Chronocidal
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Everything posted by Chronocidal
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Sorry to hear this, it feels like we keep seeing more die-cast failures, but it's probably just random. We never hear about the failures in Japan, since they can just get replacements. One more reason I hate die-cast in general.. plastic is pretty easy to glue.
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STAR WARS Merchandise Episode - 2
Chronocidal replied to Black Valkyrie's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
There've definitely been a few good designs lurking around, but they're getting fewer and farther between. The ID4 Resurgence designs are at least interesting, but there's been a general lack of creative or fun designs coming from the west. I think that's part of why I loved Guardians of the Galaxy so much. The design work in that movie was just dripping with creative takes on simple concepts of design that felt at least moderately practical while staying amusing to see in action. Seriously, the scene with the ships locking their shields to form a barrier had me in tears. -
Your most recent Macross or toy purchase! General thread.
Chronocidal replied to Gakken85's topic in Hall Of The Super Topics
Ah, trading down to get the coated canopy version? I've debated trading canopies on a few of mine to get a full DYRL squad with them matching, but never wanted to try and separate that glued-down panel on the spine of the cockpit. -
You might be better working from a different reference instead of the older Yamato YF-19 or the model up above, but the YF-19 is a giant pile of animation magic in the way it transforms, so you may wind up with mesh collisions no matter how you do it. Both the newer Arcadia YF-19 and Bandai VF-19 Advance have newer attempts at the transformation that work a bit better, but still have compromises for reality. The Arcadia has an indent in the side of the leg to accommodate the arms, while the Bandai has a set of folding panels that collapse into the leg in fighter, and cover the gap for the arm when you extend the feet. All that rigging though is incredibly impressive looking, I love that you're making something that looks pretty much physically possible to do. I'll be honest though, when I first saw the title, I forgot Blender is a CAD program, and thought someone had just gotten really frustrated with their YF-19.
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Major props to him for figuring out the mechanisms to make that work, but I have to admit, I'm not a fan of all those goofy technic plates he used. To be fair though, using all those hollow pieces is probably the only way to keep it from collapsing under its own weight. Pretty amazing either way, the scaling probably puts it somewhere between 1/24 and 1/18. The hands are the same size as the 1/18 one I started, but the rest of the valk looks a little smaller in proportion.
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I know that feeling well, I've picked up a few more Figmas than I originally planned, but at the same time, I like using them to work out poses for character sketches. Picking up different characters is just a convenient way to get references for differing body types.
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Oh, thought for sure I'd seen the old DX Blazers with the "hi-metal" tag at one point or another. Probably a bootleg. I did like the Hi-Metal VF-19 design, and picked up the Fire Valk when it went on clearance once, but the colors they picked for the blazer made me want to gag. I do hope they get around to trying again with the Macross 7 Hi-Metals though, and hopefully incorporating a few features they needed the first time around. Probably the only way anyone's ever going to get a MAXL in any scale.
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Actually, given the sprue marks, fancier gear doors, and size relative to the 1J, I think that's one of the multi-mode Bandai VF-19 kits. The original Hi-Metal VF-19 Blazers were 1/65, and looked nowhere near as good as that one does.
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STAR WARS Merchandise Episode - 2
Chronocidal replied to Black Valkyrie's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Unfortunately, even a good kit of a fugly ship is still fugly. While I can appreciate the practicality of some of the new designs (mostly thinking the landing craft in the opening sequence, and the tie fighters with a tail gunner), I really wasn't impressed by any of the new ship designs used in TFA. Out of the "new" designs, we got space boats, Ren's box with giant expand-o-matic tails, a bunch of podracer engines glued to a cockpit, Han and Chewie's docking bay in space, and Leia's flying taco truck. I mean, I get practicality. But when you're trying to push merchandise for a big movie, you at least want designs that people will like, or at the very least remember. The stacks of unsold vehicles that aren't X-wings, ties, or the Millennium Falcon should speak volumes that they really didn't try very hard to come up with designs that anyone would actually buy. Heck, if they don't feel like putting in the effort to develop some good-looking ships, and if they're going to go cherry pick random things out of the EU to use, just go right ahead and steal more of the existing EU ship designs like they did for the LEGO Jek-14 fighter (E-wing). At least then you get merchandise that has built-in demand from the EU fans who've wanted toys and models of those designs for years. -
That really is an awesome idea. If it starts stressing the shelves, you could always use a wider or longer clip to distribute the weight over a larger area. On that note, I'm wondering if a clip with the mounting point rotated 90 degrees would be useful, or just unnecessary, since I imagine you could accomplish the exact same thing with a 90 degree bend attachment at the base. Turned that way, you could set up multiple branches extending forward to hold several valks at different levels and angles in the center of the display space.
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All Things Videogame Related: EXTREME VS!!
Chronocidal replied to Keith's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
At some point in the not too distant past (maybe a year or two?) I remember trying the game, and finding that it had a buyable add-on pack that included a full set of TOS ships/uniforms/weapons. The TOS Constitution class was a fairly overpowered starter ship, but yes, it made the early gameplay much more entertaining. Really though, the thing I found most impressive with the entire TOS setup was the attention to detail on the ship interiors. Whereas all of the TNG+ interiors look insanely oversized and astoundingly generic, the TOS ship interior was a room-by-room recreation of the TOS sets, correctly scaled, and full of little easter eggs to find. -
Given the issues Hikaru and Minmay ran into in the incomplete sections of the ship while trying to open doors? I'd say it was a sensible precaution.
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STAR WARS Merchandise Episode - 2
Chronocidal replied to Black Valkyrie's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
After looking at some of the Revell stuff, I don't think "best of the rest" is anything to shoot for. The only kits they have that seem to have any effort put into them are the reboxed Fine Molds ones. -
Macross Collectibles Market Watch - Current Auction/Store SOLD prices
Chronocidal replied to jvmacross's topic in Toys
In one sense, I'd consider the 1D kit more valuable just because it's a viable source of spare tan parts for the 1D, or VT-1. I know I mostly ordered that kit to have a spare 1D head to swap onto my VT-1 for fun. If all you need for your Platypus are the two-seater specific parts, I'm sure someone with a VT-1 with busted shoulders would appreciate the matching replacements. You could source all of the universal parts from an easier to acquire kit, since they'll probably be painted anyway. Really wish they had put out a kit of the VT-1 style two-seaters, preferably in VE-1 gray. Would have made a good number of custom paint schemes a whole lot easier. -
So the search function refuses to find this topic for some odd reason, but fortunately it wasn't buried too far. Apologies for digging up this old relic, but has anyone every taken apart the backpack drone for this set? My drone has nozzles that are limp as a soggy roll of tissue paper, and I need to find some way to get them off without destroying the drone. Pried off the glued on screw covers on the underside, only to find that that the only thing the screws do anything for is holding the center piece together, while the entire engine pods are glued shut. I'm tempted to try and just pop them off the ball joints, but I can't get any leverage on the nozzle, and I'm worried I'll snap off the goofy jagged petals if I try.
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Very nice reference. I never understood why it got molded that way to begin with, but always assumed it wouldn't be that difficult to fix.
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Did Hasegawa ever do anything to correct the massive engine droop on their 1/72 VF-1 mold? I know the 1/48 doesn't do it, and I've seen people mod the 1/72s to fix it, but I haven't looked at those kits in a long time.
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So, assuming the white parts of Bandai's decals aren't speckled for some ludicrous reason, you could always scan them, replace the screen printing with solid colors, and then print decals yourself to lay over the top of the Bandai ones. I'm tempted to do that myself already. Scan in my sheets, reproduce them in vector graphics, and only use the white sections of the existing decals.
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Just want to say, I hope someone finds a way to get this kit setup with injection molds some day, because it really is beautifully designed to go together easily. Got my painted kit a bit ago, and she's a beauty. Looking forward to finishing up the last few details on her.
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That's kinda been the general approach to everything since Frontier though, just having the chest plop down on top of the torso and kinda sorta almost lock down, while the head flops around on a nearly secured sliding/rotating platform that may or may not be grinding paint off the nose of the valk. I really haven't been impressed with the stability of any of Bandai's valks in battroid. All but the VF-19 Advance and YF-30 have seemed to rely on floppy/sloppy hinged panels that have to be positioned just right, and may never actually lock down in any appreciable manner (shoulder panels on the VF-25s, 27s, and 29s, and sloppy as hell hip bars on the 171s).
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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, in theaters Dec. 16, 2016
Chronocidal replied to Dobber's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Now, maybe if you actually had them launching off of rails externally, sure, but "drifting through the atmosphere containment field" just doesn't have the same punch as a catapult launch. Closest to the traditional start up sequence we get is really the original hangar deck sequence from Episode IV. For Episode VI though, they just skipped ahead to that awesome musical fanfare sequence having all the ships setting up for hyperspace. -
After this much time, and after as many complaints I saw here about the VF-25 decals years ago, I cannot believe in the slightest that Bandai has not already received an earful from their customers in Japan about how lousy those decals are. There's really no route for feedback from this side of the globe though, so you have to trust Japan to make those complaints for us. Really though, I don't think these kits are even aimed at "serious" modelers, so Bandai probably doesn't care that the decals suck, because they know that people who actually want good ones are going to wait for Hasegawa kits somewhere down the road.
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Hey, long as they don't blatantly photoshop out some sort of hideous feature that doesn't look how they want it to, I'm all good. I don't display the boxes anyway.
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I find it hilarious that that transparent version comes with the exact same stickers, so when you apply them, you suddenly get giant patches of solid fuselage.
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Who knows really, there's only room for so many twists to the plot. I just want to see it happen because it'd be something new, and unexpected from her character. Hopefully the 31's just suffering from inept display syndrome (IDS ) and will fit together nicely in-hand. Bandai's presenters never have been very good at prepping any of their products for display. I really don't think anything is going to fix the backplate though. The twisty flippy origami fold system they have in place is never going to give a very streamlined spine, and it looks like instead of folding the spine itself like the YF-30 did, this one actually lifts up by supports on either side of it, making the whole mechanism use twice as many moving parts as should be necessary (another of Bandai's more frustrating calling cards ). I still think the un-streamlined butt of the spine is just an unmitigated bucket of ugly though. Whose idea was it to make the tip not flush with the upper surface of the pod? The YF-30 was soooo much better there.