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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    Ok, that is really interesting. I'm glad they're actually producing them, but I would be very curious to know whether the original designers are contributing to these designs, and getting a cut of the sales. The images are direct copy/pastes from the IDEAS site, as is the text, but I wonder if they had designer assistance with the instructions, or if they are reverse-engineered. I'm still really hesitant to buy copycat bricks regardless though, so I'd still rather get an official release, particularly because no amount of stickers is going to be able to substitute for a pre-printed nose section. The potentially bad part of this though.. I was under the impression that you weren't necessarily restricted from re-submitting an IDEAS design. The existence of these knockoff kits, even if the original designer isn't involved, might very well kill off any chance we have of ever seeing an official version.
  2. Chronocidal
    Late reply, but I believe I mentioned this before, possibly in another thread. I actually do not trust those stands that clip over the speedbrake area, because, unless Calibre has changed their manufacturing, that entire section of the plane is not metal. That whole section of the fuselage between the exhausts is plastic on the ones I have, so they can more accurately mold the airbrake mechanism. Those stands were designed to mount diecast F-14s long ago, and were always meant to be used on ones that have solid metal fuselages. I do not trust the Calibre Wings releases on these stands, because they use so many plastic parts, and they don't provide any support near the center of mass of the aircraft.
  3. Chronocidal
    I can't even lump Poe into a pool of actual characters. He's a pile of action movie tropes brought to life in a Frankensteinien affront to storytelling. He wasn't even supposed to survive TFA, but apparently none of the other non-characters had enough plot-relevant skills to get the job done.
  4. Chronocidal
    If they manage to pull this off as well as those trailers, yeah, I'll be seeing this. Looks like they're entirely ditching the musical aspects, and making a straight up fantasy action movie. Much more crouching tiger, much less animated dragon. I can't see them making it too violent, but the combat doesn't seem to be pulling many punches in presentation. At the very most, I figure we'll get LOTR-levels of blood (probably closer to the Narnia movies), but it looks good. Far as the trend goes, yeah, it's definitely time to add Anastasia as an official Disney princess, and I would gladly shove money into my screen for adaptations of Titan AE, Atlantis, and Treasure Planet.
  5. Chronocidal
    I was flat out heartbroken that the Shuttle wasn't made, especially after the ridiculous speed it hit 10k votes. I've worked out the orbiter myself to build, but unfortunately, the tank and boosters require a whole bunch of rare, or even nonexistent elements. I think what actually killed that one was the fact that it did rely on those old notched angle plates for the wings, which I have not seen in any set for years at this point, as LEGO has ditched that design entirely for its more modern types with the notched edges for stacking. Funny enough, one of the weaker points of that shuttle was actually how thick the wing had to be, due to those non-stackable notched wings. It really needed entirely new elements that could do both, so you could stack up the colored layers of the wings properly, and still form a blended leading edge. The version I built up needed a middle layer to the wing so the un-notched edges of the older wing plates didn't collide with the studs on the black underside layer. I did make that middle layer gray to mimic the leading edge of the actual shuttle, but in a perfect world, it would have stuck out one stud further, to match the leading edge of the black layer. The other thing it was missing may have actually been recently developed though. I haven't seen this element in anything but the newer Harry Potter sets, but we finally have a tapered transition piece that matches the slope of the old 1x1-to-2x2 cones, which makes a much better booster nosecone than the combo used on the original IDEAS submission.
  6. Chronocidal
    Ok, that's pretty darn awesome. Here's the big question.. can I get an Airwolf in the same scale that does all of that too?
  7. Chronocidal
    I knew they added BB-8 for a reason!
  8. Chronocidal
    Who's this "Cheong Sam" character? I don't remember anyone in Macross named Sam. Too bad they didn't include the braided hair in that pic from the movie though.
  9. Chronocidal
    So, the problem Bandai has introduced for themselves now is that if they stay consistent, all of the numbers will have to be backwards, and 112 and 113 aren't going to be so passable. On the other hand, if they print those correctly, that means they're backpedaling on their "reasons" for making this one backwards. I'd love to reply directly to their comment and ask what they plan to do with the rest of the releases.
  10. Chronocidal
    I... yeah, I can't even. No, I refuse to even. You don't go telling people calling out a flaw that you did it incorrectly for "aesthetic reasons." The aesthetic your customers want is accuracy. You don't print something backwards because you want symmetry, dipwads. That may be the most tone-deaf reaction to complaints about a production flaw that I've ever seen. I'm tempted to see if I can't have HLJ send a complaint on my behalf back to Bandai about it. Won't do me a lick of good I'm sure, but I'd love to contribute to the hate mail they get over that response. See... no. I get that it's not in the animation, but that doesn't give them carte blanche to write things backwards on purpose. No two ways about it, it's wrong. They clearly don't give a rat's backside about accuracy to aircraft, but this is another entirely different level of arrogance.
  11. Chronocidal
    Maybe I'm missing something from not being familiar with the Bayverse.. but... I have no idea what I'm seeing here. It looks like someone took a half dozen model kits of construction equipment, poured them all in a box with a bottle of glue, and shook vigorously. Do these all come with some special 4th mode, where they all transform into a junkyard?
  12. Chronocidal
    Between the two UCS Millennium Falcons, the original Star Destroyer, Snowspeeder, Y-WIng, B-Wing, and everything else I've picked up, I imagine I've got enough gray plates to make a few decently sized aircraft. I did get the Christmas tree set, so that at least went through alright, but LEGO continues to muff their releases by misunderstanding demand in a huge way. It's baffling to me that they can claim the System Batmobile as an exclusive extra included with the larger one, and then run out the small one while still having plenty of the larger version. You're right though, it really is dumb that they made the set with a much wider appeal an exclusive. They should have manufactured them in equal numbers. If they were that low on stock, they could have just issued vouchers during the full promotional period, but I imagine it's one of those "while supplies last" caveats. I'm not all that miffed though. The little set is a fun idea, and a nice quick build, but it's something I could also probably easily build on my own. The ideal case I see for that set pairing would be if a parent bought the larger UCS version, and could give the smaller version to a child to build alongside them, so they have their own more play-friendly version. I have yet to pick up that recent Batwing, but I'll probably grab it next time I make a trip to walmart. I do think the wings could be shaped better, but that's partially an artifact of the plate angles they're limited to.. and I still firmly believe they need to widen the variety of those, as well as re-introducing the classic Space-style ones with the notched corners, to allow for true continuous edges. I'll have to dig into my brain for the ideas I had for a large scale Batwing years back... I don't think I ever made a true TAS design, since I believe I stretched and stylized the fuselage quite a bit, almost to where the design was a cross between the TAS and Batman Forever design, which my younger brother had the toy of. The giant TAS version available recently is a lot chunkier than I remember being in the show.
  13. Chronocidal
    Just picked Hikaru up from the post office, looks like everything's in good shape, but wow the shipping box was cut close.. barely room for a layer of bubble wrap in this one. Typical backwards tail numbering (bleh) and the loose instrument panel (woo!), so I might do a few tweaks eventually, but I'm going to wait until the backup from HLJ arrives. Now I just get the agonizing wait to see if my strike packs arrive sometime this decade.
  14. Chronocidal
    I believe that's been an ongoing saga of non-communication from the vendor, unfortunately.
  15. Chronocidal
    Numbers-wise, the movie will probably do fine, just for the level of spectacle it is, and the fact that even as terrible as it might be, people will go see it for one reason or another. I'm not looking forward to the movie so much as I'm looking forward to the time spent with family watching and discussing it. The movie itself is going to be a flash in the pan compared with the reaction once it comes out, and that, I expect, will be far more entertaining than the movie has any hope of being.
  16. Chronocidal
    The movie? Eh, might be decent, might not, it is a bit late to throw it in. I'm honestly way more interested in Kapitan Russkiy here, because not only does he look amusing, but he reminds me heavily of one of my best friends, and I'm going to be sorely disappointed if he doesn't attempt that costume at some point.
  17. Chronocidal
    I've picked up a couple of the newer Hobby Master releases (RA-5 Vigilante, and an F-35C), and they're getting really nice. My first, the CA ANG F-106 looks pretty sloppy comparatively, and they've gotten much better about hiding seams since then.
  18. Chronocidal
    Yeah, the sturdier construction is mostly what I'm after in the Destroyer, but at the same time, there's always that niggling voice in the back of my head going "look at all those gray plates.." I have fun building military aircraft, and these big sets always are a treasure trove of good elements. I am a little sad that they seemed to be out of the mini-Batmobile set when I sent in my order, but that was probably what caused the initial website hammering when it went live. I'll live though, and I'm probably a terrible person, but I'm already thinking of how else I can use the parts, and wondering whether that canopy would be a good fit for a large-scale BTAS Batwing. The most recent Batwing set should be a good companion for the smaller Batmobile though, it's really similar to the 89 movie version.
  19. Chronocidal
    Customer interaction aside, you have to admit they have a good track record of delivering hard to find items, albeit on their own nonsensical schedule, and at inflated prices. I'm pretty sure the mark-ups are what keep them afloat though, because, as we saw with the 31A, delivering all the orders they took could have had them eating a loss by acquiring all the necessary items from re-sellers (possibly why so few of their stock came in the original TWE outer shipper box). As soon as their orders were filled, they suddenly had a restock at over $700, which makes me think they had to bump them that high to make up for losses on ones they acquired above retail price. I don't believe their cancelling of orders and banning accounts is unique though. In all honesty, I wouldn't really have any trouble with it, if their store credit policy wasn't a pile of hair-tearing shenanigans. The hoops you have to jump through to spend store credit from a cancelled order from them are way beyond unreasonable. Bottom line, only order from them if you really truly want an item, and are willing to wait an unreasonable amount of time for it. They do deliver... eventually.
  20. Chronocidal
    I would love to get that eventually, but I've got far too many other things demanding my wallet's attention at the moment. I still have the original UCS Star Destroyer, and would love to see how they've improved the construction from that messy monstrosity. Or maybe I can pool my Amazon credits like I did for the Bandai PG Falcon a couple years ago...
  21. Chronocidal
    Anyone dig out the old Yamato D.D. figure to try in this one? Arcadia seems to have lost the ability to make in-scale figures, and this one is so tiny he can't even reach the controls.
  22. Chronocidal
    Heads up on the Air Fighter Collection front.. not seeing any title for issue 42, but 43 is going to be a big one! Edit: Correction, 42 is going to be another must-grab.
  23. Chronocidal
    Just got my shipping confirmation, batmobile should be here by the end of the week. Grats on that Saturn V set as well, that was a real bugger to pick up when it was new, and I'm glad they've kept up production this long. I know there's a lot of competition, but I can't really shake the impression that it may be the finest set they've ever produced.
  24. Chronocidal
    Was thinking the same thing, I know I've got at least a few decals I could copy.
  25. Chronocidal
    He had to, to stick the "We missed you!" slip to my door. I'm guessing he didn't feel like looking for the box.
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