SteveTheFish

Thanks, guys! Thom, you've gotta watch Record of Lodoss War. The original OVA by Madhouse is legendary, with incredible vocal opening and ending themes. I normally don't care about anime vocal music, unless it's Macross, Lodoss, and BGC. The OVA was done before the novels were completely written, so its ending is considerably different from how it was meant to be. Later there was a Lodoss TV series that mostly glossed over the events of the first story arch, then it covered the Leylia redemption arc. The second half revolves around Neece's capture, who is the daughter of Leylia and the wizard Slayn from the first story arch, now a teenager. The sorcerer Wagnard captures Neece to sacrifice in an attempt to resurrect the Goddess of Destruction, Kardis. In the OVA version, Wagnard captures Deedlit to sacrifice to Kardis and Parn must rescue her. Unfortunately, there is no clear-cut way to just sit down and take in the entirety of Lodoss and have it make sense. The OVA is all about Parn's hero's journey. But only the TV show features the "next generation" characters. Chas, I'm pretty happy with how Deedlit's hair turned out. I've only temporarily attached her head because her cape needs to go on first, and then her head/hair. I also need to attach her side locks that go on in front of her ears. I'm also working on a 3D-printed Rei figure. I first airbrushed her skintone, then masked it off and airbrushed her hair Mr. Color 34, sky blue. I managed to find the official Rei hair color by Gaia Notes. It's too light, I think, so I just sprayed it from a top-down direction to provide a gradation.

I'm glad to see this finally happening. For a while, Aoshima was going to release this Silent Moebius police spinner. There was one on display at their boot at a hobby show several years back. I asked and this is a completely differently-tooled venture. As for me, here are the two figures I've been working on. The Nadia is a 3D print that Tekering made for me. Deedlit is a sofubi I started on almost 2 years ago and I'm nearly done. I need to heat up her cape so that I can wrap it around her. As it is, it's too stiff.

@Chas The Bronco looks great!

It was fun. That was maybe 8 years ago. If you ever watched HLJ's YouTube channel, that's them. One guy I met that day told me at lunch that he was at a pawn shop somewhere in Japan and found a new-in-box sofubi of the Nostromo ship from Alien by Halcyon just sitting out in front for a cheap price because the shop didn't know what it was. Now there are a lot of new people I don't recognize, but I know those who've been around a long time. I used to watch Gunpla TV when it was Syd and Ryan, but while I got to meet them, those two are no longer there. The next time I attend a hobby show, I'll have to go for at least two days because I end up talking to so many people that I don't get to see everything I want to see.

I've been to HLJ and I spent a day there, got a tour, had lunch with the gang, etc. Even got some lovely parting gifts I wasn't expecting. I saw the private warehouse where they keep stuff on hold for customers. It's pretty amazing that they even do this because other online retailers won't do this. I know people there and they let me just take a look around at everything. It was pretty cool. However, if everyone is having stuff put on hold, then they're going to need to do something about that since space isn't limited.

I finally finished that small, 3D-printed Minmay figure my friend gave me a few years ago. The UN Spacy logo is from a set of Macross decals I bought on eBay years back, some of which I'd used on my 1:100 Imai Armored Valk I finished earlier this year. The pattern on her dress is from leftover decals from a Haku Rinpha resin kit from Hasegawa Eggplane Girls series. She is VERY small, so zooming in with my camera like this is exposing the flaws I cannot see with my naked eyes. Her eyes turned out better than I thought they would. The new Minmay resin kit that Hasegawa will release this month is almost the same as this figure.

I must not be properly communicating somehow. We're talking about translating a cartoon into something physical. Roadrunner can paint a tunnel on the side of a mountain and run through the painted tunnel, only for Wiley Coyote to faceplant into the rocks a moment later. That's how animation works, because it's not tangible. The real world doesn't work like that. Look at those hamfists and look at what your model Hasegawa gunpod looks like. You can't shove a basketball into a can of Pringles, but a cartoon character can. So if Hasegawa was to make their model with those big hamfists, they would not be able to reuse the same pre-existing tooling for the gunpod. They'd have to retool it to include a jibungous hole for it to put its big fat finger through. Like picking your nose with a baseball bat. You can't do that unless you're a cartoon. Notice that even Max Factory did not make the hands as big as the drawing's. I'm just saying that Hasegawa is going for more practical rather than stylized. Even then, compromises are still made. The wings on their Battroid are smaller than those on the Fighter. It's why transforming models/toys of these mecha will never be totally accurate in any one given configuration. The Valkyrie's jet engine nacelles suddenly get beefier and more rounded when in Battroid mode in the animation because they are drawn that way. Hasegawa chose not to go that route and instead made the legs more or less compatible with the corresponding parts of the Fighter mode. Look at how Shoji Kawamori designed Optimus Prime in the Transformers cartoon. Heck, any of the Transformers. The Autobots' tires get really small (or disappear entirely). Not because it's practical, but because they just kind of look cooler that way when animated.

Yes, the Hasegawa one cannot be posed very dynamically at all.

Keep in mind that since Hasegawa's reputation is the strongest for scale aircraft, apparently their focus is to keep the technology of Macross mecha consistent with real-world mechanics rather than copying the anime aesthetic in which the Valkyrie's nacelles swell up once they form the Battroid's legs to look more stylized for the animation. The thing about the hands is that Hasegawa has to make some compromises in order to maintain uniformity. The Armored Valk, as drawn, has bigger feet and hands, yet it's still supposed to be the same mecha, just with external armor. Those big, fat hamfists won't be able to hold the gunpod. My friend got all upset over Hasegawa's Armored Valk's hands but I pointed this out to him. Big fat fingers can't wrap around the rifle's trigger! So when I built my Armored Valk, I used the DYRL hands just because I think they look better aesthetically.

I did not notice that. In any case, the pendant is oversized and frankly looks dumb. If I really wanted her to have one, I'd mold one from another kit in Oyumaru and cast it in clear UV resin because the one in the picture looks a bit awkward. I can't remember, but I think the Blue Water ceased to exist once she used it to cast a resurrect spell in the final episode.

I'm working on painting this 1:6 Nadia figure that our friend Tekering 3D-printed for me! This is like an older Nadia with a more mature body. Sexy! So far I've done her fleshtone, which is a mix of Tamiya XF-10 Flat Brown, XF-2 Flat White, and X-6 Orange. Tamiya's paints have a rather limited palette and do not include fluorescent orange, so I used regular orange. I only recently learned that there is a Mr. Hobby fluorescent orange color I could have added to the mix, but this looks fine enough as it is. Orange is pretty fluorescent regardless. (FYI: for doing fleshtones, fluorescent orange or pink is pretty essential when mixing your own colors.) I guess this print also had a Blue Water gem for her necklace, but that got overlooked when printing. No matter though; since I've decided this is an older Nadia, there is no Blue Water as it's been spent. In the back is the July issue of Model Graphix magazine. I somehow missed this issue this past summer with its big Macross article and cover, so I bought it online. It came today in the mail.

Hey, that was me! I got that Bronco II kit for you. Now I remember... We lucked out finding it for a great price because it was on the now-defunct Rakuten Auctions site. I'd forgotten whom I procured that kit for.

@derex3592 That Blackbird looks fantastic!

Yeah, that mermaid turned out great!

Oh wow. I didn't know that there was an HG Sirbine. A couple of years ago I built the Max Factory Sirbine kit, which was a plastic recreation of their bestselling Sirbine sofubi kit from the garage kit days. It's a non-poseable figure kit and has a sculpture of a nude woman on the shield that's rather exquisite. It's quite an incredible kit.