and I have to say they are wildly advanced. Test fit went together super fast and easy and looks great, but there was something missing. Call me crazy, but I’m not sure if I had fun building it I guess. I really appreciate it for its amazing quality, details and accessibility, but it really lacked some charm for me. I think mostly since I have never dedicated any time to the series at large. Not sure, but I hope I find some joy in removing the few seam lines present and painting it. Might do a dark, possibly black scheme or something? 🤔
  11. Not at all into One Piece, but cool for those who like it. Too, new sets and new themes always bring the potential for new parts, so that aspect interests me. So wish LEGO would get a Macross license, even if it means likely no VF-1 due to HG. All those other valks would be fair game, though. Realistically, however, I think we'd be far more likely to see a Gundam license given its global prevalence. I'd be down for that, too.
  12. It stops being an "animation error" when it affects the plot, and neither Macross 30 nor Macross 7 episode 44 have plots that work if the ships aren't substantially larger than 250 meters. They just aren't capable of being carriers at that size. There are seriously only two solutions: Either the ships aren't 250 meters long, or they're not Northampton-class ships. But given that Stargazer is the *poster ship* for the Northampton class in Macross 7, and Gefion is 90% the same mesh as the standard Northampton-2059 model, the latter is obviously false. It is easier to write off all in-show size comparisons with other capital ships (there aren't actually very many that involve other capital ships whose lengths aren't *also* suspect) as animation errors, than it is to write of the whole plots of Macross 30 or M7:E44, especially the latter since if you write off Operation Stargazer as "it's fiction" then the whole show is worthless as a source. And, as mentioned, there are other errors in the Chronicle - like the height of the VF-0 battroid, which was off by at least two meters, which has been called out by Mr. March, Basically - the moment the director threw the guidebook out because rule of cool, and made it plot relevant, then we as viewers have to throw out either the guidebook or the plot. I'd rather throw out the guidebook than the plot. Interestingly, the one Macross 7-era escort that doesn't need a massive rescaling due to either the director throwing out his references or the VFX department not doing its homework, is the Uraga-class. It is a perfectly good carrier at its official size, and has no need to change anything. Which results in a fun comparison: And by the way, being able to do exactly this sort of comparison is trivial in basically any 3D animation suite - and I know this suite in particular was available to and used by the studio who made the show, because the software developers bragged about it being used in the show. There is no reason why they had to make a second model of the Guantanamo that needed to be *this size* to fit the fighters through their launch bay openings when they had a proper sized version.
  13. I don't understand the marketing. Freedom from Windows? But it still has Windows on it. Do they mean because it does Xbox Cloud streaming? I can game from the cloud on the regular ROG Ally/Ally X now. Nice to see that both versions now have two USB C ports, and the X version retains the extra RAM and larger battery of the current Ally X. The X version gets the Z2 Extreme, but the regular only gets the Z2 A? The screen seems the same as the current model, and I kind of hate the chonky new grips. Unless the Z2 is a HUGE upgrade I'll stick with my Ally X.
  14. Based on the remarks I've found by J.J. Abrams and Colin Trevorrow, Disney LucasFilm absolutely did have a plan for the sequel trilogy. It wasn't laid out in exhaustive detail, but they did have a framework laid out for how the story was supposed to progress from episode to episode. I think the actual problem is more along the lines of Disney LucasFilm losing confidence in the plan they'd put together after The Force Awakens and overcorrecting with The Last Jedi, before throwing up their hands in despair and trying to write The Rise of Skywalker by committee in an attempt to please everyone that ended up pleasing nobody. The bat-faced space masochists? Yeah, I can't see them trying to Disney-fy that.
  15. That's why I wrote a bit of of Andor'esq spice. Mix it up a little but it doesn't need to be a carbon-copy. And making TFA a soft reboot could have worked, if TLJ had been good. But a major problem in the sequel trilogy is that there was no plan. No over-arching plot to connect the three movies with following directors allowed to do their own thing, re Johnson and the Great Chase with a side-hussle to a casino. That's why so much was jammed into TRoS. From what was seen in Ep9, The Last Jedi (Ep8) should have been about the New Republic struggling to overcome the initial attack with Rey and the others chasing down a mysterious threat that could deal the death blow to the headless NR. That mysterious threat being the return of Palpatine, which would then lead into a lighter storyline, not so weighed down with too many plot threads. And it should have been named Rise of Palpatine, with the dual meaning pertaining to Palpatine himself and his granddaughter, Rey. Also, Luke should not have died but stayed as Master to Rey, and Kylo should have stayed evil right to the end and they should have ditched the idiocy of the Knights of Ren (whomever that is) and they should have stayed with the Sith, and Kylo should have been Darth Caedus. And if they are smart, the next movie with Rey should have nothing to do with the Sith or an Imperial Remnant. They should get the Vong front and center.
  16. Can I be candid with you for a moment here? Nobody is arguing that the animation of any Macross series, whether it be hand-drawn or computer aided, is going to be free from issues. There are going to be moments of off-model animation in hand-drawn work and 3D models meant for close-ups vs. distance shots are naturally going to have some discrepancies to save on rendering resources and because the small details will get lost at a distance anyway. Scale issues are going to happen either to make a scene more dramatic (like when Klan is arguing with Michel in his Battroid) or just because properly representing the size of something enormous is actually really hard to do accurately. These are just animation errors. That's all they're ever going to be. If it helps, you can excuse them as errors in the in-universe fictional production that Kawamori has occasionally claimed each series is. It's guaranteed to be that last one. The mechanical designers decide the sizes of the ships and robots and whatnot during the design process as part of the animation model reference that's provided to the show's key animators (and/or 3D modelers). It's meant to help the animators keep the sizes consistent. In the case of the Stargazer, the production staff had a cool idea and didn't realize the ship wasn't big enough for that to actually work in scale terms. The animators made what'd been storyboarded, and the whole thing made it out without anyone realizing the Stargazer just wasn't that big. Most people can't really picture an object 250m long in their head with any accuracy. It's just too big, and most people don't see a moving object THAT large in everyday life. It just registers as "enormous". For Macross 30, I guarantee you the developers did not care about rendering anything in true scale. The goal was to make things fit on the world map comfortably and look good doing it. They had in-story reasons for choosing a Northhampton-class as the basis for the Gefion, and yes it really is supposed to be small and harmless looking.
  17. The gwazine! Base coat! Now filters etc
  18. Love how it looks, but i already have 2 GFFM RX-78 variants, can't justify another.....side glances at all the Hot Toys Stormtrooper variants behind me.
  19. The problem is that *aside from the official size statement* of 250 meters, the Northampton as depicted in the anime is decidedly not "small and unthreatening*. The actual animation shows that it's *ginormous*. The primary reference for the Northampton from the anime is Macross 7, episode 44, where we're treated to the spectacle of Operation Stargazer, where we're first shown bunch of scenes showing fighters being moved around inside the ship, five abreast with generous spacing in some cases. And then there's the launch sequence, which looks like this: That's a modified torpedo being launched out the side mounted torpedo tubes on the Stargazer. Note the relative size - the torpedo is much smaller than the opening it's coming out of. And here the torpedoes launched previously open up to reveal the fighters inside. The torpedoes have to be *at least* the diameter of the ship's wingspan. But this is the size of the Stargazer relative to a fighter if it is merely 250 meters long. If I want to fit a fighter through one of those torpedo tubes, the ship has to be much, much bigger. Like enormously so. (and before you say "this is just an fan made model", I made this by taking the turrets and outboard pod supports off of the game model for the 2059 Northampton, and checked it against the official lineart from the same angles, and it's got good enough proportions that I can at least use it for sanity checks like this.) Same thing really with the stern ramp launch of the VF-22 from the OVA segment. The ramp shown in the OVA is three times the size of the VF-22 that is launching from it. Where are you sticking that on the this frigate? To support the visuals in its debut anime, where it was a huge part of the focus of an entire episode, it would have to be almost the size of the Battle 7, maybe even larger. That torpedo tube launch sequence just *wrecks* the official size. Even the Gefion's 1000 meter size in game is smaller than the Stargazer has to be for the episode that it was the star of to work. Studio Nue very obviously changed their mind between making the animation reference where the Northampton was specified as 250 meters long; and the making of episode 44 where it was the featured ship; and then forgot that they had changed their mind afterwards. Or, they just didn't care what the size was as long as the scene looked cool. But anyway, the upshot is that Stargazer is flat out impossible without the ship being *substantially* larger than the official size statement. On the other hand... This scene shows that the Guantanamo works at its stated size of 350 meters. Shame that this is not the only, or even the most commonly used, 3D model of the ship though, because the one that *is* more commonly seen is this one: Which does *not* work at 350 meters, because someone didn't check the size of the hangar ports they were making. That small hangar opening where the launch lane indicators are coming from on the starboard side is about a third of the size required for a VF to launch out of if the ship is 350 meters (I know this because the game model is based very closely on this to the point of having the same textures, that opening is only 6.6 meters long and about 4 meters wide - not even big enough for a Ghost). Edit: Another SAN check for the design is the bridge line art: With a 250 meter long Northampton model, that bridge is only 2.3 meters wide *over the glass*, and only about four and a half meters tall. Certainly not tall enough for three decks worth of operators and a big ass sensor cluster underneath. Just the top platform has to be around four meters wide based on the standing figure's height relative to the width of the deck, which means the ship is at least double the size stated...
  20. Yesterday
  21. I compared Jetfire to an early Roy, and I see what you mean----a real one has this edge smooth and rounded, while Jetfire has it quite sharp and squared off: I do not think that is whole story though--your backplate looseness theory also seems to play a role----Jetfire's clip fits onto Roy pretty well, despite the sharp edge. I think it's the double-whammy of the sharp edge AND the backplate having issues, that combine to make attaching the booster-clip such a struggle.
  22. To be frank, I doubt that's it. Ukyo Kodachi seems to have wanted to make the Gefion the smallest possible ship he could while developing the scenario for Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy. Not only to justify why Leon, who had only come to Uroboros to make a delivery, needed to be pressed into service as the Gefion's only regular fighter pilot and replacement test pilot for the YF-30 Chronos but also why Havamal and the Bandits don't see SMS as a real threat. He also seems to have wanted it to be a commonplace ship class so that it wouldn't stand out as home to something unconventional the way a Mother Raven-type or Valhalla III-type special forces warship might. The Northampton-class seems to have fit the bill for the story because of its sheer ubiquity, its status as a cannon fodder ship, and it being known to carry a single platoon of VFs under normal circumstances since that's all that ever launches from it for most of the game. It IS large enough relative to many modern STOVL carriers in service today that even an entire squadron being aboard would not be implausible. (Though when the game finally does show large numbers of fighters being launched for the final offensive, SMS is not using the Gefion anymore... they're operating from the Macross Quarter.) Please do remember this is a game and there are some Acceptable Breaks from Reality in place esp. in terms of where all the VFs you unlock are (or whether they exist at all in the context of the story). The only thing wrong with the size of the Gefion is that the hangar gates need to be bigger to accommodate the full wingspan of something like a VF-25. That's not exactly a deal-breaker for gameplay though, so it's not surprising they went with something that looked nice. The whole point of having the Gefion be a modified Northampton-class is making her small and unthreatening. The larger Guantanamo-class stealth carrier is a fair bit bigger and projects more power because it's typically home to 2-3 entire squadrons rather than a single platoon or two in a pinch. It's not about the beam gun turrets, it's about the size of a ship's airwing. As I said, there's nothing eyebrow-raising about Leon waking up after being shot down in the prologue to find he's the only pilot aboard a tiny escort ship that isn't normally home to more than 2-3 pilots at most. It's immediately eyebrow-raising to be the only pilot on a dedicated carrier that's normally home to almost fifty pilots.
  23. I'd drop a few significant organ donations on the table if it would get them to produce series based on some of the X-Wing books. Not sure I'd vote for the Stackpole books and the Corran Horn Show, but Allston's Wraith Squadron books always felt like the peak of the EU for me, for some of the same reasons Andor is being praised. Believable, funny, and above all vulnerable characters, dealing with the complications of war and terrorism from both sides, and some of the best treatment I think the force has gotten in any of the EU, due to how subtle it was. The settings and details of that particular series are flexible enough that they could probably wedge them into the new canon as is. Also, I honestly just want an excuse to commit "Yub Yub, Commander" to the canon.
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