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SebastianP

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Everything posted by SebastianP

  1. SebastianP
    The VF-25 stand-alone supers used stickers for all the unit-specific colors, and there were quite a few of those... and I don't imagine the VF-31 will be much different. Would rather have them in color where possible, as I suck at both color-matching and painting. Then again, unlike the VF-25, you don't absolutely need at least super parts to make a representative version of any of the VF-31s. We've only seen them twice so far in the show anyway, which is kind of the opposite of Frontier where they were used *all the time*...
  2. SebastianP
    I asked this in another thread, but this is probably the more appropriate place: What is the origin of the "Quiltra-Quelamitz" name for the ship that Kamjin tries to ram into the SDF-1? The Macross Mecha Manual *used* to use it, but now says (without mentioning the exact name) that "fans invented their own name for it". It's still used widely in both English and Japanese works (I was transliterating the fake "Pip-Road/WaveSky" advertisements from what I believe is the back of a series of fanbooks published by Fanky, and found that the Japanese fandom also use the name), but those are essentially brand new (oldest is from 2014), and the name has been around since at least the 1990s. Anyone have any idea where it actually came from? I assume it has to be from the Japanese fandom somewhere, because they would probably not use a "gaijin" fan invention...
  3. SebastianP
    Hoping this is the right place to ask, but... What is the origin of the name "Quiltra-Quelamitz" for Medium Scale Gun Destroyer? The Macross Mecha Manual claims the ship has no official name and that fans invented one for it, but it seems to have become so entrenched that his site is one of the few that doesn't use it. And it's not *Western* fan-invention, given that it pops up in Japanese fan works.
  4. SebastianP
    Still no news about when the Super Siegfried is expected? I'm kind of holding out for that one, even if the regular version is what we see the most of in the series (unlike in Frontier where it was all Super Parts, all the time.)
  5. SebastianP
    I counted 41 ships in this image: 11 Osaka-class cruisers (the "Stealth Cruiser", name comes from a doujin "warships of the galaxy" type book); 10 Uraga-class carriers, 12 Guantanamo-class carriers, and 8 Northampton-class frigates. A pretty decent sized fleet all things considered... though they're probably getting stomped off screen.
  6. SebastianP
    re: show length 27 or 30 episodes is vanishingly unlikely given how the schedule system works, we're getting either 25 or 26 episodes and that's basically that, because the TV networks won't want to make a mess of their regular season schedules. If the popularity of the show is anything like Frontier though - and it's looking good so far, given that the Blu-rays aren't available yet - we're probably getting another movie or two from this. ...Unless they troll us completely and this turns into a 2 x 25 episode show, which isn't completely impossible but still really unlikely.
  7. SebastianP
    Amazon listed nine discs for the series, same as for Macross Frontier, so I think most of us are guessing 25-26 episodes.
  8. SebastianP
    Your image isn't showing up, but if that's a Bandai kit, forget the cement, you won't need it unless you break something; and most of the things that are prone to breakage on the kit, cement won't work on anyway. Don't use the water decals unless you're planning on painting it, because the decals don't adhere well to bare plastic - better yet, find some aftermarket decals even if you do, because the Bandai decals are horrible in general, being thick and very fragile. Also, the Super Parts have issues - notably, they don't have locking tabs to keep the legs in place in fighter mode, and the weight of the boosters on the wings makes it not hold up worth a damn in Gerwalk mode. This kit is best built either as a parked fighter (standing on its landing gear) or in Battroid mode, For the Bandai kits in general, be very careful with the shoulders, they're kind of fragile and the parts that break easiest are ABS, which means plastic cement doesn't work.
  9. SebastianP
    Didn't I see an ad in one of the other Master File books for one on the VF-4? (checks...) Ah right, page 108 of the VF-1 Space Wings book has an ad for a book on the VF-4, VF-3000 and VF-5000, which is probably meant to be in-universe...
  10. SebastianP
    Morbid humor:
  11. SebastianP
    Also, SPOILER TAGS!!!
  12. SebastianP
    Meh, the only text in the instructions for a typical Hasegawa VF kit that isn't completely obvious what it means from context is the background blurb with the stat block on the front, and the stuff about where to order replacement parts, which doesn't apply outside Japan anyway. The rest of it is basically just writing out what symbols like "cut this part off", "drill hole here", "apply decal number XX in this spot" and "repeat on the other side" mean, and they're all really really obvious if you've ever built any plastic model from Japan before, or if you just look at the freely available instructions for any other Hasegawa kit online. And as I said earlier, the names for the colors used in the paint guide, but the important part of the color guide is the numbers and those you can basically google with something like "Mr Color 33". I wish they'd just give up and bottle the finished mixes instead of forcing me to buy two bottles I'll never use for anything else, and which don't mix 50/50 so I can't just dump one in the other and have done with it... Or prevail on Kawamori to stick to colors that exist in their color range.
  13. SebastianP
    Still no word on the release date for the Super version? (or for that matter the Mecha Colle Elysion, which is my number one must have kit of the year...)
  14. SebastianP
    You don't actually have to *buy* a different kit to get a translation guide for the instructions - pretty much all Hasegawa kits except for anime ones come with English instructions, and they're available online from sites like Hobby Search (1999.co.jp/eng/). All the symbols are common between all kit instructions, it's just that with the Anime kits, they don't generally bother with printing out the English explanation or info boxes. Most of the time, the instructions are fairly self-explanatory, as well. Also, the most common problem people have is not knowing what the colors mean. Hasegawa kits *always* use Gunze Sangyo Mr Color in the instructions, and there are paint conversion tables available online from a few different places and to pretty much every other brand. The only irritating parts about that is that Macross kits in particular often need mixed colors - the blue gray used on VF-25 super parts for example does not exist as a bottled paint, it's a mix of something like four parts blue and one part gray if I remember correctly.
  15. SebastianP
    Last question first: There are no seamlines worth mentioning on the Bandai VF-25 kits, don't worry about them. Paint? Enamels if you're hand painting. Buy a bottle of naphta for thinning, and a bottle of dish soap to clean your brushes in between colors. Acrylics if you're airbrushing. Buy a bottle of 96% denatured ethanol for cleaning the airbrush, and for thinning certain (nowhere near all) brands of paint. I can't really recommend brands, since I'm stuck without a lot of options myself. Humbrol and Testors make excellent enamel paints, with the latter having glass bottles with screw caps that are just superb. Problem is, my local source went bust. Vallejo, Tamiya and Gunze make good acrylics, but I can only get Vallejo and Gunze once a year, when the local hobby show is on and everyone in northern europe who can pack a van full of kits and accessories shows up to sell them.
  16. SebastianP
    The thing about durability is that it's kind of apples vs oranges. Bandai kits are full of joints, and the reason they don't hold fighter mode very well is that they *have* all those joints, and they tend to bend under a little pressure, but they *generally* don't break. If a Bandai kit part breaks, you're kind of SOL, because many of the parts that *are* prone to breaking are made from plastic that normal glue doesn't work on, and superglue is too fragile for them. Hasegawa fighter kits have no joints whatsoever, and won't bend at the slightest pressure - they won't budge at all, until they quit entirely and the part breaks. Unless the part is very thin, or glued on improperly (with paint on the mating surfaces, most commonly), this does tend to take a substantial amount of force though. If a part breaks off on a Hasegawa though, you glue it back on the model with as little cement as you can and paint the seam over. Also note that while Bandai kits can swap the landing gear doors between opened and closed versions, Hasegawa kits you pick one or the other and you're stuck with it. Same with canopies. And building the kits with the landing gear doors closed is usually not the easy option, as the parts need to be modified and backing needs to be supplied to prevent the landing gear doors from collapsing into the gear wells.
  17. SebastianP
    Building it is pretty easy. Painting is not required, especially in this case since it's a clear kit and paint would ruin its uniqueness (unless you're painting the inner frame). You can paint the regular ones if you want, but either you're really good and make it look much better, or you're not very good and it'll look worse than unpainted. Decalling or stickering the kit and making whichever option you chose *stay on the model* is where the real difficulty is, since Bandai's decals are pretty poor, and their stickers not much better. Also, any version except the Super VF-25 can be made to hold together in fighter mode pretty well, and they all look excellent in battroid mode. Gerwalk is problematic, but I don't like that anyway so it doesn't affect me much. Super VF-25s have no locking tabs to hold the legs in place in Fighter mode, which means the legs want to drop down under their own weight. There are three solutions: 1 is to glue the legs in place, 2 is to leave the kit standing on its landing gear, which works fine; and 3 is to keep it in Battroid mode. I went with the second option. Finally, *MODEL KITS, NOT TOYS!*. These things are fragile, and will not only get loose in the joints if you play with them too much, you can outright break them from transforming them too many times. My Super VF-25 is stuck in fighter mode because I broke one of the ABS parts in on of its shoulders. Due to the nature of the part and the material, it's completely unfixable. Be really careful with them.
  18. SebastianP
    The Macross Elysion may be the only Mecha Colle kit I'm getting of the entire lot, unless they *really* throw us a bone and give us a Battle Frontier and/or Battle Galaxy. The others I can do entirely without, but with the ships I'm pretty sure that Mecha Colle is all we're ever going to get that'll be worth the asking price....
  19. SebastianP
    Let's see... Not listed above (I assume you have some of these despite that): Hasegawa 1/72: VF-0 with Ghost (limited edition, long OOP, expensive as hell if you can find it for sale) VF-0 Battroid with Reactive Armor (same as above) VF-1 Super and Strike versions VF-1 Battroid, with Super, Strike and Armored versions VF-11B/C Super Thunderbolt VF-22 Sturmvogel II Bandai 1/72: YF-25 Prophecy VF-27 Lucifer Garage kits 1/72: VF-4 Lightning III (exists in both vinyl and resin, long OOP in both cases) VF-9 Cutlass (*possible* garage kit displayed at Wonderfest, I've only found two pictures of it so I don't know if it was actually for sale at the time) YF-27 prototype: I believe I saw a conversion kit to turn the Bandai VF-27 into the "fake prototype" from Macross: The Ride (it was a decoy sent to the open competition to mask how powerful the actual VF-27 was).
  20. SebastianP
    Of course it is, but HLJ doesn't actually post straight machine translations and has a human checking them over, which is why the language sounds natural. Whoever they had doing it for this kit though is apparently not the greatest Macross fan, or he completely missed looking at the original text. Oh well, crap happens. And I agree with Thom - we *need* a New Macross carrier in the same scale. The only New Macross model I've seen in any scale was a limited run resin kit that was more of a size with gaming miniatures, and there's an opportunity to make five distinct versions with only minor retooling. And at least two or three of them would sell big.
  21. SebastianP
    Dat commentary... "Destroyed Monster". Or as the HLJ page puts it, "Destroyed version of the Monster." Anyway, I've pre-ordered mine as well. I should get the DYRL version too at some point, it looks awesome, and having them side by side would be really neat. The Hasegawa kits are just that: Model kits. They do not transform, they're for static display only. I know some people have managed to make transformable VFs from the Hasegawa kits, but that basically requires at least two kits (one battroid and one fighter kit) and a ton of scratchbuilding. Also, unlike some of the VF kits where you could use for example the head (I think) from a battroid kit to make a different fighter version, I'm not sure the parts breakdown of the cruiser mode kits support swapping parts with an eventual Storm Attacker kit other than maybe the arms, and possibly not even them.
  22. SebastianP
    To be fully accurate, there are three types of polystyrene cement to watch for, and they each have things they're better at than the others. The thick type in the squeeze tubes is almost obsolete by now, but it has its uses for things like welding very strong point connections. Use a toothpick to apply it, *never* the tube itself. The thin type in the glass bottles with the brush applicator is really runny, and evaporates very fast, as it's almost pure solvent. You mainly use this by brushing along the seam between two pieces you've either "spot welded" with thicker cement, or that you're squeezing together with your fingers or clamps. The cement is so thin, no matter how hard you squeeze some will get into the seam and weld it tight. There are different strengths to this stuff, there's a brand called "Tenax" IIRC which is noted for being some of the strongest of the lot. The last type is the medium type that comes in a needle applicator bottle. It is *not* the same as the thin cement, it is nowhere near as runny nor does it evaporate as fast; but it is runny enough to have constant flow out of the bottle so you only have to run the tip of the needle along the edge and the cement will come out of the bottle. I've seen this kind of cement from Revell/Matchbox, Testors, and some others, and unless I run into something really stubborn, it is basically the only thing I ever use, as it is hard to apply too much cement. Make sure that if you get this kind, get a bottle with a *metal* needle, as the cement sometimes dries in the needle itself, and to clear the stoppage, you need to heat the needle with a lighter until the cement in there burns up. Testors used to have bottles with *plastic* applicators, and for obvious reasons clearing a stoppage using the regular method didn't work. I ended up having to cut the whole tube off and use it as a refill for my previous bottle, which had a metal applicator. (That series of events is also why I know that the cement in the brush bottles is much runnier - I tried refilling the needle bottle with brush cement, and it came pouring out like water through drain pipe when I tilted the bottle.)
  23. SebastianP
    There are quite a few differences in armament that I can see from these pics, and this is only one angle. Right now, I'm spotting the following changes from the TV to the Movie version: * Small triple turret on the rotating boom section moved to the non-rotating front part * Heavy guided converging beam turrets on the base of the cannon booms moved to shoulder, and replaced with large hatch. * Smaller turrets behind the heavy ones on the cannon booms, and on top of the engine sections and on the shoulders all removed (six total) Anyone care to post similar pics from a ventral angle?
  24. SebastianP
    We'll probably see the rest of the VFs eventually, as long as people keep buying the existing ones enough to keep their manufacture profitable. The easiest ones to make that we haven't gotten at this point would be Messiah variants, the crank-winged VF-19s (wasn't there already an M:TR release with different wings, or am I dreaming?), the Messiah variants, and after they've made a Super Messiah, that souped up YF-19 that Isamu uses in Wings of Goodbye with the Messiah super parts. The VF-27 will probably be the next basic VF type though, and hopefully we'll get that nifty YF-27 from Macross The Ride at some point. That thing was almost cooler than the actual Lucifer.
  25. SebastianP
    It's not like the Japanese don't already have a history of building carriers with mirrored layouts - the Akagi and Hiryu had their islands on the port side, rather than the normal starboard. It turned out not to be the best idea ever (single propeller aircraft usually want to pull left due to torque, and having the island on the right means the aircraft won't easily fly into it. Having it on the other side means you have to actively avoid crashing into it...), but with spacecraft and torque-neutral fighters (twin engines), it's a different story. While the announcement of this kit is welcome, I'm really really hoping that we're going to get some more Macross ships out of Hasegawa at some point, BTW. The Macross itself has been done over and over, if not in injection molded plastic before - what I really want to see is some "modern" era ships, like the New Macross class carrier (with all its variations); the Uraga and Guantanamo escort carriers, Northampton frigates, and those cruisers from Frontier we never really got a name for (IIRC). Also, if they really do make a New Macross carrier, I'm pretty much certain that someone, somewhere, is going to end up posting photos of their scratchbuilt city section that mates with it.
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