mickyg

I had similar questions and to my surprise, there seems to be quite a plausible answer here: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=34315&p=1235469

Now that is very clever. I like it a lot!

That is gorgeous Xigfrid! Every new model you make is a big jump from the last one before it. Very nice work!

Can't wait to see that. I think they're too long in the drawing as well. That'd make cruiser mode look a bit funny in my opinion.

I'm with you. As much as that little detail annoys the crap out of me, I honestly don't know how they'd have addressed it any differently. My main gripe is that it looks like they doctored the image to make it look cleaner than it really is. Show the silly thing like it is and I'd have been much more forgiving.

OK, question time, can it be shown in cruiser mode, with the ship "arms" facing toward the bow instead of stern? You know, so it can look like the picture in the banner on this site, for example?

I've never noticed how truly cobbled together this spaceship looks until studying both the Hasegawa kit and now this one. The Promethius is just all kinds of wrong in shape to make it streamlined against the main spaceship. You've got the angled landing deck on one side, and the superstructure on the other. There's just no way to tuck the carrier in closer to the leg of the SDF-1. Believe it or not, that's one of the things I love about it! It just looks like a real attempt at attaching something that wasn't really meant to go there in the first place.

I also think they used this exact picture for reference on the new Valk - just look, even the canopy is the same.

Thanks Seto - that actually completely satisfies my curiosity in one fell swoop! I like the idea that it was rebuilt after the two most damaging events in the SDF-1's existence and the ARMDs were simply returned to their rightful positions. After all, the Daedelus and Promethius were accidents, due to the unplanned emergency fold. And given the ARMDs were nowhere nearby (and 1 and 2 destroyed in the first wave attack by the Zentraedi forces) it fits very well indeed.

That would look very, very nice! Yeah, I wouldn't want to vouch for something using adhesive either, but that's because it's so variable and totally out of your ability to control. There's wall surface detail to deal with, paint application, cleanliness, to name but a few. And then there's also the fact that the weight is located quite far away from the point of contact with the wall, with the resulting lever action acting on the mount in a much different way to what a traditional weight on a mounting hook would entail. Yeah, without a doubt, anchoring to a stud is much safer. But I'm still tempted to try something with a safety mechanism to catch anything that might fall...

There's a fun question Kajnrig! YF-30 was introduced in a video game where time portals are opened and pretty much every valk from every timeline gets a turn (Macross 30). The YF-29 Durandal is introduced in the Macross Frontier Movies as a prototype to deal with the Vajra threat. I think the Active is a VF-19 derivative, introduced in the Manga - Macross the Ride. And Tornado is an upgrade pack for the VF-25, also introduced in the Frontier Movies. Yes, it's all extremely confusing. But great for some mecha variety! And how does that relate to this thread? Well the VF-31 is an evolution from the YF-30, which we wouldn't even have, were it not for the video game, and by extension, the YF-30 used some tech from the YF-29, which also wouldn't exist without the Frontier movie. Oh, and both are Bandai toys. So, there's that...

For people who rent, I have an idea: mount the base to a small piece of wood (think of it as a plaque) and then 3M command adhesive the wood to the wall. The plaque can be thin and as small as necessary to spread the load and give enough surface for the adhesives to grip properly. Although perhaps with that arrangement, you may as well adhesive mount a standard Yeti Stand to the wall instead.

No, the one with a stand was a BONUS pre-pre order special for those who wanted to get in extra early. Not highway robbery at all, just a means of marketing.

If it's what I'm thinking, there's one more screen you have to go through to commit the order. So it's like this: Select the item Checkout Log in to account as part of checkout process Confirm PW or not Select shipping method Select billing method Confirm details Maybe not in that order but that's my recollection. EDIT: I see you said your account - yep it does this to me too. As advised, wait a few minutes and it should show up. Are you at least getting a confirmation email?

Thanks Joe - nabbed one preorder at HLJ.

This really intrigues me. Now I'm curious about the reasoning behind the various designs. What was the SDF-2 meant to be if it went unused? Was it going to be the original Megaroad? What was the DYRL? style SDF-1 supposed to be? Was it added later to make it match up with DYRL? or was that originally how it was going to look and if so, why the different "arm ships" depicted? So many questions...

Ah, that makes it so much more clear. Thanks for circling it.

I don't know where/how the arms would work with that arrangement. I still think the part on top, with the vertical stabiliser is at least one arm, so if that's the case, how does it attach to the shoulder? That looks to be a very long connection if that's how it works. I love the speculation on transformation though. I think there's only so many ways to make it work and someone is bound to crack it if we have enough time before it's revealed.

Maybe a bit off topic but I looked through that whole thread and it's 95% about the UCS TIE Fighter. The only bit about the Slave 1 is a side photo that doesn't really show much of anything I could see as "drooping" and certainly didn't describe the issue very well at all. The comment about the wings was definitely regarding the TIE. Maybe I missed something?

I hope it goes up on HLJ soon. Ami Ami and Australian shipping are a tough combo for me.

They are a thing of beauty!

No, just tend to be very floppy with all the joints and hinges everywhere.

I'm going to set a goal to spend at least a half hour a day on it, till it's finished. MechTech, that shuttle is awesome. And you get to do that for work or is it volunteer only? Even so, I can only dream of something like that!

It's been much longer than intended but I'm finally putting a bit of time back into this little project of mine. I've started quite a few things in the last little while and it's about time I returned to the things I started first, in order to get them out of the way. When we last left off, I was debating what colour to paint the intake "trunks" and trying to figure out what would look good. Given the shallowness of the intakes, I have decided white will look way too stark. So I think I'll go with slightly whitened base gray (Light Ghost Gray). But I didn't do that in this session. Instead I focussed on the only change I've made in this project since I started it, painting the VF-1A head unit. Why did I switch out the head? Simple - I'm cheap! I bought a VF-1A kit when they were still mostly available for non-crazy prices and figured I'd swap the heads around and build a Focker VF-1S out of the new kit, and put the 1A head on the NSAWC custom. Of course that means I'll have to revise that little tiny decal on the back end of the legs but that's for another time. So here's the progress: I've been deliberating about the colour scheme for the 1A's head and honestly, I'm not much closer to a decision. The underside is still plenty visible in fighter mode so I'm hesitant to put much on it that'll stick out. I may still do something but it'll need to be subtle. No, the head is not tucked in in this shot. First up, the "eye" on the 1A - Yamato did a really great job with putting some details behind that simple square lens piece and I wanted to do something to bring it out. There are around 7 dots of various sizes and complexities that can be picked out with a bit of work. The most prominent is the center one, which serves as a mounting post for the lens itself. I thought I'd try my luck at making this look like a camera lens. In order to achieve that look, I went with purple around the outside and blue for the inside circle. Getting there. I think I've said that before though... At this point it looks exactly like how I want it to. So on to some other details. Bits picked out with Tamiya Smoke and clear red, here and there. Closeups can be brutal. This one shows the bubbles in the blue paint, as well as the "smeary" quality of the other transparent paints I mixed up. But flipping it over revealed a nice look that I was happy with. So on to the transparent green for the rest of the lens. I decided to paint just the back of the lens and leave the front clear, figuring it'd help as far as durability is concerned. So far, so good. Unfortunately, once I mounted it inside the recess of the head, a lot of that detail looked overly bright. I toned it down some with some smoke and then decided to "enhance" some of the features with a bright metallic gold paint I've got. It's Mr Color Super Gold and it's a lacquer. Lacquers dissolve most anything you apply them too. Oops... It's not all bad and I don't have any pics of the process that led up to the finished result, so I'll come back to that. I wanted some reflectiveness behind the lens so rather than painting the whole back (which might be the right way to go, in hindsight) I just painted the surface of the recess. I used good old Tamiya Silver in a paint marker, as it's still one of the better silvers out there from actually looking like reflective metal paint. Here's the head dry fitted together, with some preshade and the silver applied. For the record, black is one colour I cannot get to spray properly through my airbrush. It almost always dries on the tip and just sputters everywhere when it does spray. I don't seem to have this issue with any other colour. So this was as good as I could achieve as far as line thinness is concerned. And here's the lens fitted: My final task was to get some gray on the head. I went with the Light Ghost Gray of the lower body and did my best not to obliterate the black shading underneath, then followed it up with some lighter gray by mixing white with the base coat. It's far more subtle than I'd intended but I can follow up with it later. The middle part of the top of the head was done with Gunze Gunship Gray (FS36118) but misted on so as not to be too stark. The metal is Mr Color Iron and I drilled out the end of the laser barrel but couldn't quite get it centered properly, so I've sort of left just the tiniest indentation instead of going with progressively larger drill bits, as I'd intended.

Oh, I'm sure they'll ruin enhance that when we get a few eps into the story.