captain america

Hi Rocco. The software I used for the image flop was Corel Photo Paint; probably version 8. I'm sure there are better and cleaner ways to achieve what I did and if anyone would like to try, they're more than welcome As for finishing the model, I've never ruled it out; in fact, I intend to finish it for myself when I have some free time. Until then, it will collect dust, sealed in its cardboard box in the far corner of my garage. This model is sort of like Elvis: most everyone rightly assumes that it is dead in its tracks, mourns and moves on. However, there's always a small group of resilient loyalists who swear it's still secretly alive. Every once in a while someone thinks they hear some new tidbit, or see part of it in the corner of a photograph. Some even claim that they own parts of it and are working on finishing it even now. Who's telling the truth? Who's right? And more fundamentally, what do you believe to be true?

Actually, the "photoshop" job is mine, and a rather pitiful one at that; really not my forte. Just a little pinhole-opening of insight as to why my Legioss design has a short/stubby nosecone: I conciously and intentionally made it that way for three reasons. Primarily, it was so the Armored Soldier wouldn't have some obscenely-long "cubumber" clanging against his calves. It also makes for more liberal posing of the legs. Second, as per contemporary fighter/attack aircraft trends, newer technology/miniaturization allows for lighter, more compact electronic components, and if we project foreward into the "Mospeada" timeline, roughly 2080-ish, the radar/fire control system/mission computers would be quite small indeed, and thus wouldn't require such a large nose/foreward fuselage to accomodate them. Lastly, the shorter nose allows for improved foreward visibility; especially at high AoA. This, combined with the high seating position/low canopy sills provides the pilot with excellent all-round visibility. Well, about as good as you can get with those enormous LEXs and the missile pod/shoulders blinding your 5 & 7 O'clock

"Comparing a garage kit that would have cost well over $300 to a mass produced toy isn't realy fair. They're two completely different animals." Yes and no. The comparison shot was mainly to show the difference in proportions/aesthetics, not details. Whether you engineer a toy with "nice" proportions or bad ones, the price and the work is the same; the only difference is in the talent of the person executing the work. Once you delete all the open access hatches and reinforce certain small joints on the 1/32 model, you can very easily convert it to a toy, since the outer shapes have no undercuts, and would pantograph-down to a smaller scale very easily. Nevertheless, Toynami did what worked best for them, and though the overall proportions leave me flat, I hope that the Alpha toy will be a success and ensure future Mospeada/New generation skus; a win-win situation for them and for the fans.

Though I may be in the minority, I beg to differ on the statement that the sculpt looks fine, and the item IS overpriced. A cursory evaluation of similar items with similar sizes/features/parts complexity shows that you can obtain items of similar or better caliber for roughly one third the price of the MPC. Granted that the Alpha MPC has yet to hit shelves, the track-record of previous releases in the line leaves a great deal to be desired... if anything, let's hope they at least move-up to a better quality of plastic; the one they used for the Veritechs was absolutely appalling. ...And back to the sculpt, I think the picture below properly conveys my statement on the issue.

One thing elludes me... Toynami seem to want to keep the "Masterpiece" toys in a continuous scale. However, if you take the Alpha and place it in the regular MP book/box, it will have an ENORMOUS amount of empty space around it. For those of you who have the superposeables, the MP will be roughly the same size. Just take that & place it in the MP Veritech box... See what I mean? From a marketing PoV, would it not simply have been more intelligent to forego scale continuity just to have a larger, more price-justifiable toy in a box that promotes ITEM/SERIES continuity? Just short of having a "mini MPC" box specifically for the Alphas, it may look quite awkward. It may just be me, but it seems that they like creating marketing problems for themselves.

In what way? It looks close to the line art to me in fighter. The wing chord is waaay too short, and the feet stick-out quite far at the rear.... And that's just for starters The way all the wings & sections mate to each-other is also quite atrocious: horrendously-huge hinge points for the shoulder sensor pod cover and the wing-fold mechanism; not to mention the open-air chasm directly behind the sensor-pod cover plate. There are definitely ways to correct these issues, just as there are ways of addressing the issue of the chunky legs on the model, but they all involve considerable amounts of scratch-building which I'm sure very few people are comfortable with. In all, you'll never get a perfect variable, as the original animation line-art is itself flawed; showing different proportions for the same parts in its different modes. If a nice-looking Legioss fighter is what you seek, the Imai 1/72 model is just about your only option.

Primer will actually help you do two things on a resin model: allow you to spot tiny imperfections not readily visible on the bare plastic (pinholes, scratches, mold lines, etc) and also act as a barrier-coat that, itself, adheres to the resin, and allows paint to adhere to itself as well, whereas straight paint might not stick well to bare polyurethane (resin.) Always wash/clean your parts prior to priming though: Valkyrie's suggestion to scrub the parts with Comet or a similar product is best. Alternately, for parts that are too delicate to scrub, you can shoot them with straight lacquer thinner through an airbrush and let air-dry. Do NOT submerge resin of ANY kind in lacquer thinner or acetone, you will attack/dissolve it. A light wet-sanding with 1000-grit on larger, less-detailed surfaces will also work well.

Kool link, I'd never seen that ine before. ...Is it just me, or does "Stick" look like he's sitting on the Legioss's foot & gratifying himself in pic 15?

The 1/48 Imai model was a compromise of all three modes, and a poor one at that. About the only mode it looks decent in is Armo-Diver... Soldier mode is chunky and as the model design is twenty-odd years-old, its poseability also suffers somewhat. The 1/72 non-variable models are more nicely proportioned, and with a little kit-bashing & scratchbuilding, you can turn those into a variable model (the 3 in 1 box set is recommended). The ideal would be a 1/32 model. Maybe someone will make one someday

If they remain true to the original dimensions, it'll be about 6 inches tall in Soldier mode.

Hmm, Nemesis just reminded me... Might anyone have any sales data on how well the first MPC volumes sold? Perhaps some of our friendly-neighborhood retailers like Kevin could offer some insight into how well they've sold thus far? If anything, that could be a barometer of sorts for the Alphas.

Market tendancies can change quite drastically from one year to the other. They're definitely HOPING to be able to get $80 retail, but as with any other product, if sales start to stagnate, prices will fall to hopefully compensate. Personally, I was always under the Impression that The Macross Saga was the most popular segment of Robotech hands-down, and I'm rather curious to see how well the Alphas do overall. I'm sure they'll move like hotcakes initially, but 6 months down the road... Who knows. Toynami are making a drastic mark-up on the Alphas; even if sales go sour after a few months and they end-up having to take some stock back, they'll probably have made enough money on initial sales to cut their losses.

The fighter mode actually looks quite nice from what I can see. The end result unfortunately skews the soldier mode into looking stumpy and unimpressive. It's a personal opinion of course, but I tend to think that unlike the Valkyrie, the Legioss should be optimized for soldier mode. I think Bsu is right about them selling-out though; there's no one else manufacturing New Generation/Mospeada merchandise, so the chances are good that they'll be snatched-up. The price is still highway robbery though.

There were two kits of the VF-2JA made by B-CLUB: one fighter mode, and one battroid, both in 1/100 scale. OK sculpt, nothing amazing, but definitely nice subject matter.

Prices will all depend on precisely what you want. You need to take into consideration some of these factors: -building an existing model kit, or something from scratch? Straight build/assembly & painting, or modified? -do you provide the model, or does the builder? -determine your budget beforehand. You can get a model "built" for as little as $75.00, or well into the tens of thousands of dollars (remember that 1/72 Nimitz??) -Lastly, do you want professional work, or is it just for fun? Cheers, John F. Moscato

The Arii Zentradi ship models are worth getting simply for the box art; just disregard the pesky, worthless plastic contained within Seriously though, the little scale SDF-1 is nice, but the kits themselves fall VERY short of expectations. That's why I just scratchbuilt my own. Looks way better.

...The fact that Pixar has already announced the release date and concept behind their film and most certainly has dated pre-production shots, character designs and scripts to counter your accusations. In a court of law, evidence is golden. Speaking of which, as a rule of thumb to ANYONE presenting an idea to a secondary party, get that party to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) beforehand. This will make it far more difficult for people to steal your ideas, and while it certainly isn't a perfect solution, it at least provides you with a piece of tangible evidence that the party in question has looked at, and promised not to copy your idea.

How sad. Assuming the accusations are proven true ( I always give the benefit of the doubt), it would show a tremendous lack of foreward thinking on Disney's behalf: they could simply have offered the guy 100K for the rights to his story, and that would have been the end of it, everybody wins. Now, if Disney are indeed found guilty of stealing this fellow's idea, it'll probably end up costing them millions in damages. Is it just me being extra bright <_< , or is this an absolutely un-intelligent and downright stupid way of doing business? Then again, maybe Pixar's on to something <_< ...

The pilot is out of scale, but then again, so is the Legioss itself. Limitations of plastic toy production aside, it's not necessarily Toynami's fault: japanimation designs aren't terribly technical, and though the cockpits look nice & roomy in the animation, if you "scale up" a mecha to the technical specs that they quote, you'll find that the cockpit is barely large enough to accomodate an 11 year-old annorexic girl It's also like that with the Hasegawa 1/72 Valkyrie models, the old 1/48 Imai Legioss, the latest 1/60 PG Gundams ( 2 different scale pilots, one to stand next to the mech, one to "fit" in the cockpit.) The list goes on. Basically, if you can suspend your disbelief for a transforming, transatmospheric mecha, the pilot scale issue should moot itself

The pictures on Toynami's site look like those of a test-shot model, so for those of you hoping for an improved final product you're out of luck: aside from (possibly) having a clear canopy for the production toy, that's pretty much what it'll look like. The paint job will probably be worse, as per Toynami's usual qc standards. Sculpt is poor... I find it both hilarious and tragic that overall, the proportions on the "improved" IMAI sculpt looks even worse than the 20 year-old kit it was copied from; the fit of the LEX/engine nacelle/wing root is clumsy and mismatched... Japanese engineering my a$$ <_< $19.99 toy in tacky Disney packaging. $80?--HA! John F. Moscato

I tried the link to G-SYSTEM's website a few times in the last few days, and the site seems to be down. Might anyone know what's up with them? Strangely enough, I spoke to a fellow model-maker who hasn't recieved a reply from them in almost 2 months as well... Could the big guns at Bandai finally have shut them down for all the unliscenced Gundam models? <_< If anyone has any info, I'd truly appreciate it. Cheers! John.

Hi Bsu. "And Captain America, there's still a few Airsoft importers operating within our borders. Not many, but there are one or two. If you ever wanted something I'd get it now before they decide to clamp down on them." Might you possibly be able to recommend a source for these in Canada? I've been searching relentlessly on the internet, but a lot of the links to retailers that look promising end up being dead or outside the country, and I don't think we're allowed to import them from outside... Unless I'm missing something? Cheers,

I've recently started designing my own guns; turning a passtime into a career is really fun! Sadly, the oppressive commie government of canada doesn't allow us to collect Airsoft guns anymore; they DO however allow us to own BB guns, which, unlike airsoft, fire metal pellets which can be lethal at close range... Someone please explain to me the rationale behind that one! <_<

He made a boo-boo, he means the 1/35 Gakken toy.

...A 1/32 Legioss model from Genesis Climber Mospeada <_