Talos

That would be "Ready, Go!", the OP for Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi. She's done some other theme songs as well, Shangri-La, On-Tama!, et al.

Darn! I'm going to miss it. Also missing the Gundam 00 movie premiere too. Oh well.

Umm, when and where is this Gundam concert? I'll be in Tokyo until the 15th.

I thought I had one in my archives, but I didn't see one when I looked around. The only ones I had were scans from Hasegawa model kits and the VF-1 Master File book, neither of which are suitable for profiling without a lot of clean-up. Mr March should have one for sure, though. I'd ask him.

Mr March drew one, I'd drop him a PM.

I use a combination of GIMP and Photoshop for my stuff. I started off with GIMP a few years ago and developed my coloring and shading skills there, as well as designing and drawing markings. Thanks to you, Mr. March, I've been learning and using Photoshop, but I'm keep it with my unshaded work right now, since I'm more comfortable shading in GIMP. frothymug, the best advice I can give is practice, practice, practice! Well that and 'use the multiply layer' feature. It's in both GIMP and Photoshop and allows you to color or do whatever on a separate layer underneath the line art without disturbing it. Makes everything so much easier. March and I can give you a more-detailed help later, if you need it. I'm posting an example of what you can do with GIMP and Photoshop. They've both been shown before on here (I just need to get back to work on them, I'm slacking!), but I wanted to illustrate my point. The shaded one is from GIMP, the unshaded is from Photoshop. I should note that the unshaded one isn't going backwards. I'm doing more anime-style coloring in unshaded and also doing them in the Macross Mecha Manual style. The shaded one will get more realistic schemes (including up-detailed versions of the anime ones). Shogi, there was a whole set of fairly undetailed, but complete (top, side, front, back) fan-made schematics of the VF-1 battroids that I remember from many years ago. I'm sure they're still up on one of the Robotech sites somewhere. I remember seeing them on one.

There is still some in the 1st profile thread, which should be in the Hall of Great Topics. I have some fighter ones I've finished uploaded too, all the VF-0s, the four main VF-1s, and the YF-21/VF-22. The YF-19/VF-19 are soon to come. Don't have anything battroid, though. I prefer the fighter modes. XD

You did forget one, Global as the older and perverted Ship's Captain/School Principal/Commandant who is always smoking in his office while looking out the window at the female students with binoculars.

I've always thought about it this way, they find the ship and it's clearly sized for aliens a certain size (maclone), but they don't necessarily find enough remains of the crew to determine their biological relations to humanity. Since they don't know how tough they are, they use a heavy caliber (55mm) in the gunpods on the VF-1 (since the VF-0 was never intended to fight the aliens, it makes do with a smaller caliber). Later on (VF-11, VF-19, etc), they go with smaller caliber, since they now know how much damage they can take.

Yes, I know. Properly, it was a 55mm gatling gun. You should take a look around this site, you might enjoy some of the background info on the ships, destroids, and variable fighters. http://www.macross2.net/m3/m3.html (SDF Macross and Do You Remember Love? are the two with the VF-1)

No, the designs for Macross were created for the show. The VF-1 and GU-11 gunpod were designed by Shoji Kawamori. I'm not sure when the first toys for it were released, but it was definitely after the show started. Actually, a Macross toy was taken and used for Transformers. The Super VF-1S was released as the G1 Autobot Jetfire.

It's a very Japanese thing to do, really. For instance, the JGSDF (Japan Ground Self-Defense Force) still uses the "Type-xx" designation, where the "xx" is a two-digit year number. They field the Type-90 tank, first produced in 1990, the Type-74 tank, first produced in 1975, and are getting the Type-10 tank soon, which you can guess the date on. Previously (during and before the war), they gave aircraft a similar designation. The most famous is the Type-0 Carrier Fighter, taken from the Imperial year 2600, which corresponded with the Gregorian 1940. So yeah, it can seem odd, but that's how the Japanese (and the Chinese, for that matter) still do it.

Nope! Actually, yeah, it is! I'm glad I've been following along with these. I have my copies of Macross Ace 1-5 and Macross the First on my bookshelf. I'm...going to rapidly run out of shelf space at this rate. Don't forget to grab vol 2. It should be coming out sometime Q3 or Q4.

I still want the Milia version of Light the Light... XD

Hmm, odd. I'll fix it later. Anyway, I reupoaded the VE-3 for you. It's restricted to fighter mode only.

When I did my VE-3 Howlers, that's what I figured the squadron designations would be too. There is precedent for four letter codes (RVAH, for instance), but I prefer to stick with three.

S=Space V=Fixed-wing F=Fighter

Why would he be biased towards the VF-22? He flew the VF-1 for years and never (as far as we know) piloted a Q-Rau. All joking aside, though, him in a Q-Rau was a DYRLism, in-universe dramatization for a movie plot. I can foresee three reasons for the VF-19 to win the competition. One was what was mentioned before, the plane was cheaper and the YF-21 was destroyed in the battle. The second is the configuration. The YF-19 was a conventional design in most respects. The airframe lacked things such as the adaptive wings and BDI that the YF-21 had. This made it more proven and cheaper (and the safer option) right off the bat. The third would be the real-world ATF competition that Supernova is based on. The YF-21 analogue, the YF-23, also lost the competition. Like the YF-21, it was an arguably-more advanced design in the long run, but the Air Force went with the more traditional, conventional design (YF-22, which underwent a massive redesign to become the F-22A we have today).

It's the Macross II-universe version of the VF-4 Lightning III. Fighter mode's the same, but it can mount FAST packs. The battroid mode is completely different, though. Pic attached. Actually, the way he worded it: "A failed experiment" makes me think more along the lines of traditional battlecruisers and the M551 Sheridan tank. Both had full operational careers. The Sheridan operated for 30 years and had several hundred made. The battlecruisers were built in several navies and served for decades. However both of those were failed experiments when you take into the operational concept and useage. BCs were not designed to be used in the battleline against battleships, but because they have battleship-grade cannons, commanders always stuck them in. They were very, very vunerable. As for the Sheridan, it was designed as a very light amphibious and parachute-capable tank that could shoot shells and missiles. Unfortunately there were too many compromises to do all of that and the Army has seen no reason to replace them after phasing them out. As far as the beam guns on the VF-4, there is one extra alternate thing they would be able to do easily, just like a gatling pod. That's training. Instead of loading paintball ammo, they just dial down the power of the lasers until hits are detectable by the plane, but no damage is done.

Oh yes, I'm quite aware of the VF-4 Siren being equipped with VF-1-style FAST Packs (as well as dual gunpods, if I recall correctly). I was referring to the Lightning III in this case. I was speaking more to pure configuration, actually. The boosters and beam cannons of the Strike VF-1 integrated into the airframe, along with the 12-missile armament. All without using a single one of the plane's hardpoints or degrading its ability to operate in atmosphere. I see that as a great strength of the design. One bit I noticed in your translation. Is the caption of Hikaru's VF-4 in there really referring to it as a VF-4G? Also, the prototype designations there totally sound like WWII RLM ones. VF-4 Vx prototypes, then a VF-4A-0 trial production run mirror RLM practices. Yeah, that's the one. Thank you. I swear I saw something online mentioning them. I remember, because when I saw that I did a double-take and then complained about it later to Seto and a couple others since it didn't make any sense (since the two missiles look nothing alike).

I don't have the time at the moment for a full reply, but there are a couple VF-4 points I would like to make. Yes, it does not have FAST packs, but when it comes down to it, isn't the VF-4 basically a standard VF (read: VF-1) with the DYRL Strike pack built in? It has the rockets and the twin beam cannons built in, which means it can use them in atmosphere too. I forget which book it is that has it, but there's a shot of what could be a possible VF-X-4, looking for all the world like a VF-1 with FAST packs attached to the wings. It was the same book as the one that had the reference to Meltrandi wrestling as a sport in post-SW1 Earth. The other one is the carriage of 12 full-size missiles faired into the body without using a single hardpoint. We're not talking mini-missiles here, but AMM-1-size (in fact, I think they're even called AMM-1..., despite being bigger then what we see on the VF-1) missiles. Not even a VF-19 has that.

You also forgot the VF-0, which gets some coverage in the VF-1 Master File. You're probably right about the next one being VF-25, really. In the meantime, I'm still working on my VF-19s too. I usually don't show any of my colored art in this part of the board, but since I assumed Graham would be interested, I thought I would make one exception. I'm doing these in two different styles. The first is unshaded anime-style coloring like the Macross Mecha Manual's, which you can see on this VF-19F of Macross-7 that I started. Still needs the wing line art, then most of the markings and stripping, but it's getting there. The other is what my long-term project with this is, a fully shaded and detailed aircraft profile view of the VF-19 family, starting with the VF-19A which I'm showing here. Enjoy!

They had VF-1Js, VF-1As (D7), destroids out the yin-yang (including a Monster!) in civilian hands by the 2040s, so there's no problem with it being a civilian one. Heck, by that point the VF-4 and VF-5000s are probably surplussed out too. Ozma...he just attaches a sound booster to his VF-25S! The sunglasses he wore (Basara-style) were a bit much the last time he did that, though... (It was in a joke manga in Macross Ace)

Thanks, Schizo! Really, though, we all have to start somewhere. Look back in the first Profile thread here (to about May 2008 or so) and you'll see some horrific VF-4s from me. I fell in with the right groups and pushed my aircraft and Macross work continuously. I saw those really super-detailed and realistic aircraft profiles and I wanted to do that too, especially with things like variable fighters from Macross. I'm slowly getting there. I hate double-posting and this isn't a WiP thread for me, so I haven't been updating on the VF-19, but since I'm posting anyway for that, I figure I can stick in my drawing I posted the other day in the Master File thread. They're almost done, mostly just need to finish the wings on both!

What I think is also interesting about the tail fins is that the VF-19A/C FAST Pack-equipped birds have the tail in the same place as the VF-19F, since the legs are lowered like the Super VF-1s. As far as the model, I think that was more...time saving...then an error. Very much done deliberately. Since they already had the VF-19A model, they just stuck the ELINT parts onto it.