RavenHawk

On 11/16/2021 at 9:46 AM, MKT said:

Quite like what Pose+ has done with the overall sculpt in the prototype. Size looks a bit small though, in armor mode it seems to be the height of normal 1/12 figures at 6 inches. So the rider is perhaps around 1/15 scale? Shudder to think of the price though, Pose+ stuff appear to be at at least as or even more pricey than Sentinel. But it would be a great release for fans, and I might just jump on it too.

I was assuming 1/15 or 1/18, based on... well, not much of anything, I suppose.

10 hours ago, JetJockey said:

I kind of wish we got the bikes that they ride into the ship. But this might be one of those beggars can't be choosers when we get more Zillion stuff.

The old toys of this did include those, which was the only way to get the weapon.

I honestly did like those too (I've thought the sidecar look to be pretty cool, ever since my old Revell model of the GI Joe RAM when I was a kid), and I hope that the Tri-Charger not only actually gets released this time (unlike when CMs teased it), but does well enough to justify a couple more items in the line.

7 hours ago, MKT said:

Hmm.. As I am appreciating bike mecha more & more, I really want to like the Tri-charger. Yet my biggest issue with its design are the huge wheels sticking out of the shins, looking somewhat unresolved, and just looks wrong. I imagine it will a real chore to walk with huge weights on your knees or shins. 

There should have a way to move the wheels somewhere to the back, perhaps at the butt below the front wheel, even if they cheat a little by just simply unplugging them from the shins & sticking them there. 

I'm not a fan of the look of the wheels on the side either, but functionally they're needed there for the third mode (thus the "Tri" in the name).

5 hours ago, MKT said:

It's fun to hunt for older figures. I had the Organic original Garland for a while, and wanted the rest of the set.  As I understood, they were shelf warmers when they were released due to rather high MSRP for essentially non-transforming, trading-sized figures then. But finding the rest of the set was tough in past year or so, until recently:

Congrats, and great find!

I lucked into finding the full set of all of them for around $60 a couple years ago, all NIB, and have to say I love them decorating my display shelves.

The Hargun is front and center in my display, because, like you said, it's the only mass-produced one, and a nice contrast to the others.

Still haven't gotten around to building any of my resin kits of the rarer ones, though.

22 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

Same Pose+ Tri-Charger prototype display from Super Festival Extra.

Thanks for sharing this.

I hope we see a pre-order soon.

7 hours ago, MKT said:

On the B2Five ride armors, I watched a FB video not too long ago where the designer was introducing the toys, transforming it on-screen with some discussion on their design philosophy. The designer is from Hong Kong, & is actually the same guy behind the recent & very excellent Pose+ Baikanfu.

Some takeaways:

1. It is not perfect transformation, yet nowhere near the huge partsformer of Megahouse's. Only the front forks are removed from bike to armor mode and stored aside. This is for practical purposes at this scale for the transformation & posing in armor mode, plus to avoid overengineering & complexity like CM's.

2. The designer intended this to be a desktop toy, to be fiddled frequently, quickly transformed back and forth & easily posed with the included stand. From the video, the transformation process is pretty straightforward, & the pre-production sample he was using to demonstrate the transformation look to have pretty good tolerances (unlike the CM's, those were quite a nightmare to transform). 

3. The stand has peg holes all around it to plug in all the accessories - extra hands, head / helmet, weapons etc. Once everything in on the stand, the entire toy can be moved just with one palm. No need to look for a separate parts bin.

4. If sales of the initial 3 armors are good, Houquet should be offered up next. So, this could be another line where we might have the complete 4.

 

I was quite lukewarm on the B2Fives before this, but the video made me very interested in PO-ing them. I just can't find the link now, will post it up when I come across it again.

Edit: Found it  https://fb.watch/9cmGSJIIGY/

 

 

Thank you for posting this. I hadn't seen any of this before.

Does anyone know if there is any confirmation that the Toynami accessories are different (i.e. less included) than the B2Five ones? I seem to remember Japanese listings including accessories that were not explicitly shown in the BBTS pre-order, but may be misremembering.

2 minutes ago, jenius said:

They're B25 Ride Armors. I suspect you just pop the toy apart with a couple hinges and sliding parts and reapply to the figure. So a bit more old school and less prone to breaking (hopefully). They take a lot of cues from the Mega House toys.

Thank you. I was completely blanking on the company.

Sadly, I actually disliked the Megahouse ones. It's funny with partsforming... I actively disliked it with MegaHouse, but others where this is like 1 piece of partforming don't bother me so much.

2 minutes ago, levzloi said:

What he said.  The engineering on these things is amazing, truly incredible.  However that means there is lots that can go wrong.  I'd personally decide which mode and pose you want to display it in, and then pose it and leave it.  Constant transforming back and forth is just asking for component failure. 

Agreed! If you can swing getting two of each, you'll be happier keeping one in each mode. They're engineered really nicely, and gorgeous to look at (they very much fit my personal tastes, style-wise), but these are similar to Arcadia products, in that there is solid engineering, they're decently entertaining to transform, but they're not "toys" and WILL have some weak spot break eventually.

My one hope for the new Toynami 1/28th ride armors (having a brain lapse and forgetting the actual manufacturer) is that they're designed more to be toys, where you can absentmindedly transform them repeatedly and not worry about anything breaking. I wish Yamato had tackled these like they did the Motoslaves.

Preorder up on BBTS

https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/184788

5 minutes ago, lavinrac said:

Based on things I’ve received in the past three or four months from HLJ I’d guess around 40 to 45 bucks. For DHL or FedEx

Thank you.

Just deciding if I should wait for a BBTS preorder, since the last ones were $199 on there (with essentially free shipping, considering how much I keep in my Pile of Loot) and I don't mind waiting a little, as long as I get it.

For those who have preordered from HLJ, any ideas on shipping costs to the USA?

I haven't ordered from them in years, and don't remember.

Thanks.

5 hours ago, Perxion said:

I used the last artbook of mospeada

this: there are some line arts of the rain boy bike (Dusty Ayres)

The one book (I believe) that I'm still waiting on.

Thank you for the info!

4 hours ago, Perxion said:

I know this is not a good time to share this, but I leave it here anyway.

It is the model I was working on a few days ago.

(WIP-LowPoly for now)

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

This is really great work. Nice job so far!

What are you using for references for it? I've been toying with the idea of doing this myself, in SolidWorks, but there are barely any concept art pics for this (which might be one it didn't look too consistent frame to frame in the animation).

52 minutes ago, Mog said:

. . . . . So, is it too early to speculate about a TREAD prototype? (OUR DEMANDS NEVER END! 🤪)

While I do have a sport reserved for one in my display case... I have to assume that Sentinel is more likely to milk the existing mold for a couple Dark (Shadow) toys first, before investing in a 100% new item.

47 minutes ago, daBlah! said:

It certainly presented me with some challenges to order and ship, glad they arrived. There's one more Hagan outstanding to arrive. I popped on piece out of the box there to hopefully show the scale against an Arcadia Garland. The screws are absolutely tiny with it!

I don't know if getting my hands on the Proto Garland or GR-2 will be something that would happen in the future.

 

Congrats. Love to see the Hagan when it arrives!

19 hours ago, treatment said:

Army-color Garland release delayed to 12/2021...

https://twitter.com/ARCADIA_Co_Ltd/status/1452878054078910467

 

Now to figure out how to get my hands on one...

On 10/10/2021 at 6:54 AM, hachi said:

lol I forgot about this bundle because I was busy with moving out preparations. Hopefully the choices will be better in a future bundle.

The Kindle is too small for me, so I read my comic purchases from Amazon on a 10" tablet. Guided view is great on there. I also bought a monitor that can be rotated 180 degrees, though it's pain to put it back to landscape when I want to watch videos.

I use the Comixology or Kindle app on my phone (Note 10+), but that's usually too small for me for some comics, so they I plug my phone into my 13" Huion tablet and read on that.

1 hour ago, no3Ljm said:

1) No new updates since 2019.

2) This was mentioned back in Page 16. It used to be an exclusive to Arcadia Online Shop. It looks like HLJ's the only one who has it too. For some reason, I think HLJ lately is the only one carrying initial Arcadia Online Shop releases outside of other Japanese online shops. Also, its release got pushed back to October from August.

3) Mandarake has some listings for it: https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1155055355&lang=en

 

28 minutes ago, treatment said:

 

Not sure about the Hargun, but here are their last tweets regarding MZ-23 toys (regular and army):

https://twitter.com/ARCADIA_Co_Ltd/status/1415962682822299648

https://twitter.com/ARCADIA_Co_Ltd/status/1427877832215064576

 

Thank you both.

A few questions for anyone who might be more in the know than I am:

1) Has anyone heard any updates on the Arcadia Hargun? Seems quiet from them on that front, since pre-Covid.

2) I came across the military coloring Garland on HLJ, supposedly a preorder due now, but don't recall seeing anything anywhere else, ever. Does anyone know if this is anything other than HLJ jumping the gun? https://www.hlj.com/1-24-scale-megazone-23-die-cast-model-garland-autonomous-army-color-ver-acamrk821566

3) Does anyone have any leads for buying an Arcadia Proto-Garland for a reasonable price? Another one of those items I thought I pre-ordered, but then somehow missed. The usual sources seem to be sold out or asking excessive amounts... but I haven't seen Arcadia doing re-releases.

I read everything on Kindle (or Comixology). While you can convert the PDFs to Kindle's format, you don't have the guided view. It gets annoying having to zoom in to read text on your phone or tablet). That is literally the only reason I didn't buy this bundle. Other than that, it seems like a great deal, and I'd love to read the Blade Runner stuff, the Sherlock stuff (and even the latter RT stuff, enjoying it for the weirdness that it is and not thinking of it with its relation to the source material).

There's not a ton to it, from what I recall. I have it, though I'd have to dig it out. It's a cool little book, and I think it had some decent concept art in it that I liked, but unless you're a completionist (like me) then I don't think you're missing much not having it.

I lucked into a copy for fairly cheap online a couple years back, so it was worth it, but I wouldn't recommend settling until you find a good deal.

Seriously tempted to order from HLJ, but once I add in over $100 in shipping it's hitting a pain point for me, since this is really going to be a standalone piece.

I agree that, first blush, it doesn't look like what Arcadia showed in its prototype.

Honestly, I'd love to have both. This is one of those designs that I wasn't tremendously impressed by when I first watched Megazone all those many years ago, but it has steadily moved up over the years to one that I love and REALLY want to add to my collection (as opposed to the non-transforming figs of this on my shelf).

4 hours ago, daBlah! said:

This is looking great!

https://twitter.com/imizuhiroshi/status/1438074243187568643

That looks excellent!

2 minutes ago, JetJockey said:

I was guilty of it but one slip up or patch of fluid on the road means disaster if not worse it you injure someone else.

The lucky few of us whose one moment of foolishness left us alive to learn from it...

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm fairly certain the art you're referring to WRT Armor Bike riding poses and indicators of what angles would cause the rider to be thrown or fall is in both of the books I mentioned.

I think that you're correct. I haven't looked at the Imai Files in a good long while, but between those and the various official Japanese books that I have, I'd agree that (to my memory) there is no new art here. However, some of the translations here were new to me and interesting to read (though, again, they may have been in the Imai Files, where there were some translations pasted over the text, and I simply don't remember them).