dialNforNinja

March - it's in the works, but I needed to get some sleep and my fingers were sore. As for the heel, all the official art we do have gets very vague around the feet, but given the design of all the Varauta versions I used the dual heel. Making a varient image with UNS solid heels wouldn't be too hard, though. I'll pop a couple out while I'm doing the others. I actually favor that interpretation too now that I've (literally!) slept on it.

A late thought is that if you mount a thin fin like the YF-21's head spike on the little nubbin at the back of the cockpit/backs section, this unit would exactly match the unidentified plane from Macross Plus. It wouldn't exactly be a major modification... it could even have been done by the General Galaxy team to test whatever that spike is for, an antenna for the active stealth maybe? Or the traditional laser, and the 14 rig was to test the antimissile capability or something. Engineers are cautious, in a bird as packed with cutting edge and beyond systems as the 21 they'd want to test them individually before integrating them into the full up platform, and that one at a time.

Despite years of watching, the Valkyrie spotter community has only ever caught glimpses of this rare bird, in the form of fuzzy fighter and battroid shots, and a few seconds of disputed video footage. But now, the M7 PLUS varient of the VF-14 stands clearly revealed for all! Gerwalk: Battroid (rear): Surely new, clean replacements of the old fuzz-balls can't be far behind! UNaltered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT INFORMATION is ENCOURAGED! (Battroid redrawn from the partial sketches in Macross Design Works, with reference to a couple of screen grabs from Spiritia Dreaming. Obviously, there's some interpretation there as well, but most of the details are from Kawamori drawings and/or animation. The Gerwalk is more my own invention, layered onto the basic airframe at least. Since the wings sweep far more sharply than the FZ-109, they have to swing forward as well as retracting the aft root panel to make room for the arms. Details are again mostly adapted from canon images of the early VF-14 or the FZ-109. And yes, I do mean to do the same treatment for the existing battroid front and fighter mode shots, just not right now.) And yes, the usenet homage line means you can post these about on web sites etc. as long as you leave the attribution or if scaled particularly small replace it with an equivalent that is readable. If you want to color them, just add another line to say who done it while leaving mine alone, and that's cool too. - dNN

I like the way the A's shoulder flaps and F's lasers are the same size as the shoulders, like in F, but everything else incluging the actual shape of those parts is better on the original design. Indeed, the way the knees are on the new legs they're too small to possibly have a connection between the hip intakes and the actual engines. Of course, the F seems to have replaced its engines with missile racks anyway, so perhaps the same magical anime force that propels it handles such paltry details as well...

I have that little biplane guy - being a bipe was cool enough to overcome the Bayformer-gobots aesthetic of the robot mode like with the corvette "Sideswipe" and orange FSW Terradive, though I think those are the only three movieverse style TFs I own... no, there was the movie 1 tow truck, but that was in the house that burned down. Thank the Matrix for the TF Classics and Universe line, or there wouldn't have been any I wanted up until the War for Cybertron and Prime toys came out. I dearly wish I could get the forthcoming Yamato VF-4, but it's about an order of magnitude outside my budget.

The nose seems a bit squared off, the hip connectors/nose sensors look a little oversized (could just be a lack of reference material under my eye to compare, though) and those mini fins (aerodynamicized antennae?) on either side of the lower cockpit area might get caught by the legs when it transforms, but it's a nice sculpt and color scheme. Does the model transform, or is it mode F only?

As you can see from the images on Sketchley's page, the M7 version was basically just a trim variation of the 109A - though no one ever seems to reproduce the two partaial back views from SK's MDW on the VF-14 pages. I've caught a couple of good screen grabs from the animation, too, but haven't gotten around to redrawing it yet, like I did for the AZ-130 gerwalk and the FZ-109 Kai over in Fan Works. It is on the docket, though, just give me some time.

It's pretty much down to ten candidates - Weapons - Khatar, Naue II, Partizan, Xyphos Birds - Kingfisher, Kestrel, Shrike Misc - Splinter, Diamondback, Mongoose Call it round two perhaps, but if people could indicate their favorite among these, or even rate the list by order of preference, that would really help my indeciscive space hamster brain.

I was never that impressed with the VF-11 until I got the Yamato version. Somehow it was much more interesting in person... then the hip joint broke, and I went right back to being unimpressed. It makes a good ground unit with the heavy armor with the inner mecha as a fast, nimble escape pod, but sortieing in one clean or with just super packs against any major threat means you're about to be caught dead in a redshirt unit. Granted my own picks of FZ-109A or AZ-130 aren't that much better...

that we see and isn't possessing someone who could know like Gepernitch, and didn't show technical aptitude like mecha-otaku Gavil (why else would he use one, when he can and does easily survive and deal massive attacks after having it blown apart around him?) so there's no reason to think she knows how to use an instrument she's only seen used a few times.

No need to recolor Gavil's Zaubergeran, just build the new one with a double or triple "Spiritia spike" mount (Whatever those do...) in place of the yellow wing root missile launchers, and speakers in the lower chest ones. The twelve tubes over the shoulders can stay, just load them with smoke canisters, and put speaker pod cannons in the forearms in place of the beam guns. Give him a Mighty Wurlitzer style keyboard array in the cockpit and go. Sivil might be LEARNING the bass, but she only sings/screams

I don't think it was ever actually given a name, but all the other SES birds are called "Kai" and I had to use something. I'm still figuring out the lime green, three horned one shown to its left on both pages this one appears, that thing is badass. It's where I got the arms, hexagon shoulder plates, and barrier sword from for the original line art collage version Drachenjaeger.

One more post, to bring you Lord Gepernitch's (as possessing whatshername, in an outfit designed to look as masculine as he ever does) stage costume. Since his fully awakened form uses massive amounts of spiritia to stay active, he usually reamains as the possing entity seen for most of M7 - which (Protoculture researcher whose name I can't remember) is surprisingly okay with, now that he's accepted humans as equals rather than cattle. She's in constant contact with one of the few possible primary sources on the Protoculture, gets to write her scholarly papers about it during downtime, and indulges the secret ambition from her college days to be a rock star the rest of the time. It's a win-win-win-OH-GOD-YES-WIN situation for her, and I don't ask what the last "win" is about because it's between her and Lord Gepernitch and I have a feeling it would be bad for my mental health. This ... person... just screams "heavy metal" doesn't (s)he? Though Sivil handles the screaming in their act for the most part. Gavil writes the music, he's smitten with the infinite, eternal beauty of composition. Glavil still pretty much just follows the others' lead and hits stuff, and that's why he's the drummer.

Indeed. Glavil does not spontaneously combust, but mysteriously enough any drummer they try to replace him with so they can play indoor venues does. Having him tapping his feet in time provides the 'seismic beat' Spiritia Paradise is so famous for anyway... and he inexplicably gets more groupies than the rest of the band combined, some full-blooded human who get themselves macronized just to be closer in scale... As for colors, do remember that Gepernitch is a giant starfish and his medium is a woman. A bit of confusion over this hwole "gender roles" thing humans make such a fetish over is therefore understandable... I figured purples/roses were his favorite anyway, given all the canon Varauta mecha paints. I think I want to make a couple changes (wing LE rose, connecting fusilage sripes white, yellow streaks at rear white) and fix a couple oopsies (visible feet should be rose, triangle at bottom near lower leg supposed to be rose too) on the colorized fighter though. ETA: And now I've done so, and created a couple variations as well: The darker colors version I mentioned before, and since that's close enough to Miria's, a Max Colors version! Good ol' Maxed-Out Max, he flies EVEYTHING! - dNN

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Wow, nothin'? Maybe I should have 'interpreted' the color scheme a little more, to a nice deep wine-crimson instead of a sample of the watercolor dusty rose, but I figured it matched the canon Varauta mecha well enough.

When Gepernitch, Gavil, Glavil, and Sivil accepted music as the path to spiritia paradise rather than farming humans like cattle, they flew off into the glaaxy and vanished with a twinkle... but what next? They formed a rock and roll band of course. Here's Gepernitch's FZ-109 Kai SES valkyrie. You've even seen it before, if you've looked through Shoji Kawamori's Macross Design Works, but it never had anything but a battroid mode... UNTIL NOW! Why does an SES unit have real weapons? Because the only thing more metal than a giant robot, is a giant robot with flamethrowers, obviously. The head tips back like the original VF-14 while the spike rotates forward, and the SES speaker "ears" rotate 90 degrees or so to the battroid position shown. The domes on the arms and legs are probably smoke nozzles, 'cause a big cloud of fog is classic metal stagecraft, too. B&W line art: SO GET READY TO ROCK AND ROLL, BECAUSE THIS IS SPIRITIA PARADISE! - dNN, cacking madly as he ducks and runs away (Yes, March, you can host this art too if you want it for your fanart section, and/or linked from the page with the official battroid image) (edit 9-12 to fix mysteriously vanishing line breaks and replace color fighter form with a fixed one)

Well, everything from the pose to the shadow is based on the 109 gerwalk image above, the only thing special about how I did it compared to, say, my Type 26 over in the Fan Works forum was this time I inked and erased the pencils, where that one needed some shoop to be in its current, inkable form. Thanks though, I studied technical drawing for several years so its nice to know it's not just me that thinks I picked up a bit of skill.

Might shoop it some later - this is almost a raw scan 'cuz time was short - to move the cockpit back by 1/3-1/2 the length of the hatch and diddle the knees some more, but I'm pretty satisfied.

Regardez! Mr. March, paramat, everyone, enjoy. I did put the shoulders facing outward, unlike what I guessed about the tiny little screen shot, because every other member of the design family, including the VF-14 and FZ-109F which have lasers there and don't have to mess with their airstream to aim them ahead if they kept the shoulders in F position, points them out to the sides. Eh, whatever. Scanned superdy-huge so you can scale it to fit whatever fell purpose you intend.

I was hoping for prototypes/development versions like the ACC 109s and 175, more than previously unseen gerwalk art. I'll do that myself. Also, apologies for mixing up your @nick, "Mr. Mooch" is a regular elseforum and it stuck in my head.

Pretty much everything that radically changes size by anime magic, then... XP Little mechanical details add visual appeal to the basic shapes, but blowing them up to cram on more gribblies is unnecessary in my lights...

Pretty much like that, though I hadn't considered it in that much detail. It makes me wonder if a Movie-colors Alto VF-25S could be kitbashed into that plane - I can take or leave the hip-wings style but the way YF-24 family battroids just dangle them off the back like the Macross II Metal Siren annoys me every time I see it, it's just awkward and bulky. If they wanted birdman references, they should have kept the SV-51 wings instead of going for VF-1 nostalgia. Stuck on my PSP I can't do .torrents, could someone post the the 130 relevant pages of the design book, if you have them at good rez?

That doesn't actually surprise me, the 130 is gribbly where Kawamori tended to keep things simple and clean, at least until the digital designs of Zero and F. Though, there's a lot of F history to be seen in MDW, from the long nosed Nightmare prototypes to the early VF-19 that's a mix of the 11, 19, and 25 when you look closely at the battroid. Especially if you look at the head, and that one hand-drawn VF-25 picture with his signature on it...

match any shown battroid, except maybe with a lot of stretching the lime green one with three horns on p24, though that's closer to the rough at the top left of p134, also like the ACC 109A. There's a small second angle of the 175 there as well as the b&w jet form... the color "175" might just be an intermediate step on the way to the 109 that was animated.