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Thanks, guys. Whatever Hasbro called it, it seems TakaraTomy didn't give it a Japanese release... ...which is ironic, given the original Wingblade Optimus Prime never got a Hasbro release.

Yeah, the only thing the sketches confirm is Kawamori-san's goal of making the VF-1 easy for the animators to draw (which, if memory serves, is something that the Designer's Notes specifically points out.)

These are a couple of my recent projects. Both were scratchbuilt from recycled electronics and scrap materials at pretty minimal cost. The arcade bartop runs MAME via Pegasus Frontend on Linux Mint. It's built around an old Dell all-in-one PC with very humble specs, dual core Celeron and 8GB RAM. The virtual pinball mini runs VPX via Batocera. It's powered by an N100 mini PC with 1080p playfield and 600p DMD in the backbox. Both were lots of fun to design and build, and tons of fun in action 👍

Just picked up mine.

I hate to be the guy with popcorn waiting for the thing to explode, but I will be very curious to see if they have made any changes to the leg design this go-around. End of the day though, it at least makes a mostly decent fighter display. Also, if they colored it correctly, this one shouldn't be using that obsidian-like metallic plastic that always explodes into shrapnel along the flow lines. I might actually disassemble one, and gut it for parts to repair my busted 171s, then just glue it into permanent fighter.

A couple of ladies to add to the collection. Yay for reissues... missed out on the first release of SHF Frieren before prices went up cuz I totally slept on the series... wishing for a SHF Methode. I have to say though, there's something uniquely satisfying about acquiring a figure of a character from a 40+ year old show you only have memories of as a kid and never really expecting to have a modern toy/action figure of .

Update So all the variants are finished, I think.

Not really sure what the decal sheet consist off! Seems to also be multi scale! But I do know, that we now have spring, so enjoy life even if the world is falling apart! 😉

One of the fun things about these package arts is the added detail that wasn’t in the line art or anime. I think there was some added detail in the backpack that also didn’t exist until package art showed up. I can’t remember if it was the three thrusters or the vent on the other side Yeah, I couldn’t find anything with the thrusters, or the venting, but I’m ok with the venting that’s on the Plamax, it makes it different from the movie, but not just a boring panel

Nice family photo lol

Pose+ is now scheduled to release in June.

It's upgrading the Nemesis Prime repaint of Age of the Primes Animated Optimus Prime. It's basically DNA deciding to repaint a kit they were already doing for the regular version. Apparently there were plans to turn the Jetwing upgrade we saw in Season 3 (and that DNA already did, and I already bought, because that kit was fire) into a more permanent upgrade based on God Ginrai. I'll go on record as saying that, while I don't hate the idea, as noted I already bought the upgrade to give him the Season 3 Jetwing gear. I don't see myself replacing that with a different kit for an upgrade that never happened in a season that never happened. If I'd kept the Nemesis version I might have, just to differentiate, but I sold my Nemesis version to @Scyla.

It is the Animated Nemesis Prime that was released in the most recent five pack. It is a repaint (and slight remold having a faceplated head) of the Legacy United Animated Universe Optimus Prime (what a mouthful).

I had it POed, but canxed it after watching PvP's in-hand review. I was already set to pass on it and only POed it out of FOMO, the fear part being that this may be the last G1 Astrotrain we get for a long time as Hasbro moves on to other corners of the TF Universe to mine toy ideas. The G1 Astrotrain toy is the only official version I own. I passed on all the rest b/c none came close to what I wanted in a modern toy. I have the Fans Toys version, which is, IMHO, the best version of him out there in any scale, just a remarkable figure. Second place goes to Mech Fans Toys' Iron Sky, which at legends scale, also did a remarkable job of capturing and modernizing the OG toy with some toon likeness thrown in, a really good amalgamation of the two that's satisfying and good-looking in all three modes, a difficult task for triple changers. That this toy exists and did it so well (I own a KO of it) and could have served as an excellent blueprint for Takara to design from without fear of legal retribution, it's a shame they created this thing instead, which just sings of egregious compromise. TBF, though, SS86 Astrotrain's train mode looks alright, damn the other two modes. I tend to think along the lines of many other fans in that they should have just done an extensive retool on the Siege figure to address the shortcomings of its terrible train and shuttle modes. Siege Astrotrain's bot mode already looked great, and significant improvements to the alts would have been an upgrade worthy of purchase, IMHO. Anyway, I figure my cancellation is $60 saved with the hopes and many crossed digits that some third party will eventually release a CHUGL scaled figure that's a vast improvement over the lackluster SS86 figure. Sorry, no amount of red paint on the abdomen is going to fix what ails this figure- it's just proportionally wrong with the leg kibble poorly engineered and unappealingly obvious on the legs. The chest, even properly transformed, doesn't look good or correct to either his toy or toon likenesses, the arms are too thin and he appears lanky rather than stocky. The Siege toy cuts a far more fitting look in bot mode; it's a shame that his alts fell so short with too many compromises.

What figure is this upgrading, and what character does it represent?

from Cross (valkyrie hangar): https://twitter.com/cross_W42S/status/2034793119712256239 web-translated: https://twitter.com/cross_W42S/status/2034803586513990102 web-translated:

I would say leave it the color and of the leg armor and not as a blacked out panel. And to finally put this to rest, I looked into the Designer’s Notes. These are all the rough sketches from SK. Nowhere is there any visible thought of any kind of thrusters within that space. Wild.

After all the research you guys have brought to light, the above image looks even more not right. One wonders if it's better to 'fix' that detail with a sheet of black painted polystyrene to cover over that vent-like texture, or do some "minor surgery" and add a single rocket nozzle in there?

My bad I should have caught my error. I pulled the image from the Macross Mecha Manual. I’m slipping. There is always a new gem of detail to be found. Nice. This should be the proper reference image. But while I was looking for my reference books I found something odd in the Package Art Collection book. Somewhere along the lines a reference to a single thruster is made. Not sure where the reference came from but now I have to do more digging. The same reference appears on the back of Perfect Memory. Even the stickers on TT Super Valkyries have the three thruster on the legs. I’m going to have to go back to the anime and look for screen grabs to find if these thrusters ever showed up in the anime. And even more so, somewhere in the art books. Macross is the hobby that keeps on giving.

from gorilla's tweet: https://twitter.com/MTM_025_8_S04/status/2034823697744502929 web-translated: add/edit: box-contents and stuff at Valkryrie Hangar https://valkyrie-hanger.sakura.ne.jp/blog/detail/282 rescaled web-translated:

I've quickly severely overexposed this shot from the BD. but you can kind of already make out the round thrusters on the side-vents (try to open the png in a new tab for full-res): The actual cell for this might possibly have alot more clearer details than shown in the rather "darkened" anime production...

Sadly, several of this season's shows that I was really hoping would be good turned out to be pretty mediocre... but there've been a few standouts to compensate for it. Just finished The Champignon Witch, which starts out as a fairly cutesy and insubstantial little fantasy series about a witch who lives in the woods whose powers cause her to leave a trail of mushrooms wherever she goes. That superficially cutesy start hid a LOT of depth and by the end the series was a rather bittersweet tragic romance. Ironically, the third season of the Initial D sequel/spinoff MF Ghost is proving to be a lot slower than I'd hoped. There's a lot of emphasis on the relationship between Kanata and Ren (and Aiba's jealousy of it) and they're really dragging the races out into five and six episode affairs now. It makes the third season feel a bit padded, especially since Ren and Kanata's relationship is a pretty threadbare affair and adding his ex-girlfriend into the mix doesn't really do anything to further it. Jujutsu Kaisen season three has a very particular vibe to it. Specifically, that Jujutsu Kaisen mangaka Gege Akutami decided what he needed to liven up his series that was feeling too derivative of Bleach was to copy Jojo's Bizarre Adventure instead. So every new character introduced in the "Culling Game" arc that this season centers on eschews the more generic-feeling, obviously combat-focused supernatural powers like "cut", "punch REALLY hard", or "summon shikigami" in favor the kind of bizarre, highly situational powers you'd expect to find in Diamond is Unbreakable. The problem is Gege Akutami is no Hirohiko Araki, so these bizarre powers aren't really all that interesting... they're just an excuse to pad volumes or episodes to the max with "how my power works" exposition. So far all we've really seen is "man with helicopter hair", "woman with jet engine hair", "unfunny amateur comedian who can make his punchlines literal", and "man who summons stuff from receipts". It's a painfully weak story that relies on what's now called "aura farming" to build hype without substance. A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation is... so unremarkable it has left no real impression at all. You and I are Polar Opposites is a generic, but serviceable romcom that also doesn't really make much of an impression. The Casebook of Arne is, to the bitter end an example of how NOT to do a detective story. None of the cases are ever really solved with deduction and none of them really follow any kind of logic, per se. The cast mainly just blunders around until the supernatural monster of the week outs itself and gets one-shotted by the vampire king detective guy. Hana-kimi is this weird time capsule of a series. This manga ended serialization more than twenty years ago and the story really shows its age. It's not BAD, but it feels weird to watch it because of how dated it feels despite having totally modern production. Kunon the Sorcerer Can See is... dreadful. That's the only word I have for it. There's no sense of direction to the proceedings, and it's stuck in a loop of doing the most blatant kind of character shilling where everyone is constantly falling over each other to tell the protagonist what an amazing genius wunderkind he is. The Invisible Man and His Soon-To-Be Wife remained cute but insubstantial until almost the very end. Only right at the end does it actually start to explore the characters themselves in any depth, particularly how a human subspecies of invisible men function within normal society. The most recent episode has an actually-pretty-interesting extended digression on the subject of one of Akira's childhood friends from the town of invisible men who moved to Italy to try and become a fashion model, how he struggled because to people who were concerned only with appearance any/every invisible man is the same, and how he made himself visible and defined himself as a person through art. The Daily Life of a Part-Time Torturer is a series that continues to make me ask "Why does this exist?". It's not bad. Indeed, if I had to describe it in a word it would be "bland". It's an utterly generic workplace slice-of-life series where the workplace just happens to be a private firm specializing in torture. It's treated as casually as you would treat any kind of blue-collar manual labor job. Wash It All Away is sentiment without substance. It's one of those stories that doesn't really go anywhere or do anything, it's just sort of there to put its protagonist adjacent to the incidental daily goings-on of other people so she can dispense the occasional bit of pseudo-profound philosophizing and move on. The Holy Grail of Eris has me a bit torn. It was interesting at the start, the idea of a shrinking violet getting possessed (willingly) by a vengeful ghost looking to identify the people who framed her and arranged her execution, but its story kind of meanders a lot and I gather the light novel it's based on is painfully short so it frequently feels like the story rushes to get from Point A to Point B. (It's also the kind of mystery story that would be over VERY quickly if the police weren't completely incompetent.) Isekai Office Worker: the Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter is definitely not what I expected going into it. Instead of the slice of life that was advertised, it's a Boys Love romance series and it's actually not bad. It's actually a little light on the actual romance, truth be told. It mostly involves itself with the protagonist bringing his profoundly unhealthy Japanese work ethic to a western fantasy world and having everyone around him take shots at how toxic Japan's corporate culture is while he tirelessly works to correct the country's finances and root out corruption. A Misanthrope Teaches a Class for Demi-Humans is an eminently skippable copycat series. The Villainess is Adored by the Prince of the Neighboring Kingdom is a pretty formulaic otome series played laser straight. Tamon's B-Side remained a frank examination of the toxicity of the idol industry wrapped in a romcom to the very end. I enjoyed it, though I suspect many might not. Still working on Roll Over and Die and Tune in to the Midnight Heart.