AcroRay

mms://waryas.ath.cx/live is still working.

Before I'd start suspecting that the Tamashii/Toynami deal fell through or that Big West is causing them friction, I'd look to the simple fact that the economy is just complete crap right now, and a lot of us are really straining to make fuel & grocery bills - let alone buy collectible toys - as the reason for the delay. I'm sure that's going bit take a huge chunk out of Toynami's retailer preorders and their manufacturing orders to Bandai. You can't just order a whole container load of $85 giant robot toys destined for a market of 30-somethings who are having trouble paying rent/mortgage. That's the economy, gang. It likely has nothing to do with anything shady in Toynami/Bandai's dealings. Subscribe to PLAYTHINGS if you want the industry's perspective, and expect to see more of the same.

The Supervision Army probably offered the better dental plan. A Free market health insurance industry probably contributed to the fall of the Protoculture....

Yay! Thanks for the review! Everything I expected.... can't wait to get one.

Its a lot nicer, I think, than the Musha kits from the same period. The Mushas look all cool in photography, but they're tiny, fragile and not nearly as well rendered. And they're nowhere nearly as well made as the Musha Gundams. I also got a confirmation from a friend on the SD Elint, so it looks like everything in the booklet advert made it to retail. Musha musha musha! Musha Story....

Cool! Please let us know the results. If you have trouble finding the J.B. Weld, let me know and I can get you some at a shop local to me.

Well, as a collector of Aurora kits (Prehistoric Scenes, some monsters), they're much, much higher quality items in terms of both tooling and rendering of their subjects than Arii's old 1/100 Valk kits. Many of Aurora's kits were sculpted by Bill Lemmon, who is still considered one of the masters of the trade today. (I have a hardcopy of one of his Prehistoric Scene sculpts, and for something hand-sculpted in acetate it easily rivals the detail, anatomy and textures of any McFarlane or Sideshow piece.) Bullmark & Popy - yeah, I often really have to wonder why they're so popular - but their quantities are much smaller and their genuinely childish renderings are more popular for nostalgia, art objects or genuine antique interests today. A massive, rare toy also doesn't make a good comparison. It seems that you're kind of upset that the Mikimoto boxes aren't worth much in collectible terms, but keep in mind that the box was really the only unique selling point for a very common, overproduced product, which was re-released yet again a few years later, as well as being re-rendered into pre-assembled, prepainted form as action figure not long after that. I remember when these came out, and the big selling point to them was the box art. When myself and friends bought a few for that reason, we were ultimately pretty disappointed that we'd been sold on the same kits we'd built a dozen times before, with box art that was nice, but ultimately not particularly displayable.

I'm not speaking from first-hand experience here, but have considered this: You might consider working in a material available at auto parts stores called "J.B. WELD", its a metal impregnated resin putty that - when cured - is as strong as metal and can be sanded & treated like metal as well. I've known people who have patched engine blocks or rebuilt broken or incomplete engine parts, pins & plates with it. One would think the results would be workable for a toy or hobby project. I'd speculate that if you could make some sort of two part mold in Fimo, plaster or some other rigid material then you could push JB Weld into the mold, allow it to cure, then break the mold away and work with the JB Weld casting like you would any other metal part. Personally, I haven't had any reason to try it myself, but the idea occurred to me a couple of times when I've encountered the JB Weld stuff.

Well said indeed.

Member Tripmywire offered some for sale a few weeks ago among a large number of other Macross kits she was offering for sale. I don't believe she sold any of the Mikimoto editions. Honestly, it doesn't seem that the box art is enough to attract more than an average $10 per kit. Probably because the kits inside the box are so common and - by most standards, I think - pretty poorly designed and outdated (even coming from an old-school Macross fan like me).

I noticed there wasn't any coverage in the MW models section of this neat little kit I just picked up, so I thought I'd share some images! Its a really nice little kit (no. 3 in the series) - fully transforming with removable FAST Pack elements & landing gear, a missile shooting Gun Pod, metallic decals, poly-caps, the works. It even has little heavy missiles and missile boxes that can be added or removed from the wings, which really surprised me. All of this in a kit that's about three inches or so tall in Battroid mode. The instruction sheet has an SD version of Max & Milia's courtship with some cute art. Notice it also details some "Special Variation" 1As, including an SD Angel Birds version. Bandai probably didn't make kits of these two, but suggested you make your own. Official Angel Bird presence in Bandai product... There was also a fold out with about 8 pages of detailed story, photos & 4-koma comics about the SD Musha (Samurai warrior) Valkyrie kits. I didn't scan those for imaging here (but will on request), but the back of the 4-fold had images of other non-Musha SD kits, including an Armored 1J and an SD VE-1, for you Elint fans. I don't know if those ever actually made it into production, though. The one I found pictured here was partially-assembled but unpainted, had a broken wing joint and only one sticker attached (the eye, which will be the most difficult to remove for restoration, of course.). Picked it up for only $5, though, which is worth it for the nice 1990's style box art alone. I'm looking forward to actually rebuilding it. If any of the MW site owners want to use these scans for the models section, feel free to take these or contact me for new scans. I get the impression that these are a little on the rare side - at least here in North America - since I don't think I've personally seen any offered for sale in quite a few years. Or perhaps they're simply too unpopular to attract much attention.

Very interesting! I really wish, however, someone would just print a d4mn This is Animation styled book about the show - just like in the old days....

I'd like to see that Spartan in detail. Are they really recasts of the Dark Horse minis?

Ooh, nice! Thanks!

Those are really neat!

Ah, thanks for clarifying that, and providing the links. "A Queadluun by any other name would smell as sweet..." I think I might just wait for their inevitable appearance in detail in Chronicles. Heh, I probably won't get around to the project until then (or later!) anyway.

Could anyone provide - or point me toward - good large images of the Pixie Squadron's Q-Raus? I want to find good images of the Nos-ger style shoulder-mounted cannons they carry in Macross F, and try to make one for my Yamato Milia Q-Rau. Have they appeared yet in Macross Chronicle? There are smaller images around, but I'm looking for something much more referential. Help!

I don't care what's on the box (made that mistake enough in the 80s!) but the Bandai product inside. I'll happily buy either Bandai's or Toynami's. In either case, they're made by one of the best toy makers in the world, and sold by people who - after all these years - still considered them some of the best damn toys ever made.

Pretty! It also looks like it has some metal pins for some of the joints.

I thought as much! There's a lot of comedy potential there. What a great kit!

Got my Kamjin yesterday! Certainly the high point of a very difficult week! I'm amazed at the quality, and will probably pick up a magnet set so I can make his heads interchangeable. So - Did Bretai officially adopt Kamjin? I notice he's got a new last name! Beautiful stuff, John! And it was a real pleasure getting to watch it develop.

Good luck with the car. That sort of problem can really cramp your life for a while! What's your expected price? Still around $50?

The Five Star Stories kits of the Mortar Headd mecha are usually rather pricey - especially if they're resin and not bootlegs. Demand is a little low for them. I'd suggest searching eBay, using manufacturer, kit name and any variation name and see what they're going for. The ones you have there are classics. Probably at least $50 each, if they're resin. Its tough to see details (scale/materials) on some of the shots, which is important because there have been many kits of those machines - the Knight of Gold, and Junchoon. Hobbylink Japan still has extensive entries for past kits not in stock. You can at least see what retail used to be for them.

I liked the lightbox tutorial when I read it some time ago, but I found Happysoda's setup to be more flexible