Hiriyu

Wow, really nice stuff there Fly4victory. I especially like the Lego stuff, but your models are just as nice. Ditto what Pat says above, are the Lego creations your own? I'll have to get some pics of my collection up at some point too.

Update on my Garland - Thanks to you guys, I've been too fearful to touch it Still looks really cool standing there in motorslave. Shogo remains in the box.

My understanding of it was that they did still have the ability to warp. They still had one collapsing generator onboard Buster Machine 2 after removing and using the collapsing generator from BM1 to trigger the Black Hole Bomb. Wolf, I think you're right that at time of detonation, they were probably not moving at any notably high rate of speed (relatively speaking). My take on it was that, having detonated the BHB, they were caught within the Schwarzschild radius of the blossoming black hole prior to warp, which caused the 12,000 odd year delay in their return. It is theorized that some very odd time contraction effects occur on the borders of black holes. Their actual journey home probably took not much longer than the rest of the fleet's. That's my guess anyway

You are more or less correct, but time dilation is always working at different levels of relative acceleration, it is just far more pronounced the faster a traveller goes. At .0001% the speed of light ("C"), the effect is still measurable, though small. The faster you go, the more noticeable the effect becomes. This effect has been tested in real life by taking an atomic clock up in an airplane and checking its synch with one on the ground after landing. Our present day artificial satellites even need to regularly correct for time, relative to "ground time". Being a space captain he has probably spent most of his intervening time at high rates of acceleration, so he has probably aged at about the same rate as Noriko between his commands of the Exelion and the Eltrium.

You can't do anything about the shoulder joints' looseness without prying them apart and regluing. I wouldn't bother. As for the stowage of the hands, collapse the arms tight first, and then fold in the hands. You'll know that you have it right when the wrist covers can close completely without force. I think that this may have been better posted in the MPC Ii super thread in the 'other animation/sci-fi' forum.

I took the liberty of editing your quote for veracity An Angel Birds model is a must-buy for me. Bring it on!

The kids, or the valks? My own friends' reactions can be summed in one word: "Robotech!"

Ditto. LOFL (except for the Minnesota part).

It's all compromise work to make it look better in one mode or the other. The 1S head sculpt on the Yammie 1/60s was obviously compromised to make it look better in fighter mode (so it doesn't hang down too low), hence the small, 'squashed' look. No real mystery there. Can't explain the 1/55 though, which is sized right for battroid, but is way off in terms of the contours.

I think that I still have a beat-up Jetfire and a headless red 1/35 Legioss somewhere in storage, but I haven't seen them in years. I might also have a couple of ARII models tucked away too, but not sure. I gave away everything else to younger family members and friends when I was 14 or so, as girls, skateboards and guitars became much more interesting to me at that time. Now I kick myself for doing so, seeing what serious loot all of my old stuff is now considered. I had lots of OG Transformers, Gobots, TONS of Legos, literally hundreds of classic early to late 70's Hot Wheels, and lots of vintage hand-me-down diecast toys from my parents' time. All of which go for big money now on Ebay. Doh.

That is but one point of view. Some may choose to have faith in the clip, and no physical evidence of the existence of the clip is required to solidify faith. Myself, I am clip-agnostic

Ginrai, Thanks for the illustration of the broken shoulder joint. I'll be sure to be extra careful with mine in this location too - sorry that you had to suffer for our benefit I've fortunately had pretty good luck overall with most of my Yammies, having broken parts on only a couple: A backpack hinge broke on one of my 1/60 VF-1As due to extreme mishandling. The valk was more or less loose inside of my backpack, which a friend carelessly tossed into the rear footwell of his car, to be crushed by the front seatback being slammed back into place from a forward-tilted position. I can't really fault Yamato on that one. I was able to glue it back together, so there was a happy ending. I also managed to break one of the die-cast rear landing gear struts on a 1/48 CF, through a similarly violent mishap (I've never heard of anybody else managing this one). The valk was displayed in fighter mode on top of a dresser, and was caught by the corner of a towel(!) I was tossing into a hamper nearby. The poor thing was whipped off the dresser and flew 4 or 5 feet horizontally, and 4.5 feet vertically, landing sideways on its gear. Nothing but the rear strut was damaged. Again, completely my fault. My only real Yamato sob-story has to do with my VF-11B, which broke its hip-peg joint virtually right out of the box, like many others have reported. That one really was a horrible design problem, but one they rectified on the next release. Still doesn't help my 1st edition though

SA's Lowtax has agreed to his offer. I would too.

It was proven here some time back that those parts are in fact the lameness emitters, at least when equipped on the fire valk Seriously, nice news though.

Living and working in LA, I've met lots of movie/TV celeb types over the years. Off the top of my head... Telly Savalas, Merlin Olson, Jamie Lee Curtis, David Faustino, Danny & Chris Masterson, Jason Lee, and several others. All have been very down to earth, regular folk. You can hardly swing a dead cat in LA without hitting some 'celeb'

Wow, I had no idea. Thanks, very good info.

I'd second Bobe-Patt's opinion here. $30-35.00 shipped looks about right. Just curious, but it looks like the valk in the first 2 pics is a Hikaru 1A... Is that one available too, hopefully?

'S what happens when ya ridin' the range on yer Yammie Garland, pardner. Yeehaaaw. I'm very impatiently awaiting mine

Yep, that is how it's looking. Anyone else notice that it warped out not only with BH Exilio, but with planet Vulcan's core as well? Sounds like a pretty nasty triple-whammy.

The Black Hole Bomb was activated near the core of the Galaxy in the original series (Ep. 6). The BH near the Sol system's edge was created by the collapse of the Exilion's warp drive in Ep. 5 of the original (this is why the BH is referred to as the black hole "Exilio" in DieBuster Ep. 5).

The image Twoducks posted is what I was talking about - you guys are right, I was mistaken about its meaning. I had interpreted the image as something destructive, rather than constructive. The buster corps machines are indeed constructing "something" I think that the franchise is about to set another new record in anime...

Just before the fade to black at 28:00. After Nono leaves and screens Lark off with the buster corp. I tried to take a screeny, but no luck.

Nor Nono for that matter. I wonder where she went off to. I thought she was about to sacrifice herself by going into the VGW. Hmmm....maybe she went off to get Buster Machines 4,5,6 etc which are probably big ass muthas left in some periphery in space and forgotten. 405675[/snapback] *** Spoiler *** You DID see the last shot of Episode 5, right? Nono is nono more

Not much going on the 1/48 front for me... DYRL 1/48 Vf-1A (CF): 001 1/48 Vf-1S (Hikaru): 001 Accessories 1/48 Vf-1 FP: 001 Others 1/60: VF-1A Hikaru: 2 VF-1A Max: 1 VF-1A CF: 2 VF-1A CF TRU: 3 VF-1S Roy: 2 VF-1J Hikaru: 1 VF-1J Max: 1 VF-1J Millia: 1 VF-1S Strike Roy: 1 VF-1D Trainer: 1 VT-1 Super Ostrich: 1 VE-1 Elint Seeker: 1 GBP-1S Standalone: 1 VF-0S Roy: 1

I finally received mine from TMP yesterday. Very cool toy overall, and notably absent were some of the QC issues mentioned here (tailfin spikes are fine, magnets oriented correctly, etc). Typical of my luck though, I've noticed several other issues that I haven't seen anyone else report. I have lots of blurring and smudging on the tampo printing - the black stripes on the legs and chest are the worst. The grey paint in the secondary air intakes on the chest plate is pretty spotty too. There is some grey paint overspray/smudging on the LE of the right main intake, which is pretty noticeable. On the whole, the paint job is visually worse than that of any other Yamato I own, and that includes the rest of the 1/60s. I also encountered another weird issue - while transforming the VF-0 for the first time, the knurled pin which holds the two leg swingbar linkages together fell out, resulting in the legs taking a three foot plunge from my desk . The pin was a royal b*tch to find , having nestled itself deep into my carpet under the desk. Luckily, it was easily replaced once found using a pair of needle-nose pliars to reinsert it, and hasn't given me any further trouble... yet. My zero also exibits the floppy limb and foot syndrome almost everyone has mentioned. If I'm not very careful when posing it, it has the tendency to perform a knee-swivel move in a disturbingly Elvis Presley-esque fashion. Don't be cruel... Despite these seeming negatives, the design and execution are overall pretty good, and I really dig its looks... from a slight distance. I'll try to get some pics up this weekend.