David Hingtgen

First the 707, then the DC-9, and now the C-17. <<<<<<<<<<<<Back in 2005 two Flight colleagues -- Brendan Sobie and Andrew Doyle -- broke the story that China's Xian Aircraft Corp was developing a four-jet freighter sized between a C-130 and a C-17, and based upon some IL-76MD technology. Its max payload was expected to be around 50t and max TO weight >200t. The prototypes and the initial batch may be powered by Russian D-30KP-2/WS-18 turbofans, later by the modified WS-10. Well, four years later, the always fantastic China Military Aviation site has posted the first images of the Y-20. Does anything about this model strike you as, you know, familiar? It's perhaps worth noting that a California jury in July convicted Dongfan Chung, a former Boeing employee, of selling secrets about the C-17, among other things, to ... guess who? <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Walking LEGO AT-TE: LEGO purists will cry out that the mechanics are not of LEGO parts, but the fact that he designed the parts/engineering from scratch and milled them with a LASER more than makes up for it. (7-speed automatic transmission is still probably the most impressive "all-LEGO" mechanism I've seen)

Slightly OT, but one of the more annoying facts about SDF:M to me is that a disproportionately large number of Milia scenes/episodes, are the poorly-animated ones. She looks bad most of the time you see her!

Yeah---it's a ton of paint APPS, even if the actual surface area covered is small. Will be interesting to see how the final 1/60 DX compares in the "painted details" category. Personally, I think the lavender mis-match between plastic and sticker is far more obvious than the maroon.

I don't like brush-painting Tamiya, but they have the best spray cans by far.

Burnish with your fingernail after sanding them smooth. You can make them nigh-invisible. That's the best way when dealing with unpainted plastic.

Depends which kit, but basically for anything made in the last couple of years: If it's Hasegawa, it cannot transform at all, and requires glue and paint. If it's Bandai (this mainly means only the VF-25) it can transform, doesn't need glue, and is molded in multiple colors and will look fine with little to no painting.

A LOT of the pics have a 2nd view if you roll over them with your mouse. I'm curious as to how the ultra-shiny chrome-gold at the base of the wing-mounted nozzles was done.

Exactly. Their -22's don't match their VF-1's. And if you go by M3, their VF-4's seem to be the same "pale" colors as well.

Heck, my Wal-Marts are still charging $60 for MP SW.

Re: the third pic. All the modeling essentials---sprue cutters, q-tips, toothpicks, and a big bottle of tylenol.

Hey, same reason Dragon Age was delayed.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Unobtainium http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main...liedPhlebotinum http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HandWave

Luckily, I have extra time to save up, as I'm waiting for Grace's.

RLM 2 and RLM 75 are fairly different colors, but both are "medium-dark" grey. RLM 75 has a hint of purple in it.

Yeah, I was surprised they used what is basically a sci-fi injoke in a "serious" movie. The only thing worse would be if they explained that the military weaponry works by handwavium.

I don't think Bandai ever goes below 5% when listing color mixes---anything less is just kind of "indeterminate tiny amount".

Tamiya tape is the masking tape of the gods. It is far superior to all other tape.

Both Figma and Revoltech suffer from "what's hot now-itis". I mean yeah, any company SHOULD capitalize on what's popular, but I swear sometimes they seem to be *intentionally* avoiding characters from ultra-popular stuff from the 80's, 90's, and even "way back in 2003" that'd translate quite well. I'd own a zillion if they made more than Yoko, Haruhi, Yoko, Saber, and more Yoko and Saber variants... (have you seen what's coming up in the next few months? That's pretty much it) You'd think with how nearly every single BGC fig made in the past 5 years sold out, and how the hardsuit design is, BGC revoltechs or figmas would be a no-brainer. (just one of many examples)

???? Farscape was great.

Who'd a thunk? Iranian Tomcats still use their glove vanes: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Iran---Air/...mcat/1594297/L/

Nora=best valk Yamato's ever made. Don't know why it doesn't sell.

The guy who's repainting *may* sell just masks separately so that people could repaint themselves.

I forgot about that, good idea------a "retrofit kit" to convert the earlier ones to the new style of hip-bar/crotch. Sell it along with the replacement shoulder hinges! If you own an early V2, you'll probably want/need both of those things.

Sorry Warmaker, this is the final production version: http://www.warbird-photos.com/gpxd/viewtop...0&start=740 Do you follow any of the diecast/model/military sites? The spots on the Tomcat has been the raging issue for the past week or so. You might want to see the "spot fixing" thread: http://www.warbird-photos.com/gpxd/viewtop...sc&start=80 Now, some retailers have put up a "no returns due to "minor" paint/assembly issues" clause on their website, but I bet you could send it back if it's unopened. If you want another video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrV1qeb8hXA...feature=related Now, some are saying that the "spottiest" of them all were made into the special edition release, and those are the ones in the videos. But I don't think anyone actually has seen both versions side-by-side to see if there actually is a difference in spots.