Chronocidal
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Definitely reminds me of the process I used when I did my VF-25F years back. I didn't want to deal with stickers or decals, so I hand-painted the entire thing, only masking some select bits, since most of the paint was along existing panel lines. The red stripes were just an absolute nightmare to get smooth, but the process that eventually yielded an almost stroke-free coat was to pretty much soak my brush in water, and then let the paint "float" in the water as it evaporated, leaving a smooth coating. It just took quite a few coats that way. I also laid a full base coat of black under all of the red so I wouldn't have to put white under the red on the tails, and it wound up giving me a really nice deep crimson color. Far as the Ba kit goes though.. ugh. Yeah, that gunpod was one of the worst offenses. There was no reason whatsoever for them not to mold that in color after the entire gun was done that way on the Hs. I actually prefer the silver to the gold anyway... though I'm actually not sure which is shown in the show? I almost want to say the gunpods on the Ba model should be silver, but I can't find a screenshot to back that up at the moment.
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For the most part, they've drawn the line at fantasy/science fiction war machines, but lately they're sneaking some more realistic jets under the radar, under the guise of being aerobatics aircraft, or racers, or whatever. One of the recent Creator sets is basically an F-35 in civilian markings, and one of the Technics sets lets you build a motorized VTOL jet based on the JSF too. On the other hand though, there is a precedent for making official sets of historic fighter aircraft. We've had both the Sopwith Camel and Fokker Dr.I, and one of the Indiana Jones sets basically let you build a minifig-scale BF-109. One of the current Ideas designs up for review is a Red Arrows BAE Hawk, so I'm anxious to see if that one makes the cut. If so, I can see a slew of stuff like Thunderbirds F-16s and Blue Angels F-18s getting submitted. As sad as it is to say though, I think the Saturn V has kind of inflated expectations of the Ideas process.. yeah, it's nice to have the Saturn V, but now people are submitting ideas left and right for similarly scaled rockets of all types, launch platforms, crawlers, etc... and people are setting themselves up for disappointment. Their stated guidelines about submissions really don't allow for people to make entire series of sets that go together, and as nice as it would be to get the Saturn V launch pad, I think the chances are almost nil that LEGO will ever approve something like that.
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So the Ideas Shuttle hit 10k last night apparently. Time to wait and see if LEGO decides it's worth making official. Personally, I'd be up to buying 6, one for each orbiter.
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See, I like everything about the new X-Wings except the non-McQuarrie aspects. The offset split wing just bugs me enough that it ruined the entire vehicle for me. And it's not that it couldn't work physically, or mechanically or whatever.. I just think that the symmetry of the original design is one of the most striking and beautiful aspects of the ship, and they went and pissed all over it for the sake of looking "new" and "different." I'm not going to question anyone liking the design, it still looks great to me as long as the wings stay closed. I guess it just feels odd to me that even with how bad the prequels were, they still managed to introduce a heap of memorable and unique designs that I felt a decent need to go out and buy merchandise of. They really haven't managed to sell that on this new trilogy. Most of the designs have been either minor tweaks of old things, or new designs that languish on store shelves because they're completely forgettable, or just downright ugly. They definitely made a comment in ESB about it. Luke's line is "That armor's too strong for blasters." I think in-universe, you can kind of make the analogy that the difference between blasters and the cannons found on X-wings is something like the difference between machine guns and cannons on WWII aircraft. I always thought it was a bit of a silly contrivance, especially given the relatively huge size of the cannons on the snowspeeders,, but if you consider the likely difference in power output between speeder repulsorlifts and the ion fusion engines used on starfighters, it's very likely the speeders just couldn't put out enough juice to run heavier weaponry. -
See.. I don't believe that they don't have the same experience mimicking real world stuff. That Wonder Woman statue is insanely detailed, and very finely crafted. I think it's all down to source material, and what their basis is. If they're going with the Bandai-ish "It's a robot that happens to turn into a jet" mindset, yeah, it's going to look like a gundam. If they actually tried to make it look like a real aircraft with the parts jumbled around into a robot shape, yeah, I'm sure they could make it look that way too.
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Mmm, fair, though the idea of that design being the "standard" is its own worry. If you want a real fun thing, go look up the debate on the true size of the original ESB SSD Executor. I worked on X-Wing vs TIE Fighter and X-Wing Alliance mods for years, and the debates over "canon" sizes for that thing were relegated to "thou shalt not discuss" status, just to keep the peace. Far as actual scale goes though.. Star Wars has always been really lax about it. I don't think any of the filming miniatures were built in a specific scale to begin with, so everything was kind of just eyeballed, and a lot of scaling data was just made up. It's funny seeing the dirty laundry get aired now that companies are actually producing kits designed to be in a particular scale.
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Might be overly nitpicky, but you'd think, being group so renowned for their attention to detail, they'd use actual source material instead of making up their own panel lines...
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I might go cancel the Messer VF-1s I did order.. I was thinking they'd be good for customs, but then I keep forgetting that I never get around to making those. Come on VT-1!
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Calling it now, they made it flat so it can pass for a building until it takes off. Also, they can't count. That's five times the size of a normal star destroyer. Is there like.. some kind of viral infection spreading through JJ's productions that renders people completely incapable of understanding scale?
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Yeah, I noticed this getting my Regult set from NY the other day... their site is currently using a direct conversion from yen to dollars (literally 1 yen -> 1 cent), which is way out of whack with reality. Yen is currently around 105 to the dollar.
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Or you know. Use wheels, or treads. Or even better, they could just flat out hover like every other freakin' civilian vehicle in the franchise. Getting rid of legs altogether would completely eliminate the possibility of them failing a mission because they fell over.
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At this point, I've just written off the idea that we're going to get any designs that I give a crap about from this new trilogy. The only passable designs have been hack-jobs or copies of OT designs, and the new designs have been just so ugly that I have to question whether they're even conscious of the concept of marketability. Like.. sure, you can make stuff completely utilitarian in design, and just slap engines on bricks, and pray that someone buys your toys. Meanwhile, they're making it a lot easier for me, since it's one less franchise for me to spend money on. Also makes it slightly easier to justify getting the Bandai PG Millennium Falcon, since I can focus my Star Wars budget on OT stuff.
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Looks like half-finished construction honestly. I'm curious about the... well.. I'm trying not to make NSFW jokes in my head about it, but the cannon(?) dangling from the bottom looks pretty dumb. It kinda looks like they had the city/superstructure section from an SSD just detach and float away. I mean, it's perfectly fitting with everything from the new trilogy so far. They just seem to be going with a "I'm going to take a random geometric shape, and then throw a repeating generic mechanical paneling texture over it" feel.
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So if you look up the original Ideas site for the Saturn V, you can see just how much the design evolved. The original was much more a straight up bottom-to-top build. Still had some rounded plates on the outside, but the majority of the rocket wasn't as round as the final model. One of the updates also shows them using gray brick fins, with the ABCD stickers included. The designers' "deluxe" treatment also upped the level of detail on a lot of the features, including a complete inner structure of all the fuel tanks, and it included the separate ring between the first and second stage. I think the final build wound up a lot sturdier, and was a huge upgrade in aesthetics overall, but it sacrificed that internal detail. It is really fun to read the development updates on it though. https://ideas.lego.com/projects/3519b723-c59a-43b4-81be-eeb99b631627
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If it grows anymore, we're gonna be approaching Spaceballs levels of camera panning. Though... it's actually not.. that big? I don't know why they're playing that up when it's no where near the size of the old SSD, let alone any of the other monstrosities the Empire's built.
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Man, I've missed their choral/orchestral soundtracks so much since AC0. AC6 had a few tracks that were decent, but it felt a lot heavier on the synthesized stuff, and I never heard anything that impressive out of AH or the online one's trailers. Also, I might be imagining things, but I want to say the plot is giving me a sort of Endless Waltz-ish feeling? Maybe it's the princess character giving me Mariemaia Khushrenada vibes. I'm not sure which faction the player is fighting for in this game though, so it's tough to tell whether they're intended to be a hero or villain, or even just a puppet.
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Eh, I guess I'll reserve one at HLJ just in case I feel like I have to have one next spring. Still not sure I want to spend that much, but we'll see how next spring works out. Also, the thing with NY's boxes.. they love taking bigger boxes and cutting them down, then folding over the sides to make a new "top." They're generally pretty sturdy, but the construction is also really sloppy, and you often get really lopsided looking boxes because they're making those folds against internal corrugation that's going the wrong way.
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Thank you, that's precisely the part I've been missing in this. I knew Tatsunoko never had the power to give HG all the things HG claimed it licensed from them, but my understanding of the cases in the 2000s was sketchy at best. I'll go check that old post out now.
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New Macross TV Series in 20xx (sometime this decade)
Chronocidal replied to Tochiro's topic in Movies and TV Series
That's really my main thought, the travel times involved. Assuming emigration fleets are launched in wagonwheel-ish spreads from colonized planets like they show in the intro, I'd be extremely surprised if the case of Frontier and Galaxy being within reasonable travel distance is common amongst the various fleets. Sheryl's flight between fleets looked more like a commercial airline than something you'd be spending months at a time on. I get the impression that information is really the only viable commodity that fleets can exchange on a regular basis, in terms of entertainment, research data, and design specifications. -
Thanks for the heads-up, I went and ordered a set as well. I'd been meaning to earlier this month, and completely forgot about it.
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I'm actually kind of looking forward to that, in terms of finding out if Robotech can actually stand on its own. Being deprived of any existing material to fall back on will be nice test of HG to see if they have the capacity to possibly produce something original.
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So, I'm looking over this, and trying to come up with the TLDR version to explain to some friends, so let me see if I have the gist of the situation correctly. 1. Old history - Tatsunoko gave HG the license to animation, and HG claimed ownership of a lot more than that, etc. etc, which is beside the point for this particular issue. 2. Mid 90s - Big West and Tatsunoko were legally engaged over licensing issues, some of which included the rights HG purchased for Robotech, and the rights FASA purchased for MechWarrior designs. If I understand correctly, Tatsunoko was trying to legally defend its actions in those license deals? (I'm iffy on this, and need to re-read.) So the impression I've gathered is that these legal proceedings were technically in defense of the licenses HG claims give them ownership of everything associated with Robotech. 3. Recently - Tatsunoko finally decided to request financial assistance from HG for all the legal fees incurred trying to defend the licenses that HG has been milking. HG counter-sues, and the arbitration is basically that HG is actually owed money from Tatsunoko for the cost of the arbitration proceedings. So, HG essentially just spat in the face of the only company that could renew their license come the expiration in March of 2021. My understanding right now is that, even if the original license was flawed, and HG shouldn't have claimed ownership of what they did, it'll all be moot anyway if the license outright expires. Did I miss any key points there?
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I've been holding off building mine since it's meant to be a birthday gift for a week from now, but it's getting difficult to restrain myself. In the meantime, I've been rocking back and forth with anticipation to see if the Ideas shuttle set will hit 10k before the next review window, and considering how to build it myself if it doesn't get accepted. What I should do is go grab the digital model for the Saturn V and start tweaking the fins to see if I have the right parts to replace them.
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New Macross TV Series in 20xx (sometime this decade)
Chronocidal replied to Tochiro's topic in Movies and TV Series
This might be a non-issue due to advances in fold travel, but just out of curiosity.. how exactly does that type of economic system work, even in-universe? Shouldn't each emigration fleet be self-sustaining? Sure, communications can get back and forth, so I guess in that sense money can change hands between fleets, but digital money is not going to keep a fleet running by any stretch of the imagination. Are the individual fleets kept close enough together that they can support each other economically? I mean, maybe that's the entire point of the problem, but I haven't read up on the Musiculture material at all, so my limited understanding isn't helping. -
I've built up two of the Ba kits, but I have to say that the color molding on that version was pretty disappointing. I get that they didn't want to have to rework the entire molding to get the same level of detail as on Keith's, but they cheapened out. There were quite a few common parts that were gold on Keith's, and should have been silver on the Ba, but they ignored them, and went with a single color for almost everything. Also.. the Hs's head is boatloads more sturdy. The itty bitty panels around the pope head pop off if you look at them funny, and that whole interlocking mechanism is a mess of fragile parts. I'm halfway convinced that the head is most of why we haven't seen a DX version of this one yet. That said, it's still a fun kit to put together and transform, and I love the shape of the delta wings on it. I've actually considered doing some kitbashing, and putting the Ba wings on the Hs. If we wind up getting white versions of both, I'm going to be mixing and matching all over the place.