Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, George Yamamori said:

Can someone fact-check this?:

For sure we can fact check it.  That's definitely not official.

Putting aside the Nanashi's watermark that these days constitutes a warning of misinformation in and of itself...

1. That this picture is labeled "VF-3" is a huge giveaway that this is misinformation right off the bat.  Even in the oldest versions of Macross's in-universe history, the VF-3 was never completed.  The oldest mention of it is Macross Perfect Memory where the VF-X-3 is a rival prototype to the VF-X-4 and is still six months away from being ready for test flights.  It subsequently lost out to the VF-X-4 and was not produced.  This was later retconned by This is Animation: Macross Plus which instead presents a history in which the entire VF-X-3 development team and the mockup were lost in the Boddole Zer main fleet's bombardment of Earth in 2010.  All development data was lost along with the development team, so the VF-X-4 won by default.
    
2. There's a picture purporting to be the "VF-3".  The VF-X-3 is one of a number of backstory-only Valkyries that are infamous for there being no official art of them whatsoever.  Shoji Kawamori never designed a VF-3.  He did design a "VF-X3" for the non-canon Macross: Remember Me video game by FamilySoft in the 90's, but that's totally unrelated (or at least in a totally different DYRL-inspired timeline depending on your view) and even then also did not yield a production aircraft in its continuity.  
    
3. The actual picture clearly started life as a picture of a VF-1 Valkyrie that someone subsequently (crudely) modified to enlarge the wing glove and wing, add canards for no clear reason, and exchange the tail for a single vertical tail.  It makes no aerodynamic sense, looks rather amateurish, and has some perspective issues.
    
4. The shading uses stippling rather than hatching, a pretty clear indication this is not official model reference.  Model reference art is either unshaded or lightly shaded with hatching where essential.  This is a practice more commonly found in black-and-white comic books of the late 80's and early 90's.
    
5. Normally, Kawamori's designs follow the same basic pattern.  There's a roundel on the left wing and either nothing or a modex number on the right.  This has "ROY FOKKER" with two K's on the left wing and appears to have "KKER" on the right (suggesting it's meant to have the name on both).  That's usually (but not always) a pretty good sign that it's from Robotech.  (In this case, verifiably a false positive.)

 

This is definitely not an official Macross design.  We can say with absolutely certainty... because this is a fan design from a doujinshi!

As I was finishing up this post, I actually completely by accident found the source of this image.  It's from page 31 of Multiconfiguration Analysis Team/Macross Attack Team's 1983 doujinshi Sky Angels IV: Don't Say Goodbye.

 

The caption proclaims it to be Unit No.1 of the K Concern's VF-3 Series UN Spacy Specification in a commemorative pink and black paint scheme... boasting an unprecedented level of flamboyance!

This is basically a fan design from the era when the VF-X-3 was an unseen mystery Valkyrie before This is Animation would officially Kill It Off For Real by establishing that the design could never be completed.  

Edited 13 hours ago by Seto Kaiba

[George Yamamori]

Thanks!