Chronocidal

Apparently though, the timeline has been effectively fubared. While a lot of things should have happened a certain way, they didn't because something wayyy back when was messed up. A friend of mine and I were actually discussing the temporal ramifications of what the plot appears to involve... it gets ugly and complicated fast. [geekmode] [/geekmode]

I remember there being a very long thread specifically about sabers a while back, it might be worth digging that one up. There was a lot of description about the various types available. My personal favorite was the bluetooth enabled one that would coordinate sound effects to motions via a computer program. You could be swinging the thing around, and have the sound effects broadcast over a stereo system, instead of a piddly little internal speaker. Btw, FINALLY figured out where all the A-wings were stashed at my local Wal-Mart.. turns out they expanded the toys to a couple more aisles to make room for the holiday stock. There were stacks of them up on a shelf, way in the back. Kinda sad to see them sit, but oh well, more for me This new sculpt really is nice, I love that they finally got rid of the clear inserts in the exhaust. The figure is great as well, very detailed and articulated. My only quibbles with it are the canopy and gear designs. The canopy just falls open because there's literally nothing to hold it shut besides gravity, and the gear collapse pretty easily due to that bent leg design they used. I dunno if I'll modify this one any, but I'm very tempted to rebuild the guns to the proper shape and darken the glove vane ..err.... missile launcher slots. Having the little secondary probes on the guns stick that far out has always bugged me about this toy. Fortunately it's a simple cut and paste operation to fix them, since that's the unpainted part of the guns.

Aww, I was hoping they'd get the voice of the computer from Portal. Oh well, no complaints though. I wonder what style of voice she'll use though.. she did an utterly mechanical monotone voice for the original series, I wonder if they'll leave that the way it was, or have her do the TNG onward voice.

Ooooh that F-14 could be a nice fixer-upper project I think. Looks decent enough, but it's another congolmeration of versions, kinda like Shin's in Mac0. Looks like it has cockpit/engines from an A-model, but some of the later modifications for the B/D models like the wing glove ECM bumps (which look like they're HUGE) and the newer modified chaff/flare dispenser sidewinder rails (though those might have been used on A models). On top of that though, it doesn't look like the gear retract.

crud, i better get back to work before I go on christmas break

Anyone have any idea why can I never see the pics Dana posts? The site loads, but the pics never appear.

Well, time for a small update.. been working on this gradually, and thought the face was done (minus hair), but now that I look at it, I still need a few more shadows from the right of the helmet. Oh well, anywho, less words, more picture.

Oddly enough, that's one of the things they haven't even touched.

I want the cartoony vajra eyecatch, but haven't had time to upload it to my phone. Mine varies between that tense music from Kill Bill with the alarm sounding thing (the Ironside theme) and the Hamsterdance song.

You know, I am rather encouraged by the fact that there appears to be a time travel element to this plot.. While they managed to screw up Enterprise (and the entire canon timeline) a lot with it, it's also resulted in a couple of the best movies in the franchise. If they can combine the time travel and fanatical menace elements correctly, you might come up with a plot that mixes the best bits of Khan, STIV, and First Contact. Heh.. you know, as long as time travel is involved... anyone here ever read the novel 'Imzadi?' I know we've seen time travel produced by a multitude of methods, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Guardian of Forever is involved here. That'd be an awesome nod to the original series if they do it.

*secretly hopes they cast the voice of Glados (the AI from Portal) as the new voice of the computer system*

Yeah, but the ships still make sounds in space. After seeing that, I wonder if that shot of the ship was the full picture.. I'm still hoping against hope that the main hull is a bit longer/better proportioned when I finally see it. The ship doesn't look bad from front/back though, the engines look to be at pretty decent angles. I think it's the wonky curved pylons that're throwing a lot of it off, since they looked like they were bowed a lot more from the side. My favorite trailer is still this one though.

Yeah, the F-22 just has an abnormally huge cockpit area, so they didn't have to change the proportions any. I checked mine against my 1/48th Raptor kit as soon as I got it, and it looks like it's actually dead-on 1/32.. every panel line on the model was duplicated on that thing That Flanker is still nothing to sneeze at though, I think that's the first reasonably detailed Russian aircraft I've ever seen in that type of toy line, and still much better than that F-18 I saw a while back. It's just screaming for a splinter camo repaint (aka Dobber scheme )

While I'd love to see Macross stuff in 1/18th, I can personally vouch for the weak joints argument. I tried to make a 1/18th VF-1S with Legos, and failed utterly because the thing was just too heavy to support itself. The arms barely held their own weight, and there's no way any normal lego joint was gonna hold the hips. (did make a very nice aircraft though ). Granted, that was legos, and I'm sure a regular plastic Valk would probably not need to hold up 5 lbs of heavy upper body. But the joints are still going to be an issue, and they're going to have to be very bulky and heavy to support the weight that thing would put on them. You could probably get away with a Chunky Monkey style with limited joints, but then what's the point? Gerwalk is probably the hardest to do... you have to support the entire thing on the knee joint. Sadly as much fun as it would be, it's just not very realistic. On the other hand though, the 1/18 planes seem to be falling out of favor in stores.. what I keep seeing are 1/32 WWII Warbirds. While that's still not action figure sized, I'd love to see 1/32 scale Macross stuff, even if it wasn't transformable. It'd go great next to my 1/32 F-22.

Wow. I dunno if that's just a massive case of forced perspective, but that thing is beyond fugly. The saucer looks like it's sticking out the middle of the hull, unbalancing the whole thing, and the rear hull is just... bleh. What's so bad about it is that the saucer is so much like the old one, but nothing else is... as if they ripped the saucer off the movie-era Enterprise, then had some new-age art-deco interior designer slap a new hull on it. The styles don't match at all. That saucer is nearly identical too.. same exact window arrays on the edge, same phaser arrays, same underside dome... heck, I can pick out the RCS thruster vents that I painted on my old kit, and they haven't changed. There's just no excuse to copy that much of the saucer, but make the rest of the ship so much unlike the original. I can live with the nacelles, they aren't that bad honestly... but that main hull looks.. well.. like crap. I'm probably grasping at straws at this point, but I just rewatched the teaser from way back when... unless they completely ditched the design used for that, the nacelles will be above the saucer.. but some other details don't quite match up to me. The section between the warp pylons in particular doesn't look the same, since you see that clearly in the teaser. Granted, it's under construction, but the shape of the nacelles doesn't look like it matches completely either. I guess maybe there's still hope... but unless this thing looks much better at other angles, I'll probably just ignore it in the film. Btw, is it just me, or does the escape pod Kirk is climbing out of in that one shot look just like one of those pods that used to be on that one rocket ride in Disneyland? The one like Dumbo, but bigger and faster.

Hate to break this to you SeminNV, but games are using MUCH more detailed models now. A 50k poly model is NOT useless by any means, that's the standard range in MS Flight Sim now for high end models. I've put a 120k model in FSX with no problems. More action oriented games use between 5-20k I think, since you have more planes visible on screen, but calling this model useless is just plain rude. As for squadron markings, I'd actually tend to agree. You see so many copies of Skull Squadron that it gets old. They weren't by any means the only VF-1 squadron. Hasegawa has taken this approach to heart with their kits, they probably have 10 different sets of markings available, most of them derived from old Navy squadrons.

You know... I know CAD lineart is supposed to be accurate... but good grief, I could make so many jokes about that side view of the limp nose. You know those cartoons where there's an alligator who gets his jaws pulled out somehow, and his whole face droops? That's what this reminds me of. Or maybe an anteater. All things considered though, they do look good with the armor. I think it helps cover up the small things a bit. *shrugs* I may get one or two, but I have a long list of things I need more than toys right now

Oh come now, they're not out of Valks yet, we still have the VF-4 afterall. After that though, I think I'll just go back to hoping for a 1/48 YF-19 and YF-21, or at least a YF-19 that doesn't look like it swallowed a horse. That heat shield mechanism does look rather innovative though, I can't way to see how it works. The cockpit probably doesn't rotate like a Joke Machine, since it comes out entirely, and you can see from the shot that it's an angular shape... but I wonder if the bottom of the cockpit pod isn't actually the heat shield, and you just pull the cockpit out and flip it over. I don't think that's the case, and I hope the shield slides in from the nose, but either way this is looking good.

Actually, even though they're still tiny, they've grown by maybe 50% over the 1/72, and the placement is much better. On the old one, the tails weren't even as large as the outer part of the canards, and didn't quite reach above the top of the engine. You can't really see them from the front at all. The new ones look to be mounted at a slightly different angle, and are much higher in relation to the wing, so they stretch a good deal more into the airstream than the old ones. They're nowhere near perfect, but they did improve them.

Well, after lurking in here for what seems forever, I think it's time I actually contributed. Just starting this, still trying to decide on hair/facial expression. Colors are probably going to be standard YF-19 though, at least for now.

Same here on the YF-19, they just killed the sleekness of the aircraft with that gullet (among other things). I may still get one to get a complete set of Mac+ Valks, but this VF-11 is leaps and bounds ahead of it in terms of looks. I'll probably get a YF-21 and VF-11 first, and hold out for YF-19 Version 3.

You know, while I don't care for the tails, I think that's honestly my only complaint about this one. I'm sad that they didn't use a combo fold/slide rotation to get them bigger and further into the legs, but the mechanism I suggested earlier is pretty complicated, so I have to give them credit for making them as big as they did this time. Now the feet... that is odd, but I bet I know why they did it. It looks like the feet don't extend, they might just fold out. The double joint lets the feet be flat on the ground without dropping out of the leg. The big question is, is that the only reason the tails are as big as they are this time around? Removing the sliding mechanism to extend the feet would probably free up a lot of room in there for the gear and tails. I agree the nose could be longer, but I actually think it looks fine as is. It's a good compromise... it looks about midway between the fighter and battroid lineart, and they avoided the annoying duckbill shape that you sometimes see on VF-11s. Plus (and I'm REALLY relieved about this) they didn't oversize the sensor bulges. They actually look comparable to real streamlined aircraft ones, not like someone glued giant blobs to the nose. What'll make me really happy is if the wings sweep normally in fighter mode. There's really no reason they shouldn't on the VF-11. Btw, I don't see anyone mentioning the obvious improvement in the way the wings mount.. looking at the 1/72, I don't see any sign of that bulky hinge under the wingroots on the new one. I gotta say bravo for now. But it still makes me sad they couldn't get the YF-19 even half this sleek.

You're kidding... you mean they actually included a set of display cannons to replace the launchers? Man.. toys are gonna suck me dry this winter.

hmm... if he doesn't take it up, I have a drawing that might be adaptable...*digs through random sketches and grabs tablet*

Hmm.. somehow I don't think mere cartons would suffice... they'd have to be full sized gallon jugs. Actually, Macross already has the Milky Dolls.. they just need to bring them back, and capitalize on them.