Chronocidal

THOSE FREAKING BASTICHES. I just got the Paypal invoice, and they charged me freaking $60 for shipping. I placed the order way before they ever announced them killing the free shipping deal, around 11pm PST on tuesday, which would be 3pm JST on wednesday June 9, with the 16 hour time difference. The sale ended at 6pm. WHAT THE HELL?? I'm gonna be sending HLJ a nasty complaint letter tonight.

Thing about that area is it's not quite as space limited for fixes, and there's a lot more plastic there to work with. You might be able to fix that with some type of glue, probably thin stuff that will seep into the crack easily. Just make sure to keep rotating the joint while it dries to make sure it doesn't freeze up. I actually just replaced the hinges on my Hikaru 1A last night, my fixes are finally failing after about 8 months (my Roy is still going strong though). One crack I glued before eventually split again, and my replacement pins (paper-clip segments) were too small, and kept falling out of the joint. I'll probably re-glue the crack, glue the pins in at the ends, and save the joints as a backup set.

I think all that the "until allotted stock runs out" bit means is that the offer is only good for items currently in stock, ie, if you order something that's waiting for a restock, you won't get the shipping deal once it's back in stock again. I finally broke down and got myself a 1/60 TV cannon fodder, as well as the Hikaru VF-1S+ version, bringing my collection of VF-1s to what I'm going to call a perfect 10, and stop. I was kind of planning to get a TV stand alone Roy, but considering I've already got the DYRL one, the only thing I'd really be getting was a new pilot. And, since separate DYRL-style strike packs seem to have vaporized into thin air, this was probably the only way I'd get a second set. In the end, I did get a second VF-1S, which is what I'd planned for to begin with, and just traded a tv Roy figure for strike packs, and markings a little more different than a change of head arrow colors. Aside from that though, I stocked up on a few modeling supplies I'd been hearing a lot about in various build-up threads. Picked up enough Tamiya masking tape to last me a good while, some Mr Mark Softer and Setter, Mr Surfacer, and a few Tamiya paint supplies (bottles and colors). This free shipping deal apparently drained their selection severely, but I still got a couple important colors (for a heck of a lot cheaper than my local hobby shop to boot). Sad, I almost convinced myself to buy an armored Ozma kit too, but I think I'll wait for a sale on that one. It's impressive to be sure, but not $90 impressive, and I've already got 8 other Frontier kits to build from their previous sale.

I just read the ad on HLJ about them selling them and couldn't help but laugh... it's nice that they're giving a gurantee that someone outside Japan will get a few, since they specifically say the sale is only good outside the country... but then I read the bit about HLJ getting a grand total of 3 to sell. The process to order it is a bit crazy as well, it's first come first serve, via confirmation emails only.

Sounds like it'll be in scale with the models rather than the DXs, it's advertised as being 1/72 on HLJ's listing.

Oh boy I could go into sooooo much detail for this. A lot of it comes from flight simming, since I'll often substitute that for flying a physical plane around (bonus for the lack of a hand holding the plane, and actual flame effects in the engines ) Note, a lot of these tracks cross over into my own personal label of "eargasmic." 1. "Flight to Neverland" from the movie Hook. I picture this one a lot for aircraft test flights, and if I ever get a pilot's license, I swear I will be either playing or singing/humming this during my first solo (regulations permitting). 2. "Ride the Dragon," or "Escape from the Dragon" from the Shrek orchestral score, used a lot for YF-19 flights in Flight Simulator. (Also of note: in my own head, I always hear "Escape from the Dragon" when watching the attack run on the second Death Star in ROTJ.. Sheesh.. There's even a roar sound that would synch up nicely with the explosion wave forming...I get chills just thinking about how well that would fit. Pacing is a little different, but I want to do a recut with that music someday.) 3. Northern Cross is a fun one. The fast paced lyrics in that one are like the vocal equivalent of a barrel-roll laden, Itano Circus massacre. Same for Lion and Infinity to an extent, but I associate those more with high-G dogfights and aircraft carrier punches than with crazy missile swarms. 4. Voices, Aimo, or .. whatever the name for the Mac0 end theme was that Aimo replaced in MacF, mainly for just smooth sailing, like sailplane flights, or Alto's cloud cruising. 5. If I had a CF to fly around, it'd be "TNT" (watch me explode! ) 6. For anything Mac7 related, it's usually "Holy Lonely Night" (for me, one of my favorite parts in the series was when that song got first used in battle, just because it was new and different ), although, I'm really starting to like some of the Fire Bomber tracks not used in the series like "Diamond Calling" and "Tread the Lightless Night." 7. Thanks to Forrest Gump, I'll always picture destroid (especially jungle) warfare accompanied by "For What it's Worth," or maybe "Fortunate Son." There's so much more too.. The Origa/Kanno tracks from GITS, the entire Macross Plus soundtrack.. Heck, even Yackety Sax (the Benny Hill high speed slapstick music) works well for missile barrages. It's like every track I listen to has a flight equivalent. Actually, I think it's something my brain does.. I don't know why, but I tend to associate pitches (notes on the scale) with angles, or motions. It's not always consistent, but it's like converting the whole "do-re-mi" bit into roll, pitch, and yaw angles.

Oooooh... Just got word that HLJ is having another Paypal-related free express shipping sale! I've held off ordering anything, maybe now's the time to get a couple more kits and Valks.

Heh.. bet if you could get apart the leg it'd be simple, but the VF-0s come from Yamato's, "Screw it, we'll just glue the whole darn thing together" phase. The YF-19, VF-0, and SV-51 are all nearly impossible to get apart to fix without breaking them worse than they started.

My guess would be those function just like the leading edge of the X-02's wing in Ace Combat 4, split into upper and lower halves that part to allow the hinge to pass through, but close up to form a sealed edge once the hinge support is past. Still doesn't explain how the wing then slides into the position shown in the colored picture though. I'll have to grab a copy of this, these images look like they would be incredibly fun to build a flight sim model out of. I think the mid-sized wing version of the VF-19F might be my new favorite version of this plane. What I do find annoying/funny though.. no matter how many times I see any variation of YF-19/VF-19 lineart.. I have yet to see any drawings that include even remotely reasonable divisions in the belly plates to allow for the transformation to work at all. At least this newest version seems to include panels along the fuselage that resemble the cut in the Yamato 1/60 and Bandai Hi-Metal used to shorten the forward fuselage.

That's pretty much the gist of it, I just put a blob of glue on each of the leg tabs to enlarge them. I suppose there is a trick to it though. I always use the slowest drying and thickest super glue I can get. The one I've been using for a while is Sentai Distributors Maxi-Cure brand, the extra thick 10-25 second stuff. It's plenty thick to build up a blob on tabs, and if you catch it at the right time, you can actually shape it a little. I think what I did for the leg tabs was to just put a little on the top and bottom of each tab, and let it dry till it wasn't sticky anymore, but was still soft enough to make an impression with a fingernail. At that point, I pushed the tabs into the holes to let the glue mold to the shape of the hole, then removed them again to let them harden the rest of the way.

Oh, I had a similar problem with those lower leg/backpack connections. I tend to hold the plane right behind the knees in fighter mode, and the pressure there always popped the legs out. Again, a layer of superglue on those leg tabs fixed it up nicely.

*facepalm* No, I completely forgot Asakura! Comes complete with tentacles too.

I've noticed that about the hip/intake connections too, they're not very snug where the plastic pegs into the metal. Next tweak I might try on the one I'm fixing up is to beef up the pegs on the legs to fit a little better. I love super glue.

Actually, the thing that sticks in my mind the most about the VF-0, especially when compared with other valks: it's actually streamlined. Nearly every other variable design has huge flat panels that face to the rear of the plane, usually the hand covers (the VF-4 avoids this, as do the VF-25/VF-27 due to the shield design). In the world of aircraft, non-streamlined flat surfaces at the rear of the plane are a huge no-no. It's called base drag, and comes from the turbulence caused by the air having to fill in the space behind the plane as it goes forward. On the whole, the VF-0 has probably the most streamlined shape of any valk I think, at least until the VF-25. Compared with the VF-1, the head, shoulders, arms, and hands are all completely blended into the fighter, while the VF-1 has big blocky shoulders sticking into the airstream, and all that flat area at the rear to make more drag. What's funny to think about.. in terms of technology this makes perfect sense really. The VF-0 had conventional engines (beastly ones, yes, but still conventional), while the VF-1 had nuclear engines. Given that much thrust, they may have just looked at the drag coefficients, and laughed them off. What's interesting to me... the same thing has happened in real life over time. Look back at the fighters designed in the era between about 1950 and 1970, and you'll notice that one of the popular trends in fighter design was a "coke-bottle" fuselage shape (great example is the F-5 Tiger, it had an extreme amount of this). That shape had the effect of seriously reducing the drag coming from shock waves approaching Mach 1. But these days, you really don't see much of that shape any more in fighter aircraft (only newer design I can think of off the top of my head that still has it somewhat is the Saab Gripen). Why? Because with engines that give 40k lbs of thrust, that drag isn't really an issue anymore, unless you really want to optimize the fuel load of the aircraft (which to an extent is why the Hornet has such a short range). Long story short, with enough power, drag isn't that big a deal, but it's still nice to get good fuel efficiency.

If I had the video editing skills and software, I would've already made an entire Haruhi/Fire Bomber mashup AMV series by this point. Although.. heh.. I wonder how long it'll be till we start seeing Haruhi dressing up as Sheryl (it probably already exists)... I'm not sure how they'd pull off the rest though. The characters' personalities are rather mixed up from their body types... although I can totally see Kyon and Koizumi as Alto and Michael. Leseee... going by personalities, Mikuru/Ranka might work (body type on opposite end of the spectrum though.. heh.. she'd probably make a better Nanase).. Tsuruya could make a good chibi-Klan (same length hair too, just wrong color) I don't think there even was a Yuki-type character in MacF now that I think of it. And Haruhi doesn't really have an Ozma substitute... so by default, Yuki'd have to be Ozma, just based on relative levels of kickassitude. Yeesh.. stupid imagination, now I can't get my head out of SOS-Frontier.

Cutting out filler is good... I always cracked up at the bits of "Last time on DBZ: 'KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.....'" followed by "Next time On DBZ: '....HHMAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.....'" Okay, so it wasn't that bad, but I never have seen the original in full. I will admit though.. while I imagine some important bits did get cut out, I thought DBZ Abridged pretty much nailed it. Part of me wonders how close the abridged series' pacing would match up to the new recut.

I'd like to know the same thing, HLJ has the strike parts set listed as discontinued , and I still want a second set. Did they just stop making them?? Do I need to get an anniversary Hikaru 1S to get a second strike pack? I really wasn't planning on it..

WIN! Although, I get the distinct feeling Haruhi and Basara would either get along realllly well, or be at each other's throats non-stop. I can't see there being any in-between.

Depending on the plastic, you might have a few tries, but using thinners to remove paint can have some nasty effects. Don't ever use it on clear plastic for instance.. the last time I did that, it crazed the plastic, leaving it with a shattered glass look. I did use thinner to remove the first metallic coat I put on the feet, and it didn't seem to hurt much, but it definitely had an effect on the plastic. After removing the paint, the plastic was very dull, almost like a cloudy texture somehow, and the surface of the pieces was definitely softer then before.. it seemed to scratch more easily, as if the plastic was breaking down. The most reliable way I know to remove paint is just scraping or sanding it off (much easier with acrylics, but a fine grained sandpaper is usually enough to strip enamels without taking off too much plastic). Takes more work, and scratches up the surface, but it's probably the safest route. And if you're planning on repainting the part anyway, it'll cover up easily enough.

I still love the old fashioned ultraviolence. For as many problems as it caused for Yamato though, I don't think it was really worth the extra effort, even if it is realistic.

Oh, please derail away, I'd like to know that as well, actually.

If I remember right, my M&Ms were a bit of an oddity for me too. Nothing horrific, but they did have a few oddball problems I haven't seen on any other v2 VF-1. Things like wheels falling off, loose leg fins, canopys coated too thickly to see through, etc. They are also the hardest ones I have to transform just due to their joints being extremely tight. Millia's tail section almost wouldn't fold properly. I kind of got the impression that the M&Ms were cast from brand new molds when they were released. They were the only 1/60 VF-1s I got right after release too, so later ones might have been not as tricky to transform. As for the shoulder light scratching, I found sanding down the little nubs on the inside of the chest piece helped quite a bit to prevent that.

I might still need to get a 0S at some point, just to see how they improved it. It's a beauty of a plane, especially when you strip off the excess baggage (fast packs and shoulder bulges). I always did like the CF better than the Shin version too, those white stripes just don't add much contrast to the paint.

Wait, what?? When was it released? I haven't heard anything.... of course.. I've been a bit busy with real life... On an unrelated note though.. I saw this on Ngee Khiong's Blog... I have no idea if it was intentional or not... but now I want SOS Gundams. And while on the subject of mecha.. I found this by accident and couldn't help cracking up at fact that this is exactly how I imagined that "End of Haruhi" bit earlier.

Makes me really glad I'm happy with my 1/60s. See, a rare variant like an Angelbird or prototype I can understand being an exclusive. Main characters? Bandai, one of my fingers has a message for you.