Chronocidal

Well, just as long the new YF-19 comes out looking sleek like an airplane should, and not like an overly constipated goose, I'll be happy.

I don't think you'd be the only one by any means... I know I'd love to have the YF-19 and -21 in 1/48... all the others would just be icing on the cake. Just as long as they're affordable though. I wonder if it'd be possible to make vacu-form kits from the original resin ones.. lots of scratchbuilding involved, but it may take the price down to incredibly low levels by comparison, making the kit very affordable, which is always good. Just a dream though, I know that's not at all likely... besides, vacu-forming those shapes would be a royal pain, if not impossible.

I'd agree, that's probably your best bet. But I would become acquainted with the various different map types available, like cylindrical maps, and such, for rounded surfaces. Also, one thing I've found helpful is to use a "normal align" feature to assign UV coordinates to individual flat areas of complex shapes, and then move the pieces around on the UV map until they line up... It can be a pain stretching pieces around, but it'll allow you to map some really complex shapes very well.

Btw, danbickell, I'm hoping to eventually get around to doing most of the more famous Macross fighters for MS Flight Sim, and personally I hate doing cockpits...I'd love to be able to use something of that detail in a flyable VF-1. I can't tell you when I'll get to it though, you may be able to finish the whole plane before I start.

Oh how I would love to get my hands on those... Course, I honestly don't care for that YF-19 sculpt much, the nose and upper engines seem really deformed.. not to mention the modeler put the feet in backwards. In my opinion, the Hasegawa kit looks better.

Would it be possible to recast those big resin kits though?? Since they don't transform it seems like it'd just be a ton of big pieces to make, with maybe some details like landing gear. Heck, I wouldn't even use em, I'd prefer a sealed shut flight display. I tell you, I'll find some way to get a nice 1/48 YF-19, even if I have to hand carve it.

Heck, if it was that big, you could fit the REAL mechanism for the leg transformation in there...no swingbars or other such nonsense.

Heck.. buy one? I'm MAKING one... The interesting thing is, even in 1/18th scale, it's not the biggest toy I've ever seen. It's about the same size as that old GI Joe F-14 was. Personally, I'd love to have an actual toy that size, since the Lego version I'm building takes about an hour to transform, and weighs something like 10 lbs. Relatively, a toy one would be much lighter, and easier to handle. Would I love to have one? Yes. Do I have the room? No. Would I have the money? Maybe, but I think I'd first spend it on a new car.

On the flipside, those WWII planes are beautiful, and despite the size, I'd love a 1/18th Corsair to complement my shelves (thank goodness for folding wings ).

Or for a real life reference, all those little holes or black circles on the space shuttle are also thrusters of a type, although I don't know if they're actual engines, or just compressed gas valves.

Hehe.. Actually, I was kinda thankful for that scene. The closeup of the transformation from battroid back to gerwalk was kind of helpful for me to figure out how the thing transformed.

I only have the movie version, but I would like to see all the extra action sequences in the OAV.

Whao... k.. that pretty much ruins the chances of my YF-19 working.. it's got 18000 polys If I make a low detail model of it, I'll see how close I can get to those numbers though.

How low-poly are we talking here? I have a few models, but they're for MS Flight sim, probably much too high for Homeworld. But that doesn't mean they can't be reduced...

Good god.. I'd go broke in a minute in there. That's just incredible. Actually, it looks freakishly like a dream I had once.. I dunno what spawned it, but I think I dreamed I won a shopping spree in the Japanese toy equivalent of a Costco, or Pace, or whatever discount bulk wholesale place you have near you...It was just like that, gundams stacked everywhere, all those huge perfect grade kits stocked up in piles and piles... only difference was the Yamato Valk section, complete with everything Yamato makes for Macross, from the 1/60th line to the Low-vis 1/48th..Being a dream, I imagine there were even 1/48th Mac+ valks, and 1/32 ones as well, but it's all a blur now. But that looks like the closest thing to it.

Btw, is it just me, or does the new Transformers Armada Starscream look strangely like a VF-11? (aside from the big gun/engine/intake/missile launcher things on top )

It is true that most F-14 models are hideously complex, either in construction or detailing.. or in Hasegawa's case, both But that doesn't mean that easy to build F-14 kits don't exist. If you want a very easy F-14 kit, get the old Fujimi release from a while ago.. I don't remember exactly when it was released, but it has a blue and white box, with a checkertailed F-14 on the box (can't remember the squadron unfortunately.. the box is back at home ) That thing has the most incredible parts fit I've ever seen on any model, PERIOD. The cockpit isn't detailed at all, with simple decal instruments, bucket looking seats, and swamp-thing type pilots, but it'll make a great flight display model. I haven't assembled mine all the way yet, but the landing gear doors fit perfectly to cover the wheel wells, and the overall fit of the parts is nearly perfect. The overall detail isn't the best by far, but it's a perfect easy kit to make into a quick display piece. Plus, it's much more accurate than the Motorworks one, and probably cheaper.

Sounds pretty good Now all we need are some high quality images of the planes.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH..... Thank you.. I've been looking for that logo, or at least a decent size image of it. Originally, that triangle thing with the logo at the top was the backdrop for one of the images I had wanted to use... but I didn't want to even think about redoing the tiny example I had.

Btw, I can get a scan of the Hasegawa VF-1J box if it's needed.

I would definitely do that.. having the extra space leaves room for whatever logos, text, etc you may want to stick inthere.. but personally, I would go with the blue version that someone did. It looks a little more natural.

That Isamu/YF-19 pic is very good as well.. I found that site the other day, and downloaded all those backgrounds

Here's a fully colored version of the lineart I posted earlier, but I'm not sure about the colors. I know Guld's skin is more grey than pinkish, but how does this shade look?

I don't think there ever was an official release with dubbing of the movie version. The reason I heard was because of all the added material in the movie edition. There were several scenes in the movie that weren't in the OAV at all, added in to enhance the storyline. The problem came when they couldn't get the OAV dubbing voice actors back to dub the new scenes in the movie. Dunno why, but they couldn't. So they decided to leave the whole movie subbed, rather than have brief interludes of subtitling in the added scenes.

Yipes.. never actually heard that much about those planes, and why which was chosen. The main reason always I heard was that the YF-23 would've been much more expensive to make, due to the complex shape of the airframe. But the YF-23's still my favorite stealth aircraft to date. Honestly, if it weren't so big, I'd say it'd be the perfect replacement for the F-14. With those kinds of speeds, the thing has interceptor written all over it. Dunno if it'd be as maneuverable though, and they'd probably never fit the phoenix in that bay. But it'd still be better than trying to replace it with some new adaptation of the hornet.

Oh, and on a side note, I'd probably call the YF-23 and YF-21 long lost cousins, at least in overall shape. Obviously there are large differences, but the overall shapes are VERY similar when compared. Except, the YF-21 and VF-22 need to lose the god-awful canopies... a simple bubble F-16'ish canopy would've been soooo much more attractive than the bubbly dome thing they used. I know they did it for visibility, but that dome top is ridiculous.

Ok, I couldn't find any high res versions of that trio pic, so I started over from scratch. Here's a shrunken down lineart version, the full size one is about 2000*2400 in 300 dpi.

O_O

Umm... yeah... wow.

I think that says it all.

Would be perfect if the gunpod wasn't half-merged with the ground.

Oh, btw, forget half an hour to render.. try two and a half DAYS. I tried to do an animation once.

Here's one more it's distorted to be more box-sized, but still looks cool..

This one would probably work better, different proportions, and the background's just solid black.. makes Sharon stand out better. Just a note, those planes are no where near the poses I'd like, I'd hope to do actual renders of them.. they're just placeholders for now.

Actually, now that I think about it.. it may be better to focus on the characters on one side, and the planes on another.. You know that shot of the two of them flying at sundown, when they finally reconciled what had happened? I'd like to see a RENDERED version of that.

K... this is just a rough cut/paste job using everything from model boxart to screenshots, and the Mac+ DVD photo gallery. It's kinda what I had in mind, but it'll have to be refined quite a bit, and rearranged/resized obviously. It would probably work better, if it was narrower, and the planes were below the characters.

That Mac+Shot would be great for an edge of the package..

Actually, I've had an idea for something that would make good box art for a long time...I wanted to paint it for art class, but never got to it. Basically, it's got two opposing shots of the YF-19 and YF-21, overlaid with a trio of Guld, Myung and Isamu, all overlaid with a nearly transparent overlay of Sharon Apple's most evil/seducing look.. I'll see if I can piece something together out of screenshots.

So that would make the formula Ev1Re3? I'm gonna have to bring that up in chem class.. maybe we can run that experiment in lab and see if they actually combine.

Actually, it's about the same size as an F-14. That'd make it about 16 inches long, I think. Maybe a little less. Not that big really, in terms of models. Realistically speaking, it would make a nicely sized model, even if it was just in fighter mode (I prefer that to the other modes anyway). A Hasegawa 1/48th F-14 runs about $60 these days, I'm guessing something like this would probably sell for a little more just because of the name. If demand was high enough, I wouldn't put it past them to make one. Personally, I like the designs of the planes enough that I'd buy them, even if I had no idea what Macross was. Heck, I've done it before, that's how I got my first Valk.

Even if they never actually make a kit of it, I intend to do my best to find a way to make one, even if I have to digitally scan every piece of the model, scale them up, and reproduce them somehow.