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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    Can say the same, though they certainly took their time getting it here. Think it ran close to 20 days in transit, a week and a half of which was just sitting at LAX. Edit: Double checked, they left on May 14th, arrived May 31st. They arrived at LAX on the 20th, and didn't leave customs until the 29th.
  2. Chronocidal
    I'm gonna hold my thoughts about what I heard. Partly because of spoilers. Partly because my brain is having just as much trouble processing it as certain characters probably should (depending on whether it's actually going to be acknowledged in-universe what is insanely obvious to the audience, or if it's going to be handwaved as a completely coincidental thing that has no relation to in-universe events).
  3. Chronocidal
    That's a weird change, did they have to re-engineer the leg packs to stay on better?
  4. Chronocidal
    Huh.. yeah, that shin color is an odd choice, especially when his hips are already a better color of plastic.
  5. Chronocidal
    Update on the Fugu Jetfire, my pair just arrived, and I think the only way I'd be happier is if I hadn't exerted the effort to try and strip/repaint a set of leg packs from the original release. I'm happy to report that the rumors of them leaving out the canopy cover were incorrect, and slipped neatly inside the packaging I also found a couple of surprises I didn't expect to get. (No fancy photography here.. maybe someday I'll make room for a proper photo booth.) Also, after the feedback they received from the first release, I'm just going to say they went even further beyond this time around. Not only did they remove the Macross logos (kites, skulls, and UN SPACY are all gone), but they added several new markings directly from the Jetfire art, including detailed prints on the fronts of his feet, a pair of warning labels on the underside of the fronts of the backpack boosters (amusingly, these are barely large enough to make out some lettering that says "UN SPACY" so I'm guessing they repurposed an existing tampo pattern), and the striping on his gunpod in red and white like the box art, rather than the chrome foil in the original stickers. Oddly, they left the small white arrow on the front of the leg packs (best not to try and remove this, or you'll damage the overall paint on the packs, as I found out), and they didn't change the red printing on the tails, so I might still repaint or strip one set to get a more classic stripe on one side. They didn't change the stock black stripes and red circles on the legs, but I know the original stickers for Jetfire had a much more convoluted paneling sticker for those surfaces. They also didn't touch the intake warnings, but I'm sure they would be easy to strip if someone wanted them gone, since there's nothing around them. Otherwise, I'm happy to say I found these tucked into the extra parts box, along with the transparent pack covers, and extra hands. I'm not familiar with what defines "quality" for repro transformers stickers, but these look very "okay." Silver and not chrome foil for one set, and what looks like dull paper for the pack markings, but I'm just happy they got included. I'm sure anyone who knows where to look could come up with some fancier vinyl and foil versions. As for the quality of the figure though, I can happily say the elbow issue I had was entirely resolved, and both sets of arms bend and pose easily, though one of mine has a rather sloppy bicep twist which should be easy enough to fix, but I'll probably just leave him in jet mode. The shoulder ball joints still were tight, and needed a little loosening, and the hands were a little tricky to get out, but I think the black wrist covers were a little oversized, and filing the edges helped. Still needed to file down the chest locking nubs. I also had to add a layer of tape to both swing wing pivots to get some stiffness, since they were very sloppy. I did see a little variability with tightness in the wing hardpoints, mostly with the missile clusters and box launchers being easy to spin on the hardpoints, but they didn't fall off. The reaction missiles fit more snugly, to the point you may want to mount the pylons bare and then add the missiles, to make them easier to twist into place so you don't wear down the nubs, and lead to the other missiles being able to fall off freely. The overall quality of the figure feels higher this time around, mostly owing to the better arms, but it's still not quite up to a standard Yamato/Arcadia release. There's still a little slop in the transformation, the main gear doors don't quite fit, and there's just little niggling things like the hardpoints being loose that might annoy you. Overall, I'd recommend this one even more highly than the original release, depending on whether you want it closer to Jetfire, or closer to a unique VF-1. I've got a pair of each release, and I don't regret it. What I might wind up doing with the fast packs I started to strip? I've always wanted a matched set for a VF-1D in tan and orange, like that 1/100 Toynami exclusive. If I can find a good color match, I might try it.
  6. Chronocidal
    After messing with the design all week, I finally just decided to pick up the parts for a complete second orbiter, rather than just what I needed to revamp the first. Gives me a few options for display, and I can reconfigure a few parts to build a different shuttle. The color swap for Columbia is pretty simple, and I ordered the parts for multiple tails, including the tip sensor, and the parachute pack mod. So I spent last night building a parts list. Aside from a couple of nonexistent colors and a few parts not in production anymore, I was able to pick up the entire thing on the official Pick-a-Brick site for roughly $120 for approximately 1300 parts. Not a terrible total I think, and I added some extras of some pieces I use a lot (and spares of those clips that keep breaking ). The four old gray notched wings I used for the main wing I had to pick up used from another vendor though. Frankly, the lack of a part to replace the function of these is getting painful... and after last night, the official ID numbers #3935 and #3936 will be forever burned into my noggin. I got my first pair of these in one of my first space sets, and they are sorely missed, because even with the rapidly expanding selection of wedge plates we have, the 45 degree angle plates are now the lone holdout for which we do not have an option to arrange multiples into a seamless edge. They did fortunately introduce the two 45 degree tile pieces in red there, but they don't solve this issue. They can be used to fill gaps, but only on top of another already established surface. They can't be used to plug the gaps left by other wedge plates along a bare edge, because even if they did have studs, there's nothing to hold them in place there. The old solid edges on the 45 degree notched plates made them impossible to stack, so they did need an upgrade, but we really need them back in an updated format now.
  7. Chronocidal
    they've definitely been introducing a whole host of new and interesting shapes, with some really great use cases. One of the interesting ones I only discovered yesterday is just a tiny wedge plate, and I kind of wish they would make many more of these types of parts, in as many angles as possible, because they are fantastic for shaping. Unfortunately.. for the way I relly need these, I actually really need one with a stud, so they're stackable. Also really useful would be those quarter round tiles, but also with studs so you can stack them into a quarter cylinder.
  8. Chronocidal
    Not sure I'm sold yet on how thick this makes the wing at the trailing edge, but you can't really gradually taper plates at this scale. Definitely improves the look of the main landing gear though (removable tile covers that remount as doors in the open position), and I think I could get used to the different bay doors. For anyone interested, the inspiration for the changes was from this mod for the original design. https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-167498/Foggy0utri Design Bureau/1110-space-shuttle/#details I'm not a fan of how he redid the nose, and the way he rebuilt the entire shuttle with 1x2 plates to get a tiled look felt a little impractical, but I like the higher (and cleaner looking) bay door hinge, and while he doesn't say it's compatible with the original tank, I was able to keep the original mounts in place, just adding one layer of plates to the underside, so it should still work.
  9. Chronocidal
    I wrote a little about the issues I found in one of the other topics, and in the review I posted on ShowZ. They were nothing major, just some little assembly and tolerance issues that can probably be fixed by a disassembly and cleanup, or at worst, replacing a couple of parts with official Yamato ones. Biggest ones were these: 1. Squeaky/overly tight shoulder balljoint friction pads (fixed by loosening shoulder screws, or lubrication) 2. Right elbow double joint wasn't quite assembled properly, leaving it bulging and very stiff to move (probably needs disassembly/reassembly, but it doesn't prevent transformation or posing) 3. Overly large chest-plate locking ridges make it really difficult to detach the chest from the backplate while going to battroid (easy fix, file down the locking ridges inside the chest by ~25% or so) No real showstoppers, just little KO idiosynchrasies. The elbow is probably the most significant issue, since it makes clipping the arms under the back in fighter a little tricky since it's wider than it should be. Worst case, I would just swap in actual Yamato arms and add the stripes. I imagine the tolerances are close enough that you could swap everything below the ball joint, or maybe up to the swingbars.
  10. Chronocidal
    I remember stickers in some pretty early sets (the very first shuttle launch set from the early 90s comes to mind, and those have long since faded to nothing), but also some nice prints from the same timeframe. The ones that I always avoided were ones that bridged multiple pieces, like the first airport set, which had a large billboard sticker across several bricks. I don't think I've actually used any stickers for twenty years or more at this point though. I repurpose enough parts for custom builds that I just prefer everything clean of markings that would pin a part to a specific subject (even the UCS sets). I've gotten to where I just love manually coloring things by the parts used, and tuning assemblies to get good color divisions. One more note about the shuttle, I went on a dive into mods for the KingsKnight shuttle, and discovered there have been some pretty wild mods developed for it. Most interesting was one that re-built the bay doors with curved tiles rather than the custom door panels, and while it's a less smooth shape, it also removes the studs entirely, and looks like it raises the hinge to a more accurate height, allowing another layer of plates to shape the wing into more of an airfoil. They also covered the underside with smooth black tiles, and covered over the retractable gear, which, while impressive, I'm not entirely sold on how thick it makes the entire shuttle. I might see how expensive the tiles are to try it, but it will take a significant rebuild of the underside, and might conflict with the existing tank mounting points. The one thing I would most love to improve on the base design though is to find a way to get the bay doors to fully open. The pinned clips all pretty well limit them to 90 degrees, while they should open closer to 180, and lay down over the wings. I'm going to attempt a rebuild with the studio later to see what I can come up with, but I'm not sure anything outside of the custom hinges from the huge Discovery set will allow that sort of motion.
  11. Chronocidal
    Nice! Mine have been sitting in customs since last week, and they're finally in the hands of the postal service, so hopefully they get here by the weekend. Let us know how fit and finish are on this version. I'm hoping they fixed the arm issues on the first release, but not counting on it, since they weren't deal breakers. I do wish the missiles fit on the official Yamato releases though, since it would be nice to have some fully painted clusters of TV missiles. They do seem to fit on the ThreeZero VF-1s though. which is a huge upgrade to their terrible missiles. I'm debating on whether I want to find some stickers for this one, or try my hand at making some autobot stencils, and painting the logos on the boosters.
  12. Chronocidal
    So this is starting to get frustrating. I'm starting to miss the older hinge pieces that didn't involve these clips, because it seems like every time I disassemble something using these clips, I find more of these pieces just cracked from stress over time. Maybe an environmental impact from heat or light? I don't know. Fortunately they're not expensive to buy in bulk, but I've lost count how many of these have done this. On the positive side, I was able to dig enough of those mixel joints out of my stash to rebuild the Shuttle's engine panel, giving me individually adjustable nozzles. Which.. I feel a little bad ragging on the official set, but holy cow did they phone the shuttle in.
  13. Chronocidal
    Little late, but I think it was in LDD. I know there have been some custom part update packs for it, since LEGO stopped supporting it. Downside to the update would be the lack of actual windows, but I'm absolutely not upset by not having a cockpit with minifigures in it. It's cool that sometimes they work out in the correct scale, but I'd much rather focus on a having as accurate a shape as possible, rather than being shackled to the existing stock of clear elements. Since it hasn't been brought up here yet, I'm just going to say I'm really torn about this new set. On the one hand.. I want to get it. On the other.. the primary reason would be to rebuild it, because this design just upsets me in so many ways. As a starting point, I'm not nearly the airliner aficionado that I know some folks here are, but this 747 has so many serious flaws that I can't look at it without cringing. Primarily, the cockpit absolutely needs a redesign, but the placement of both the wing and stabilizers relative to the fuselage just bother me. But the shuttle.. this hurts. Mostly because it's almost dead on 1/110 scale, same as the Saturn V, and more importantly, the Ideas shuttle that got rejected.. and this design is so much worse than that one. I do like how they used some ball and socket joints to angle the main engines, and I might steal that design for mine, but the rest is just a painful downgrade in so many ways. It doesn't even look as nice as some of their City-themed minifig scale ones, and even using one of their old single-piece molded noses would have been an improvement over the weird half-octagon cone they designed. I have gradually made a lot of tweaks and modifications to the original KingsKnight design, especially the nose and tail (the feature I'm most proud of, that thing is a SNOT jigsaw), but I also redesigned the wing to use the old-style notched wing plates, which let me give the wing a proper gray leading edge both on top and bottom. Those pieces sadly aren't made anymore, but I'm certain something could be worked out using all of the new angled tiles they've made. Funny enough, the original Ideas design was closer to the Enterprise anyway, since it left out the upper nose markings that I rebuilt it to include. In terms of the set though, I know it's not historically accurate, since they just decided to replicate the Paris Air Show scheme carrying the Enterprise, but it feels like a lazy cop-out not to include the parts or stickers to pick one of the other shuttles. They even missed a stupidly easy detail by not adding the upper windows on the cabin, or even a sticker for them.. which is specifically what that notch in the upper cockpit panel was used for in previous shuttle sets. I know the Enterprise had those windows covered, but they were still there, and it would have made a very low-effort detail. I don't know. Maybe I'll use the points I racked up during the Star Wars sales to discount it and pick it up later this summer, but it's definitely a fixer-upper. I could even use the stickers (yes they're all stickers) from the shuttle on mine, since the parts involved are mostly the same.
  14. Chronocidal
    Would a set of old Yamato stickers work? I think they included the necessary markings, but I don't know if they were white-backed stickers. You might try the sale/trade section though, lots of people here bought the first version, and you might find some who wanted the version without markings.
  15. Chronocidal
    The most prominent aircraft I know of with similar features is the F-16, which is discussed here, with some up-close photos of what those stripes look like. The TLDR is that they prevent static build-up that could interfere with the radar. http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?/topic/140762-f-16-nose-cone/ Whether they were done for any reason other than aesthetics by Kawamori is up for grabs, but given he has an aerospace degree, I would not be at all surprised if he was fully aware of their real life purpose. I definitely learned something new though, I always figured they were structural stiffeners, or vortex generators. The YF-19/VF-19 nosecones have something similar, but they tend to be drawn as a more aerodynamic shape, so stiffeners/generators seem more likely.
  16. Chronocidal
    I'm currently waiting on a pair from ShowZ, and watching the tracking information. I'll probably eat the cost if there is any, but will definitely report it here once I find out the details.
  17. Chronocidal
    Plus, Bandai just cannot get over the assumption that main characters are all anyone wants. That may be all that sells in Japan, but it's baffling how they don't even understand the value of the variety in the shows that they sponsored. The entire schtick of Delta was a squad of airshow craft, but they're too dense to comprehend the draw of completing the squad... or just too risk averse to consider producing anything that won't sell out as well as a main character, anyhow. Coupled with the never-ending reissues of Hayate, everyone's just sick of the same release. And of course, Bandai misreads the situation perfectly, interpreting the disinterest for the only release they think we should care about as apathy about the entire franchise, when all we really want is all of the other merchandise.
  18. Chronocidal
    Weird, they actually just removed it? That feels dumb.. even if it is more accurate. Oh well, I cleaned off one to use with one of my first versions, so no real harm done, I'll just move it. Don't need more than one for a battroid display anyhow.
  19. Chronocidal
    Was browsing through a few old folders, and found pics of the updates I had planned to the UCS Imperial Shuttle. Still a long way to go to update the entire wing mechanism, but the engine section and cockpit were pretty well ready to go. I was never really happy with the way I tried to redesign the side intake vents, but considering how many more curved elements have been introduced since that point, maybe it's time to revisit the update. I must say, I was always incredibly happy about how cleanly all of those angled panels came together to shape the rear of the cockpit section. I never did get to build it though, so I have no real firm idea of whether it was actually structurally sound.
  20. Chronocidal
    Given the issues those had, that still feels overpriced. That really is a good deal for a Hayate with packs though. I want to say it's amazing that it's dropped that low, but I think this is what Bandai overestimating demand looks like. Unfortunately, it also probably means we're never going to see any of the other versions released.
  21. Chronocidal
    It wasn't, but I don't think that ever stopped HG from harassing vendors trying to sell merch from other parts of the franchise. I don't remember if there was ever direct confirmation that HG was involved, but I do remember getting some early pre-orders of Frontier valks at BBTS that got completely canned for one reason or another. They just stopped trying to sell them at all pretty quickly.
  22. Chronocidal
    Pretty sure that is entirely off the table now, since they actually drew up a contract to say who gets to do what.
  23. Chronocidal
    Will be sure to compare and post some pics when I receive one, and check if there are any fixes compared with the first release. I think one of mine is coming by airmail, so we'll see how soon it arrives.
  24. Chronocidal
    I'm vaguely hoping that the stickers are "missing," but slipped in between layers of the package somewhere, but I'm not worried about them either way. I plan on trying my hand at cutting out some stencils and painting the logos on the key places (really only the fastpacks). I'll be a little disappointed if they leave out the heatshield though, since I think that looks better for battroid than the bare cockpit, and makes a perfect spot for the logo.
  25. Chronocidal
    Just got confirmation on another pair shipped from the new stock at ShowZ, though.. separately, and with different shipping methods, so we'll see whether the boxes arrive intact. Not too concerned, since one of my first editions arrived in great display-worthy shape, but I'm looking forward to adding some Autobot logos.
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