MacrossMania

10 hours ago, Saburo said:

Wow the Armored VF-31S a beast!

Am I the only one who thinks this is overkill?  The armored parts for the latest valks have become increasingly more absurd.  I mean, I get this is fantasy and all, and I am a loyal fan so I hate mentioning it with all the hubbub over the latest releases, but it must be said.

16 hours ago, anubis20 said:

I was super excited about MP-44 but the issue with the knees killed it for me. 

Also got Mafex Venom but havent gotten a chance to mess with it yet

 

Re MP-44, I may be an outlier on this one, but I'm not exactly impressed with it.  If anything, it seems more like Bandai's retooling of Yamato's 1/48's, rebranding it as their own - in this case, Takara choosing to reinvent the Masterpiece line more in keeping with the cartoon aesthetic rather than a retooling of a competitor's take on things.  Problem is, with the advances in computer technology that see the cost of CAD design dropping on almost a daily basis, whereas the cost of labor, NAFTA agreements, and the cost of supplies and shipping skyrocketing on an international scale - in short, the cost of global production - this "rebranding" (if you want to call it that) smacks of nothing more than a cheap attempt to get rid of all the frills on any given Masterpiece toy - like chrome pipes and bumpers, which are cost centers no doubt - and replace them with undeniable advances in product design, which is also undeniably cheaper these days, employing as they do far less workers and working to scale at a much cheaper price on the design side given the advances in technology.  

Masterpiece was originally designed to be a real world counterpart to the cartoon characters which grounded their transformation technology in a sense.  Now, that's been completely reversed.  I'm not saying it doesn't have a certain charm - it does - but I do find it lacking in that certain higher calling if you will, that "Masterpiece" aesthetic which was almost like a call to arms for adult collectors - the sense that your highest dreams and aims as a closet collector (as we all were as children) could in fact be realized given the advances in technology.  To see those same advances turn back the clock, so to speak, seems like a bit of shame to me.  Not to mention a cheap ploy to mask the current realities of the global marketplace.

10 hours ago, Saburo said:

She’s a beauty

Really love this one.  Did they change the mould at all?  It looks like in keeping with the typical Arcadia retooling, they did rework it a bit, making it a bit sleeker in parts, but I can't tell with all the telltale gaps Yamato toys were notorious for, especially the SV-51.

28 minutes ago, tekering said:

It's a definite plus.  I use mirrored backgrounds as much as possible, for a variety of reasons...

First, it makes sparsely-decorated displays look fuller, by doubling the number of visible subjects...

It considerably increases the amount of visible light in your displays, which is particularly useful for illuminating lower shelves...

It reflects whatever you've displayed on the facing wall, providing more visual interest...

It can greatly enhance the perceived sense of space in the room...

It can provide the illusion of infinite depth...

...and of course, allows your subjects to be visible from front and back simultaneously.  

I've spent a great deal of time and effort mounting mirrors in showcases and behind shelves, and would never even consider covering up existing ones...!  

Uh, wow, just wow.  Lovin every minute of it.

There's a joke here of course about compensating... 

1 hour ago, Saburo said:

Another box of cats was left at my doorstep. 

This is a true masterpiece.  I think I went through two or three versions of this on the first run until I was satisfied with the condition of the one I got (I'm a box guy, I know, it doesn't make any sense with Bandai).  But it was well worth it.  I can only marvel at the engineering and design of this thing.  There's only a handful of toys/collectibles that have the same sort of iconic weight and heft to them.  The first Masterpiece Optimus Prime by Takara, the Chunky Monkey, the first Masterpiece Starscream, the YF-25 from Macross Frontier (and that may be stretching it a little).  And none of them come close to the beauty of this thing.  Simply superb!

On 8/26/2019 at 12:57 PM, Slave IV said:

You got your answer above and just to add, Revo made some as well in Battroid mode.

But our discussion was mainly about the non-transforming mecha in the HMR line...The Destroids and stuff from other series.

LOL it's hard to jump on these threads midway through.  Stand by my comments (any excuse to keep collecting!), but totally get you on the HMR mecha.  They're the standouts of the line.  They steal the show in my opinion, as evidenced by the fact that I don't have a single valkyrie from the entire line, only mecha.  Don't have them all, but the really juicy ones (Monster - by far the best ever made -, the two Regults, and the Glaug.  I've always longed for these really critical counterparts to the valkyries in the Macross universe.  Before the HMR line came along, there's never really been a satisfactory alternative.  The Matchbox monstrosities were really never that great to begin with, even by vintage standards, and the nostalgia factor didn't make up for the fact that they sucked as toys.  Revoltechs don't count in my opinion, which leaves you with the occasional Takatoku, and the 1/100 line back in the day were really only curiosities in my opinion.  But boy, when Bandai came along, they really hit it out of the park with the HMR line in that respect.  Totally love em for that.

On 8/16/2019 at 1:58 PM, Slave IV said:

it is odd for me to prefer mostly non-transforming mecha over transforming ones in a line. It's just that they seem to put the extra effort into engineering the articulation and providing quality materials when they don't need to worry about transforming. The figures have so much personality and "life" in them.

Couldn't agree more with you.  And I have the same guilt-tripping going on too.  I just chalk it up at the end of the day that we're all obsessed with robots, so the quintessential engineering that goes into them pretty much puts everything else to the side, and boils it all down to its essence.  

Either that or the robot modes always end up suffering in one form or another, especially with the butterfly effect on the backpacks of the Frontiers and Deltas, so much so that the pure joy of the vehicle mode ends up sacrificing a bit of the robot mode.  An itch I still need to scratch, and end up doing that with the mecha.

On 8/12/2019 at 5:30 AM, Grimgerde said:

Don't forget an Automan car and Blue Thunder!

 

Holy Yes!!!!  All five of these!  (The previous post included).  This is the penta-fecta?? of pop-trash 80's mobiles.  Love all of these.

10 hours ago, rdrunner said:

Haha thanks, the hardest parts about collecting are the wallet, and smuggling my purchases home without the wife noticing. 

I love how the hardest part is smuggling it past your wife, but not displaying it.  Presumably she can't tell the difference with all those valkyries on display?  

On 2/18/2019 at 2:20 PM, MacrossMania said:

This entire set up is my dream.  Toys, books, and a place to write.  Love this set up.  I have something similar, but just not the space to play with.

This.

I avoided this site for days because I wanted to avoid the parade of triumphs.  Everyone getting theirs while I sat in the corner and sulked.  Sites crashed, cartjacked, etc.  But lo!  Every single person had the same problems I did!  Thank god for you guys!  Misery loves company!

 

Loot for this month.

Where did you get your metal builds?  Are there any left at a decent price?

Oh, and it may simply have something to do with bad actors in the marketplace trying to seize or create another opportunity in the marketplace.  It seems to me that a lot of the interest in sales is manufactured arbitrarily.  There may very well be only a handful of vendors in the market who have a boatload of this stuff just sitting around, and wanting to generate interest, and corner an as yet untapped market, start hiking up the prices in the hopes of manufacturing some interest that wasn't previously there.  I see this a lot with the vintage toys.  Once one brand is tapped out, vendors start hawking their wares in another, less known brands in the hopes of generating some interest.  They seem to go down the daisy chain from the most popular toy brands like TFormers and GI Joe, to the lesser known ones like Crystar.  Until even the Crystar ones are tapped out.  The same could be happening here.  I don't think it's any secret that a lot of the third party sellers in Japan and elsewhere in the East (and probably in the West too for that matter), are out to make a buck.  And many of them are unscrupulous.  I bet they'd be willing to generate some interest by artificially hiking up the prices in the hopes of baiting a collector or two, and then watch the market take off.

I've been wondering this myself.  There is a story attached to them.  Back in the day when the 2002 reissues were first being sold in the United States, Harmony Gold (aka the Evil Empire) reigned in those sales on IP grounds and filed suit against Bandai, alleging copyright infringement as Harmony Gold had the rights to sell them exclusively here in the United States.  Yadda, yadda, everybody knows this by now.   But this may have something to do with the limited production runs and why they are going higher in price.  Although my guess is probably not because nobody's even mentioned it on this thread here so far, so it would have little if any bearing on its value in the marketplace.

I don't think it has anything to do with anything else other than the honestly held belief that newer is better.  Forget the old, the vintage toys.  The quaint charm of the past, those garishly painted boxes.  Those are just trash.  The way it is done now, with improved production runs, superior plastics, etc., is just plain better.  It has a whiff of this self-entitled arrogance if you ask me.

 

It's hard not to look at something so pretty and not want to have one.

Some women would get jealous with how some guys look at them chunkies..

 

Yes, I know.

 

All this! Plus, I can transform the CM in under 30 seconds to any mode with my eyes closed and use it as a weapon.

Yes!  That's totally true!  I don't know but the ability to double as a club-like weapon in a Game of Thrones fantasy is always a big plus in my opinion.  And something none of the modern toys have.  That should be a bonafide of AFA grading.  Bubble, Box, Figure, and Club Potential. 

 

At @davidwhangchoi's behest I touched up a second DX 1J so it'll look like my Yamatos.

Lolicon, you need to work for Bandai and make a weathering version happen.  I would snap it up in a second.

This is a textbook example of weathering.  All faded panel lines with the ghost-like imprints.  I'm wondering though.  Has anybody every thought to expand the universe of tools that modelers use to achieve the weathering look?  I guess I mean like added little touches.  If you notice some of the old F-15's, F-18's, F-16's and F-14's up close, they do have that wash around certain edges where exhaust fumes or water stains must have flowed off the edge of the surface mid-flight.  It's like the stains of a waterfall or something and speaks to the years of service the plane must have seen to achieve that kind of look.  Only hardened exposure to repeated flights over the years would produce it.  And it goes beyond simple panel lining.  Has anyone ever thought to do it?

Here's a stock photo from wikipedia.  The force of the wind over the wing's trailing edge has created what appear to be water stains there.  The same is true of the stabilizers and the ailerons.  Has anyone thought to replicate this effect in the modeling world?  It would add a lot of realism.

 

Well said. I still consider the Chunky Monkey the finest all around toy ever made.

Couldn't agree more.  It's simplicity and elegance still stand head and shoulders above the rest.  And what seems to be clumsy of its age, the "chunky" in chunky monkey, seems to me to be more of a deliberate choice by Takatoku designers (Kawamori) to be more evocative of the cartoon-like design.  This is clearly evident in the 1/100 scale valks put out by Takatoku later on.  I mean the ones that didn't transform.  They have the rabbit ears and the chunky calves.  Given that history, I don't think it's too far of a stretch to assume that some of that "clumsy" design work was a deliberate choice by Takatoku to make the robot mode more evocative of the robust action poses in the cartoon and movie, the zenith of which can be seen in Bandai's VF-19/YF-19, which in my opinion is the best toy that combines both the sleekness of the jet mode with the anime poses of the robot mode.  But as far as simplicity of transformation and elegance of design, no way.  The chunky monkey wins hands down.  No other toy comes close in my opinion.  

I have to say that it is a bit satisfying to watch Shizuka come around to the chunky monkey.  At least your interest is piqued.  I guess I just find that interesting given your affinity for the modern valks, not unexpected of course because of your age.  But all the more satisfying to watch. IMHO the chunky monkey still stands as a preeminent achievement in toy making, and a must have for any serious macross collector.

 

Muahahahahahahaha!

this isn’t exactly a new purchase but it’s been lost in my storage for over a decade. 

Perfectly preserved!

Also had these goodies in the box

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes these valks.  I always loved that version of the jetfire, although compared to my AFA graded G1 counterpart, it's more like a favored stepchild.  But I still like it though.  Same with the 1/48.  I would say this and the VF-1J super parts were the 1/48s "that got away."  Love em both.

On 12/20/2010 at 4:02 AM, eugimon said:

still in the process of moving in so pardon the mess

Here you can see what happens to a house plant when left outside overnight in 30 degree weather. And a bunch of books and a lot of Primes.

Wall of valkryies with exploding shoulders.

some other stuff

This entire set up is my dream.  Toys, books, and a place to write.  Love this set up.  I have something similar, but just not the space to play with.

16 hours ago, takatoys said:

Got my DX VF-1J and this is the toy I always wanted. It is so pretty!. Almost no need for mods, but I had to add some detail to the gun and laser cannons as someone already did. Anybody already detailed the cockpit? I've always been a fan of a good cockpit for the VF-1. Here is mine and looks great. I will try gerwalk mode next.

Incredible.  Really makes it stand out.

2 minutes ago, Slave IV said:

Haha, I don’t see what the problem is? They seem to pack very securely with a generous amount of bubble wrap. 

I can't imagine what it would have been like if that was my DX VF-1J??!  I would have chartered the first flight to seller's house and personally tested the idea that the DX is tougher than the chunky monkey.