Valkyrie

$77 may seem pricey for a 'perfect' Hasegawa VF-1, but consider the alternative before the Hasegawa valks came along. You had the rather bland 1/72 VF-1 Super Valkyrie fighter kit from Imai, complete with droopy nose and the inability to build it without FAST packs And the 1/72 Club-M VF-1 resin kits, costing Y13800 - Y16800 (retail). Good kits, but still inferior to the Hasegawas in some respects.

You're being too hard on yourself, Nanashi. I, for one, think you were right on many counts. Case in point, your Ghost X-9 thread. You were completely right in that Egan ignored the meat of our questions. He glanced over them entirely and chose to only point out your one mistake. He's implied that the information you seek doesn't exist (in another thread, mind you), but he'll never just come out and tell us that when we need to know it. In fact, it almost seems as if the only times he contributes information on these forums is when it's used to contradict you, Nanashi. Don't get me wrong, I still appreciate Egan's work on the Compendium as much as everyone else. No one can deny that it's a great resource, and the only source of 100% accurate Macross information (in a language we can read, at least). And all the time he puts into updating it is very much appreciated. But really, if he's going to spend some of that time correcting Nanashi on the creator of the Ghost, would it have been too much to ask to spend another 5 seconds answering our chaff question at the same time? Even if that answer was "the information you seek doesn't exist"

Perhaps this will finally convince AX to ban bootleg products in its dealer room. When I went in '02, I couldn't believe how widespread they were. Bootleg DVDs, CDs, and even toys and art books were everywhere. I thought for sure a con that big and comercially sponsored would have banned them.... but no. I've been on staff at Anime Central since the beginning (1998), and from day one, we haven't allowed bootlegs of any kind. It's in the dealers' contracts. If they try to sell bootlegs, ACen has grounds to eject them from the con. And actually, House of Anime has been an offender to this policy just about every year, dating all the way back to 1998. One year they were even kicked out of the convention when, after being told to remove bootleg items, they put them back on the tables after ACen staff had left. I'm glad to hear House of Anime is going down. And I hope more conventions will follow suit in banning bootleg products from their dealer rooms...

FYI, those ones on ebay are recasts. And not particularly good recasts, from what I've heard. If you want to get an original, don't assume anything unless you see that box.

I was actually working on scratchbuilding a VF-X4 for a short while last year. Me and Nanashi came to the same conclusion, that it has the same nose as the VF-1. I used a 1/72 Club-M VF-1 nose as the base of my scratchbuild, and started building the fuselage out from there. But I ended up scrapping it, cause it was turning out rather crappily But I'll try again one of these days, using a few scratchbuilding techniques I've learned since then. It's just one of a long list of models I want to make one of these day

You really don't have to go through all that. To convert a TG16 to play PCE games, all you have to do is redirect a few of the leads on the HU-Card port. All they did for a territory lockout is switch a few wires around. If you've got a bit of confidence with a soldering iron, you can hard-wire your TG16 to only play PCE games fairly easily. And with a bit more work and a few switches mounted on the console, you can make the territtory selectable. But actually, back in the day, I was working on making my masterpiece of a console mod out of a TG16. I was gonna give it literally every bell and whistle I could think of for it. And among them was a second HU-Card slot, wired for PCE games, right in front of the stock one. So US games would play normally, and for PCE games, you'd just stick em in the second slot, and the game would be sticking straight up, like a SNES game or something. It woulda been pretty cool

That's a pretty good summary, JB0. I used to be pretty hardcore in the PC Engine scene a few years back (without ever having sunk TOO much money into it all). Today, all I have left of my collection is a dozen or so games, and my original PC Engine with IFU-30 CD-ROM, and a 3.0 system card. About the only reason I've hung onto it so long was because I always loved the design of the system. The PC Engine and the CD-ROM drive plug in side-by-side in the interface unit, and the whole thing has a clamshell cover and a flip-out handle on the bottom, so it turns into like a little briefcase. It sounds cheesy saying it like that, but it's pretty damn cool But I've actually been considering selling it lately... It's sat in the closet for far too long :-/

Well, I called it. HLJ now lists the FA-2 as an August release, not July. I knew Platz wouldn't be able to release a Yukikaze kit on time

Try HobbySearch (1999.co.jp). They carry the same ones, but they keep much better stock than HLJ. Do a search for 'templet' and you'll find a few good ones. You should also pick up Tritool's 'modeling scriber'. It's probably the best scribe tool I've found to date, and it's PERFECT for use with those templates. The 'Line Engraver' tools are great too, but they're better for scribing straight lines.

I don't think you've found the root of your problem. If you've got your regulator set to, say, 20 PSI, then as long as that 20 PSI is getting to your airbrush, regardless of the hoses and fittings it has to go through.... then you're golden. I've always used the yellow coil hose on my compressor. I put a quick-disconect fitting on the end, so I can easily swap in my airbrush hose, pressure pot, or anything else I need. I just put those quick-disconect fittings on everything. But if you really want to get rid of the coil hose, just go to a hardware store and get a 1/4" fitting with both ends male. Then you can just screw that into your compressor, and your airbrush hose adapter into the fitting. But in all likelihood, you just need some more time experimenting. Try thinning down your paint more, and see how it works at lower PSI. And make sure your airbrush is thoroughly cleaned. That alone can affect both airflow and paint flow, and contribute to spattering. Personally, I like to stay at around 20 PSI. But it can vary greatly depending on what I'm doing. So just take some time and figure out what works for you. There's no one 'right' way of doing things

Just did a bit of math. Looks like the FA-2 kit is going to be about 8.3" long when complete (the 'real-life' size is 15.16m). This is a bit smaller than the Mave, which comes in at 9.8" long (18m IRL). And they're both dwarfed by the Supersylph, which is almost exactly 12" long (22m IRL) All in all, the Fand II is still a pretty decent size for a 1/72 kit, I think. I'll be getting it, if I can scrape up the cash for one. I just hope this one will finally have a good cockpit...

Yeeees..... the FA-2 Fand II... I must have it.... I saw it on HobbySearch last week, but never noticed it on HLJ until you pointed it out. They don't have it listed with the resr of the Yukikaze models. http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?PLZX-8 Now, the bis question in my mind is, will it REALLY come out in july? The other two Platz Yukikaze kits have been at least 2 months late In other news, HLJ now has pics up of two of the upcoming Yellow Submarine 1/144 Yukikaze models. You know, the ones that were originally due out last december

Okay, here we go Which early 90's anime featured a series of mecha with the same name as a certain Mazda car model?

Ah, I know that one. She's refering to Marco, the main character in Haha wo Tazunete Sanzenri, AKA 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother. It's a very old (and very good!) Miyazaki TV series.

Here ya go http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/page1.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/page2.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/page3.jpg

Well, yes and no. It doesn't include the PE parts for the fast packs, but it does include two sets of control sticks for the two-seater cockpit. The normal set only has one of each. Also, notice that it includes PE parts for the tips of a Super Valkyrie's fast packs. For some reason, those parts were omitted from the normal PE parts set, and Hasegawa chose to include them in the VF-1D set, even though that particular Valkyrie doesn't need them.

Actually, the manuals from the Platz kits list full specs of the Supersylph and Mave (it's not spelled MAUVE, people). But I'm not about to add fuel to fire by posting them here.

First of all, try resizing that pic Seperating the rear section isn't a bad idea, since it will make painting a lot easier. It'll let you airbrush the two parts easily. But the downzise is that you added a lot to your clean-up job. It would be best if you stripped down the parts before going any farther. The primer you used looks pretty rough anyway. Then, use Mr. Surfacer and putty to repair the scratches and the joints where the two part will meet. When you reassemble them, they will both be fully painted, so you'll want to have as little of a gap as possible. So you'll want them to fit together like a glove before you even start painting. To fix the scratches, throw on a little surfacer with a small brush, then sand off the excess with some fine sandpaper once it's dry. Once all your cleanup work is done, prime the pieces either with Mr Surfacer or Tamiya primer spray paints (stay far, far away from the automotive primers), or airbrush on some thinned down Mr. Surfacer (which is my current preference).

the closest thing to a toy that's been made so far has been the Yellow Submarine 1/144 pre-painted models of the FFR-31MR/D Super Sylph. Supposedly, they are to be followed up with 3 more plane designs, but all of them have been continuously delayed since last december

That's looking really good, LTSO. The scratchbuilt head looks great. Though technically, you should have also made a DYRL style 'antenna' to replace the TV type one that the kit comes with. It probably wouldn't be too tough to make one from a piece of sheet styrene. So if you want to go for that last bit of accuracy, you could probably bust off the old one and replace it fairly easily.

It wouldn't be that easy. You'd have to... -build two backpack assemblies, and devise a system of interchanging them -build two sets of legs, and likewise make them interchangable (between the differently positioned legs and the intake shutters, there will be no other way) -hinge the fuselage hatch (it has to be lowered when the FAST Packs are on) -Make the arm packs removable So a project like that would require two kits for all those parts. Not to mention a whole lot more effort than I think it'd be worth.

Nah, they're pretty similar, actually. Just new wings, tailfins, canards, head, and a few other additions / replacements. Seems to me that the VF-0B is sort of a stepping stone kit to the VF-0D kit. It's got the nose, cockpits, and head of the D. So Hasegawa will just have to make one more rack of parts and the VF-0D kit will be complete.

okay.... as much as I love both Macross Zero and Yukikaze.... we really don't need another lame 'my mech can beat up your mech' versus thread. They've been done to death in the past, and I think we've all moved beyond them. I'd like to think so, anyway...

I don't think I've seen a joint like that... but if all else fails, just get two B-Joints (Wave's ever-versatile ball joints) and glue them to gether, perhaps with a spacer in between them. B-Joints are great, but they tend to be a little on the weak side. They can't support a lot of weight. If you need something stronger, I'd go with these Yellow Submarine ball joints instead. They're made of a hard plastic, and are quite stiff. http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?YLS40101

. . . wow.