tekering

Amazon.jp has a few sellers with stock at retail price... although it's considerably more than the pre-orders were.

Navigation's not the problem, it's a lack of images in the Yamato (and Bandai) section... However, I do recommend you take him up on the offer, @mandio222. Very few people have printers that use white ink, and his rocks.

Ah, kids are overrated anyway. They grow more and more resentful, more and more expensive, and then leave you altogether. Your statues, however, will last forever. Props, dude.

How about the brick wall diorama base? Where did you find that?

Actually, exchanges are often difficult even in Japan... and refunds are almost unheard of, unless it's an American company (like Toys 'R' Us). You've gotta fight tooth-and-nail to get that kind of service from a retailer.

Congratulations, arbit! The scissorlift is brilliant, and the results are ridiculously cool.

I have a full-sized Boba Fett. I don't have a mannequin for it, though... ...nor any space to display it if I did.

Oh, that nonsense is behind us now. #MeToo claimed Les Moonves -- the biggest obstacle to the CBS/Viacom merger -- so they're a single entity again (pending FTC approval). Eagle-eyed fans will no doubt have spotted a TOS-era Romulan vessel in the trailer as well.

Funny how quickly Jared Leto's Joker disappeared from the collective consciousness.

It's not a model kit, it's a toy. It requires virtually no effort to assemble, so yes: it comes out of the box ready to rock.

I see three words that illustrate your problem: "window," "sunlight," and "exposure." I used to have a problem with toys turning yellow, but I've completely eliminated the problem over the past two decades by eliminating sunlight altogether. Windows are completely blacked out and boarded up before anything gets put on display in my toy rooms, and the only sources of light are artificial. Remember, our Valkyries are vampires, and sunlight will kill them. It's that simple.

Come to think of it, DST never made a Tom Zarek action figure... Put that Wedge head on an old McFarlane Mulder figure, and you'd be most of the way there.

It's "transformed," not "deformed." Gawd, will machine translation never learn?

As I recall, the situation was a lot simpler back in the '90s. Macross II (and Plus) were safe because they didn't use any characters or mecha that had appeared in Robotech... whereas Macross 7 had Max, Miriya and Exedore (and later, Zero featured Roy Fokker), so Harmony Gold had some legal clout there.

Yeah, looks more like Mike Tyson than Chadwick Boseman. They nailed Karen Gillan, though!

Oh, sure. Shoulders, elbows and wrists were easily modified... ...but just reinforcing the legs enough for it to stand on its own was a challenge. The legs are just hollow shells, not even designed to handle the weight of the model. Articulating them would require a fairly robust internal support structure.

Really? I think the new figure nails him.

No, that was an American film animated in Malaysia.

No.

Hasegawa's got you covered. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313.TR1.TRC0.A0.H0.XHasegawa+48+crew.TRS0&_nkw=Hasegawa+48+crew&_sacat=0

It certainly would, and I'm glad you bring up the subject. It's a rather contentious issue among anime fans, toy collectors and modelers alike. Do you want your characters and mecha look as realistic as possible? Or do you strive for absolute anime-accuracy? On the one extreme, colors, textures, and even proportions are altered to achieve a more real-world aesthetic: Arcadia's starting to lean heavily in this direction, particularly with their upcoming "Premium Finish" VF-0D. At the other extreme, solid colors and cel-shaded line work is used to achieve a flat, hand-drawn style: TakaraTomy is attempting something similar (after years of gravitating in this general direction). Both approaches have their merits, and both have their detractors... and we all have personal preferences that lie somewhere between these two extremes. With these Macross builds I'm attempting, there are two goals I wish to achieve: 1. I intend to display the finished models among my varied collection of Macross toys, and I want the aesthetic to blend in with the dominant Bandai/Arcadia look. That means colors and proportions that closely mimic the animation models, but with more surface detailing and nomenclature than is depicted onscreen. Light weathering for a suggestion of heightened reality, light panel-lining to suggest the detail of the line-art, but nothing prominent enough to clash with my expensive toys. 2. I intend to win this contest, by finishing all the kits I've committed to and demonstrating all the skills I have as I do it! Knowing my work will be judged by those with greater experience than I have -- especially when it comes to resin kits -- I want to show how much effort I'm putting into this, and a clean, consistent finish takes a lot of work with garage kits. Many modelers use "weathering" as a way of disguising their mistakes, and I don't want to give the impression that I'm cutting any corners. However, I do want to suggest greater detail than could be depicted in the animation (and highlight the sculpting work modelers like John Moscato have put into these kits), and one way of doing that is with selective weathering. Take the cockpit cover, for example: What is depicted as a single unbroken piece in the animation is provided as a single unbroken piece in the "Z Alien Interceptor" kit, but with sculpted panel lines and rivets suggesting several smaller pieces combined. By masking each section along the panel lines and painting them individually (adding slightly more shading in some areas, and slightly less in others), one piece now looks like several smaller, more detailed panels. It's more realistic than what appears in the show -- suggesting a more idealized depiction of the craft -- but the shape and color still matches what we see onscreen. That's the level of weathering I have in mind.

That's a slightly more accurate statement. And yes, Walter "Heisenberg" White (SPOILERS!) died at the end, so don't expect him to appear again... except in flashbacks, maybe.

You are wrong. Breaking Bad never glorified drugs.

Ambiguous pronouns, omitted subjects, and passive tense make it impossible to be 100% sure of anything in Japanese. "The idea came up in conversation with Mr. Kawamori."

This Gnerl kit is full of interior detailing -- the missile launch mechanism, cockpit flight controls, HUD monitor, and of course the pilot -- and the interior must be completed before the exterior can be done. First order of business, therefore, is the pilot figure. Mine, unfortunately, had a big gap missing from the right side of the torso armor: The smooth round interior cavity is indicative of a large pocket of air, that must've gotten trapped in the mold when the resin was poured. I used a mix of Tamiya modeling putty and CA glue to fill the hole, then sanded it flush with the armor: I then diluted the putty with lacquer paint thinner, and brushed on a couple thin coats to help blend the surfaces together. After a few more stages of sanding and puttying, with successively thinner layers of putty and finer-grit sandpaper, the surface is finally smooth enough to spray a couple coats of primer. Without any specific reference as to what a Gnerl pilot's uniform looks like (much less what color it should be), Moscato's figure is sculpted to match the generic soldiers and guards seen in Zentradi hangar bays... ...which seems to be an appropriate choice, since the Gnerls are treated as expendable cannon fodder. Incidentally, this sequence is the only time Gnerl landing gear is visible in Macross. When Zentradi soldiers have their helmet visors down, their faces appear green. I painted my pilot figure to match. Note the color gradation evident in the pink of the armor, achieved by airbrushing a darker color along the edges, and a lighter color in the center... The flight suit was dry brushed slate grey over a blue base, to suggest a more flexible surface texture than the armor. A black wash helps bring out the fabric underneath. The eyes and eyebrows were applied with a very fine-tipped marker. I wanted to photograph the pilot figure properly so you could see the work that went into him (most of which won't be clearly visible once he's mounted in the cockpit).