mitch

I picked up a copy a few days ago (the going rate at Anime Expo was about $32). I've had a chance to flick through it a couple of times and there's some really nice stuff (like Graham said, mostly kit work, but obviously professionally done to bring out the best in them). The line-art is good to see, but by no means completely encyclopedic. My personal favorite was seeing the Alto and Ozma customs done up with Sheryl and Cathy designs respectively (with Cathy looking SMOKING HOT!! Giggidy giggidy giggidy goo!!!) in a kind of Minmay Guard-esque homage. I prefer the styling of the old MG scheme, but nicely done none the less. As much as I would personally like to see something more akin to the Shoji Kawamori Design works, so much mechanical rendering is done digitally now that there may just be less 2D reference produced, so I guess this is the next best thing, especially since a majority of publications (Macross Chronicles excluded) have focused almost entirely on the human/zentraedi characters. Hopefully we'll get some different MF valks in kit and DX form someday and see some more books featuring them.

Damn cheeky if you ask me! At least more people will be able to get hold of the super '25 now, but after all the hoops some of us have had to jump through..! You suck, Bandai! Oh, and looking forward to the armored 25S

I don't recall seeing any last year (although I was only there at the weekend). Actually, come to think of it, I remember seeing a sweet VF-1S at Long Beach the year before at the Masquerade. It was able to convert to Gerwalk and had lights in the barrel of the Gunpod. I went ape-s#*t!

All the info you need is here.

Just wanted to say I saw some Macross Frontier cosplay at Anime Expo today. 2 Rankas, 3 Sheryls and a Klan Klang. I would have taken pictures but my camera sucks Still, thats 600% more Macross costumes from the last 2 years. I'm hoping that there will be some more for the Masquerade, I'll borrow a friend's camera and see what I can come up with.

Sweet! Thanks for the tip!

I need to get hold of vol.2 of MACROSS ACE. I tried to order an issue from the Kinokuniya bookstore in downtown LA several times but they have told be that they were either unable to get it when I first inquired and told me the other day that they have sold out of the available copies already when I asked again the other week. Anyway... If anyone would be kind enough to pick me up a nice clean copy I would be willing to pay around $15 plus shipping costs to California, or I can offer a trade for vol.1 of Macross Ace mint and sealed in the original shrink-wrap. Please help me find this item, I can't afford over $30 shipping from amazon.co.jp and I haven't been able to find it at a reasonable price anywhere else. My last hope is that someone here at MW will be kind enough to help me. Thank you.

No armor sets have been released yet, just the super packs, and since they are Japanese exclusives I wouldn't bet on seeing many if any at AX unfortunately. You'll probably find the VF-25's there, but the prices may be steep. At Botcon BBTS were selling the 25's, but they were marked up so they were about the same as buying them online plus the shipping charge, and the other day I saw them on sale for $275+ in little Tokyo. If you can get there early on the first day, you might find something. Either that or hope that they haven't all sold by the end of the convention and try to cut a deal with the vendor (sometimes they will do a deal to get rid of stock at the end of the show so they don't have to haul the left over stock away). Good luck with your search either way, you never know what you'll find at conventions.

I can't wait to see the finished article, its looking great so far! I know a guy who is a pro model builder and I have nothing but respect for anyone who can build something from scratch, especially when it comes to scribing and technical/mechanical reproduction (plus the lighting is going to kick some serious ass!!). Good luck!

I'd put money on it being a case of removing the ponytail from the back of the head and the mask coming in 2 halves that fit over the head like the CMs figures.

It's looking good so far. One thing that I would note however is that as cool as they are, Super/Strike packs are used for zero atmosphere/space combat. Good use of the background art though. Keep it up, you've got a good start and the more you work at these things the better you become. Good luck!

Nice! Kinda puts everything in perspective scale-wise. I hope the construction of the 1:1 scale Gundam promotes a boom in the giant robot industry. Here's to hauling the world-wide economic situation out of the gutter one city-sized mech at a time!

One of the coolest shots in Anime. Ever! Still gives me chills to this day.

Damn that looks cool! I'm still on the fence about getting the Alto, I'll probably wait for a review (especially after Bandai's shenanigans with the VF-25). I'll definitely pick up an Ozma if they get round to it though.

I think the armored '25S looks sweet! I'm not too concerned by minor color discrepancies at this point, when the '25's first started being marketed there were several pictures that were missing the tampo prints and with various color apps. I still have a sliver of hope that the mistakes of previous releases will have been corrected, although I'm not expecting miracles at this point since Bandai seem inept at designing a decent neck for the poor old 25S. Despite the problems that have plagued the 25 I still generally like it, and I stand by my pre-order of the armored 25S.

Good stuff! Personally I think it looks a lot better as a Gerwalk than in it's intended robot mode. Paint it red and make a little Roy to stick in the cockpit and you have a full win!

I haven't heard of this being brought up before either, but I agree that it would make sense to an extent since the human population was to say the least drastically reduced after the Zentraedi bombardment of earth and you need a lot of people to rebuild cities, build interstellar space craft, colonize other planets, etc. Of course, the population would have been swelled by Zentraedi/Meltrandi amalgamation in peace time so that could account for a lot of it. I would really like to hear if there has been an official statement on this rather than speculation on my part. Besides, who needs cloning when repopulation done the old-school way can be so much fun!

A huge thank you to big F for a first class transaction!

If someone is looking to get 3 ghosts to go with a Luca to complete the set I might be interested in buying the missiles which would help recount some of the (excessive) cost of the pack. PM me if you're interested.

I've been a professional painter for a few years now, and I can advise you that it depends on how detailed you want your end result to be. From my own personal experience I can say that Badgers are a good all-round brand, Paasche's are cheap but I wouldn't use one for anything other than base coating, and Iwata's are really good but expensive (but a nice one will mean you can produce lines equivalent to a pencil line). Look for something that has a double action trigger which will help control the flow of air. What supplies your air is another matter altogether... Hope that helps, try going to a really good art store and see if you can talk to an airbrush technician or someone who has experience. Other than that, look around the net.

Personally, the only problem I have had with DYRL is seeing what's going on in a few shots because of low contrast. I assume this is due to the quality of the DVD I have because I remember reading that the last release of the DVD in Japan had the frames digitally cleaned and correcting coloring mistakes (it's like the stormtrooper hitting his head on the door in Star Wars ep4, once you know it's there you can't NOT see it). I still go back and pause it in certain scenes and go through it frame by frame to see what's actually going on (eg. Max/Milia dogfight, opening battle scene,etc.). Despite that, it's one of my favorite films.

So you have to swap out the neck as part of the transformation?!?! The hands I could live with. The shield? Okay, whatever. By this point we'd all let the whole 'perfect transformation' thing go. But the now the neck? Is anyone at this company even feigning effort any more? A couple of guys can knock out extendable necks as what I assume is a fan project and one of the biggest toy companies in the world can't even take the time while they are already redesigning the head?! If I wanted to swap more stuff on a valk I'd be saving a hell of a lot of money buying the 100's line! That's Bull$#*t, Bandai. Ok... deep breath... Has anyone got any ideas on where one could get these custom necks sent to the US? Didn't someone mention a couple of threads ago that you could use revoltech joints that DON'T require removing the head every time you want a Battroid?

Sorry to hear about the problems with your valk's head lasers Nine_Breaker, I don't think I've ever heard about Bandai employing Yamato's replacement parts policy, but I hope that I'm mistaken. One of the reasons I like the old 1/55's is that they can be unscrewed and taken apart (although they did start to glue some seams together as I found out when working on my latest project), which made fixes and customs a lot easier from my perspective. Covering the holes on the '25 makes it look smoother, but when problems like this arise it means there are no quick or easy solutions for certain areas on the valk.

I'm disappointed that there are no external indicators between 1st and 2nd issues of the Alto '25. I had the mixed blessing of ordering through BBTS so when they got the 25F in they got the reissues. Yamato had the courtesy of labeling the old YF-19 when they reissued it with modifications (on top of the packaging having a window so you could see if you knew what you were looking for). Someone needs to tell Bandai that it isn't a case of acknowledging past design mistakes, it's about honesty with the consumer of your (expensive) product. I really hope they announce another valk DX soon instead of just milking the '25. If they do the '171 next then there's another run of color variants they can rattle off to make the most of the design, where as the '27 only seems to have 2 color schemes. Definitely agree that a CF version of the '25 would be far more preferable to a clear 'fold' version. That's what the kits are there for.

I think I would agree with this observation, although it seems like the Macross franchise could run the risk of getting caught in a kind of feedback loop (given that MF is to a large extent an homage to what has come before). While this means that MF and current titles get the best from what came before I worry that this also limits what can be achieved. As for the reuse of the VF-1 in later series, I always look at the cockpit controls as much as is allowed - DYRL introduced the concept of the throttle's angle relating to the mode the VF assumes; horizontal=fighter, vertical=battroid, 45 degrees=gerwalk. Of course there are other ways of telling, but that is my own little visual cue.