TheLoneWolf

I'm curious as to how Yamato would respond. It may be a bit more complex than we think since all their Valkyries have to go to Kawamori for approval. I wonder if Nishikawa's contract with Yamato allows Yamato to make significant changes to his sculpts (design flaws aside) without consulting him first. IIRC, Nishikawa is a major designer in Japan and I wouldn't be surprised if he has some say in the way his sculpts are changed. Finally, there's the matter of royalties...

The tiff is much larger, I had to scale it down due to the boards restrictions. And thanks for the well wishes.

Sorry about not getting back to you sooner MM, but there was a family emergency this weekend. Anyways here's a jpg of what I scanned. As usual, all the good images are somewhat close to the spine. If you can somehow work out the distortions in Photoshop I'll gladly send you the uncompressed tiffs (unless yellowlightman has already done so). Or if you just want them anyways as is, that's cool.

According to Animeigo's website they released MADOX-01 in 1989, just a year before Gunbuster. http://www.animeigo.com/ABOUT/HISTORY.t Close, but no cigar. But I never knew that Gunbuster was USR's first release. A series definitely worth that honor.

I think my Saturn DYRL guide has this image. If it does, I can scan it at a higher res, just as long as the image itself isn't placed too close to the books spine. It seems so much good Macross art is placed in the most frustrating places

Just to clarify, when Graham says "designs" I believe he's referring to new paint schemes on existing toys.

You know, I don't think anyone here would mind seeing a captain america version of the Dragon II

Great work! We finally get to see it completed, plus it's next to a VF-1 for comparison!

I doubt it. All signs indicate that Frontier is geared towards drawing in a new generation of fans. Off the top of my head, the only major concepts introduced in M7 were spiritia and sound energy. If those are used in Frontier then I'm sure they'll be accompanied by a brief explanation.

Yeah, fighter mode is fine. Sorry if my last post was unclear, but battroid mode is where the toy becomes difficult to balance. I suppose you could remove all the armor if you really wanted it to stand up straight in battroid mode.

The 1/60 Elintseeker is purely a display piece. It's very play-unfriendly due to the unbalanced weight of the the boosters, radome, and inefficient transformation process of the 1/60 VF-1. Battroid mode is very wobbly and the only time I seem to be able to get it to stand up is when it's hunched-over because of all the added weight. The sculpt however is very very nice in fighter mode and battroid mode. My only gripe with the battroid sculpt is that the head is too small. Gerwalk mode is meh, the 1/60 VF-1 line never really got this mode. It's not that expensive, usually selling for $70 - $80 so if you absolutely must have one then go right ahead. I highly doubt Yamato will reissue this one, and even if they do the current prices of $70 - $80 are still cheaper than the MSRP of $90.

Yeah, the 1/60 Elint and SuperO were the last 1/60 VF-1's to arrive and by the time they came out the first the 1/48's had already debuted.

I think Yamato did take notice of the Elintseeker and Super Ostrich, which is probably why they released them as 1/60 scale toys back in 2003. While I have no sales figures, I think it's safe to say that they didn't sell too well for a number of reasons. When the topic of two-seater 1/48's was discussed, I'm sure Yamato thought "poor sales of the 1/60 versions + increased cost to re-tool the 1/48 molds = no deal." This is all based on my hunch that the 1/60 two-seater versions didn't sell too well, if someone has figures saying otherwise then please do share. Haven't you heard? Bandai hates Macross! Seriously though, I believe Bandai planned to reissue them back in 02' but since sales of the other 1/55 reissues that year didn't meet Bandai's expectations, reissues for the 1/55 Elint and SuperO were canned. Again, this is all speculation on my part.

edit: d'oh, double post

Virgin Road VF-1D in 1/48 scale? I don't believe it's been done before.

Off the top of my head, I'd have to say Takatoku's Paro-Valkyries. Though I'm not sure if they count since they can't do gerwalk. They're not exactly lineart accurate either.

Very cool! Tell your wife thanks for translating the text. Hmm, a 1.6 foot tall posable Minmay figure. Lonely Japanese fanboys rejoice!

Where does it say it's articulated?

That's actually a very good point! Personally speaking, if I can't get into a series storyline, then I could give a rat's ass about it's mecha no matter how vicious it looks. This probably explains why I haven't bought any of the Zero toys yet. Anyways, if Frontier ends up being a steaming pile of kiddy poo, I'll be glad that Bandai got stuck making those toys instead of Yamato. If Frontier manages to surprise me with a good storyline, well then I hope that Bandai has drafted some of their Gundam sculptors to work on these toys

That's some very interesting trivia, thanks for posting it! It must've been quite an honor for Tenjin to have free reign in coloring Kawamori's designs. It paid off too because I love the color schemes that Tenjin chose. Actually, I'm not too keen on Nora's colors, but since she's the arch-rival of the series I can see why he made her colors more flamboyant.

Well that's just great. I hope Bandai learned from their M7 toys debacle that people won't buy their Macross toys if they look like @ss.

Thanks for updates kresphy!

Sazabi hands fit on the 1/55, but I always felt they looked too big on the 1/55. With fingers that long, the VF-1 should be playing basketball or quarterbacking a football team.

After looking it over, I'm led to believe that the press release included a typo. IMO, it should've read: "1/48 perfection transformation VF-1J" We all know that the 1/60 VF-1 features a far from perfect transformation. Also, it makes no sense why Yamato would snub the real perfect transformation 1/48 VF-1 in favor of the 1/60 VF-1.

Ask and you shall receive. It looks pretty small because the picture is zoomed out, but it's a lot taller in person from what I hear.