Chronocidal

Don't you go giving them more ideas.. the last thing the F-35 program needs is another variant that requires an entirely customized software and hardware suite to clog up the assembly lines.

I don't think I'm worried about the grip being too good, since I'd actually rather have to order extra extra build plate covers than have to deal with prints this extensive failing. We'll see how it goes, I'll do a few test runs and see how things stick. Overall though, pretty productive weekend. Got a few detail parts printed that probably didn't need to be separate parts, but it does make them much easier to sand smooth. They just slot into place perfectly, I'm continually amazed by the fit. The big challenge was printing some of the tiny weapons mounts that this ship has. I debated whether it would make sense to just make them out of small metal rods, or even out of toothpicks, but I'd need some kind of microscopic lathe to get the shapes right. The biggest issue with parts this small is getting the ABS to cool enough between layers so that each new pass from the print head doesn't deform what's below it. Took me a few attempts, but the best success was when I printed a whole batch of them at once so the print head had more to do. They're all mounted on small mouting blocks with a flat support structure to give them more stability. I went through a few iterations of diameters on these to get something stable. The smaller guns on the right are actually a tri-barreled design, and that got insanely fragile before I just let the barrels grow and merge into a sort of triangular shape. A lot of them came out rather blobby from the print head just re-heating lower layers and messing with the shape. Finally had some good success with both sets when I batch printed a few. The whole thing is gradually taking shape. Wing is the next step, then I'll start working on getting the other major components done, which should be much more similar to the engine pods. The printer I have has room, so once all of this is done, I might print an even larger one someday, and add a full cockpit. Would be fun to see how much detail can be crammed in if the whole ship were more like two feet long. As it is, this version will come out at close to ten inches, which is just a really nice desk display size.

The bed is actually covered by a textured sheet, so the sandpaper probably wouldn't change anything, but I'll see if I can find some of that tape. Worst case, I can probably try a gluestick on it as well. I usually don't have -too- many problems with detaching, but larger prints with ABS have been tending to pull up just from the stress of the cooling plastic above the bed. I won't know until tomorrow though, got too many things to do in the interim, so I won't start this print until tomorrow afternoon.

Yeah, the humps were one of the first things I looked into fixing on mine. They give the wing a more accurate thickness, but they taper down far too quickly, so they may as well not be there. It just looks better with everything flat. Good catch on the alternate plates for Columbia's wing markings though, that is a really easy switch. I did realize something about the opening airbrake design I posted earlier. In the closed state, there's exactly one plate's worth of space between the panels, so you can actually reinforce the two halves of the rudder entirely on the back side if you want to by adding alternating plates on both halves. Doesn't make the hinge mounts any stronger, and may set off some OCD reactions for being asymmetrical (though, so was the stock airbrake, so nothing really lost there), but I was able to remove all the extra plates on the outside of the rudder, so they look thinner. Quick and dirty phone pics, but you get the idea. I'm not sure which I like better. Part of me likes cleaning up the exposed studs, but in a situation like this, I dislike the overly thick rudder more than the studs showing, and stacking plates on top of the angled plates for the shape of the tail actually detracts from the overall shape, because the thickness hides the angles of the edge from many perspectives.

Been making good progress printing some of the little odds and ends of this project, but I'm up to the point where I just need to start digging into the elephant - the big central wing piece that ties everything together. Estimating about a twenty hour print, but I'm expecting to have to restart once or twice as I test the orientation and support structure. Big pieces like this tend to lift off the print bed due to shrinkage, so I'm hoping this will be enough to get it stuck at the start, and not work loose over time. The extra support fins I added to the model will hopefully give it a solid foundation, since they expand the footprint quite a bit. Time to cross my fingers and toes, clench up my backside, and get to it!

As far as licensing on SDFM/DYRL merchandise goes, that's my biggest concern, that HG still holds the keys to that particular castle in the US. I'm absolutely loving the idea that I'll be able to get stuff from the other series, and anything new going forward, but HG still keeping its fingers in the original is not ideal. However... I don't know how likely it is, but the idea that HG and BW are now cooperating on some level going forward gives me some hope that HG will also be making the effort to attract existing manufacturers who are currently selling viable Macross merchandise with offers to expand their markets. The idea of BW and HG having a solid contract agreement makes me think that some of the old complications with bringing Macross merchandise to the US will be resolved in a general sense. I was under the impression that if, for example, Arcadia partnered with HG to try and sell their VF-1s in the US, BW would have countered by pulling their Macross license in Japan. Maybe a legal pipe dream, because I don't know the specifics of their new deal, but I'm getting the impression that now it might be permissible for Arcadia to make Robotech-branded versions of their VF-1s to sell in the US. Big West officially acknowledging HG's stake in the property would run contrary to limiting Japanese licensees from working with them, since they all stand to benefit. Again though, that may be a big assumption on my part, and I don't know if Japanese businesses would still be discouraged from making those sorts of partnerships. Far as the music is concerned.. I'm not expecting anything from Macross 7, because I think that's a licensing trainwreck that will never be resolved for an international market. Macross Plus might be tricky, but at least it's a single artist to negotiate with (I think), who already has a history of international distribution. As far as Frontier and anything beyond that is concerned, I think that's recent enough that the licensing maze should (hopefully) be far simpler to navigate.

I'll see if I can get a parts list built up, but LDD doesn't want to generate instructions right now for some reason. I tried not to use anything really rare. I think most of the parts for the working airbrake above came from a combination of the Spiderman: Far From Home Stark Jet, and the Overwatch Shuttle Launch set, but I'm waiting on a parts order to get the hinges in the right colors. Here's my best take on a solid brick tail design. The attachment of the rudder could be made a bit more sturdy using some of the newer elements in the Shuttle, specifically a new brick that's a double-brick height 1x1 brick with two studs on the side, but that one isn't in LDD yet, so I've made do with the single-brick height ones. There are probably a multitude of ways that that construction could be made more sturdy, either with embedded axles or other types of reinforcements, but that's what I think makes the best shape overall, without redesigning the entire tail from scratch. Downside to this one is that reverse slope on the underside of the rudder. While not what I'd exactly call -rare-, it is a brand new element (67440) from last year that only exists in a single set (Police Lighthouse Arrest). Fortunately it comes in white, and I see it listed on one site for about $0.75, so that's not beyond what I'd call reasonable (and it helps that you only need one), but it's still one of those cases where it's a lot of work for a single element. The set it comes in might be pretty easy to get, but $30 is a lot to shell out for a single piece. The other slopes are far more common (60481), with prices in the single-digit cents Overall, I think the one that keeps the opening airbrake is much easier to get the parts for. I'm not sure if I can generate instructions, because LDD seems to be having issues with that feature right now, but I think this shows enough of the construction to duplicate it. Realistically speaking, you could probably remove one of the two sideways stud mounts on the upper hinge, and use a single pivot there, because the double hinge is actually so stiff that the rudder tends to come apart before rotating. It's hard to open, because the construction is fragile, mostly due to me keeping that single black tile down the center of the rudder. Removing that could let you tie the entire thing together better with longer plates, but I like the look of that detail. Speaking of details, I realized that I can clean up the lower edge of the rudder a little with a couple of opposing sloped elements.

So, I did notice two funny things about the elevons. On the one hand, the rotation is actually backwards for steering.. but on the other, if disconnect the tail so the engine mount moves, you can also articulate them both up or down by pulling up or down on the engine. I went and updated the digital designer, so I might mess with a brick-style rudder today, and see if the studs align well enough for some SNOT shenaniganry to get a good shape.

I think this particular product line is one of those things that this may actually not have any noticeable effect on. First off, since HG still has a stake in SDFM/DYRL, they'll be owed a cut of the sales, and who knows if Bandai will want to deal with them. Second, just because the market opens up does not mean Bandai is going to suddenly ramp up production to satisfy demand for the international market. I sincerely doubt they're going to change their production strategy at this point. I don't expect the Bandai DX situation to change at all (at least not quickly), for any of the current merchandise. Maybe certain things will be available from more foreign retailers like BBTS, but it's not like the HG embargo has stopped anyone from being able to shop for Macross stuff at HLJ, AmiAmi, or any one of dozens of other import retailers. Pre-order madness is not unique to Macross, it happens with all of the stuff Bandai sells. One exception to this might be the P-Bandai stuff, and web exclusives that are "made to order." If there are proper terms worked out for how HG can take a cut of the things they are owed a cut of, maybe we'll start seeing a lot more Macross stuff on the international Tamashii site. Where I think we'll see the most change is with the plastic model market, really. I've never seen any sort of scarcity with regards to the Macross model market, and Bandai just keeps pumping those out alongside their Gundam kits. Between them and Hasegawa, I wouldn't be at all surprised to start seeing Macross kits pop up alongside the other mecha kits. What I think I'm most curious to see is how Arcadia could take advantage of this. Since they already use contracted factories, I'd be interested to see if they reach out for more international manufacturing and distribution deals. Bandai probably isn't going to be quick to jump on the international sales bandwagon, so that market might be wide open for Arcadia to get a good foothold. Kitz Concept is another wild card that could stand to gain a lot, if Bandai doesn't want to expand their market. The wild unlikely future speculation side of me is imagining some wacky merger between Arcadia and Kitz Concept, where we suddenly start getting new dual-branded Macross/Robotech releases of Hikaru Ichijo / Rick Hunter VF-1Js made from Arcadia's molds with Kitz Concept's paintwork, with stickers for both names.

Did the DYRL BD include a Macross 30 demo? I played the full game and loved it, but all I remember on the DYRL disc was some sort of half-done version of Macross 30's engine, that let you play through some DYRL battles. The way it played, I suspect it was a port of one of the PSP game engines, because the controls were far inferior to Macross 30.

Hah.. Interesting. I have to wonder if that would be structurally capable of holding up the shuttle on a display. I'll believe it when I see it built up. Sadly, I kinda knew the boosters would come out looking that way. The tank is pretty nice, but six-stud diameter round shapes really suffer from the lack of good curves. I think there are better elements for them, but there's really no helping those nose cones or exhausts.

Finished putting together the shuttle, minus the stand and HST, which I'll do a bit later. My office is a disaster from all the hunting through parts boxes I did to see if I had the right parts to remake the tail. Fortunately, it's mostly a success, with a few changes from the design above, because that one dropped a bit too low above the exhausts. Took the measurements, it's pretty close to 1/72 scale. I don't know why, but one of the things I felt the most impressed by was the underside. They just managed to smooth it out almost perfectly. Here's the adjusted tail. Just need for my parts order to arrive, and I should have plenty of those hinges to replace the gray parts with matching colors. So, in one way I'm torn about the tail.. but it's part of a larger discussion about this set. I'm mostly conflicted about the play features, and how they're implemented. While I appreciate them doing that to a point... I don't think they perform all that well, and wind up detracting more than adding. The gear are functional.. mostly. The mechanism for the front one seems to get stuck a lot. The mechanism to move the elevons by rotating the top nozzle works, it's just kind of intrusive to the design the way it's done, and I believe it compromised the design of the exhaust area and tail mount. And, it's.. oddly aligned, and quite sloppy. The movement of the elevons is dependent on gravity weighing them down so they stay level. It functions alright, it's just very loose, and they get misaligned a lot, because there's slack in the push rods used to control it. A geared mechanism would have worked a lot better, I think. Then there's the tail. Ok, I appreciate the airbrake/rudder being able to move, it's not a terrible feature.. but as it came stock, that was an ugly tail, and it was just incredibly awkward how they designed that hinge. My replacement looks better, but given the option, I'd probably brick-build it, and call it a day to get the details better. But.. I really do like the profile achieved with those angled plates, and I'm not sure if I could pull that off with bricks. Maybe that'll be a project for the weekend. It might work, and I think it will just look better. Anyhow, overall, I was just.. confused several times by this set. Some of the design choices were just very awkward.. using more mixed elements instead of a single one where it would have made things stronger, or using awkward tiles in the middle of a solid construction for some reason. You can see I did ditch the big sloped panels at the wingroot, and it wasn't hard to do, I just mixed and matched a few tiles to cover the holes over the wheels. I understand they were trying to mimic the thickness of the wing, but it just looked very out of place to have those giant panels slapped over the top of the wing at such sharp angles. I can always just stick them back on if I want to, Still probably a few improvements I want to try. I think the OMS mounts are just plain too fat at the front, so I might try and find a better piece than that rounded plate. The OMS nozzles also look a bit goofy, so I might look for another option. Definitely a fun build, with some fun techniques though. Not sure if I love the nose section design, but it works. I think they absolutely nailed the wing planform. Definitely a worthwhile set to get. Now I just have to see if I can figure out how to build a tank and boosters for it.. and how much that would cost...

I think I'm just confused at what this means, or could mean overall. So, BW is acknowledging HG's claims to.. what exactly? The animation? The designs and characters? This sounds like it means that HG is just giving up on claiming any part of anything past SDF Macross and DYRL, so the rest of the series might be in the clear for international distribution. That sounds great, I'm all for it. But where does that actually leave us with regards to the original series and DYRL? Does this mean HG is going to keep up the blockade on TV/DYRL merchandise to protect their own products, or does it mean that Big West will bring HG in to cooperate on international distribution on those?

And I see it's a duplicate.. just moving to the main one.

Moved

It definitely affects multiple colors. I've got a vintage GI Joe Cobra Hurricane that started out as a beautiful blue, and has gradually turned a nice shade of turquoise.

But, that begs the question, which fanbase? Without really seeing anything but the promo image, what his honestly makes me think of is a Star Trek crossover with League of Legends.

I think if I have the proper parts (and I'm pretty sure I do, just maybe not as smooth tiles), this should make a nice replacement for the tail. I did a little messing with the angle as well, and while it's less sturdy, I removed the embedded 2x1 clips at the base of the front, and replaced them with 1x1 clips, while moving them one plate higher, and it seems to have tilted the tail back at a better angle. I've got a pile of other thoughts to sort through about this build, but I'll post them once I finish. Some stuff here is really leaving me scratching my head. Edit: Got it built, and it's a bit fragile since there isn't room for much reinforcement, but it holds up well enough. It appears I have everything but the little white hinge pieces, but fortunately they're about 12 cents on the Pick-A-Brick site, so I grabbed a bunch of those style of clip hinges for future use.

Update on that ten hour print.. first one came out as good as I could have really asked for, so the mirror version is currently printing, and I'm cleaning up the first one a little. Very little to do, except on the back face of the box. Back face is recessed to accept a plate with the exhaust nozzles, which I already printed months ago, and used to get a grip on the printer's settings, since it's a small and relatively quick-to-print part. I was rather shocked to see that the piece fits. Not just fits, it's quite snug, and difficult to remove. I was absolutely not expecting the tolerances to be that tight, since the model parts do not have any allowances made for fitting. I was fully prepared to need to file down the edges of the plate to fit in the recess, but all I had to do was clean out the remnants of the support structure. I probably could have saved myself some trouble cleaning the back face by printing the engine pod in top and bottom halves, but I've never really liked how upper surfaces get printed with panel lines involved, and smoothing out the back of the box really shouldn't be too difficult. Also, the goal is mostly to make this as easy to assemble as possible, with all of the parts sliding together with a good friction fit, since it will make part clean-up and painting very easy. Probably just need to do a little filling of the pits with superglue or an ABS-compatible putty, and sanding the whole thing smooth. The ribbed texturing will take some work to clean up still, but it's really smooth already.

Heh, it probably won't be anything too substantial, but I might actually try and upscale the Ideas Shuttle's tail design, if I have the right parts. That one seems like it has a better shape overall, and I think the airbrake mechanism is lower profile.

I pretty much ignore stickers as a rule, so I likely won't be touching those chrome monstrosities, or the name labels near the cockpit (which look kind of ridiculous at that oddball angle, anyway). Think I'll probably find a few mods to make on this one quickly.. might remove the rudder/airbrake feature and adjust the tail slope a little. I'm even slightly tempted to leave off the printed wing elements, and layer the wings with a few extra plates to give it an airfoil shape, but not sure that'll look better in the long run.

Hah.. good reason, it's a design from Wing Commander III, and got used in IV some. Been building this model for literally decades, it started as an X-Wing vs Tie Fighter mod.

Building up that intake duct to print out got my 3D printing itch started again, so I figured it's time to see if I can't get the rest of the parts for this Excalibur model finally built up. Spent a few hours engraving the rest of the panel lines, and got the parts actually what I would call "finished." Now the "fun" part... test printing everything to see if it will actually fit together. I've got the tails and engine exhaust panels done, so next up I'm trying one of the engine mounts (large pod on the far right). Going to be a long ten hours waiting for this one, and I'm really not looking forward to how long the main wing will take.

I don't know if there's a lot of demand, but I've mentioned wanting one of those several times, and actually, I do want the fast packs with it, because I want a fully printed set of TV fast packs that I don't have to sticker to get the kite on them. That and a PF VT-1 are basically my last two desired PF releases.

So, that was unexpectedly fast. The new shuttle set just landed on my doorstep after lunch today.