kajnrig

Bold for emphasis, and basically everything there was a good point. Regarding the hand controls, those never go explained I don't think, and I've mixed and matched the ideas that they were pressure-sensitive controls to operate the manipulators or controls to interface with the computer system. Probably a mixture of both, or neither. I said this wasn't something worth thinking too much about, and yet here I am posting the most about it.

I do seem to remember those books being where I saw the brain-helmet idea used, so you might be right. Then again, the 21/27 seemed to imply solely piloting by thought (with the controls for redundancy), so it doesn't completely rule out the idea... But blah, I'm inclined to agree. It makes the pilots seem cooler, at any rate. In G Gundam they use a master-slave system with 1:1 input. But then you get Shining Finger chi blasts and then you just sort of scratch your head and say to yourself, "Sure, why not." Then you go to the UC series thinking that surely they must be more realistic, but there you see Psycho Frames and Newtypes and even Moonlight Butterflies, and Wing has angels and demons and dragon fangs, and X has gimmicky moon microwaves, and finally you just throw up your hands and make peace with it all. But anyway.

The VF-1 controls, if I remember correctly, are a combination of brainwave sensors, traditional stick/pedal combos, that silly by our standards three-mode toggle levers, and eye-tracking software (the first and last of these being implemented by the helmet). It's not so much "unrealistic" as "unexplained." And as someone famous said, sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from magic... or something like that. Move onto Frontier, and it appears there's now a bit of a master-slave system going on, with the VF-25 mimicking the physical movements of the pilot. A similar mechanism is detailed in the anime Full Metal Panic, where those mecha (called Arm Slaves, or "Armored Mobile Master-Slave System") are controlled by a similar system: the pilot can individually configure the scaling of master-to-slave movement. A one-degree bend of the pilot's arm can translate to 30, 60, 90, etc. degrees of corresponding bend in the Arm Slave's arm. This allows for a wide variety of movement without needing a lot of space. But wmkjr's link is also relevant. It's not that Japanese mecha are any less realistic, but rather that they just have and accept a wider diversity and a longer history.

A quick research on "tampography" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pad_printing tl;dr : You paint onto a flat 2D stencil, pick up that paint using a malleable pad, then press that pad onto a 3D surface, thus applying the 2D image onto a 3D surface. Decals are, obviously, different.

Is that what "tampo" means? I've seen it used a couple times around here in regards to toys, but I'm from a modeler background and the term doesn't see much use there.

Maybe it's just me, but I never could tell what color the 0A was in the final episode (or most of the OAV, actually). Sometimes it's bluish, other times it's the same gray-blue as the Yamarcadia release, white like the 0S, etc. I thought it might even be unpainted at one point. The enemy planes get more distinct (and consistent) coloring. But blah. Long story short, traditional animation lets you keep track of a pitched transforming make-believe dogfight better than CGI does. Back to the toys. Actually, while I'm here, what are the new models/variants that were revealed post-Frontier the show? By show's end all I knew of was the mainstay VF-25, VF-27, and the VF-171EX, as well as a supposed YF-25 Prophecy prototype. Now you guys are throwing around names like Durandal and YF-30 and ACTIVE and Tornado... Clearly I haven't been keeping up very much/well.

A lot of that, I imagine, has to do with the transition from traditional to CG animation. The dogfighting in M+ is still the pinnacle of the series, where they have the same sort of high-flying, undercranked acrobatics, but everything contrasts more sharply against everything else, so it's easier to understand what's going on. The fact that the screen isn't so densely-packed with colors and particle/transparency effects doesn't hurt, either. The constant blue filter in Zero made the VF-0s harder to pick out against the backdrop of sky, water, and variably transparent clouds. If it had been animated traditionally, the VF-0 itself would have likely been stark white (with blue shadows and a brown/gray outline) against a dark blue ocean and light blue sky (creating a clear horizon line), and clouds of white and gray, and any transparency is static. The same thing persists into Frontier, even with its more cartoony look. Sometimes you just can't see what's going on because everything is reflecting off of everything else. Yeah it looks pretty, but not necessarily more visually interesting. Ironically.

Wasn't the 19 ADVANCE specifically designed to resemble the YF-19 as much as possible? If so, it wouldn't be at all surprising that they reused the same mold. It's the exact same frame. That being said, it's kind of impossible to do a perfectly anime accurate, transforming YF-19 anyway, not without parts-swapping to the point of redundancy, anyway. You would require two completely different pairs of legs alone.

Seems so. Look at where the Action Base(?) plugs into the underside. That's almost as far from the center of balance as you can get. Frankly, I'm more interested in seeing fixed-form figures/kits of the 19. The animation tricks they needed to do to make it look good in every form means that it'll never look "right" as a transforming figure unless it comes with seamless armor expansion gimmicks. Bandai did a pretty good job with the VF-19 Advance(?) having that swiveling panel to cover up the inside of the leg, but even that one looks famished compared to lineart/animation/Yamato GN-U Dou YF-19.

Transformation mechanism might be similar, but legs are bigger(?) and more rounded, with different feet and tail fins. Wings are different. Shoulders are completely changed (more exaggerated and "anime" than YF-19's blocky ones). I believe it lacks the forward canards of the YF-19 as well, and the forward fuselage itself isn't as aggressive as the YF's. Then again, this is all from what I remember of the old Bandai VF-19 toy I had as a kid, so...

YF-31 "Jiikufuriido" - Siegfried? Sv-262 "Dorakun III" - Dragon/Draken III? Anyone have better grasp of katakana?

Does anyone have screencaps of the 2SS in action? Getting a look at the animation shortcuts taken might provide a basis for improving that wide open underside...

That was way too cool.

Quick question: SAP = ???

I was mildly interested in this toy when it first appeared, and even though I'm not too keen on the design or its source material, I wonder if scratchbuilding a "kit"/toy of it wouldn't be possible. I had a lot of text written breaking down the way it seemed like the design was laid out, but I think the biggest flaw in the ET rendition is just that the proportions are out of whack. Not altogether anything new to Macross, though. The Yamato and Bandai VF-1s all look not quite right in any of their three modes. The most well-proportioned VF-1s, the Hasegawas, are built as three separate non-transforming kits to avoid this issue altogether. There's enough consistency across modes in this design that I think it could reasonably be engineered to transform without sacrificing in the looks, but that would make for a very delicate toy. ET have, I think, simply traded more of the "model" aspect in favor of the "toy" aspect. EDIT: That's my assumption right now as well. Behind the upper air intakes there's actually just empty space until the arms/head, with that space broken up by the leg swing bar (more of a flat expanse than a bar) and other internals. The lower vertical fin is, I think, meant to break up that empty space, but it doesn't do a great job. The ET toy doesn't try to emulate the legs' swing bar mechanism, which is, as said, a sort of hinged rectangular piece. Instead they went with their swinging slanted bars setup. It trades on "lineart accuracy" for sturdier joints.

What mods would those be? (Don't know much about the VF-25, so the only thing I'm going on is that it looks better than the Bandai Messiah...)

Hm... It seems simple enough, in theory anyway. I have a bunch of wood/cardboard I can use for the walls/floor of the booth as well as for filter material (cut into inch-long strips, stack them, tape/glue them together = makeshift coarse filter). I have some window fans I can use in lieu of PC fans that would go in the back of the booth. And possibly duct/piping as well, which I'd affix to the exhaust via duct-tape + cardboard...? How much airflow should I be aiming for? It seems some people use industrial-grade exhaust fans, others use room fans, PC fans, etc. Is the point just to get air flowing to minimize the accumulation of fumes? Thanks for all the advice, everyone. I'm looking forward to tackling this project this weekend. EDIT: A second question: Searching online, what search terms would work best for finding filter material? If I'm just looking for cotton/polyester/wool sheets, what stores would have that kind of material?

Yeah, I decided to go ahead and get myself a decent beginner's AB. As it turns out, my brother also has a Testor's compressor that he used only a few times and hasn't touched since, so I'll be adopting that. I haven't checked it yet for regulators/moisture traps/other bells and whistles, but so long as it doesn't die the moment I plug it in, it should fit my needs just fine. Any advice on a spray booth setup? Like I said, I'll mostly be spraying water-based acrylics, so fumes aren't a major concern (though I do have some enamels and spray cans that I'll decant), but I'm doing all this in my bedroom, so my first inclination is to open up a window, set a fan blowing outward, jerry-rig a filter setup, and start spraying. My second inclination is to spray outside. My third inclination is to move my entire workshop to the wood-working shed. I may or may not invest in gas filtration masks.

Nice to see you too, electric indigo. I honestly hadn't thought about that, but you may be right... Wouldn't I also need to invest in an air compressor + regulator? (Also a spray booth? Then again I'd be mostly spraying water-based acrylics.) I did some research way back when (early days on Hobbyfanatics) on airbrushing equipment, but it's all sort of faded now. Basic requirements for an airbrushing setup: - airbrush - compressor (- regulator) (- spray booth) Looking at single- and double-action brushes, I'm seeing that most single-action brushes still have ways of adjusting paint density/flow. In what scenarios would you need the on-the-fly paint flow adjustment that double-action airbrushes provide? But the more I think on it, the more of a good idea it seems. I'll have to think on this some more. Thanks for the suggestion.

I blitzed through this entire thread just because the RnD was so enthralling. I can't believe this is actually seeing a production run! Great job, and keep it up.

Hi, all - Long-time hobbyist and first-time MW poster. I've been contemplating my next bulk order from HLJ and while some kits are a lock (1/100 Frame Arms kits, Hasegawa's new 1/72 Super VF-25F/S, and a November-release 1/100 Gundam Barbatos), the rest of the order is a tossup between - HGUC Palace Athene - HGUC Gabthley - HG R-Gyagya - HG Lightning Zeta OR - 1/48 Hasegawa YF-19 - 1/48 YF-19 photo-etch parts I really like the 19, and I've been itching to work on A) a 19, and B) a modern 1/48 fighter kit (the only other kit of that scale was a Revell reissue of an old 70s/80s Monogram F-14D). If any of you have worked on this kit before (with or without the metal detail parts), what were your impressions of it? My concern stems from my general lack of experience with scale aircraft as well as my lack of an airbrush. (I suppose I could always get a spray can, but I'm not sure if Tamiya et al have prefabbed cans in the right tan color. And hand-painting such large expanses of plastic seems like it'll create more problems than solve them.) But anyway. Like I said, anyone have experience with this (or the Bandai HGs, I suppose) kit that they could share with me to help with a purchasing decision? Thanks!