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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    I have a hard time arguing for one over the other at this point.. they seem to be circling opposite sides of the same drain. I'll say this much.. Star Wars kits are much easier to do a nice job on than Star Trek ones. You can get by with simple details, but Trek kits are just insanely labor intensive to detail properly. I think we've derailed this into entirely different hobbies at this point though. Are there any upcoming releases in the Eaglemoss line?
  2. Chronocidal
    How hard is that A-6 to find/purchase? Would be nice to stick alongside the VF-84 F-4.
  3. Chronocidal
    Thanks for the links, I went with AmiAmi before seeing the other links, but it's not a huge price difference. Honestly, I think the price is on point for something of that size and detail, and I don't mind having a second bigger version of that design. I think the fancier interior and gear detail sold me on it, aside from the better overall weathered look, and what I assume are working lights. If only Arcadia's PF releases looked this polished.
  4. Chronocidal
    I went to a lot of trouble muting the lights and diffusing them on that kit.. I think I used several layers of wax paper and some blue cellophane behind the deflector to get it down to a soft blue glow, but it really needs a light frosting or etching of some sort to turn it not transparent.
  5. Chronocidal
    You mean Back to the Days of Future Voyages Home? I do give the general SW universe some credit for never actually going down the time travel/multiverse hole, but at the same time, I'm thinking a multiverse angle for the EU is sounding better and better all the time.
  6. Chronocidal
    Ugh.. yeah, I need to do that upgrade as well to my Bandai Refit. I did a cheap fix by adding some tape over the clear portions to filter the light some, and added clear blue cellophane to color the nacelles and deflector better, but the bulbs are just too powerful, and too yellow.
  7. Chronocidal
    So.. assuming that's the Bandai (because the Art Asylum/Diamond Select one is nowhere near that detailed underneath), that's a mashup of the First Contact, and Nemesis versions. The neck area is from First Contact, as is the underside torpedo launcher/Captains Yacht area, which you can tell is from FC because it looks nothing like the yacht. The entire quantum launcher underneath was remodeled in Insurrection to make the yacht look more like a ship. But while the rest of the ship screams "First Contact," the topside torpedo launcher behind the bridge was a Nemesis addition. I'd have to see more of the ship to see if more of the Nemesis mods are in place. As far as the pylon replacement goes, there was a rather large reason for it, because the Nemesis upgrade included a new set of phaser strips both top and bottom along the aft edge of them, giving the ship roughly the same phaser coverage as the Galaxy class. The Nemesis refit saw a substantial weapons upgrade across the entire ship, including one forward-facing launcher at the front of the bridge terracing, a dual launcher behind the bridge, one embedded in the spine just above the rear-most shuttlebay, and I think one directly under the bay deck. The original design only had the quantum launcher, a dual launcher directly under the deflector, and I believe there was one dual rear-facing one on the very bottom of the hull, where the Galaxy class had the tractor beam emitter. I need to check my references for whether that was always a launcher though, since I'm not 100% sure the under-bay tube was a Nemesis add-on. Far as the saucer separation goes though, I think they gave up on that fairly early, despite the design work that showed how it would function. Regardless of whether that separation joint exists, the lower engineering hull never had any impulse engines to move under its own power. I would assume the saucer separation is still possible, but it would probably be restored to a pure emergency ejection procedure like in the original series. Edit: After reading that design analysis, I noticed they pointed out the modifications in that one drawing, but then not all of the modifications pointed out were actually seen in the movie, specifically that forward launcher on the saucer. The final notes about a "final" version of the ship, intended to be seen after the post-Nemesis rebuild, included an interesting note though, saying that the revised design at that point would have been changed to adopt a more traditional "aztec" pattern for the hull. I never minded the look of the patterns used on the Ent-E, but as shown by that pic above, there is generally no rhyme or reason to the pattern that we can discern, and it winds up meaning that there's no real "canon" pattern for anyone to follow, and no real consistent scale for the paneling, meaning half of the attempts to replicate the pattern wind up looking like random patches of masking tape scattered all over the hull. When I made my Bridge Commander model, I made a template, and then tiled it over the hull to keep from having to draw every single panel, but the panels were much smaller than most models I've seen. I sized them to match the studio model from First Contact, which were pretty tiny.
  8. Chronocidal
    I think I'd rather have a high quality replica of the Ent-E, honestly. I spent so many years building a replica of that one for Bridge Commander, that design is very close to my heart. Unfortunately, the Diamond Select/Art Asylum versions of that particular ship are.. ehhhhh... very average. They look good at a distance, but I've grown familiar enough with the design to know exactly how many corners they cut on the detailing.
  9. Chronocidal
    If I had known about it at the time, I would have grabbed that in an instant. The Diamond Select versions aren't terrible, but the quality and paintwork can be really iffy. They're a big step up from the old Playmates version, but I'd still call them "toys."
  10. Chronocidal
    I just file this under the "Bandai still doesn't understand aircraft" heading. Lettering is always too thick, too dark, too bold, too whatever else. They've never given two shakes that you can just do a google image search for "aircraft" and find millions of references that contradict what they consider "correct." They're Bandai, after all. They know they know better, despite all outside evidence to the contrary.
  11. Chronocidal
    Yeah, I think the top item on my list at the moment is a PF VT-1, preferably with duty-uniformed Hikaru and Misa.
  12. Chronocidal
    I might have to grab that one to get an A model Not seeing that one on CD Japan though, are there other places to order these?
  13. Chronocidal
    The sequence was fairly cool, and I don't have much against the idea, but what it does is basically open a super-massive plot hole, in that if you don't at least give the bare minimum exposition about why it's never been used before, you make the entire universe look stupid for never using one of the most effective weapons imaginable in all of those other situations where it would have been amazingly helpful. In the end, it just becomes your typical "Reed Richards Invention For This Week," where, despite it having existed for hundreds of years, has never been used before, and will never be spoken of or used again, no matter how useful it would be in any given situation. See, wouldn't even go that far. I just want them all dead because they're directly responsible for over 1000 people dying for no good reason. I'd think anyone directly responsible for a mutiny, and the subsequent leaking of classified information that resulted in the pointless and stupid death of 99% of the remaining personnel aboard a military vessel would be easy grounds for execution by whatever happens to be the most convenient method at the moment/nearest blunt object. This has nothing to do with actors, casting or any other nonsense. It falls purely on the writers. The characters deserve to die for what they've done. I want them gone purely as proof that someone involved in the franchise understands that actions have consequences.
  14. Chronocidal
    You don't even have to go that far down the political cesspool to hit that point, honestly. I just personally can't recall any other franchise where I actually wanted the majority of the main characters to die horribly in a mass application of karmic comeuppance. If the entire EU hadn't been trashed, I'd be rooting for the Yuuzhan Vong.
  15. Chronocidal
    "Beedee-beedee-beedee, Ohhh brother."
  16. Chronocidal
    Or, they use this temporal pileup to reboot the entire franchise in a future free from copyright infringement? I know that's not what they will do, because it would fail hilariously, but I'd still love to see them try. I didn't realize how close this actually is to the one TNG episode where all of the alternate timelines merge, but because of how many sources Robotech has farmed its content from, it's more like that episode, but the sector full of Enterprises is joined by the Prime Universe version, plus the Kelvin version, plus a few star destroyers, a small fleet of whitestars, battlestars, and basestars, plus the odd squadron of space-faring Spitfires.
  17. Chronocidal
    I know it's not keeping the item in perfect condition, but if you aren't worried about that, you could just plug the hole with clay, and then even cap it with a piece of sheet plastic, and then paint it to match. Still irritating to have that kind of sloppy assembly though. Maybe it would be worth trying to set up a part exchange for people with too many of one part, and not enough of another? It seemed to solve a few folks' problems with mismatched HMR super packs.
  18. Chronocidal
    I'm just going to assume they're going full Robogeisha, and he just spits a saber blade out his backside when he needs it. Would make it much more interesting.
  19. Chronocidal
    I'm going to wait for any kind of official anything before getting hopes/disappointments up over that, I think. That's just so vague and lacking in context or details, that I have no idea whether it means folks in China were celebrating Robotech, or celebrating for Macross.
  20. Chronocidal
    Oh, now that sounds interesting indeed. I'm curious what effect that might have, if any. HG may or may not be losing a fairly big market in China, but I'd be interested to see how that affects their overseas production of toys/collectibles/junk. Will Kitz Concept be able to continue manufacturing Macross goods under the Robotech label, or will they be having their products overseen/seized by Big West? Edit: I can't make heads or tails of that document, though. Seems to call out trademarks for symbols or logos used on sleep masks?
  21. Chronocidal
    So.. I don't want to be the downer here, but keep in mind, regardless of whether they can legally sell here or not, the production numbers are still determined by Bandai, and they are under no obligation to sell their wares in other markets, regardless of how profitable it might be. Bandai has a long and extremely irritating history of leaving money on the table by just flat out not producing enough to meet demand. They have fine tuned their production numbers to efficiently use what production capacity they have, and a suddenly larger market does not mean they will be able to turn around and produce for it overnight. You notice I didn't mention Arcadia here.. because they seem to have absolutely zero problem producing to meet demand, and buying any of their Macross merchandise is really no more difficult than buying something from Amazon at your leisure. I don't expect that to change regardless of the situation with HG.
  22. Chronocidal
    I actually don't think a piece that simple is worth the effort of a recast, whether it's a kit or toy. I believe the missing piece is just a flat plate with some vent vanes on it, correct? I would just make one out of sheet styrene, by cutting a base panel to cover the opening, and then either scribing vent lines into it, or gluing smaller strips of sheet styrene to it. If you want to get creative with it, you could also make vanes by gluing together a stack of alternating-width strips of plastic, and then cut the stack to fit into the space on the backpack, but the space there really isn't deep enough to fit much more than a textured panel. In other news, I dug out some of the other Polar Lights Trek kits, and snapped them together as a test. TOS Enterprise is probably the most sturdy of any of them. The refit went together decently as well, but sadly the Reliant kit has some serious structural issues. The parts break-down for the nacelles and roll-bar pretty much guarantee it's going to need a lot of glue, sanding, and putty, because despite being a "snap" kit, there is pretty much nothing at all holding the nacelle pylons in place, and they're even pretty warped (I'm painfully aware of the ironic pun).
  23. Chronocidal
    So, just to clarify the current situation though, didn't Big West snap up the Macross trademark in Europe, or some portion of it?
  24. Chronocidal
    Interesting note from Earthquake-ville. The DX is one fairly hefty and sturdy valk. I had one of my Hikaru 1Js perched in gerwalk mode on a top shelf earlier this week. Came home to find he'd taken a 5-foot swan dive during the shaking... but none the worse for wear. Gunpod hand had popped free, and one wingflap was popped out of a socket, but valk still looks in really good shape. Had an HMR VF-4 and VF-1D take a fall off my computer desk as well, but those survived in similar condition, with parts popping off, rather than breaking. All in all, I'm more relieved than I can really explain in words that I found my place in as good a shape as it is. I'm reconsidering my display options for the future though.
  25. Chronocidal
    Oooh, nice! How long is that one? I know it's a pretty small ship deck-wise, but how does it compare with the TV/Refit Enterprise?
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