David Hingtgen

Hmmn. Stacks still look like bare plastic, and most of it is just silver paint--only the grill looks to be actual chrome. Honestly I was hoping they'd chrome EVERYTHING, like the 07 one. Still, the most important thing IMHO--they painted the doors! The Hasbro one looks so cheap there, with the door being 80% clear with a blue strip at the bottom. PS---look how dynamically-posed, and properly-transformed Takara's displays are: http://robot.watch.impress.co.jp/img/rbw/d...2/takara_26.jpg

Gah---I have Season 1-3 on DVD, never bought 4.0, now 4.5's coming on Blu-Ray. Don't really want to plunk down 200+ for the whole set on Blu-Ray, but it'd almost seem pointless to pay half that much just for season 4...

Complete series on Blu-Ray: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?id=5280 Season 4.5: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/movies.php?id=5309

I like Tamiya too generally, and their silver is the best spray-paint ever, but my last gloss black spray-can session with Tamiya didn't go very well. (though I was going for a super-gloss finish then and probably sprayed too heavily)

Just the plane. Instructions and blueprints are nice, but not necessary. Nearly every complete or nearly so one comes with a Strato-Viper, but I actually don't need/want one. Though actually I'm wondering if I should buy an X-19 instead. No matter how much I may have liked a toy, I almost never think a "re-bought" toy from childhood is as good as I remember. The X-19 would be something actually new and different to me. And I think 25th figs fit the X-19 well without cutting. Of course, that's all countered by the original Night Raven simply being THE coolest Joe toy ever. Not just good, but the best. IMHO.

Any suggestions for a black spray-paint that's hard to screw up? I'd like it fairly glossy (but not TOO glossy), but almost anything that's not dead-flat will do. (glossy is evil IMHO, the glossier it is the harder it is to go on smooth without runs). I've considered everything from Tamiya to Krylon fusion, but I can't really do a test run as it's not like I have any spare nosecones or tailfins to experiment on, and every surface is different. And I'd really rather not screw up a $100 jet.

I'd rather have a VF-0D or VF-4, but a VF-5000 will be ok.

BeyondTheGrave--I can't tell if you're being serious or not. I think it should be obvious what scene I'm referring to. And "that one scene" in DYRL, too.

Re: "stuff can go as far the series itself goes". I'm going to say Sheryl and Ranka at the end of the last ep is beyond what we'd allow. That's NSFW.

Ahh, Armored CC, thanks. I don't think I would have ever even remembered to check that one.

This may fix a drooping wing: With my -21, one of the wings didn't "droop over time" so much as "would never go all the way up in the first place". It'd hold in place--it just wouldn't go up as high as the other wing to start with. Loosening the screw that holds its hinge just a bit completely fixed it. Super-easy to do---just open the gear bay door---there's the screw! Yes, loosening the screw to fix a "floppy" part seems counter-intuitive, but that's how it works--a too-tight screw actually puts tension on the hinge, making it pull the wing down. If you can't get to the screw with your screwdriver (it's RIGHT by the edge of the door, and it may be hard to access without bending something) it's still easy to do: Remove the clear lens on the wing leading edge (mine weren't glued)--just pull it off to the front. Remove the two screws in front of and behind the gear bay door. Pop off that part of the wing. Then the whole bay and hinge area is opened up.

Yes, RiD Magnus. He lacks ankle articulation, but he has knees and hips. His thighs are just very short. But for a transformation-complexity-junkie and vehicle-mode-accuracy-junkie like me, there's few better. His transformation is complex but never frustrating---he's what Alternators wished they were--a long sequence with many joints, but none are tiny little 3-mm-wide triple-z-fold joints that are so stiff you think they'll break and seem to serve no purpose other than preventing the hood from fitting... Plus he has *awesome* colors. The JP version *is* better. US and JP RiD Prime/Convoy are pretty similar, but UM is noticeably different between releases. US Magnus has the Autobot logos on the side of the carrier (which I wish the JP had), but the JP simply has much better colors---all the colors are PEARL metallic. Not simply the "normal" metallic plastic you see in TFs. I noticed the difference in colors instantly when I saw them on US shelves.

I haven't had any issues for weeks and weeks, but just did for the past hour. Totally inaccessible.

Combining with Prime has compromised many a good figure. RiD Ultra Magnus is still one of the all-time best TFs IMHO. Even being hampered as he is. Just imagine how awesome he could have been alone.

Thanks much for the info Myk. Man, prices from early July through now are all over the place for Night Ravens, I can't tell what the going price is. (I don't want to pay too much, but I will pay a bit extra for proof of perfectly working gear and 100% complete ones---I know from experience that completing something that's nearly complete is always a lot more expensive than you think it'll be) Here's another thing I've noticed "researching" the Night Raven---the prototypes seemed to have a cooler bomb bay. Check out the original commercial: The bomb bay has hinged doors that open automatically when the rack is lowered. The production versions just have fixed doors mounted to the bottom of the rack. I've always found it ironic that the bomb bay has missiles, and the missile pods have bombs, and that its weaponry is entirely air-to-ground. Are there any missiles from other Joe vehicles that fit the Night Raven? I'd love to actually arm it for self-defense.

Actually I plan to remove that that chunk of kibble (and the "belt") as those bits are only needed to combine with Prime--which I never plan to do. My Jetfire is to be Jetfire, and not a parts pack for Optimus.

Hmmmn. Do you only need to cut for the feet, or elsewhere too? (darn it, and I'd almost convinced myself not to get a vintage Raven) What about the drone? Aother question about Night Ravens----a concern about the main gear doors---from pics, it appears that the "correct" position is for them to be open about 45 degrees when the gear is down. A lot of ones on Ebay don't (they seem to be fully closed, or that they "flop down" instead of holding in place)---is that usually because of a broken piece, a mis-alignment, or the gear is just being "fiddly"? Perfectly working gear is a big thing to me. If it's broken piece that causes that, is it part of the internal mechanism (hard to fix I imagine), or the gear door itself (easy to replace)? OT question--can someone identify the arms used in the quasi-official 25th Techno-Viper? (and if the chest equipment is hacked-up Para-Viper stuff or something else) I've thought about making a custom, and have been looking at the various other ones already done. Though the helmet is an issue---don't want to use an original one, and I frankly don't like the modern interpretation from BrokenArrow.

Found this: http://www.hisstank.com/forum/65662-post36.html Seems the Night Raven is pretty incompatible with 25th figures, and there's no real way to mod it to work.

I'd just wait for the sequel at this point.

I don't have a PSP...

*Very* close to 1/72.

I posted this when I got it:

Have it list by year, that's the best way IMHO. You should know approximately when it's from.

Actually, it has a huge YF-23 vibe.

One thing about the new Night Raven does impress me--the cockpit. It looks like it actually works. I don't think it'd be possible to change the original to match though, it'd have to be designed from scratch to incorporate it. I'd also like to see the gear doors sequence better---half the time they're out of position and you have to fiddle around with them so they don't get caught up. PS, slightly OT. My Target Rattler has developed "gear collapse", but not quite. Basically, the right gear likes to fold in 10-15 degrees. The "bumps" stop the gear from collapsing further, but it is annoying since the left one is rock-solid vertical at all times, with no play at all. Large amounts of clear polish have done nothing. It'd help if I could figure out why the left one holds "fully extended", while the right one simply "gets past the bumps then flops around, never locking into the full extend position". ::edit:: I think I'll try clear polish in some other areas, maybe it's raw tension/friction, and not actually a physical lock/block that holds it in place.