Talos

The Bandai kit schematics I used to make my old VF-19F had a diamond-shaped panel in the exact same place the MF VF-19F has that nose thruster.

Yeah, I made sure to get that one in there. I decided against putting on the wing root one, since it'd be barely visible and wouldn't look good at all. Besides the wings on both, I'm mostly finished, by the way. And yeah, the CG guy was lazy reusing those parts. In my opinion, based on what I saw in there and then worked with drawing the above, I'd say that the thigh on the second generation (VF-19F and later) is thicker and deeper then the YF-19/VF-19D.

Not bad, Nexx. The only thing I would change would be the reflective bits on the ends of his limbs plus on the shoulders to a DYRL-style hi-vis yellow. They're supposed to glow yellow in darkness (as you can see on the helmets of the deck gang on the same page). Good work so far on it, especially for a quickie!

Now I can't get the mental picture of Klan as a sukeban/スケ番 out of my head! Thanks. (I actually find it a hilarious thought.) But yeah, I agree that the references Nene is using are for Klan being the leader of the group, not any biological relation.

We've seen the pet in like two panels over the last three volumes (minus flashbacks, of course). Be happy. But yeah, I am really liking Macross the First and something along the lines of an animated version of that is exactly what I would want for a rebooted Macross TV show.

It did get restyled, but as there is no full-body line art of the battroid mode with that head, March did the same thing the artists in Macross Ace did, he's using the old VF-1J as a representation. This is what the new head that Kawamori designed looks like.

Yep, you're right. I haven't yet added that to mine, but it is coming. It slopes instead of going horizontal like the aft-canopy of the YF-19. Also, I believe you're thinking of the VF-19E, which was the basis of Basara's VF-19 kai.

Coincidentally, Knight, I've been working on something that could illustrate what you were saying some. Since I liked the VF-19F/S redesign in the book, I decided to do the same thing with the Hasegawa-based VF-19A profile line art I was working on. I have all the parts that I've changed in orange here to illustrate. It's not finished, the cockpit canopy needs to be changed, along with some details on the upper fuselage, the head/laser, wings, and the gunpod (the VF-19F one lacks the five vents on the side that the YF-19's has).

I don't have my copy on me at the moment, so I'm going by memory. Weren't they showing him the wreckage of Hikaru's fanracer that they pulled in from outside? It got crushed by debris after the SDF-1 tried to take off. He was borrowing them (from Roy maybe, or at least one of his pilots. I don't remember off-hand), thus the Skull Team-branded stuff.

Thanks, Schizophrenic. I worked some more today on the line art for the VF-19, primarily in the cockpit area. I based it on the Hasegawa interior and then started adding more and more details from the b/w work in the Macross Mecha Manual's YF-19 page. Still needs lots of tweaking just in the cockpit alone, but it's getting there. As for the shading, I wasn't satisfied with it so I pretty much started that part from scratch. I think it shows the shape a lot better now.

They still are reflective, but instead of having these huge shoulder pads that could get stuck in your seat harness or such, the reflective material is now as you see here.

Got mine earlier today. Was pretty interesting. The VF-1J kai head is very much a Frontier-style of detailing, but it's not as different from the original as I thought it would be, so it's okay. I'd tweak the new paint scheme some, though. What I find I'm really liking is the new flightsuit like Hikaru wears. It's definitely got a mashup of TV, DYRL, and 2036 elements in there and I think it took the best of all of them. Finally got rid of those horrible shoulders!

Excellent. My copy of vol 5 and the Great Mechanics GM book just landed in Memphis 90 minutes ago from Narita. Roy, I'm not sure if it has an ISBN, actually. Amazon.co.jp has it listed with an ASIN (an internal Amazon number), B003RBEKQO, which they only do if it doesn't have an ISBN (the ASIN will always match the ISBN if one's available).

Amazon.co.jp has both and they should both be in stock. They ship internationally.

Decided to fiddle with my VF-19 a few days ago. I haven't finished the line art or started any detailing, I just wanted to experiment with some of the shading and highlighting. I'll probably end up redoing most of this anyway.

Since they already talked about the VF-0 in the VF-1 Master File book, I doubt we'll get one of those for awhile. Besides, the VF-17 isn't the hero mech of Macross 7, that's the VF-19 Basara custom. Actually, one we have to consider is vol 2 of the VF-1 book. Vol 1 is the one already out and covers atmospheric use. That means we're missing space hardware and FAST packs (maybe the atmospheric boosters too).

I definitely thought the increased commonality between the VF-19A/C and the VF-19F/P/S/kai was one of my favorite things about the book. They were so different before, even more then a Super Hornet and a legacy one. Didn't like the VC-19V either. It reminded me of a Convair design to do a supersonic small troop carrier off the B-58 Hustler's airframe. I don't have the project number with me, unfortunately. I second the need for a translation of the book (a VF-1 Master File one would be nice too, but not as much as this one). I can make sense of parts of it, but trying to make something coherent is beyond my pay grade. XD It'll probably be a VF-25 Master File next, but I would love to see either a VF-22 or VF-11 one myself.

I seem to remember agreeing with you completely and pointing out how feasible it was. Heck, we have almost 60 year old KC-135s still in service. They just delivered a C-130E to the base here straight from Ramstein AFB that dates back to thee Vietnam era. As far as that EC-33B, some of the shapes looked a little wrong to me, since I initially said that was a Disk Sensor too.

A large plane, roughly two and a half to three VF-11 lengths shows up in the background on the tarmac of New Edwards in Macross Plus Movie Edition. I've uploaded a screencap and you can see it and a pair of smaller craft next to three even-smaller VF-11s in the upper-left parking area. On an unrelated note, check out the VF-17s and VF-17Ts on the right and the Starwing near the bottom, next to an AWACS craft.

Huh, I thought I had posted that list. I just checked and it looks like I only posted it in an MSN conversation I had with Mr. March and Seto last week. Oh well! Anyway, the first two you asterisked were right, but the third was Macross Errant (Macross-13 mission?).

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%83%9E%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AD%E3%82%B9A-%E3%82%A8%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9-VOL-005-2010%E5%B9%B4-08%E6%9C%88%E5%8F%B7/dp/B003RBEKQO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276649689&sr=1-1 It popped up on Amazon.co.jp and is available for preorder.

Looks good! That's...a lot of purple.... I need to start working on my YF-21/VF-22 again. Maybe after the VF-19, unless I get work done on the VF-9 instead.

That would be the Mitsubishi F-2A/B (and please, none of that Viper Zero stuff, people). It has a larger wing, an additional pair of pylons, and a three-piece canopy, as well as Japanese electronics.

It's not so much the idea that they would or would not both be better or worse then the VF-19A in atmosphere so much as the idea that the ace fighter would sacrifice combat ability in it's primary area and make it less capable then the -grunt- unit. Or, as an anonymous VF-19F pilot on the Endeavour said, "What? You want me to be an ace and fly that? No way, I'll stick with this. Why would they call that a 'reward'??? I'll pretend I'm not getting any kills instead. Maybe they'll pass me over!"

Actually, that doesn't make sense to me at all, Sketchley. We have a command model of a /space/-optimized aircraft. Why degrade its performance there to give it better performance back in atmosphere again? What was the point of that model in the first place? They would just build more VF-19As instead. It's not that easy to change the bypass ratio of an internal engine like that, at least not majorly. You'd have to increase the size of the fan, which causes a weight increase along with the lower top speed. It's for efficiency, not speed. That's why modern fighter engines all have bypass ratios lower then 1:1, while airliner engines have it potentially much higher (about 9:1 on the GE90, for instance). No, I'm sticking with the simple typo that got out of hand theory. I mean, a one digit mistake (78,950 to 68,950) and the two digits are one key apart? That smells like someone with a misplaced finger to me. YMMV of course, but it makes zero sense to me to have the command models have any lower performance period. The UNS has always been based on older Japanese styles of organization (three-man shotai, for instance) and the attitude of those organizations were to give the aces the best you can. The wingmen are there to support the ace. It's not like the US with the fluid wingman relationship. You can even see it in Frontier. Ozma's the commander of the (now four-person) shotai with Alto and Michel providing direct support and Luca providing EW support. Ozma has the ace model, which is naturally the best performing. On that note, didn't the VF-0S have something about the limiters being removed so an ace pilot could bring out its full potential?