Anasazi37

My combo set from AJ arrived today. That was fast! AJ didn't do the best packing job, though, so it bounced around inside the shipping box and one of the corners got crushed. Nothing like the "tossed in a plastic shipping bag" damage that others here have had with AJ in the past, so I'm not complaining. Could have been much worse.

Just received my shipping notice for the combo set from Amazon Japan. Estimated delivery date of next Friday, but it's coming DHL, so hopefully sooner than that.

Let's try that again:

Since you ordered just the armor set, I'm guessing that they moved you to the second round, which has a release date in Oct. First round of armor and the combo pack are scheduled for release at the end of this month. Not the first time that NY has done this to a MW member when they preordered a TWE item that had a second run (e.g., Super/Strike Parts). At least they didn't just cancel your order outright, so that's something positive. The downside is now you'll have to wait and see if they come through. If not, there will be options on the secondary market, but given how fast the two rounds and the combo pack sold out, they won't be at MSRP unless you happen to find someone looking to offload one right before the release date because they preordered without having to pay in advance and now the bill is coming due.

Lately the scanner is making me feel like a monkey, too. I've been locked in mortal combat with bundle adjustment piece for weeks. Mainly because work has kept me so busy that I haven't had a lot of time to work on it. Will hopefully make some real progress tomorrow. Those are very nice scanners. I considered getting one, after less expensive desktop models didn't work as well as I wanted them to, but then decided I wanted to be able to scan both small and large items with maximum flexibility. To get something like that from Einscan would cost $$$$, so I went the DIY route. It's been an enjoyable project, minus the occasional technical issue that I have to resolve.

HLJ always packs items well. In more than 20 years of ordering from them, I've never once received a damaged shipment. They seem to "right size" the packing method to the item(s) being shipped. Always a thick and sturdy outer box, but inside it's either air pillows or the shrink wrapping without a lot of extra space. I normally see the wrapping on books and magazines, so they don't slide around in the box, but also for smaller items like model kits. Granted, for popular items like DX toys, it's almost impossible to get them from HLJ these days because they are too well-known and their ordering system is terrible, but for everything else, I usually go there first because I trust that my order will get here safely.

I do think that Roy will join the 30K Club this year. Probably a similar timeline to when it happened for the 1A Max.

@Red Comet approached me last year about making a set of Jetfire decals for the DX, with the idea that he'd offer customs. He stopped replying to emails months ago, so the project is in a holding pattern.

Yep, September and October. Screen cap from the Tamashii Nations site:

Quick update: I am still stuck in calibration hell. It's the difference between having a "hobby" scanner, where you can show friends and family that you built something that scans stuff in 3D, and a "metric" scanner, where you can produce consistent results with high accuracy. For hobby scanners, you can calibrate each piece of the system independently, which is relatively straightforward. For metric scanners, you have to use an approach called bundle adjustment, where you calibrate all of the pieces simultaneously because they are, in reality, heavily dependent on one another. That's very difficult to do well. I've known from the beginning of this project that I'd need to do bundle adjustment, but I wasn't looking forward to it. There are several aspects of the scanner that make its adjustment more difficult than those I've tackled for other sensors. I'll get there, but it's going to take a bit more time. Lots of math to do and code to write.

ALPS is still the most affordable desktop option, unfortunately. OKI makes a color+white desktop laser printer for about $6000, but the results are crap because it doesn't hold onto the sheet between the print passes for white (background) and color (foreground), so you end up with misregistration/misalignment for designs at the scale we care about. They do make one that works the way we want, but it will set you back at least $30,000 and it's quite large. I'm pretty sure that Toyhax uses some kind of screen printing approach. Also not cheap.

I source my ink from Japan, where it's kinda still made, but not always easy to get. Definitely not cheap. The other problem is that the most widely available ink is made for the most recent ALPS printer, which was never sold in the US. There are slight differences in formulation, which can cause problems with the older printers if you're not careful. Even then, it doesn't always work well.

Demanding, aren't you? He's not on a shelf yet, but this is what I'm thinking of going with:

I now have my 1D displayed with the gunpod slung over the shoulder in this way. Looks awesome.

You just described how I've operated for the past twenty years. First and foremost I needed the decals/stickers for my own projects, and I have high quality standards (a.k.a., a bit of a perfectionist), so they had to be good. Because of the quality, the sets would attract interest from other collectors. If there was enough interest, I'd occasionally do small print runs. These days it's a lot more expensive for me to do those runs because the printer I use (ALPS) and the ink it requires are rare, but even back in the day it wasn't cheap. I'd set the prices so I could recover my printing costs, but that's it. Definitely not a money-making venture.

Official product page for the VF-31AX is now up on Tamashii Nations: https://tamashii.jp/item/13691/

"Includes proctological exam gimmick for all three modes"

Just responded to your PM

My VF-1D arrived safe and sound--a day early! Came via FedEx. Expertly and lovingly packed by the proxy. Sharp corners and crease-free surfaces on everything. They sometimes take a few more days than I'd like to process orders, but they consistently come through.

Two things: That's a really crappy packing job. Thanks, DHL. Feeling bad is great and all, but I'm hoping that Luna Park will offer some kind of partial refund for damaged boxes. Over 200 units? I think there was a limit of four per person, so that means they got 50 people to help. I think that's impressive, but maybe it's small potatoes compared to the big proxies.

Likewise. Mine just shipped via FedEx. I've been living vicariously through everyone else's complaints for a week. It's just not the same.

Still under wraps for now. Might be that way for a bit....

That's a good question. Pre-COVID, they worked with commercial airlines and anyone else with space in the holds of their aircraft, I think. With fewer flights leaving Japan these days, maybe DHL or another global courier service? It would partially explain why EMS costs as much as FedEx and DHL right now. We've all heard that the price increase for EMS is temporary, but I'm not convinced that it will go back down.