Felix

I found three of those three post stands at a local Hobby Lobby that was having a big after Christmas sale. I paid around $7.00 each for them. A long shot to be sure, but for $7.00 worth looking.

I have the best type of home security there is. My nextdoor neighbor is a cop who works the night shift. That means his crusier is parked in his driveway all day long while I am at work. Not to mention the fact that he is a good friend of mine. (He is single and often shows up before his shift to eat dinner with us.) he is always full of advice about how to keep the house safe. The most important things that you can do are...... 1. Glass stormdoors. ( No one is going to break a big sheet of in broad daylight.) 2. A big fence in arond the backyard that can be locked. (A privacy one not a chain link. The taller the better. If someone has to climb a seven foot fence they will think twice about it. 3. Deadbolts on all doors. (Yep even the ones inside the house.) 4. PVC pipe cut to wedge into the windows so that they can be opened.(Cheapest way to keep a window from opening, and remember breaking glass is loud and dangerous.) 5. Point plants under windows. (No one in their right mind is going to wade through cactus or holly to break a window.) 6. Motion sensor lights outside. 7. A nextdoor neighbor who is a cop.... Alarms are alright, but oftentimes more trouble than they are worth. Most criminals who break into houses know approximatly how long they have to get out. That means that if you ignore securing your home in other ways they will still try it. Sorry to hear about your house being broken into. I hope that they didn't mess up stuff too badly.

Thanks to everyone for the help......(which, by the way, is harder than one might think to find these days on message boards.) I'm off to spend some money.............or at least spend some in the future.....

I may be out of the loop, but can someone tell me if they have had any dealings with Twin Moons Anime? I seem to remember it being discussed before, but my memory isn't what it used to be. Is it a good place to preorder? How is shipping? How was the stuff packed? Just wondering........... Thanks for any answers. Felix

For those of you who aren't in the know, ICO was a game that was released rather early on in the PS2's american life. It is quite possibly one of the best games ever made... Yep I said it... You owe it to yourself to track down a copy, although the last time I looked it seemed rather scarce...

Holy Crap!!!!!! I have been waiting for this ever since I missed it the last time. I can't believe how much the price on these things has shot throught the roof. Needless to say I have alreadey preordered mine........Now I just have to think of a way to break the news to the wife..........

The NHL lockout is the second sign Now if the cubs win a pennant next year isn't that the third????? Quotes ancient texts, " When the small bear from the windy place takes the flag the end is nigh........" Oh Yeah: Great job Red Sox from a Braves fan........

As a teacher and professor of the visual arts, I must say that the most important thing for you to do if you want to go to art school is to turn off your computers forget about Photoshop and Illustrator. Then sit down and draw everything. Especially life drawing, direct observation, and perspective work. But, you say, isn't everything done on computers this day and age? Well, That is true on the tail end of stuff, but if you can't draw and design with a pencil and a piece of paper then forget about anything looking good with a computer. (Supressing urge to rant.) The next step is to put together a portfolio of work. I have a good outline for a basic portfolio if you are interested. The key is to make sure that you have a variety of stuff. Drawing, painting, printmaking (the old fashioned kind), sculpture, and design should all be included. A good freshman portfolio should include at least twenty things, but remember to mix it up. The key to being a good artist is building skill across the different media. Also, as mentioned before, talent and being a good artist do not always go hand in hand. I have given many failing grades to students with wonderful work because it was late or the students skipped studio. Nothing goes farther in the world of art than a good work ethic. I have seen moderatly talented students go on to have successful careers simply because they showed up to work on time and met deadlines. If you think that true art can't be rushed then you need to rethink how the world works. This might sound discouraging, and to many it is, but if you can hack it chase those dreams. The art word is a wild and wonderful place to work. It is never dull or boring, and as long as you are willing to promote yourself you'll be fine.

Captain: My international law is a bit fuzzy, but aren't the toolings, in fact, owned by the people who created the intellectual property? (Or at least the rights to authorize their use?) That would mean that Toynami could find someone else. As far as the toy's potential, I agree. There are many things I really like about it that are innovative. I just don't like worrying about any damage I might cause transforming it. Which is a shame........Oh well......Let's hope Rook's is better. JsARCLIGHT: (forgot to mention this earlier) You are so right about putting inferior product in a cool package. I can't tell you how often I see stiudents try and make up for a poor prototype with a slick presentstion. I always tell them that the box should be like icing on a cake. Just look at those old Takatoku boxes. I use an origional Taka Valk, its box, decals, instructions, and catalog as an example of how to put a whole package together right. (Including the styrofoam trays. And NO I don't let the students touch it......)

JS: I couldn't have put it better myself. As it turns out, I got to play with an Alpha POS just today, as a retailer/buddy of mine was able to put his hands on some. My own impression, as someone who works in the toy industry, is that the toy was done on the cheap(and I mean cheap!) I wouldn't say that Toynami were trying to do TOO much with the engineering, they simply let the lowest-bidder (manufacturer) run amock and unsupervised throughout production. As a rule of thumb, manufacturers in china want to get through production runs as quickly as possible; they don't give a rat's a$$ about quality; they just want to get the stuff out as fast as possible, get paid, and get some other banal item out just as quickly, etc. The plant managers "pocket" most of the money, and hire the absolute cheapest workers they can. They'll litterally hire someone wandering aimlessly at a train station. "You, you, and you. Come with me, I have work for you" bellows the foreman on his quest for cheap labor. You then have assembly line workers who, just the day before, were janitors, now building toys on an assembly line for the first time....Aaaah, the beauty of cheap, commie labor In the end, the factories do this because it's in their best interest to make money. The true blame lies with Toynami for approving the production samples, and/or most probably NOT adequately supervising the production of the merchandise they paid to have done. You REALLY have to watch the factories like hawks, or they'll turn out garbage by the truckload the second your back is turned... And just as quickly sell extra units on the docks for cash to a shady guy in a pickup truck. Why do you think there's such a flood of "cheap" toys coming out of HK? Alas, whether Toynami will keep making money with their flawed business plan depends on how much longer people are willing to pay top dollar for sub-standard merchandise, It may work for now, but I have a feeling that it'll run its course pretty fast. Captain: You are so right about the manufacturer not caring about quality. They usually run stuff for small comapnys through as fast as possible so that they can get back to work on product for big (meaning big money) companies. When a company like Bandai that does millions and millions of dollars worth of manufacturing with a company and there is a problem, you better bet that thier coporate lawyers go and have a little chat with the manufacturer. The end result of this is that larger companies get better Q.C. than smaller ones do. That leaves the smaller companies holding the bag when customers start complaining. It stinks, but it is all about the money. This is another reason that the Alpha isn't all that it could be, and if Toynami wants to stay in business then they need to find another manufacturer or learn to deal with the one that they have. Like I said earlier this line will either be great or horrible depending on what happens next..................

macu5454: The size is fine because it is inscale with their other products. I personally like that. 1/55th seems pretty standard.

Thank You

All right, I finally opened up my Alpha yesterday afternoon after it had been sitting on my desk for about a week. I had read what had been said and was, quite frankly, a little nervous about the quality based solely on what I had read here. After playing with it for an afternoon I have a few tings to say about it. Let me give you a little background. I teach industrial design, graphic design, and just about any other type of visual design that I am asked to by my department. I have industry experience, and have taught for about eight years. Given that, I often spend a great deal of time going over new purchases, (I collect mainly Macross, transformers, and just about any other robot that suits my fancy.), with a fine toothed comb. I love to take real world products and use them as teaching aides in my classes. So, what did I notice about the MPC Alpha…Well, It suffers from a few problems, (some major), and at the same time has a few things going for it. Let me break it down for you. Problems: 1. The overall engineering of the toy is flawed in that it tries to do too much. It tries to have all the bells and whistles that any hard-core fan would want, but lacked the development time needed to pull them off. I know, I know you are thinking, “It took forever to get this thing out, it is over a year late, and it still has problems.” These things are all true. Yet, to me it feels rushed. Come on, landing gear that is too short? That is a simple problem too fix and yet it wasn’t. This says to me that not enough test samples were run, and that the folks who engineered it didn’t spend enough time revising it. By the way, I was just using the landing gear as an example. Here are a few of others: missile bay doors, locking tab fit, hands, and overall parts fit. 2. This brings me to the second problem I have with the Alpha, and that is its overall complexity. Here is a little analogy for you. Bandai, for all intents and purposes, has an unlimited amount of time and resources to produce a product. (When was the last time you complained about Bandai taking too long on a project? Never, because it won’t matter. Bandai will finish when it is finished. They don’t rush because they don’t have to.) They also produce very well designed and high quality toys. Some might argue the best in the world, and they would have a case to do so, but they still don’t get it right every time. (Do I need to mention the SOC Gaiking?) Now look at Toynami. A small company, fiscally limited, and under the gun of fan pressure trying to design and produce as high a quality toy as Bandai. To me that spells disaster. I understand the want to make it better than the last incarnation of the Alpha, but I for one could do without all the bells and whistles. Just give me the basics. The Gakken did, and it is a marvelous toy. Is it completely accurate? No, but do you care? Would you rather have had a smaller Gakken like toy that didn’t make you sweat when you played with it? Me too. The way I look at it Toynami broke the first rule of design: Keep It Simple Stupid. 3. Materials are always a big issue when designing anything. Here, Toynami both hit and missed. (I’ll talk about their hits below.) As for misses, the use of metal for metals sake is not a good idea. It is hard and expensive to mix materials, and over the long run causes more problems than they are worth. (How many of us have and old Valk whose chest plate no longer matches the rest of the toy?) Differing fading, and shrinking rates aside placement of the metal components is strange. Would the arms be less floppy if there was no metal in the forearms? Next is the issue of plastic choice. If you have ever paid close attention there are about a dozen different plastics that are used in the making of toys. Everything from rubbery PVC to brittle and rigid ABS, and each one has a different price point. Sacrificing some of the metal for a higher quality plastic would go a long way to fixing some of the problems people are having. (Like the weird sticky hands. And, on the same note, why didn’t they just use the hands from the super pose able? They looked good, and there were a bunch of different poses. Shut up you perfect transformation snobs…) 4. Finally, the paint, and its accompanying sloppiness, is a simple problem to fix. In most cases I have seen, it appears that all that was needed to fix this problem is to allow the painted parts to dry longer before assembly. Again, this might be an issue of the company trying to rush the product to market, or it might be a problem with the manufacturer. (And if this is the case Toynami needs to make a phone call to their manufacturer.) Enough with the Problems now it is time for the stuff they did Correct 1. Enthusiasm for a project is always a good thing. I can look at the MPC Alpha and tell the folks who designed it loved the project. I can just here them saying, “let’s add the missile bay doors, and retractable landing gear, and….uh….let’s make it so we can make a Beta later to hook it up to…” I love to see my students to talk like this, and it is great to see a company roll the dice on this kind of enthusiasm. 2. Innovation is always a welcome thing in the world of design. How many of us really grooved on the tailfins that slant out, the cockpit that opens like the one in the show, the way the canards fold back, and the cool pilot figure that doesn’t look like a peanut. Let’s face it there are some things that really got done well. Not to mention the box, the instructions, and the really nice stickers. All in all the graphic design is very well done. (Which makes me wonder if the toy was designed by graphic designers instead of industrial designers……Hmmmmm….) 3. I mentioned that there is some good materials use. From a design point of view the metal in the feet is a good use of metal. Keeping the center of gravity low in a toy that stands up is a good thing. Not to mention it doesn’t need painting. Good call here. So, the question now becomes, how can the next one be better? Well, in order to answer this I want to say two things, one to us as fans and one to Toynami. Fans: Give them a break, and let them have the time they need to fix the problems. (Even though most of them should have been fixed before the Alpha hit the shelves.) I know I have waited forever for a new Alpha and this one is close. I feel like it is in its infancy and needs to grow up. Unfortunately, this version of the Alpha will have to grow up before our eyes, but let’s give it a chance to do so. Remember, like Yamato, Toynami is a small company of a few individuals not a giant behemoth of a company like Bandai. (Which makes the price of the MPCs not seem as bad to me as the price of the SOCs.) Think of Toynami as a small local toy store, and Bandai as Wal-Mart. (How many small local toy stores are there in your area now? Also, this makes the price not seem as bad.) Finally, I think that any company that wants to make high-end robot toys is to be commended for even trying. It ain’t easy… Toynami: You have got customers who really want you to succeed. We want these to be good, nay great. We want to buy cool robot toys that do what they are supposed to do. Don’t shut us out, listen to us, don’t get defensive, and try to remedy the problems. I guarantee you will sell a lot more product if you do. (Remember what is said about flies and honey…) Simplify, I know that I can live with fewer bells and whistles if the core product is improved by their elimination. Also, don’t give up. I like the enthusiasm for the projects you have done. I have all of the MPCs and I will say that while the first VF-1j was weak the last YF-1r was a worthy competitor that I enjoy very much. (Fans if you don’t own one it is really cool and pretty high quality. Especially done up with Blue Roses decals.) Well, there it is. As a teacher what grade would I give the MPC Alpha if it had been designed by one of my students? As it stands right now about an 80%, but that grade can go up with some work. It can also go down with apathy………..Sorry this is so long.

WOW!!! This is the first topic of mine that has lasted past a couple of posts....................... Cool.............. I also agree that the blue is a little light. But Yamato seems to change a lot form Proto to Production About boxes, Couldn't yamato find a better use for all that empty space in their boxes? I know how about leaving some of it out and giving us smaller boxes. I am rapidly runnung out of room in my closet, and this ain't gonna help.

The thing that really hacks me off about the crack that is the Yamato VF-1 is that like any good dealer Yamato didn't give me the first taste for free................. Oh Well..............It is only money..........

Did anyone else notice that HLJ has Max and MIllia 1/48th supers up for preorder? Max in March and Millia in April Max: http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?YMTX-06 Millia: http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?YMTX-05 Ugh............I think my wallet is crying................ The mystery of Graham's signature revealed perhaps????????????? Thanks

Alright, I am new to this and I really want some 1/55 blue roses stickers. Were do I need to go to place an order? I have a chunky monkey that is dying for a new set of stickers............... Thanks

Long time lurker and occasional poster........... Anyway, I have been truly inspired by all of the great customs that I see here, and I am on the verge of trying one myself. I have all the paints, airbrushes, and modeling tools that I could ever possibly want, but what I need are new marking decals. The valk that is going under the knife is a Bandai reissue 1/55th. Now all I need to know is does anyone sell a set of decals for the Blue Roses valk in 1/55th scale. I've seen 1/48th and the origional Hasegawa 1/72 decals, but no 1/55th. PLease help me show some love to the old school Chunky Monkey......... Thanks for the inspiration.

Macross (of course) Drawing and Painting (Well that is really more my job) Playing the guitar Collecting various Robots Reading Spending time in my Garden with my wife. Single Malt Scotch (makes Valks look resonable) Gin

Ok, the collectable figures are cool, but I need to find a place that has more of them. I, like others, got my box of 10 and managed to get all but one of the figures.............. Which one you may ask...................Hikaru regular version.........I got the Minmay doll and all the clear hairs, but no regular hikaru......... <_< Does anyone know where I might be able to find one.......... any help would be appreciated.....