UN_MARINE

i believe we need to define what kibble means, instead of just making things up as we go along.

kibble

The explanation of VF's having constraints is a reasonable one. This does explain though, why those "the good ol' days people"

feel right at home with the mere marginal changing nature of VF styling (which is inherent to its nature of transformation scheme)

As stated by definition, VF design doesn't qualify for kibble since the parts on question integrate flawlessly into the aesthetic.

So yeah, it is kind of sad to see people bash lines such as ROTF, when it's pretty clear they're just bashing it for disliking

the aesthetics....as if each and every TF line before the movie lines was great.

Some of us don't see things on an "aesthetic only" point of view. Some of us actually consider the engineering involved; and so far, the ROTF line just seems consistent in making all the wrong decisions. And don't get me started on the packaging.

It's so easy & low to bash a line for obvious rotten apples like leader class Jetfire, the bike sisters and the non transforming Devastator ;

because overall, the ROTF toyline is a step forward in the right direction, regardless of whether you like or dislike the aesthetics.

It's also easy & low to counter-bash with "psh! Geewunners". But anyway...

I agree, the ROTF toys are pushing the technology envelope forward, but the designs don't seem to compliment the advance in technology particularly well. Out of the dozen or so new designs released, I've only been impressed by a couple of them, and only bought one. Compared to the Animated line, I've been impressed and bought a lot of them. That pretty much speaks for itself.

G1 was great, but don't deny that Hasbro put an end to die cast parts, rich chrome apps, realistic intricate mold details and rubber wheels

after 1985.

Have you seen the Binaltech/Alternators and Alternity lines? They're not G1 or Bay, but they have everything that "was". Those are 2 lines that speak for themselves.

edited

We suck.

Oh you bet that's right!

You and your McRoss...

What were you thinking following a show that isn't written, created, produced and blessed by Carl Macek?

edit:

damn... i forgot to use [capslockconniption/]. oh well...

No, they never really seem to get that far... the extent of their work in colonizing outer space seems to have been just plunking down a few military outposts in the outer solar system, and borrowing/renting a compound in downtown Tiresia after they chased the Invid regent's army out. Every planet they encountered that was capable of supporting life already had at least one sentient species squatting on it.

So essentially, the REF's failure/ineptitude for colonizing is symbolic of HG's failure/ineptitude at keeping the franchise alive? Fascinating...

To put that ridiculous number in perspective for you, that'd be like squeezing the population of two New Macross-class city sections AND two Megaroad-class colony ships into a single Thuverl Salan-class battleship.

And here we have people saying the SDF-1 can't possibly be 1200 meters long.

Or was Tommy Yune too afraid to tackle redesigning Yellow, just imagine the agonizing over whether to give him huge tits, or a six pack.

But Tommy's so talented, why couldn't he have both?

That's the kind of bait and switch that can stick with kids for a long, long time...

I suppose that's true for kids. But 25 years later? That's just ridiculous.

Basically, he is to Robotech's universe what Han, Luke, and Leia are to the Star Wars expanded universe... he was present or otherwise involved in every major event in the entire story... the occasionally-unseen glue that holds it all together and keeps people interested.

Well that's lame... "I was there for 5 minutes. I'm the most important person ever!"

I find it stupid that the mere mention of the name is enough for fans to go nuts. He never does anything!

It's not like he redefined the Phlebotinum for the show. Even his promotion to Admiral has no merit.

He doesn't even come close to "the guy that saved the Protoculture Matrix and the Universe from (insert plot device here)".

I'm suprised HG didn't just shove a clip of some random guy proclaiming he was Hunter in the last episode (like they did in SC).

I don't understand this "Rick Hunter" thing. Why in the blue blazes are RT fans so hung up on the guy?

(in Robotech) He never did anything particularly noteworthy, he was kind of a dumb whiny kid & his girlfriend (Lisa) was as dull as a brick.

Did being mentioned as "Admiral" Rick hunter suddenly make him special? I don't get it.

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW!!!

Datz good Dakka!

Except these things actually work, only shoot a single round/missile per barrel & they're mounted on portable roads.

Oh well... the laws of physics are too difficult to follow anyway.

No idea... one would imagine the answer would be "no" in practical terms, but this is science fiction we're talking about after all. It does appear that the creative team at Harmony Gold might've been taking design tips from Rob Liefeld, since the gun itself has two barrels for some utterly arbitrary reason, no discernible ammunition storage or feed system, and is so huge it becomes impossible to believe that it could be mounted on a bike without tipping it over. Of course, they also seem to have forgotten little things like Newtonian physics, since the 70kJ railgun on the Super Cyclone has no recoil to speak of.

More specifically, this is hack comic book industry science fiction.

These people have never been able to make logical, feasible or practical mechanical anything. Hardly any of them do the research, they just draw something that "looks mechanical". I've seen so many renditions of guns w/ eleventy gun barrels, guns w/o sights, w/ rear sights, but no front sight, magazines that go nowhere, limb joints w/ eleventy different joint designs fighting for the same space... the list goes on.

The biggest offender is when somebody writes down numbers for the mech/weapon & it looks like this:

8 meter tall bi-pedal mech w/ 6-barrel 100mm gatling gun(2000 rds).

Can anybody tell what's wrong w/ these numbers?

While it's fun to make fun of Tommy's copy-pasta transformy jeep, unfortunately it's just a statistic.

As well as Tommy being an uncreative hack.

Well, at least Yamato takes notice of the problems and communicates with their fans about their plans. Harmony Gold just plugs its ears and lets its piss poor contractors pump out garbage.

Don't forget the part where HG will be offended by your "rude & illegitimate criticism" and they "suspend" your posting privileges for "inappropriately badmouthing" their product.

HG, such a fun company...

Haha, HG will run out of paper if they're going after each and every vendors in Divisoria!

I love this idea!

When i saw those i was kind of amused, but then i went "Robotech? really, Jollibee? Robotech? shameful..."

This is a company run by people/their kids who are most likely big anime fans. Oh the tragedy...

Then again, they had Voltron & Power Rangers toys before, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise.

"Big Corporation Ignorance for Profit" is standard practice I suppose.

These things are roughly $2 a piece (w/ free food & drink) over here. Not a bad deal I guess.

The VF-1s might be the best looking one, but it's extremely hollow. People could probably make it look respectable w/ a lot of workbench time.

...assuming one is too poor to afford real Macross merchandise of the same size.

Roboteching: 25 years of taking credit for somebody else's work & keeping the fans ignorant about it.

Don't forget that they wear tinfoil "thinking caps". :lol:

I knew i forgot something

Don't tell me you're naive enough to think it's by coincidence that every time they're interviewed by professionals nothing negative ever comes up, and that every interview conducted by fans is so respectful it borders on hagiography. It's pretty much a given that Harmony Gold carefully vets their potential interviewers to make sure the professionals won't ask any awkward questions and the fans are drinking the kool-aid and/or will be so in awe of being recognized that they won't do anything but heap praise on their guests.

I suppose it should be expected of them. I just hadn't given it much thought until recently.

Is there any interviews on record with Macek where he has done it tough against hard probing questions? I would love to know if there is one. Has anybody ever jumped up at an RT panel at a con and given Yune and his wankers a hard time about Macross. I'm sure that if one of us was quick enough and eloquent enough we could get these wankers on the back foot easily enough. It would rattle the cage of the RT nutjobs too, possibly. Does anybody have "connections" that might allow one of us to get a Macek interview. Or Yune or one of the other wankers.

My thoughts exactly.

Apparently, every HG/Robotech/Yune/Macek interview out there has been done by an interviewer who's drinking the HG/RT kool aid, while wearing the nostalgia glasses, high on protoculture & blinded by celebrity light.

There doesn't seem to be an interview where the interviewer is actually knowledgeable about the whole Macross thing.

I'm thinking it's either HG only accepts interviews from people completely in the dark about "Robotech's dirty little secret" or HG is bribing/paying for those "Robotech is bestest & Carl Macek is genius" interviews.

You'd think that the very people that host a web show/podcast would know more about these things

I guess they have their ignorance switch set to high.

They should add a new character! He'd be flying a special VF-1 w/ dark brown accents & has 3 head lasers.

Although... an animated version of "Macross the First" would be nice.

I've tried it & the results are pretty good.

i scanned a sticker sheet in 500DPI, then cleaned it up in Photoshop.

the high-res scan lets you re-size the image with minimal pixellation.

A vector-traced image is much better, if you're working with simple designs.

the big factor would be your printer.

you'll want to test the quality of the image w/ the decal film you're using before committing to a whole sheet.

an inch from the lengthwise edge of the sheet should do. remember to make sure the printer can still feed the decal sheet before & after you trim the edge. (i screwed that part up)

aside from the decal film, you'll need liquid decal film. it protects the image & makes it semi-elastic.

it works best when sprayed, but you can use a brush too.

all you need is a thin coat, too much will wrinkle/stretch/ruin the image.

with a decent printer, you can make them as close to the original as possible. these test prints are about a half inch wide.

the images are a scanned 1/72 VF-25 decal sheet & a 1/55 VF-1A sticker sheet.

that's where i sorta stopped. my printer crapped out on me & i'm still looking for a suitable replacement.

Edit:

Close-up shot. the images would've turned out better if i didn't screw up applying the liquid decal film.

The Minmays turned out pretty decent.

"There was no system core. It's software, and it's everywhere."

Thanks

1 more suggestion...

-Complete Caution & Modex sticker/decal sheet.

exactly like the ones on page 68-72 of the Variable Fighter Master File book.

I would love to see my VF-1 littered w/ all those warning labels

and i bet they'd look drop-dead-gorgeous on a "Snow White" VF-1 as well.

How did you get the rivets so evenly spaced? Did you use a precalculated temlate? I like to use a .005 drill bit by hand very small so I have to be careful or the bit will snap.

Would you believe it's all done freehand?

i started with one side, while counting the rivets i draw, then try to match the other side.

Other times, i drew the rivets from opposite sides of a particular panel one at a time until i reached the middle.

If i worked fast enough, i could erase the rivets & start over. other times, i ran out of time/space & the rivet would be ridiculously close to the edge of the panel.

The straight lines though, were drawn in w/ the help of an erasing shield.

i thought about using drilling the rivets in too, but it would've gotten tedious real fast & can't be undone.

The marker approach on the other hand, was quick & painless.

I just found out that the Play Arts FF7 figures are roughly 1/10 scale, and...

then, i ended up with this.

the boots do make a difference!

Thanks

I finally decided to do some panel lining & got carried away.

the Hasegawa kit was great reference material, especially for the sticker placement.

it was all done with this:

*not recommended for the v2.0 1/60, there are reports of the plastic reacting unpleasantly w/ the marker ink.

(can anybody confirm/debunk this?)

1. Added mechanical detail behind the visor.

2. Improved cockpit interior detail, i.e. more detailed ejector seat, instrument panel etc. -can they position the pilot more to the rear this time?

3. Better detailing on the pilot.

4. More Tampo printing (obviously, this one could not be released as an add-on accessory).

5. Battroid mode side covers.

6. More detailed hands. -can we get a pair in a saluting pose? (and for KARATE!) plus a southpaw trigger finger hand.

7. Ground crew and weapons carts.

8. Standing pilot figures.

9. Modern day NATO bombs/missiles to attach to the VF-1 wings.

10. Those pilot seats that another company made to simulate the seat rising out of the head in battroid mode.

11. Gunpod with removable access panels and internal detail. -plus a belt of ammo

-Arrestor hooks inside the leg landing gear. (clip-ons would be fine, if possible)

-Those internal, arm-mounted mini arms.

-Detailed backpack heatshield.

-UUM-7 Micro missile pods w/ removable panel & interior detail.

-high-detail missiles just like the Hasegawa kits. panel lines & rivets for the reaction missiles.

-clip-on backpack antenna ?

-complete decal set (TV+DYRL?). more like the Hasegawa decals, minus the engrish.

-adjustable gunpod strap, just like the ones in 1/6 scale guns.

-replacement ,reinforced shoulder parts

-replacement nose-hip locking part?

-more decals! (if people want rivets, this might actually be the cheaper alternative)

The "true" length of the SDF-1 is subjective. it depends on how much Protoculture the viewer/fan has smoked.

Afterall, in Robotech, Protoculture is a reality-bending substance.

nobody will ever know how long it really is.

this one's a classic: kids, don't try this at home!

and of course... Groovy!