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Chronocidal

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  1. Chronocidal
    Holy crap that Su-35 demo was.. well.. seriously.. wtf do they even call that maneuver? I'm running out of aircraft terms...might have to resort to skateboarding stunts to describe what that plane just did. It looked like he pulled a half culbit into a controlled inverted flat-spin 180...then later pulled a full 360, and the video cut off before he approached 540. There's no real frame of reference to see how much altitude he lost during all that spinning, but I'm reminded of that bit in Hot Shots where he claims to have learned a particular maneuver from Paula Abdul... or was it Nancy Kerrigan? After all the times seeing various valks drop their legs to throw their thrust full forward and stop on a dime, I wondered if any real aircraft could pull off something similar without falling apart. Obviously the plane was tuned up, and lightened to let it do all that, but still, seeing a plane flip itself around and fly backwards to slow down is impressive. Reminds me of the kinds of stunts guys in bi-planes tend to do.. or the F-22 I saw pull the jet equivalent of a hammerhead stall once. Also, Russia should just state the obvious and call it the Tu-22.5, or maybe the Tu-45.. it's about what you'd get if you threw an F-22 and F-23 in a blender.
  2. Chronocidal
    I need to yank all my valks out of the closet for a photoshoot one of these days.. I don't have a place to display them all, so they stay in their boxes most of the time. They haven't seen the light of day in months since I was across the country.
  3. Chronocidal
    Honestly, I'm a bit doubtful they'll even make any of the other main character's schemes. This series of little kits just seems like a tiny marketing stunt to make up for the lack of new kits for the movie (so far). Really, Alto's all-white plane is ideal for a simple aircraft kit, because it gives aircraft modelers a nice clean aircraft to start with, and decorate how they want, without any of the complications involving all the other colors the other VF-25's use. Here's what I've done with my first kit so far, it's really just my half-assed "slap it together and paint some details on it" method. The cockpit is all done, so that's out of the way, but the rest of the kit isn't sanded, glued, or filled at all. I'll probably glue it all together later, and fill the more visible seams, but some of those seams actually need to be there for the transformation details. Here's what I modded on the kit, the wings normally don't go farther forward than parallel to the leading edge of the wing glove. I just snipped away the tab ahead of the pivot, and they can achieve a nice low-speed position. I also painted the intakes solid black, I really don't care for seeing the compressor fans that close to the front. Funny, I think I actually was much less frustrated with this cockpit than either of the 1/72 kits I've done. I think having a white pilot to start with makes things much easier to deal with, since you can just scratch off the excess paint on the white parts if you go over. I love painting with acrylics. I don't know if I'll ever glue and sand this one, I may just hand paint some fun markings on this one and call it done, but I plan on experimenting with the others, and making a few low-vis or tribute schemes.
  4. Chronocidal
    I'd actually try to keep them out of the heat as well. I've got an old GI Joe shuttle that was always kept in a box, but that box happened to be up in the garage attic, in central california. Over the years, it turned a nice shade of yellow on the more exposed surfaces. Also, if at all possible, shelter them inside something else that's made of a dark plastic, or some other material that would absorb UV rays (cardboard doesn't cut it). I can't be sure that it will actually help, but the weird part about my shuttle? While the body of the shuttle turned yellow nearly all over, the little scout craft in the hangar bay is still a pristine white. Since it was sheltered by the solid black plastic doors of the bay, and surrounded by the dark gray interior, the only explanation I can come up with is that the other layers of plastic absorbed the UV and kept the plastic from yellowing.
  5. Chronocidal
    I'm pretty sure they're planning to redo the entire line, considering the super and armor packs caused some of the biggest problems the first line had to begin with. I can't really think of any reason for redesigning the leg lock the way they did unless it's to improve the way the super and armor packs work. Plus, you can already see they're prepping for the other versions. A couple of shots show Alto's backplate clear enough to see the plug for the spot where Luca's dish will plug in, and the piece directly behind the head has a seam that looks like it's a swappable piece to adapt different head types. The only thing I don't see is slots/holes/tabs to plug the various super/armor parts into the back/chest, but I can't imagine them making the same mistakes as the first run. I'm hoping it just means they've found a more subtle way of attaching the pieces.
  6. Chronocidal
    You know, I'm actually pretty confused about the feet on this thing.. are they even supposed to move forward to back? I mean.. I can probably get a good 60-70 degree arc of rotation side to side.. but I can't point the toe or heel at all. They just don't move. I get maybe 5-10 degrees of rotation there, and it just seems like the pieces aren't designed to rotate front to back at all. Personally, it's not a huge issue, since I don't do a ton of battroid poses, and I love the fighter so much that it stays that way anyway (as will the blazers and P when I get them). But there just seems like there is something wrong with the way the feet on mine work. Can anyone confirm this is the way the feet are supposed to work, or did I just get bad ankles?
  7. Chronocidal
    One MAJOR thing wrong with this... There is no way Yuki would die that easily. Makes want to see a massive GITS mod for GTA4 though. I would love driving around in a tachikoma. I do need to get my laptop hooked back up to the tv though so I can see Disappearance in a decent size.
  8. Chronocidal
    My HLJ order got here yesterday afternoon, and I was finally able to peel myself away from the Fire Valk to fiddle with a couple of these kits. I picked up 4 each of the VF-25 and YF-29, since I intend to do a few custom schemes. I would've gotten the Sheryl version YF-29, but it was out of stock. Have to say, I can't remember ever getting a Bandai kit before where I didn't need the instructions. It was nice and relaxing to just trim the parts and slap them together. Overall, I think the VF-25 is slightly better than the YF-29 kit; fit is a bit better, and less gaps to fill. I just snapped together one of each quickly to have something to sit on my desk. I don't plan on using any of the included markings for any of either kit though. Stickers just suck, and besides, I've got the 1/72 kits to build in the SMS scheme. These are going to be for fancy paintschemes I wouldn't want to scratch up with moving parts and such. May have to get some decal paper for printing custom ones though, or stock up on 1/100 aircraft markings. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do some old style squadron markings for both, but haven't decided what to use yet. Btw, did a quick modification to the VF-25, and it is possible to get the wings to sweep nearly straight out. Just requires a little cutting around the pivot ring on the wing, removing the little tab that stops it from moving forward. I could never understand why the 1/72 kit is the only version of the VF-25 that can do this, since it's clearly done in the show.. not to mention on every swing-wing aircraft in existence.
  9. Chronocidal
    No trouble there, I didn't push it at all. I just was surprised how little forward to back motion is available, while side to side has not only a ball joint, but a second pivot.. doesn't make much sense to me, as if the joint should have been mounted turned around 90 degrees so you can point the toes more. But I suppose without the upper thigh gerwalk joint having too big a range of motion, it's not a huge problem. Heck, this thing is so beautiful, I may never take it out of fighter anyway. It looks perfect sitting on the gear. Mainly I'm just disappointed that my favorite display pose doesn't work on this one, since I'm not going to let it sit on the ball joints constantly. I display my others sitting on their feet in fighter mode, nose pointed straight up, but it's not going to hold up if I do it with this one.
  10. Chronocidal
    Just got my Fire Valk in the mail (three days sooner than Fedex said too).. and all I can say is wow. I had fun with this one.. cranked up some Fire Bomber in the background as I opened it up. There is absolute genius that went into this design. I mean, just the sheer forethought that went into every stage of transformation, and how it all locks together in so many ways.. it's just amazing. The thing that really floored me though... all those joints that might loosen up? Most of them are readily accessible with a screwdriver. Things like the hip swivel, the wing root hinges, etc, nothing is hidden and glued like the YF-19 was. I'm still a little concerned about the arm design, since it failed so miserably on my YF-19, but this one's holding sturdy so far. Also, I do like the variability the ball joints give.. but honestly, the foot mechanism feels overly complicated. It can move around so much, I had some difficulty getting the feet back inside because they didn't line up easily. Also, the ball joints actually don't offer as much forward to back movement as a ratchet I think. It's not bad by any means, it's just a bit less that you can move the feet. Really though... I can't wait for the other variants. Yamato hit this one out of the park, and I can't wait for the F model.
  11. Chronocidal
    Well, not quite. People who watched the second season noticed a definite shift in the artwork. It didn't stay consistent, but you can really see the difference if you watch Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody in it's chronological place in the series. The jump in the art is a little jarring, but not too terrible when you take into account that there was a three year gap between them. One thing people complained a lot about was that Haruhi began to look not so much like season 1 Haruhi, and more like Yui from K-On cosplaying as her. It wasn't drastic, since they resemble each other a bit already, but the shape of Haruhi's face and her expressions changed a bit, especially in her eyes and mouth. Arguably though, I think that style more resembles the illustrations in the books anyway. For the movie though, they stuck very close to the art from season 1. Reminds me too.. now that I'm back in my old apartment, I need to rewatch Disappearance on my tv, which is about 3x the size of the one in the apartment I was renting in Virginia.
  12. Chronocidal
    I am now VERY tempted to perform a kitbash involving a certain Hasegawa kit and a certain Bandai kit. ' Really looking forward to this eventually being available.. these things might convince me to buy a PS3 yet.
  13. Chronocidal
    I don't remember if I linked it before, but it's definitely a simple mod to replace the cylinder with a clip on a Barricade. I'll have to look for it again later. Just involves cutting away a little of the casing, and mounting something to hold the clip in place. The mechanism will launch darts just fine out of the clip as well, since it's just pushing them forward toward the wheels. Might need to use other darts though, I don't know if the stock ones will work in a clip.
  14. Chronocidal
    Actually, now I'm really intrigued how those work. The pegs are definitely vertical, and not like the tabs on the VF-27... but I have no idea how those attach. The pegs aren't even submerged when the wings are down, so I have no idea how they are going to connect. Unless there's some complex moving piece in there to lock things together, it looks like the pegs are sitting to the side of the place they should be attaching. Unless, the pegs are actually locking sideways into the leg, which it looks like it might be. I'm not too worried, but it does look a bit fragile. What it really looks like though is they're leaving spaces to connect the super and armor packs ahead of time, which is always nice to see.
  15. Chronocidal
    That's pretty awesome, it does explain a lot about why the new version is so much closer to the kit (especially the way the ventral fins fold). I am a little concerned they still are using the vertical pegs to lock the wings into the legs, instead of tabs like on the VF-27. But given the way the armor and such has to attach, those pegs might be the only thing that'd work for both armor and super packs.
  16. Chronocidal
    Ok, honestly? Replacement wings are AWESOME. Because it means we can maybe get spares to repaint, and replace the smaller wings on the Blazers if we want.
  17. Chronocidal
    I don't think it has enough engines yet. Actually doesn't look bad though, I like the way the wing extensions fit, and they look pretty good in gerwalk.
  18. Chronocidal
    I just ordered 4 of the little suckers yesterday, along with 4 YF-29 kits, armored Ozma and Alto, and a spare plain Alto kit to experiment on. Not to mention a Hasegawa YF-21. I might spray them in the end, but really all I wanted was something to experiment on with various paint schemes. I'll probably just slap one together to see how it goes, but I'll probably detail them all decently over time. I don't feel too bad about doing a half-assed job on one though, since they only cost me about ten bucks each.
  19. Chronocidal
    Ok, that topic died pages ago, can we not dig it up again? Want closeups of VF-17 fast!
  20. Chronocidal
    I was able to preorder from HLJ a couple hours ago, but I haven't checked back to see if the orders are closed again.
  21. Chronocidal
    Finally moved back into my apartment in california, and don't have to worry about carrying new things with me, so the catchup buying has commenced. Has to be the biggest order I've ever made with HLJ. Between this monster, the preorder for the new VF-25, and the various kits I ordered, I think I spent close to $700... but I'd been saving for a while at least. Saddest part is though.. the armored1/72 VF-25 kits finally go on sale at 20% off.. and due to the change in exchange rate, it's just enough to put them right back at where the price was when they were first released.
  22. Chronocidal
    Distance yes, but good grief the dispersion is huge. Could be they were bouncing off the far wall and going all over, but the fact that I could see their paths curving sideways during flight has me pretty doubtful.
  23. Chronocidal
    Hmmm.. Looking good so far Can't wait to see more pics of it. Tails look like they're tilted a bit too far in to me, but might just be the angle of the picture.
  24. Chronocidal
    GAH! That blazer looks incredible! I need closeups stat! Oh, the P is nice too, but I think the placement of the canards on the Fire Valk and P make the nose look a bit too short. The blazer's nose looks perfectly blended into the fuselage, and the wings look just the right length.
  25. Chronocidal
    Dangit Yamato, just shut up and take my money. That F/S looks beautiful, they got the wings the perfect size, and removing the canards just makes it look so much sleeker to me in some way. I'll probably skip the S, but that F is mine.
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