Chronocidal

10 hours ago, David Hingtgen said:

I'm trying to get my Fugu Jetfire fitting together as well as possible, but I just can't figure out how to fix this gap at the intake----my original Roy fits nice and tight there, but there's no obvious lock or post---I can't figure out what holds the chest plate down on the original, and why Jetfire is so loose and just kind of "floats above the intake"   

I noticed this too, but I would just chalk it up to general KO imprecision.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was related to the check locking tabs, and their relative size.  Everything's just a little off compared with the originals.  It's not enough to make it fall apart (mostly), but things just don't fit quite as well.

It could be, that's why I'm curious if there is any art depicting any of those details, or if they were just generated by spontaneous rectal extraction.  The internals of aircraft generally are painted a rather ugly green, just not that particular shade.

I don't necessarily have as much of a problem with the internals existing as I do with the structural compromises necessary to put them there.  That is a lot of extra parts to deal with potentially getting loose or falling off.  It was bad enough fixing the wing flaps on the Sentinel, but can you imagine having to mod every one of those panels to stay shut so they don't get caught on something while transforming it?

Yeeeeaaaah, that's just way too much of everything.  Too many markings, too many excessive details, too much garbage to potentially fall off, break, or otherwise fail to function.

Also kind of feels like a meme in real time.  "Tell me you know nothing about aircraft without saying you know nothing about aircraft."  (I have no idea if any of those details have a line art basis, but at least with the 1/48 version I could pretend the internal structure made a lick of sense.)

Really sad, honestly, I would have loved something in a bigger scale.

I can't say whether or not that might have been the case with my recent order, since I didn't actually take stock of everything once I got it.  I'd counted up the numbers I needed, and then rounded up, or added extras of parts I know I use a lot of, so I wasn't concerned about having enough for the project itself.  All told I ordered over a thousand parts, so I didn't really feel like counting them all.  

I sincerely wish they would work out something better than the complete lack of tracking they give for standard parts orders.  I'm thankful my parts arrived before I left on vacation, but there was literally no way to know when or how they were coming.  No details on delivery service, no estimate on date beyond "within about 40 days," it didn't even show up as a package in my USPS informed delivery queue, it just appeared in my box one day in a plain paper envelope.  If I'd known that ahead of time, I probably would have used a third party through Bricklink instead.

8 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

Was there a value placed on your shipments?  Are you saying  ShowZ "pre-paid" the import tax upon shipping the item to you?

I think that's probably what happened, I didn't see any notes or paperwork regarding any charges incurred.  I'm thinking they just ate the cost for people who had already paid shipping to avoid irritating their customers.

I've had a couple of orders from ShowZ for transformers things that arrived with no issue other than a longer than usual delay in port, but they did announce that they would be covering the costs for orders that were paid before the price changes.  They said that their prices for air shipping would go up to cover the changes, but that it shouldn't impact surface shipments.

Every time I look at it, it gets closer to a Gurren Lagann joke xD

.. I'll need to see if I can't print myself a drill-guitar... and maybe a set of Basara's shades to wear on the chest.

Eh, grabbed one at HLJ, the conversion from yen will take a bit of the edge off, and that's a really long wait to save up for.  It's just so goofy I can't pass it up.

Easiest HLJ preorder I've had in years, too.

Youch, $200 for 1500 parts is pretty steep.  Those prices are feeling pretty high across the board actually, maybe they're just using a ton of really large parts?  Might pick up the AT-ST eventually, but probably not going to rush to it.  I might burn my VIP points to pick up the Shuttle Carrier 747 at a heavy discount in a few weeks.. mostly because i want to rebuild it.  

I've been reworking my KingsKnight shuttle heavily for the past couple of weeks after taking a few measurements and realizing the scale could be a bit better for true 1/110, but it involved completely redesigning the main body and bay doors.  Still working on the OMS pod design, but it's getting there, and will probably take a few photos soon.

Honestly.. that's so dumb I kind of really want it.  

I'm glad they actually made a decent representation of this one, but I don't think you can really make this design any bigger without the weight of the design itself fairly well ruining the experience.  In the realm of sci-fi designs, this one works out just slightly better than the floating/detached nacelles
in the most recent Trek designs.

The backpack on this one bugs me though.  I'm not sure if it's actually supposed to close?  It just seems to be stuck permanently detached/opened somehow. 

I'd love to see one in 1/60 if they could get the limbs stable (maybe some kind of sliding lock that would hold them in place?), but I'm not expecting anyone to take that gamble. 

I feel like the biggest "constraint" they deal with is just deciding that it's not worth the effort when people don't seem to care about how ugly the jets are when all they want is a good action figure that looks like the character from a cartoon.

You're right about the character designs though.  When they aren't hampered by fitting an established character into a jet body we get things like the Tomcat Maverick they released. 

And while I know lots of people didn't like certain aspects of Kawamori's attempt at a Seeker mold, I think he established a very solid foundation for how you could fit a really good figure into the F-15 body without getting stupidly lazy like the most recent MP Seeker.

I really want to see someone take another crack at that general torso layout, but using more modern methods in the legs.  Just something that plays with creative rearrangments of the components to give us a more streamlined jet while still giving decent character accuracy.  Like since the legs and jet taper opposite directions, what if the shins flipped upside down?  Lots of options to try there.

Whatever it is is potentially going to wind up in Erusean markings eventually, but I'm not sure if I'm going to try the entire scheme.   Maybe just the insignia and highlights.

So the post office dropped a monster on my doorstep today.  I'd been waiting on my pair of Su-27s from ShowZ, and when I saw the size of the box, I guessed they must have doubled them up.

No. This thing is huge.

I happened to have my Jetfires handy to pose for comparison in both modes, and they're not too far off in scale, but it just emphasizes exactly how big a plane this is.

Comes in at near 16 inches long, so roughly 1/54 scale.  Given the sizes of the previous ones, I did not expect something this big at all.

Maybe I'll transform him.. but I might wait for the second to arrive before I mess with it.   The manual is just as much a monster as the plane, so I expect it might take an hour or two to get through on a first run.

Just in general though, I think a new bar has been set for plastic airplane origami.  Looking over the jet, I think the only corner they cut was that the belly is a bit thicker than it should be, but it's completely hidden unless you view it head-on.  I'm no expert on the Su-27, so the proportions of the nose might be a bit inflated, but without comparing it directly, I'm really not seeing anything stick out as being off-model.

Yeah, fair, it's a weird mix.  I'm not sure what would look more natural, if you can even call it that.

23 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Like, he's got a regular face with a mouth and a little button nose, but instead of Sonic's eyes there's a blue visor in the shape of Sonics eyes that weirdly connect above his nose.

I mean, this is actually accurate.  I'm not sure if you would prefer actual pupils though, or just something more like his normal eyes.

Hmmm, I'm kind of torn.  Really love the smoother setup for the engines, but I'm not sure I actually like all of the weird angles and layers in the nose.  Also, still think there are better ways to do the wings with ratchets rather than gearing.  

Still, really nice to see more people tackling this old mess.  

3 hours ago, Thom said:

It's like watching reactions to Airplane. The younger audiences don't get the 'deeper' jokes.😁

Part of the issue is also that those movies were pastiches of even older movies, to when you go watch them, you really don't have a built-in cultural reference for why they're supposed to be funny.

It helps that I grew up watching a lot of that stuff, but at the same time I can honestly say I remember Scary Movie 3 far better than any of the movies it actually makes fun of.  

I have no idea if they'd go this far into a tribute, but... 
 

I'm actually thinking it's just a matter of her being the character everyone was really wanting from the start.

I don't think they're actually going to be discontinued though, since I think the other sets are all still reproduced with some regularity.  HLJ just tends to click that button when they don't know for sure whether they'll get more later.

Edit: It's back in stock as of about 6pm Pacific, so hope you can grab one!

Sweet, I knew I picked up two of the vintage normal Ties for a reason!    Glad to see them releasing something without the toy features this time.

I absolutely love his statement in the teaser.

"After 40 years, we asked, 'What do the fans want?'

But instead, we're making this movie."

If only the ST had been so bold.

Also love they're targeting it for the 50th.  Just poetry.

Nice, and the newer compound curve plates are being used to great effect on these new car models.

I almost picked up the Countach set at Walmart here a week or so ago, but only because it was on the wrong shelf, and I didn't check the price (and it was only a few days after I splurged on SW day ).  I might grab both of those eventually, but I'm still stuck in space shuttle land.

Side note.. it's bizarre that Lego only offers tracked shipping for their best-selling parts.  I ordered about $150 in bricks to build up Columbia, and it got split into two separate orders.  Only the "best-seller" parts were tracked, and arrive in about five days.  The other half of the order is .. somewhere?  I got confirmation they shipped, but all I know is that I've got about $50 in plastic floating somewhere in the mail system that should arrive sometime between now and mid-August.

What it sounds like?  They weren't happy with the tab being inserted into a crevice that was painted black, because it could remove the black paint...

So they just added two more gaping holes, with nothing to hide them.  

Makes me really glad I didn't care about this release.

Not familiar with the specifics of those photoetch sets, but those look like detail covers for the fronts of the super pack missile launchers.

Why they would be included with a VF-1D I have no idea, though.  It would make sense if it was a standard set designed for use with all the VF-1s, but as you said, it's a VF-1D-specific set.