David Hingtgen

I never figured out why the head is "double layered/folded"--no others do it, it's totally contradictory to the lineart, and it doesn't seem to improve anything. My only guess is "artistic style to alter the length of the forward fuselage". The most obvious clue its there in fighter mode is the extreme distance between the canopy and the large yellow blade antenna.

No, but it's the best YF-21 ever by a factor of ten and is what we all want Yamato to copy, as it's far better than anything else and frankly IMHO better than Yamato could do themselves. I wonder what a D'Stance YF-19 would have been like... If they do a YF-21 like that, and make a revised VF-11 with tailfins that actually *fold the right way*, we'd have *good* versions of all M+ valks finally. *the reason the Yamato VF-11's tailfins are so small are because Yamato got the folding backwards and at the wrong place---Kawamori drew them going the other way and pivoting at the other end---you can get WAY bigger fins to fit in the legs if you actually do it how he designed it. The fins are actually shaped to fit inside the leg quite nicely---if you fold them the right way. As Yamato did it, they had to make them like 1/3 as big as they shold be, as they effectively ended up "upside down" inside the leg compared to Kawamori's design, so they didn't fit at all without being severely shrunken.

We need lots of pics, especially the shoulder/arm transformation. That's the #1 place where it blows away all other YF-21's.

Shoulders! THAT is what I need to know about. The D'Stance clearly attempts to follow Kawamori's drawing for the shoulder/wingroot LE area---and is the only one to come close. Namely the "ball" of the shoulder in battroid, and how it rotates away inside the fuselage in fighter mode. As for plans for it---I'd recommend sending it to Graham, so he can send it to Yamato, and eventually we could ALL own one, in a way.

If your webcache gets full from sheer number of picture files (not space limits) it'll start forcing you to save everything as a BMP. You may have a 5-gig webcache, but they tend to get "full" long before that due to sheer number of small pic files---there's so many 1K and 2K thumbnails and buttons, that once you hit X number of *files* of the same type, it'll stop allowing any more.

Or super-glued together for the show...

I'm on dialup, and I make sure every pic is as few KB as possible. (for my own sanity to upload them) What's not a JPG?

800x1000 of Gerwalk goodness:

Here's the VF-0 that was at Chara Hobby---note the price is 17,640Y. Which is slightly higher than Roy's at 16,800Y. Still, I don't think that's enough to add in a Ghost and the new weapons, even if they remove the leg armor and original missiles.

Checking around, while it has the number of a Cannon Fodder (321) it has the colors of what Hasegawa says Shin's (311) should be. I don't agree with those being Shin's colors, but they sure look a lot better than what Kawamori says. As they should--they're exactly your standard F-15/F-18 scheme. They are de facto "fighter plane greys". Either way, it's got the colors I want---and REALLY hope Yamato goes with *exactly* those colors. Any change would throw off the low-vis look IMHO.

Could always be mis-transformation. 90% of all YF-19 photos I see of the original Yamato had the chest wrong--it was quite possible to achieve a level nosecone, and no gap above it. Yet all the "official" photos either have a huge gap, or the nosecone angled up to close the gap. I wouldn't be surprised if the new one on display also has the chest too high (sure looks like it) and they forgot to put the shoulder flaps down. Anyone who's followed the MP Starscream knows it took them about 3 photo shoots to realize that the intakes have hinges for a reason. (and they still get the pelvis wrong half the time)

Yeah, it seems strange that just about every other transforming -19 ever (even the bad ones) has had the little flaps that fold down from the outer edge of the shoulder, but the Yamatos don't.

That's 1000x better than what Yamato's pics have been showing us so far. It's two-tone grey, but the two shades are very close--just like your standard USAF/USN Compass Ghost scheme. You can barely tell the nosecone and flaps don't match the rest of the plane---that's the effect you want. That's the most low-vis of any valk Yamato's ever done. I was so NOT going to buy this based on the pics we had earlier, but will so buy this if that's the actual colors they use. I'm wondering if there'll be two releases---the high contrast "what Kawamori says" version without Ghost, and this version, with Ghost.

Found another YF-19 battroid pic, and a good Ghost pic.

Be nice to the mods, we go out pic-hunting at websites we can't read the language of for you:

And it's even worse if you know anything about ships, too...

I'd buy them. IMHO the best improvement of the 48 over the 60 is the backpack--how it fits in fighter mode. If the 60 had the 48th's slimmer, lower backpack (fitting between the legs, not hovering over them with a big gap under it) it'd look so much better. How to sell them? Price! When they're half as much (or less) you can buy a lot more. I'd have my first Max VF-1J. (I only ever have enough money for Milia and Roy--Max is third).

While Graham's apparently perusing the thread: Does it incorporate a variation of the Retppu's "gullet" transformation for the chest undersides, or the Hasegawa's "neck" transformation to shorten the nose by moving the cockpit up and aft? Still trying to figure out all the panel lines/joints, and that's the best I can come up with so far. (Though the presence of a Tab B-like structure doesn't fit with Hasegawa-style torso formation) Basically---does the torso transform like the old one, or did they really change it? And any comments on the VF-0 with Ghost shown at Wonderfest, seems awfully grey compared to the VF-0A low-vis pics so far:

My first thought for SS was "Waspinator". Heck, Waspinator as an F-22 would be cool. If the movie needs comic relief, that'd be my choice.

Tiny pic, can't quite tell--is this a Yamato VF-0 with Ghost?

Forgot to mention: It's also clear the inner wall of the legs folds down near the calves, for the bicep/elbow to go into. Not quite SHE, but for a single-piece and single-hinge design, it gets 90% of the effect.

The canards certainly move, as it's part of the transformation.

Heavy and constant bitching about the movie/designs/fandom is fine, but I have very little tolerance for personal attacks. Watch it.

::puts new pics on front page:: I am SO going to do a detailed CAD vs final product comparison when I get mine---unless Graham does it first. As for the neck cover--I meant it seems so much smaller and recessed--the original really "covered" the neck and made the whole area flush with the rest of the plane. The new version is just a "covers the mechanism" bit, not really blending it in. Doesn't seem as good as the original one was. Though I think it's more important the head actually lays DOWN in the new one--the old one had it raised like 35 degrees, really made it obvious. That's a big improvement. PS--ha! Looks like Tab B is back--look right behind the head of this pic: http://ga.sbcr.jp/g-toys/c3-2006/02/11.html And based on this: http://ga.sbcr.jp/g-toys/c3-2006/02/04.html it looks like the trailing edge of the wingroot slots into the legs. And from this: http://ga.sbcr.jp/g-toys/c3-2006/02/10.html it's pretty clear we have a "line-art accurate" codpiece transformation. I'm still wondering about the "Z-cut" behind and below the canards--wondered about that since the CAD, still no clue why/how.

http://fantofan.jp/news/event/charahobby2006/rSANY0035.jpg is the best of the new pics---that's the one I was referencing last night for the wing transformation. SS looks a lot more kibbly than I thought---he's got a LOT hanging off his back at all angles.