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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    As I'm thinking about this design, and what bothers me about it, I'm hitting this weird crossover point between accuracy and aesthetics. For comparison purposes, I'm thinking of the old and new BSG Colonial Viper. I love both designs. Is the updated MkII Viper accurate to the classic? Not in the slightest! But I still love the way it looks, because it's a good design. Bandai seems like it has managed to pull off the opposite. For all the functionality they may have cooked into the design, I just don't think it looks good in any mode. It looks like they sacrificed the aesthetics of both fighter and battroid for the sole purpose of cramming those massive legs in, and every mode is worse off for it. If they're going to diverge from the lineart, that's fine, and I can appreciate the effort, but if they're going to make changes that make the whole thing ugly, I'd rather they diverge even farther from the lineart to make something that looks better as a whole.
  2. Chronocidal

    Bandai DX VF-31

    Chronocidal replied to UN Spacy's topic in Toys

    So, just got my second set of armored parts, and yes, it's ridiculous, but these do fit. Figure it's poetic justice to make up for the fact that Chuck never got a gunpod.
  3. Chronocidal
    I mean, if it makes it fun to pose, that's great, but at some point you have to address the aesthetics, or it's going to be shoved in a corner and forgotten for being an incredibly dynamic turd. Right now, it looks like their thought process was, "If we ignore how the rest of the plane and battroid look, we can actually give it some screen-accurate legs!"
  4. Chronocidal
    Forgive me for the confusion, but I have to ask what you mean by this. We're comparing it to lineart that, for the most part, Kawamori drew. The big differences we're all pointing out are between how it was drawn both on-screen and in the lineart, and how Bandai has interpreted it. It's entirely possible that Kawamori is flip-flopping on how he wants it to look, but to say that the art that Kawamori himself drew isn't how he wanted it to look is a bit goofy. Also keep in mind that, historically, Kawamori doesn't appear to really have that much input on final designs. If Bandai is prioritizing the battroid mode, then they had better beef up those spaghetti arms before the Yamato sucker punches the Bandai version and steals all its lunch money. Literally the only improvement I see on the Bandai version is the legs. That's it. Otherwise, the battroid looks just as misproportioned as the fighter mode. What that comes off as is basically sacrificing every other aspect of both battroid and fighter to get bigger legs in. That's a sucky compromise in my book, and I absolutely think they could balance the sacrifices better to improve the rest of the valk, even if it means slightly shrinking the legs. As it is now, I'm considering buying a second Yamato to slap the Bandai legs on, and just never transform it out of battroid.
  5. Chronocidal
    Someone just linked me this. Clearly it's time to patch in the Super Sylph.
  6. Chronocidal
    I imagine yeah, it'll help a bit, but the whole design is just really front-loaded, like someone grabbed the midbody and yanked it toward the nose.
  7. Chronocidal
    You know what is amusing to me.. No one seems to be able to get the shape of the tails right. They're clipped, MiG-style. Yamato kinda skimped on the angle, but Bandai's flat out ignoring it, which is all the more ridiculous when you remember that the tails contribute absolutely zero influence to the transformation. They hang out on the arms and do literally nothing. Also, kind of painful that they literally cut the rudder in half. I have no idea why they even bothered to include those, but again, the tails have no bearing on anything else on the design, so why not do them correctly? Honestly.. the Bandai one just looks all kinds of mis-proportioned. It's go so much junk in the trunk, it throws the entire rest of the plane out of scale. That's like a 1/48th backend on a 1/72 front. It's not helping that the angle of that "side view" isn't straight-on though. I'll be interested to see a dead even comparison.
  8. Chronocidal
    Absolutely, and the beauty of it really is that if you don't like something, changing it could not be easier. Everything is customizable from the ground up, so if you think something looks better, you can just do it!
  9. Chronocidal
    Where's his "drunk" face? Or would that just be in the DYRL version?
  10. Chronocidal
    I think... while the shape of it is really good, I'm not liking the cockpit profile. I know they're pretty limited, but the shape of the window they wound up using doesn't flow right to me. But eh, I'll still try and snag one. That's still the best movie batmobile design.
  11. Chronocidal
    Honestly, I cannot believe they didn't remove that stupid spring-loaded feature when they remodeled the Tie body years back. Just what every collector wants.. a model that shoots pieces off all by itself.
  12. Chronocidal
    You'd think with all the space Bandai gave in the sides of the back end, they could have crammed in some arms that don't look so doggone whimpy. I can get used to the thicker exhausts, but the arms and canopy shape still throw me quite a bit. Guess we'll see. Not going to kid myself and say I won't try to get at least a pair, but I'll be a lot happier if they manage to figure those points out. As it stands now.. Honestly, I feel like the Yammie is a better overall shape in both fighter and battroid. The only thing the Bandai has going for it is the legs.. maybe I'll just do a leg transplant to a Yamato version, and fulfill the original Omega Pants Initiative.
  13. Chronocidal
    Late reply, but I'm actually not referring to the Falcon. I'm more thinking of the original designs they made for the movie. Mentioned it before, but clearly someone on the staff had been trapped in their cubicle so long, they must have gone nuts, glued handlebars to their cubicle wall, and tried to ride it around the office. And, apparently that was the best idea anyone could come up with for a vehicle design. There's obviously some practicality to it, but good grief people.. have they completely forgotten that the idea of making merchandise is to design things that people might possibly want to buy?
  14. Chronocidal
    You're asking a question that I'm fairly certain no one at Disney actually gave two seconds worth of thought to. I've given up trying to understand anything about their (lack of) design philosophy for the new movies. From what I recall, the designs from Solo that wound up as toys were astoundingly bad.
  15. Chronocidal
    Ok, see, I had never actually heard that explanation, and I thought they were the same exact ship. I filed it under the same heading as why the Enterprise suddenly had a bunch of new hull details in the first movie. I know Polar Lights makes a large scale K'Tinga to match their big Enterprise kits, but I really don't have the room to display those... I might have to just find a closet to stash that elephant in before those kits disappear.
  16. Chronocidal
    I'll be curious to see this view of if. The spacing on the engines here is clearly a lot wider than the pics we've seen.
  17. Chronocidal
    Next 1/100 Fighter Collection release is up:
  18. Chronocidal
    Don't believe there's any question about it at all. The only way those legs are going to be able to fit in there is if the entire belly opens up. Exactly how they open is up for grabs, but folding outward seems the most likely option, since they look connected to the big plates alongside the exhaust ducts.
  19. Chronocidal
    If there's anything worse than "design by committee," it's "design by fan committee." I don't know how much weight to throw onto the rumor that they're doing a "choose your own plot" system based on fan reaction to leaks, but it wouldn't surprise me. Personally I think it would be hilarious if they had to delay the release at the last minute. I don't want to exactly hope for it, but I would love to see how they would attempt to spin that level of disaster.
  20. Chronocidal
    Oooh, bout time we got a good K'Tinga, though I'm vague on how that differs from the D7? Really though, I wish Polar Lights would put out a movie-styled counterpart to their TOS Klingon cruiser. The TOS version is fine, but I would love one with some kind of surface detail. If this one is roughly similar in size, I might have to pick it up to display alongside the refit kit.
  21. Chronocidal
    I'm guessing Shapeways, or a similar service, based on the texture. They make some very nice prints, but sanding the material they use is exhausting.
  22. Chronocidal
    I just got my kit from HLJ as well, so time to start slapping it together. I think my only real gripe about the fighter mode is that the wings need some sort of latch to lock into the legs... which, now that I think about it, might not be hard to add. I did the same sort of mod to a couple of my 1/72 VF-25 kits, so it might work well here too.
  23. Chronocidal

    Hi-Metal R

    Chronocidal replied to joppewo's topic in Toys

    This right here is actually my highest interest item. I'm not going to begrudge anyone wanting destroids or other enemy mechs, because those will be awesome as well, but releasing stand-alone super/strike parts to use on all those VF-1s we have is obscenely overdue.
  24. Chronocidal
    I feel like this character would have been a whole lot more interesting if they hadn't revealed anything about her before the movie. Part of what made Leia's bounty hunter disguise in ROTJ interesting was that you went in not knowing what was going on.
  25. Chronocidal
    Don't forget, you also had D-Day landing craft (IN SPACE!), the "quad jumper" (a cockpit glued to four engines), Rey's jet engine bike (I swear, they stole that concept from an episode of Talespin), Han's flying corridor chase soundstage, and Leia's Flying Taco Truck. Each of the prequels managed to pull off a fairly distinct look though, and they did it in a way that actually fit something that looked like wartime tech progression. The Jedi starfighters went from a delta design to something very Tie-like, and other ships looked like direct design ancestors of OT-era craft. They didn't always look less advanced, but you could imagine a design progression, closer to stylistic differences between various year models with cars. Far as vehicle toys go though, no we didn't get many traditional figure-scaled ones, but in TLJ's case, I think that was a combination of practical reasons (the bombers would have been huge), and aesthetic reasons (did anyone actually want that stupid pod craft Rose and Finn stole?). On the other hand though, don't forget, they covered all those bases with Lego sets ten ways from tuesday. Not that any of those sold either, but they did exist.
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