Greyryder

*hides his Banprestos from Graham*

I think the batmobile was the only thing I liked about the Tim Burton Batman.  Except for that nub infront of the jet intake, it was very cool.  The Schumaker one just blew chunks!

I liked the 1st 2 Batman movies. What ya find wrong with them?

Ahh...I will eternally love the Batwing and Batmobile scenes.

On a slightly off topic note, who has seen Batman: Dead End ? Its a million dollar budget fan made Batman movie which is about 10 minutes long. Very cool! They included Predator and Aliens in it....all done by fans.

Dead End was discussed in another thread about this movie. Still the best live action Batman I've seen. He looks like he could actually beat criminals up.

I liked the first Batman movie, but I find it questionable that the Batwing could have been brought down by a revolover. (I don't care how long the barrel was) The second one was lacking something. Not sure what, I just wasn't that impressed with it.

The ones after that were just horrible. They tried to give it some kind of fantastical comic book look, that comic books don't have. Might have worked for a Flash Gordon movie, but certainly not for Batman.

How can I tighten up the shoulders on my Banprestos, by the way?

The main thing I did was to put a little bit of kneedable eraser into the ball sockets. I got the idea when someone here mentioned using blue tack. Anything similar to silly putty should work. The balls themselves tend to be too uneven to just coat with nail polish or paint. This does nothing about the arms falling off, though.

I've got a little more in depth fix for that. Basically I shave part of the shoulder block off, and glue on a piece of plastic with a hole and slot that are just big enough for the end of the ball joint to stick out through, then carefully pop the shoulder ball back in from the back. It helps to shave the shaft the ball sits on to be more round at the end, instead of square.

I'm hoping to get some in progress pictures, and make some diagrams when I get around to fixing my CF Bany.

Sorry to derail this thread.

right now my only quest is to score a BPX-01 Yamato (Argo) from Bandai. Some sucker has one on eBay for $580, but that's a tad rich for my blood.

Hobby shop I go to in Colombus (Oh) sometimes, has one of those (in box) in a display cabinet. I think the price tag on it is either 400 or 500 dollars.

There a few different types of 3D printers. Some use a combination of powder and adhesive (plaster or plastic) and some use a laser to solidify liquid plastic. I believe there are one or two other setups, as well. It's sort of like the different types of regular printers. (laser, ink jet, dot matrix, etc...)

A while back I ran across a page that listed the different types of 3D printers, and the strenghts and weaknesses of each. I never saved the link, though.

Say, aren't those VF-1 valks from banpresto?

Yup. I've got a couple of sitting here, myself. Surprisingly posable, once the arms are tightened up.

The VF-1 Valkyrie is the epitomy of cool. That's what draws me to Macross.

I'm looking for a good place to get various joints for custom toys. I know HLJ has a pretty good supply of them, but the shipping gets expensive. I need ones that would be good for mecha in the 7 to 10 inch tall range.

I will be insanely dissapointed if we don't get Sunstreaker. He's one of my favourites.

Pessimistic news....

I got this off TFW2005, and they got it from Transformers.com Q&A

Q: Recently, you mentioned that there were no plans to re-release G1 SUNSTREAKER. Does this mean that the commemorative series will be cut off at some point without completely re-releasing figures such as WHEELJACK, TRAILBREAKER, SUNSTREAKER, and the rest of the well-known G1 TRANSFORMERS?

A: The re-release of the Generation One figures is dependent on the availability of the tools/molds used during original manufacturing. Since these toys are up to 20 years old, not all of the molds have been located or exist anymore.

It's too bad too, I was really looking forward to re-issues of Hound, and Mirage. Hopefully they find them.

That sucks. Hopefully We'll still get Sunstreaker as an Alternator.

VF-1J. Love the head on it. The S is okay, but the J is far cooler. (meanwhile the A always looked pin headed to me)

X-Plane website.

Interesting sims in that it actually calculates the flight dynamics, instaed of using a preset data file. I've got an older version of it.

My favorites are On Through the Night from Outlaw Star, and Real Folk Blues from Cowboy Bebop. (quite possibly the only good thing from that show)

Am I the only one who likes Energon?

They're nice and chunky, like old school toys. They have nice, humanesque proportions in robot mode. They're very articulated. And they look mechanical, unlike those organic, insectoid-looking Armada TF's.

I like Landmine. (think that's his name) He has a nice Mad Max feel to his vehicle mode, and his robot mode doesn't look too bad.

Most of the newer TF lines have totaly missed what I always liked about the originals. I liked most of the early G1 transformers becasue their vehicle modes looked good. (just don't look at the bottom of the Decepticon jets) Later on in G1 they started getting those ugly visible hinges, and the plastic wheels they put on them weren't too pretty either. There haven't been too many TF lines since that had good looking vehicles. Unless you were familiar with the toy line, the early TFs were easily mistaken as being just toy cars. Thats what I like about the Alternators. You can have it sitting on your desk in car form, and unless they look really close, people will think it's a regular display piece, like a model, or die cast car.

There's been one newer series of TFs that I've seen that had decent vehicle modes. Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the line. (I've seen a Viper and a Diablo from it, and I belive that Prime was a fire truck) All the others I've seen have the same problem that the late G1s had. They don't go to too much trouble to conceal the fact that it's really a toy robot, or the vehicle is some flight of fancy, instead of trying to emulate something in real life, and they look pretty clunky in both forms. I'm not any more fond of the later G1s (G1 1/2?) than I am of the newer iterations that have come out.

The Beast Wars and Beat Machines lines never held any interest for me, so I have no idea how well made they are. I just don't care about Transformers that turn into animals. (with the exception of a few I've seen that turn into stylized robotic animals)

Galaxy Rangers was cool. Was the first time I'd seen 3D computer animation in a cartoon. Still like the way they did it. Just the stuff on the computer screens was CGed.

Cartoon with the split moon was called Thundarr the Barbarian. It was one of my favorites. No kid in it, though. It had a guy, a chick, and a thing that looked like a cross between a wookie and a cat, with hooves.

Anybody remember Pirates of Dark Water?

I always thought the Go Bots were pretty neat, becasue they were about the same scale as all those Matchbox and Hotwheels cars I had, without having the chibi like proportions most of the mini Autobots had. I still always thought the Transformers were cooler, though.

Now, what's up with Megatron having a minicon named Leader One?

I think they use duct tape.

On a related note. Back in 1985 I punched one of my classmates for saying that GoBots was better than Transformers.

That's different. That guy had it coming.

It still needs a little detail work, here and there. And I haven't made up decals yet. I haven't painted over the insignia on the FAST packs yet, either.

Here's some pictures of it in gerwalk mode:

The pictures are a little lighter than hte actual paint, or maybe it's just my monitor settings. The first one is without flash, and the colors just came out funky. The second one shows the nose modifications, and the area around the head that I built up.

I was only planning on getting the ones that I had the G1 versions of when I was a kid. I may have to get Dead End. He looks sweet.

I'll still have to get Sunstreak, to keep Dead End in line. Smokescreen is otherwise occupied.

Gundam is the "Star Wars" of Japan, much like the energizer bunny it keeps going and going and going and going.

No, Gundam is the "Star Trek" of Japan. There's a huge difference because Star Wars sucks and calling Gundam Star Wars of Japan is worse than insulting.

I can see Gundam being Star Trek. Always a new series coming out. Going off that analogy, that would make Macross Star Wars OT. (you know? A timeless classic.)

Would that make Macross7 the new trilogy?

Yellow Viper, not special ordered,,but not popular

http://www.pbase.com/image/651107

its pretty sad just how much better that yellow viper hardtop looks than the red convertable they used for Sideswipe. sideswipe looks more like a miata than a viper, oh well, a crappy toy for a crappy toy. i just picked up the alternator sideswipe a couple days ago and i'm extremely dissapointed, though i'm glad i didn't get the binaltech version.

Keep in mind that Sideswipe is one of the new uglified Vipers. The real ones don't look as nice as the olders one (like that hardtop) did.

The real problem with Sunstreak's color is that there is no production hardtop for hte new Vipers. He'll most likely be made to look like the real Competition coupe, and I think that Chrysler has only made them in red so far. Not sure if they've even built more than just the one, yet.

That blue comemerative scheme would be perfect for Tracks. Those stripes starting on the hood make a nice nod the flame graphic the original had, while not being nearly as garish.

is this sunstreaker official or it is some amazing fans kitbash?

Good question. I really don't like the idea of Suntreak being based off Sideswipe. The originals transformed completely differently.

only problem with your idea with the banepresto valks, is that the model companies do not make decals that small.

Well , I was thinking more in the lines of applying only the custom colour schemes , as you said , prestos are too small for decal work and since its only for guinea pig work it wuld be a waste of money and time to apply decals to banprestoes , considering you´re using them only to see wheter a colour scheme looks good or not on a valk.

thanks for your comment anyway

Actually, I've had good luck making small scale decals with Testor's decal kits on my ink jet printer. I've fot a fairly nice looking '70's era Firebird hood decal on a Zip Zaps 2002 Firebird. It looks pretty good.

I don't expect to have much trouble on the decals I'll be printing for the Banpresto that I'm repainting. As long as you don't try to make text that's much smaller than the standard "U.N.Spacy" leg markings, it should be fine.

You want a panel line pen. It's just a very fine tipped paint pen, made specificaly for picking out panel lines on models. A lot of the people here seem to use something called a "Gundam marker" or "Gundam pen." As I understand it, it' just a panel line pen sold with the Gundam branding on it, for people making Gundam models. Dark gray is a good choice. Black panel lines to jump out at you, and destroy the effect.

If you eant to try a bit more involved approach, you could try using pencil lead. You'd have to put some kind of clear coat over it, to keep it from rubbing off, but you'd be able to fairly easily streak it for a more distressed look.