pengbuzz

I love Totsugeki Love Heart and Holy Lonely Night! Those aside, you got a good list going there of M& music.

After the legal trouble they have had in recent years, I doubt they are running their "real estate" side any better: Agrama is not an honest businessman and his record proves it. The only reason Agrama isn't serving jail time for his role in the Mediaset scandal circa 2006 (selling media rights at inflated prices which then went to kickbacks) is because of his age (70+ years old) and Italy wouldn't make him serve actual jail time (BBC News, Oct 26, 2012). There's also a 2011 issue that wrapped up in 2014 finally involving Agrama selling inflated media rights (this time, with money laundering involved) to Mediatrade (a subcompany of Mediaset) and was indicted by a court in Milan (South China Sea Morning Post, June 7 2013). Agrama narrowly dodged that bullet due to the statue of limitations expiring on some of the charges.( July 24, 2014,Variety), and the rest being an "acquittal". So, with all that in mind, they are in trouble. It's just a question of when the "ghosts of the past" come back to haunt them, and how long they can continue to avoid the consequences. Hasbro already handed them their heads when it cam to the GI Joe/ Transformers crossover"Jetfire" Skystriker toy situation, and they were being nice about it. And when it comes to "spending money", it's not HG"s money they're spending: it's someone else's that they fraudulently obtained by inflating prices(and that's most likely why Frank has 75 million!). If past performance here is any indicator, there's no reason to believe they've changed their methods, especially given the fact that they've been caught in this kind of situation twice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In any event (I apologize to the rest of the gang here for derailing the thread), what all of that means is that for the foreseeable future (until HG's practices catch up with them), Robotech is sadly not going much of anywhere. I really hope at some point Macross/ Robotech can take off so newer fans and a new generation of anime fans can appreciate it. And with that, PB out.

Or after that kind of battle, they ALL had to find a bathroom REALLY FAST...

Which is why they are in trouble: you have to spend money to make money. If they won't invest their own money into their business, then the business is going to flounder on life support. To put it another way: you can't have your cake and eat it too. And when it concerns "Robotech", they have been super cheap while not allowing anyone else to even come near it. Talk about having a death grip on the golden goose...

Thanks; to be honest though, until I got the head put back into place and got the model to the component level, I wasn't sure I wasn't wasting my time on a desperate lark.

Frankly, it's Harmony Gold clinging tenaciously to "life" by trying to squeeze out whatever it can from this whole thing.

So basically, each series is a stand-alone "vignette" of a period in time for Earth and the UNS/NUNS. All in the world of Macross, but "stand-alone" in the way they are supposed to be viewed?

Reminds me of the one I did recently:

UPDATE: Well, it took a lot of dremel work, making some new pieces (hands are still sore) and a few curse words and threats to inanimate objects.... ...we've got a heartbeat: Required work: tail fins were successfully replanted; head lasers all removed, metal pins cut and implanted; backpack hinge torn out and rebuilt; arm clips removed and reinforced with metal pins; legs torn down to components and reinforced inside thigh with wood (cheap signposts outside from the election); entirely new landing gear doors; crack in back panel mended with epoxy reinforcement inside the plate;and lastly, the damned head transform. Plate in Battroid mode: Plate in Fighter/ Gerwak mode Replanting the head was only made possible by the fact that the entire remaining base of the mechanism separated cleanly out of the nose when it hit the wall. At any rate, after all of that, it transforms and now actually stays together (Who knew that smashing things against a wall got them to work?). But in all seriousness, to celebrate having the project back on track and almost ready for paint (just a few more things to tighten up before then), I decided to celebrate by making a display base for it (for fighter mode anyways): So...we'll see about how this goes from here on out. At this point, contemplating Super Armor for the fighter made from heavy plastic-coated foam blind slats. Stay tuned....

Well, they could also tell us what happened to the Megaroad after it left Earth. Last I heard, it vanished without a trace.

Forgive me, but while I'm familiar with HLJ, the other acronyms don't ring a bell. What is "NY" for example? Thanks in advance.

I honestly don't know why, but I scraped together what was left of my vf-1 project. Maybe boredom, desperation or whatnot. But aside from a broken tailpack and legs that needs mending, the remaining casualty is that the head transform that had broken managed to pop out of the cockpit/ nose from me flinging it, Just fiddling with stuff right now.... dunno what or why at this point....

I would, but the VF-1 was the last "available" money I'll see for some time now; pretty much living on a shoestring with my current situation for the foreseeable future (long story involving being disabled and a whole mess of crap best left unexplained). I'm going to take a break and try to get my head together, then decide what to do next. I haven't had the heart to throw away the remains of the VF-1. And no: "smashing heads open with a bat" isn't something I would even joke about. I appreciate the humor lol, but a head injury is how I got into my situation in the first place.

While I had Ozma's fighter from Macross Delta, I didn't have too many issues with it. Where my issues came in were the 1/72 VF-1 series by BOTH Imai and Bandai- Imai: - Backpack/tail-fin joint ungainly and very fragile. Pack would not stay up - Bicep swivel had a knack for getting stuck ( even with proper trimming, sanding and gluing) and then snap off - "Blades"/ fighter leg retainers holding chestplate to front body tended to snap where posts went into chestplate - Instructions actually show a polycap being put in the wrong way into the battroid nose/ cockpit, causing all sorts of headaches - Ugly joints for the backpack and the ailerons/ tailfins - Having to swap out nosecones - Plastic piece keeping landing gear straight when deployed had a nasty habit of breaking when least expected - Clip on Battroid nose/ cockpit tended to break, making keeping the robot upright almost impossible - Metal hinges on valkyrie at shoulders a headache to install w/o breaking a plastic piece (had to trim those several times) - "Slide-hinges" for arms VERY fragile and will break just by thinking about them while on a drive across town on a summer's day. - Head-lasers snap just by looking at them wrong. - Canopy is made of saran-wrap for all I can tell and will break if your cat sneezes. - Nose landing gear doors all too easy to glue shut by mistake or snap while trying to open - Proportions are weird (with those shoulders, anyone for "mech football"?) BanDai: - The plastic is the worst quality in the known history of mankind: it will snap and crumble just on principle, it's THAT brittle - Hinges for tail-fins, landing gear doors and whatnot VERY fiddly and will fall apart or break without notice - Pieces can break even if minimal force is used during construction - Cannot hold poses very well - Crucial joint pieces way too thin and will eventually snap, no matter how loose the joint is - Arms and legs do not stay in place very well (if at all) - Odd transform: kneecaps did not go up on other versions like they do on this model - Proportions seem a bit off between parts - Head- lasers are prone to falling off without notice, one-by-one - Hands are not very well designed: the fingers tend to fall out of the hands a lot of the time - Gunpod handle prone to breaking - Swing-cams and plates holding legs to fighter are not very strong and the grey plastic will give out sooner or later - Hands tend to get stuck inside forearm during transform, even when left open and flat - Joints overall are way too weak - Overall, Valkyrie looks way too skinny and slight

I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I ended up flinging this against a wall in sheer frustration. I don't have money for continual rebuilds, parts or anything else period. Right now, it sits as a pile of junk in more pieces than it originally came in. Thanks anyways though, I appreciate it.

I wonder how much horror set in when she realized what she just did to your models? BTW: I ask because in a fit of frustration, that's what I did to my then-current 1/72 project. It went sailing across the room after I had about enough of it. I'm sitting here wondering if I even want to try to repair this. I fought with this bloody thing for almost a year now, and I've had it. After my cats' hijinks in knocking it over and then losing it and sending ti airborne, I'm about ready to take up something cheaper like origami.

I wonder if he can reassemble a valkyrie that's been thrown across a room at a wall? *hides mess*

At this rate, I'll settle for the 80's die cast number. This newest one is a treasure, but 300 dollars is 301 dollars more than I can afford!

Well, my two idiot cats thought it would be a fun idea to have one of their "furry scurries" through the house, where they promptly barged into my work room and plowed into the table I set up for drying the parts. One cat stopped in time, but the other did not and crashed into the first one, sending both into my drying table. (They were supposed to be corralled in the other room with the door closed. How they got out is still being determined...) Casualty report: Chest plate is separated from the main body but can be reattached. Minor scuffs and whatnot on most of the valkyrie. One clip on the arm transform was broken but repairable and a head laser snapped off (superglue most likely will repair that one). However, the implanted head-transform I designed and installed is shattered and is going to be the world's biggest pain in the ass to redo, given the location and setup (buried deep in the cockpit area, which is buried in the sub-armature of the chest and a major PITA to get a,t let alone modify). Not to mention the money spent on materials and whatnot for it, the frustration level is at a scale comparable to the SDF-1 preparing to fire the Main Cannon... I nearly hurled this project against a wall with all my might. It took major amounts of self- control NOT to.... In any event, I don't have the money to replace parts on this or to keep buying adhesives for the bazillion issues (food and other things like bills are priority) that keep cropping up on this "self-inflicted wound of plastic" I did to myself. So, this is going back on the shelf until I either figure out how to salvage the transform (I don't want a "static" robot, which I just despise) or get sick of it and toss the damned thing in the trash. Me and my bright ideas, right?

UPDATE: So far, upper doors are going okay, but super glue got into one of the lower ones. When I tried to free the door, it broke. At this point, I decided one something I was previously on the fence about: redoing the main landing gear doors the proper way (two angled pieces instead of one "barn door". Just have to source the joints and do some more filing and plastic work.... ...Maybe I should have saved up for a 1/60 V2 VF-1S? lol Stay tuned...

Grease is the word.

UPDATE: Another issue I noticed was with the door with the red and blue lights on them> Comparing it to the schematics for the VF-1, they should go all the way up to the knee rather than end below it with a "bar" between them and the knee joint. So with that, I went to work... An inner piece on either side of the leg will be glued in with a hole drilled for the new door to swing open and closed. Meantime, an internal racing piece will replace the "bar" above the door as to keep the leg from popping apart (otherwise, it's just the lower leg and back holding it together. Hoping to head to paints soon, but I figure "I'm in this deep", may as well address this stuff before I "seal up" the parts and start color coats. Tay Stuned...

Going to pass on this one: wayyyy out of my price range, and I'm not going to pay extra for what should by now be standard. "Premium finish" should mean light weathering, better detailing and extras, NOT painting on what should be there to begin with.

UPDATE 2: I also took a good look at why the legs seemed so out of scale with the rest of the valkyrie, when I noticed something: It wasn't the length of the legs, but the "cutouts" for the feet! With that in mind, I went ahead and closed the gap on the thruster/ foot openings, while leaving enough room for them to open in Battroid mode, as well as tilt back in Gerwalk mode; I also extended the sides on the engine housing, as they were also a bit short when compared to the line drawings ?blueprints of the VF-1S' engine nacelles: I think it looks a lot better now: and when compared to the line drawings, the lower leg seems a bit more in scale now... Stay tuned...

UPDATE: finally got the arm transform integrated into the back plate: I ended up taking a page out of Yamato/ Arcadia's notebook: I implanted the rotators into the backplate (after notching the wings to make clearance for them) and placed poly-caps to retain the post for the arm retainers.Had to remove much of what I had originally installed, but the casings for them make for a much more stable platform to glue the top shoulderplates and searchlights to: A better look: With shoulder parts/ arm retainers in place (fighter mode): In deployed position (Battroid Mode) With arms attached (I began some parts priming...yay!): Folded for Fighter Mode: The whole idea was to provide a stable setup for transforming the arms, while at the same time, bringing them closer into the body of the Fighter so they didn't "dangle" below the head. At this point, I'm reinforcing the chestplate and addressing issues with the leg retainers for Fighter mode/chest sliders: the plastic embattled and as a result, the "blades" on them crumbled. I'm scratching up a new pair that should be in tonight or tomorrow evening. After that: joining the front to the back (installing the rear shoulder folding hinge) and building a new joint box for the "backpack": that will be implanted and glued into place and should keep the "floppy syndrome" for the backpack completely out of the picture. UPDATE 2 in just a moment folks...