magicsp00n

I caught the movie last night. I guess I got the non-mosaic Dr. M version. I didn't even know they were doing that until I read this thread... I thought it was okay, but hollow. It reproduced the look of the comic without all the depth.

Yeah, the screen just fell out while I was transforming it. I didn't know what it was supposed to be attached to until I was done and looking at photos of it with the scope up.

I picked up my Toynami Mospeada yesterday, and I'm really impressed with it. Quite a piece of engineering. I've got one issue, though: my scope appears to have come without whatever holds the hinge together. (Or it's disappeared somehow.) It's just two pieces. Can anybody give me a view of theirs and tell me what keeps it together? Is it a tiny screw, or just a pin? Metal, plastic? Thanks.

I'm also a game developer. (plug: my latest game came out last week - try it out!) So far I haven't been caught in the rolling waves of layoffs, but I'm definitely feeling the pinch. I took a job transfer just as the housing market cratered and was unable to sell my house. I'm now a reluctant absentee landlord. A few months ago I decided to implement a new policy for my collection that I call the Perpetual Robot Fund. Basically, I've decided that money for collecting can't come out of pocket, so if I want to get a new toy I have to sell something to fund it. It's working out really well. It encourages me to clean out the closet and put some of my old stuff in the hands of somebody else who wants it more, and it keeps the funds flowing so I can pick up the new items I really care about. I also don't have to feel bad about buying a big ticket item, since that money comes right out of the collection anyway. I've been surprised at how much stuff I had sitting around that I didn't care about. Toys, games, books, CDs, all can be converted into cash for new stuff.

I got the VF-0 arms I requested today. The whole process took me... oh, maybe a month and a half from my initial request.

I work with somebody who was a designer on Battlecry and Invasion and asked him what the final fate of Jack Archer was supposed to be. Evidently Invasion was originally intended to be a "Saving Private Ryan" sort of story, where your goal was to locate and rescue Jack from the clutches of the Invid. Hence the grafitti in the game. In production the game script was changed to remove the Jack component, but the artwork stayed in. I asked how it was Jack ended up back on Earth after the end of Battlecry, and he shrugged and said "Zentraedi sympathizers". This isn't Harmony Gold canon, mind you. Just what the game developers were thinking as they were making it.

I had every MPC veritech at some point, and I'll say that the YF-1R was the best of the bunch. I acutally thought the colors worked for the toy, and the head sculpt seemed the best and most solid of the set. Of course, there's no line art to compare the head sculpt to, like there is on the others, but the lasers are thicker and it just seems sturdier. I personally don't really like non-canon valks, but if you do, then there you go. But "best of the Toynami MPCs" isn't necessarily very good. I've sold all of mine off for a reason. They're real hard to love. For the same price as the YF-1R, you can probably pick up a 1/48 Yamato these days.

I think the GBP-1S on a VF-1J is just one of those iconic toys that everybody should have. And the bigger the better, so I think the 1/48 scale won't be beat by any future releases. It's crazy how much the prices on the GBP sets have come down now.

Yeah, I can't see that I'm finding anything to be hating on Toynami for here. Even after reading the certificate, they're just talking up the toy. Who knows what the deal was with Beagle? There's a lot involved in these business deals that the consumers don't get told about. I think it's likely that Toynami bankrolled a fair bit of the operation; there's a lot of cases like this in other industries where the product wouldn't have come out without a distributor jumping on board. It happens with independent movies all the time, some big distributor will buy a film and stick their name all over it and the small studio will be thrilled about it because their film couldn't have been made otherwise. Videogames: both Rock Band and Guitar Hero were created by Harmonix, but Activision and EA, the publishers, sure contributed a lot by providing funding and getting the product out on store shelves. Activision and EA are within reason to talk about "their" games being big successes. Just because a Toynami employee didn't come up with the CAD designs doesn't necessarily mean Toynami wasn't a big contributor to getting the Beagle product acutally produced.

So who wants to bet that five years from now somebody will be paying $500 for a SUPER RARE RECALLED MAIA SHADOW FIGHTER on ebay?

I haven't yet gotten any 1/60s, so I would get a TV version Roy if it came out. If I already had the DYRL version, I'm not sure...

Wowow, I'm just seeing this thread. TV Max 1A, right on! Those photos look really good. Is there any release date, other than "2009"?

I think the first was Starblazers when I was 5 or 6, but I know I watched a lot of Battle of the Planets around the same time. (Does BoTP really count?) I also liked to watch Macron 1, which I didn't learn until many, many years later was GoShogun.

On mine, I had to separatate the foot thrusters further apart than the diagram shows in the instruction manual, but the legs are still connected to each other. Are you lowering the cockpit on the Beta? The text on the instructions doesn't include that step, but the picture indicates it, and your Alpha won't connect properly otherwise.

Well, I took the plunge and my Toynami Beta arrived today. For the curious, the Alpha/Beta fighter linkup definitely does not fit in a Detolf case. The Beta by itself in fighter mode might if you turn it diagonally.

So, who is concerned enough to contact their congressman?

We've seen them do this previously, with the VF-1S MPC. The initial run was quite a bit less than 15,000. A couple of years later they released another batch (much to the dismay of ebay sellers everywhere). I wouldn't be surprised to learn that more blue alphas are on the way. If I remember correctly, the first 5,000 of the blue alpha are supposed to be easily distinguishable by having a lighter blue color on the intakes. But I honestly don't know if I've seen one with a number above 5,000. Everybody knows that the toynami red/green/shadow alphas are still available on Robotech.com, right? It's just the blue that's sold out.

From other posts here, it looks like they can't help with lost parts, only replacing defective / broken parts. Hobby Link Japan is often able to sell individual parts (I got some 1/48 parts from them for a custom). Try sending an email to parts@hlj.com and tell them what you need.

I expect somebody around here will be offering recasts of that Japanese head once the toys are out, depending on exactly how it attaches to the neck. Which brings me to a question... I've seen a few photos of transformation, but does anybody know if you need to pop the head off to transform the Beagle, like you do on the MH and old IMAI kits?

http://www.chameleonproductsonline.com/ A local hobby shop may carry it, but I just ordered directly from the website. Ah, I hadn't noticed that. Nice catch, thanks.

Thanks for the responses, guys. Answers: The blue is Krylon Fusion Patriot Blue. The bits of red (like on the shoulders) is Krylon Fusion Red Pepper. The eye was painted silver, then airbrushed with Tamiya Transparent Green, with a coat of Future for a little more shine. It's prettier in person than in the photos. I don't plan on doing any panel lining; I'm going for more of a standard Yamato look with this one (which is why I stripped the old paint rather than paint over), and since the toys don't come panel-lined, this one won't be either. Stripping the paint was a pain... I tried pretty much everything suggested on these forums: Pine-Sol, Brasso, brake fluid, Chameleon... I think soaking it in Chameleon overnight works the best to loosen up the paint, then using a wooden toothpick to get the gunk out of the panel lines without marring the plastic.

There is a significant difference there, but I actually prefer the Toynami version. The bigger features seem more expressive. Plus, the source material is a cartoon, so I'm not sure that I'm concerned with a deep level of realism.

Well, I'm pretty much convinced that I'll be getting the Beta. In preparation, I pulled my blue Alpha out of the closet where it's been for over a year. I pulled it out of the box and started to transform it before the old fear hit me... dang, am I going to break this thing this time? I think it's going to have to just stay in fighter mode pretty much forever. I can't take the stress of transformation.

Hey guys. I started this Max custom awhile back when I was absolutely positive that Yamato wasn't putting out any more 1/48 valks. That was about two weeks before they announced the limited TV Max 1A, of course. I took a break for awhile, so I'm just now getting around to finishing it off. I've done some models and scratchbuilding before, but this is my first whack at customizing a Yamato valk. Big thanks to everybody who has posted pointers and pictures of their work, for giving me confidence to try it out. The one new thing I tried was to do a custom TV-style head. I cut off the big movie-style eyepiece and fabricated a TV-style lens. I know the back of the heads are a little different between the movie and TV versions, but to me it's close enough not to bother with. I've got a couple little details to add still, and the pilot, but here it is. Any feedback is appreciated.

Yeah, what a tease! Actually, the page seems to show up in Firefox, but not IE.