Pontus

32 minutes ago, sqidd said:

I've seen a base that was powered and through some sort of magic lit up the LED's in the toy. Of course the toy would have to be made to wok with said base.

That's what I was talking about.  It's called the X-base system.  You have to buy tiny LEDs that work with it and each have their own independent power coils that pick up power from the base.  Pretty neat idea, but for one, the LEDs are 4.5mm cubes(ish) which are a bit big for all but larger body parts, and secondly, I'd hate to see the radiated emissions on that product.  I don't think it's licensed for sale in the US or anywhere else for that matter, and I highly doubt it would pass any emissions or regulatory testing.

19 minutes ago, Bullet_Sponge said:

Sqidd is correct

https://www.showzstore.com/gomo-wireless-led-lighting_p1850.html
(I have one of these and it works pretty well)

Wow, a cheap chinese knockoff of unregulated chinese product!  Or just a cheapo rebrand to sell off returns/cast offs of the orginal?  It's $76 vs $200 for the original.  In either case, I wouldn't want to put my hand anywhere near that thing when plugged in, especially since they don't advertise what frequencies they use.  There's very good reasons for regulatory and emissions testing.

Correction, looks like it's the typical chinese selling products that they make for the Japanese market at half the cost of the markup, so it's probably not an emissions disaster like I thought.  But I'm not familiar with Japanese regulatory.

15 hours ago, sqidd said:

If you could walk into where you have your toys displayed and click a remote that turn all of the LED's in all of the toys on I'd be all over some light effects. But to go through and turn everything on.......nope. And to store batteries in them long term......nope.

I have a bunch of toys with cool light effects. I've never put batteries in any of them.

Any toy made for display like these that have lights in them need to have proximity sensors and/or (at least) auto off function.  I have the big NECA Gypsy Danger and the lights sucked, took out the batteries immediately to keep them from leaking which is the other problem with electronics in these toys.  Wireless power is a thing now, just have it turn on with the base.  That X-base thing was cool but very expensive.  I like lights, but it can't just be something you just throw in as an afterthought with a switch and power.  I'd happily pay double if properly designed.

10 hours ago, Beltane70 said:

Unfortunately, I don’t remember the title. I tried finding it on the B&N website, but don’t see it listed. 

Was it this one? Unfortunately, it doesn't show the back.  This page shows some macross stuff inside tho.  Here we go, Amazon has more pics.

If anyone is in the market, Ikea has lowered the price of detolfs to $60.  The white "milsbo" was on sale for $170ish but now it looks to have gone back up to $230.  Still not bad for the size, but I think I'll pick up a couple detolfs instead.

25 minutes ago, Sanity is Optional said:

No issues here. Heck, the fun of those closet shots are the reactions.

Just keep airflow, humidity, and wall temperature in mind.  After living in my house for a couple of years, I found that my outside walls aren't insulated (just block with an air gap to the plaster) and the books and manga I had against them were moldy.  

WOW!  This HMR Monster is incredible.  Truly this has to be their best piece from the HMR releases.  I can't believe even the soles of the feet are articulated.  Check out this crazy pose!  Even all the little red lights are articulated.  The detail is astounding in person (to me at least).  So glad I decided to spring for this one.  

BTW, which episode shows the Monster in battle action?  I remember an ep where it comes out and crushes the deck dramatically, but I can't seem to find it.  That makes no sense tho.  In Ep5 they show it being hauled around by loading straps easily enough, and the ship has artificial gravity that can be modified on a whim, why would it be turned up high enough to crush the deck?  I presume it's to keep it from toppling off or away upon firing, but... they couldn't have used magnets or something?  Lol, anyway...

And the Arcadia GBP is no less amazing.  The quality of the Arcadia KO that I first bought (before I knew it was a knock off in my defense) is no match for this.  Everything is so crisp, clean, and tight.  Although, I'm not looking forward to having to apply decals.  

I'm constantly amazed at how well toy engineers have been able to bring these to life from a freakin cartoon from the 80's, not to mention are STILL making them better and better!  I'm truly thankful to have found this forum and these toys.  Thank you!  

And I really like this view of the exhaust ports for some reason.  The gold is such a nice touch!

Thanks very much @Alphahorizon!  Everything arrived quickly and safely.  

Mucho arigato @Alphahorizon!  Everything arrived in very good order.  I feel sorta guilty opening the still sealed Monster.  And this will be my first Arcadia as well as my first GBP... well first official one.  Gonna be a fun Saturday! 

@jvmacross Thanks for those.  I didn't realize Yamato actually released one.  Those pics clear some color questions up for me, although the tan seems too light in those pics.  I forgot about the Toynami version, probably because I never seriously considered buying it (they were such crap). 

I know there's also a couple of really awful looking figures of him.  It would be nice if Kitz would release a figure of him with the XL steak of course, but I'm not holding my breath.

10 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

TV or DYRL?

I thought "SDFM" was the tag for TV.  Should I specify that it's TV only in the title?

SDFM Kakizaki doesn't get enough love in toys.  In fact, I don't even know of any at all.  So I thought I'd start a thread to see if anyone else has given him some recognition, kit bashed, modified, or otherwise created their own toys and make a place to show that off and show our love for a lost but never forgotten fighter pilot and fellow extra-large steak lover!  (I'd have scarfed that thing down before running off to battle... or taken it with me! )

First, does anyone have any good artwork or stills of Kaki's final valk?

Also, I brought this up after seeing this post by @sh9000 on the HMR thread showing a custom painted CF with brown GBP and wondered if that was meant to be a Kakizaki or just a CF GBP?  Because, although it's probably just the lighting, the upper arms, shoulders, and other white parts visible beneath the armor look brilliant white like the bits on the armor and other valks instead of the dull, off white/beige of the CF HMR toy.  If it's a Kaki, can we see your mods?  I'm considering the best way to approach the same on my HMR CF.

16 hours ago, Slave IV said:

New Minmei figure

Is that just the lighting or something, or does the fabric on that dress, particularly the top, look rough and unfinished?  Are they trying to go for a rumpled fabric look or something?

3 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Cool, hope it works out...it is still a good deal even shipped!

Agreed about the "friends and family" payments for goods and services over the web....always use "goods and services" type of paypal payment when dealing with someone who you do not know...I do not think most sites including eBay will allow you to use any other paypal method type....

With that said, there are situations where F&F is completely fine as I described in my initial reply.....essentially it is OK to use in any situation where you could also be completely fine with using cash.....again.....just use commonsense in any business dealing and you should be fine...

Good Luck!

It did not.  But it did end in pretty stupid fashion on their part.  My last message listed the infractions shown in our exchange and addressed ebay directly (since I assume they will be reading it now that I've reported them).  They responded with more excuses saying they felt threatened (absolutely nothing to warrant that) and in doing so clearly admitted to asking for payment outside of ebay, and refused to send me anything "because why would they send me anything with their return address on it based on my accusations..."

Anyway, stay away from mfairy77.  It was some fun drama tho!  It was hilarious watching them weasel out of a sale only to get caught in their own petard.  I hope ebay brings down the ban hammer, but I kinda doubt it.

@jvmacrossShipping was $35.

Lol, this morning, they said they were willing to work with me if I had "settled down" and "wanted to get in the right footing" with them again.  I said there's nothing to discuss, it's paid, and I no longer feel comfortable with local pickup, so please ship it as listed.  Still a great deal if condition is good ("never displayed").

I don't like doing friends and family online (even here), because if there's a problem, there's no protection for anyone, and that's the entire point of paypal.  I love the community here, but I don't know you.  And going outside of ebay is also entirely against that same point.  Local pickup isn't going outside of ebay and is totally within their provisions. 

This person acted like I was asking for something dangerous, ironically only after I refused to pay them outside of ebay.  I can only assume that they were unhappy with the price as we were having a happy conversation up until that point.  And it's not like I immediately got accusatory about it either.  I simply asked that we go through ebay so that they know I paid, and if that wasn't possible or something, we could just ship it and do it the normal way.  That's when they threatened to cancel.  It seemed to me they were looking for the slightest reason possible to cancel.  That's the only thing I can figure.

Apparently, they think ebay will overlook them circumventing, threatening cancellation, and direct contact and instead focus on the fact that I wrote "YOU" in all caps a couple of times to defend myself from their unfounded attack on ME.  Literally, that's the worst language I used (which was really late game at that point), and I was completely civil when they accused ME of asking for circumvention and of being a "dangerous person."    Good luck with that.  Ebay has my report, and I have no fear of them seeing what I wrote.  It's pretty cut and dry.  Probably just a big misunderstanding and covid stress though.  Sigh.  They haven't cancelled yet.  At this point, I'm sorta hoping they do just so I don't have to deal with it anymore, film the box opening, take it up with ebay when it's broken or something, etc. etc.

Well... sigh.  I just had a horrible dealing with a certain mfairy77 on ebay in what was going to be a great deal on an HMR Monster for $170 after getting the winning bid with no reserve.  Since I live in Wisconsin, I politely asked if I could pick it up locally.  They responded by asking me to pay for it outside of ebay by asking me for my paypal address to invoice me directly (a known paypal scam) sans shipping.  Having done this several times in the past with no issue, I politely asked them to instead invoice me through ebay, but that if ebay had something blocking that, I was perfectly happy paying the shipping and following normal process.  I even offered to pay shipping AND pick it up.  Then they started getting belligerent and accusing ME of asking to break policy.  They then said not to pay, and would cancel in the morning.   I said there should be nothing wrong with paying as normal and having it shipped per the ebay agreement... and then promptly paid for it so that ebay couldn't accuse me of not paying immediately.  Knowing they now have to answer to ebay for cancelling a paid sale, the problem is now on their hands, so they started getting more belligerent and THEN SOMEHOW GOT MY PHONE NUMBER AND TEXTED ME!  I have no idea how that happened, but apparently you can request it through ebay from what I've googled on the matter.  WTF?!

Anyway, I think they're just snowflakes or something, and I don't think they're running a scam.  They did ask me to stop emailing them (through ebay) so they could sleep... then DON'T RESPOND.  It's not wrong for me to communicate about the details of a sale.  But I do NOT condone sellers who cancel sales!!!  And since I was nothing but polite and accommodating to any and all proper policy and personal/safety needs, I can only assume that they realized that the sale was for much less than they could normally get (all other sales are for $300+). 

They claimed to have sold a lot of gundam and other toys but haven't sold anything for a year.  They'll probably be relisting the Monster and already have an HMR Roy for sale.  Please don't buy from them!  Buyer beware.

On 1/23/2021 at 6:22 AM, Kuma Style said:

 

Idk wtf that is, but it is bad a#%!

55 minutes ago, borgified said:

Now your missing the Slavos to fill in the missing gaps on the Draken @Pontus and the prices have gone down on the add on for the SV 262. 

Can't go wrong with Manda. 

Actually, I was disappointed to find it missing the sword.  I thought it came with it, but no, it's in the wallet sucking bandai extras.  I'm happy with this tho.  The SV is a beauty even if a pita to transform.

Well, Mandarake did me right!   Just got my SV-262 and VF-31J, both in great condition.  The SV was still in its plastic film/bags and was entirely mint.  And the VF, which Manda said had a discolored panel, somehow had a dirty thigh panel that cleaned right up (nothing else, just the one panel).  

Wait... the VF-1D comes with a fan racer?!  That's so cool.  I wish I could afford to collect the entire set of SDFM DX.  I'm gonna have to pass since I already have it in HMR, but still... very tempting with that add on.  Is there a 1/100 fan racer kit out there?  Or better yet, a 1/285 or so since I plan on using the miniatures to build an angel bird display behind my 1/3000 SDF-1.

Edit: Found one!

I'm thinking of picking up a 1/72 Glaug kit, but is it worth $130?  These seem kinda rare, but the 1/100 versions are less than half that price.  For $50 more I could just get an HMR without all the work, but I don't feel like it scales properly to the rest of the line.  Frankly, I'm thinking for all the non-valk things, I'll just do the Robotech RPG or Minitech miniatures for my display instead for much cheaper.

Well, everyone here swears by Mandarake, and I've wanted the SV-262 and VF-31J toys for a while now, but they've been way too expensive... until I recently saw that Manda has an ebay store... where they had listed a used VF-31J that was STILL too expensive @ $265 shipped.  So I went to their site to see if they had more info on it to find that they not only had at least one at every store location, but they also had an SV-262 at several stores too.  One of the 31Js listed only that it had a discolored patch and showed the issue in pictures along with all the pieces still in bags.  The SV at that same store said only that it was "opened, package damaged".  From member reports, that usually means it's in perfect condition and simply has a dent in the box or something.  Well, here's hoping they're in good condition because I picked both up for $150ea, and even after the shipping estimate came in at almost $100, it's still $100 cheaper than I could possibly get them otherwise.

From member reports, they either show the damage or state the issue fairly clearly and end up being great upon arrival.  Is that accurate?  Anyone wanna report on a bad Manda experience?  Because I've only ever heard good ones. 

How are you guys getting the full size pics?  Despite no changes in file or camera, mine have started posting at 1/4 size for some reason.  I checked the site picture settings, and it won't let me go higher than zero.  What gives?

I know that the Rahxephon can just summon arrows from thin air sound or something, but I like posing it as if it was a human archer.  Here, I was trying to get an arrow drawing pose as if he had a "quiver" on his back

Looks like BBTS got their shipment from Kitz.  Happy to finally add Misa to my collection.

And she no sooner got on the shelf before getting into an argument with Hikaru...