David Hingtgen

The white version is just that---like 95% white. Looks like a prototype or something. Half the figures have NO color and are translucent.

Aqua and magenta, not teal and mauve. Plus grey and pink. (And purple, but only on Overbite, the 6th "missing" Seacon) (Piranacon is one of my all-time faves, one of the few G1 toys I liked well enough to re-buy on Ebay) Personally I find the new repaint absolutely hideous, far worse than most knockoffs. Though if you use Deltastar's "gold" version of the G1 labels, that might help a little.

You can get a mint REAL Piranacon for less. I'd recommend that over "the fugliest repaint ever".

The reason Piranacon's gun never looks right is because EVERYONE does it wrong. The instructions are wrong, the artwork's wrong. Just like many other TF's. If you look at the parts/posts, it's very obvious how it SHOULD be done: You know that 3-piece black stand every small Seacon comes with? The middle part is a rifle. Use THAT piece on a "gun mode" Seacon, instead of that Seacon's individual gun. The small individual gun(s) should only be used for "attack mode", not "Piranacon's gun mode". (Seacon limbs are QUINTUPLE changers----beast mode, robot mode, limb mode, attack mode, gun mode) Then you've got a friggin GUN for Piranacon. Far larger than any other TF gun I can think of. Never seen Fort Max's gun though.

Piranacon just ROCKS. Targetmaster gestalt! Also, very unique colorscheme that MATCHES---the only other "matching" gestalts are Devastator and Computron. However, this new repaint is probably the fugliest repaint I've ever seen of any TF. Finally---I think nearly every robot mode pic we've seen from that magazine is mis-transformed. I KNOW Sunstreaker and Piranacon are, I'm better Prowl and Octane are. Prowl's arms/shoulders just don't match up to the his chest/collarbones. And Octane has to look better than that, too many hinges/bits in him not to have a better configuration. ::edit:: Just saw the Powerglide pic---now I KNOW the photographer is clueless at transformations. Same problem as US MP SS though--he's "1 gallon white, 1 drop black" super ultra very extremely pale grey. AKA "white". He looks the same exact shade of "nigh-white" as US MP SS, when both real F-15's and A-10's are the same color in their standard scheme. Which is GREY. Very, obviously, definitely grey. Not "grey if you have new-fallen snow to contrast a PURE white against". Bleh. How hard is it to make GREY airplane TF's?!?!?!?!? PS--I thought Octane looked better in all grey. Gold tanker windows? And plane mode is like a combination of Decep and arctic colors. And where's the CHROME? Octane needs CHROME! More than even Prime.

My stuff always photographs better than it looks in real life. Anyways, Wicked Ace--how about a sunburst ventral fin? May be a bit much combined with the tail's sunburst, but VF-111 did use them, though never simultaneously with a tail burst (I think they have a "one sunburst" rule) Or maybe--all red with a thin white stripe around the fin's edge. Both VF-111 and VF-1 had designs like that. Or do VF-84/VF-2 style, but in 111 colors

Thanks much, half of those I haven't seen.

Link please? I've never seen a collection of Wicked Ace's stuff, and I checked every gallery/custom thread I could find.

Ok. But asides from "temporarily stripped bare for heavy maintenance work" I have yet to see a bare metal A-10. And NEVER one painted silver. The whole "bare metal military jet" thing kinda ended with the Century series. (Thus the reason the Thunderbirds now paint their planes white, when for many years they were bare metal) PS--is that really a fireTRUCK? Looks a lot like it's based off the same thing that movie Ironhide is, just the Chevy instead of GMC version. Maybe I should have said metallic orange with yellow wheels and teal fuel tanks. (which I HAVE seen on a semi, but am even more sure no fire department uses)

I have no idea why it was locked, I came by and re-opened it when I saw it was locked. If I was really nosy, I could check the admin logs and probably see who closed it and when. Excluding a few one-off experiments, A-10's have carried two schemes: 3-tone "European 1" scheme. 2 shades of green (one rather 'evergreen' and another being a more olive version of olive drab) and a VERY dark grey. (same shade of grey on a Jolly Rogers tail, when they don't use pure black) Used from the 70's through Desert Storm. 2-tone "compass ghost" scheme. Your standard 2-tone light grey found throughout the world, from F-15's to Gripens. Post Desert Storm to now.

Except for the fact that A-10's aren't silver, and don't have red trim... It's no more "realistic" than making a purple firetruck. Sure, SOME trucks are purple, but not firetrucks. SOME jets are silver with red accents, but not A-10's...

Sundowners!

Let's hope there's a "lose 500 points each time you crash" or something option.

Personally, I like the fact that Kawamori seems to design mainly with LEGOs nowadays---it means his designs are very feasible in real life, with little to no "anime magic" used. And thus---much easier to make good-looking toys from. Though you have to wonder, what would the YF-19 and -21 have looked like, if he designed them from LEGOs?

Sunstreaker IS backwards. He's a repaint of Sideswipe, with the torso turned around to look different. It sometimes happens that the repaint comes out before the original. Sideswipe will be how the mold is "supposed" to look and was originally designed, with the hood for the chest, etc. Look closely at the fists, wrists, and forearm kibble--it can all be flipped 180 to make the arms look right if you turn the whole torso around at the waist joint. Sunstreaker is the "torso turned around to look different" version of Sideswipe. He's just coming out first for some reason.

Here's the real F-15 scheme in blue, if you'd like a reference: (if you'd like a little something extra---paint the wheels black. Early F-15s had black wheels, not white---why not do the same for the YF-19?)

I hate edge enhancement NOW with DVD on a CRT. Nearly every movie has it done when transferred to DVD, some just do it more than others.

Part of it is "raw size of the pixel itself" at this point. The PC monitor you're viewing on probably has a FAR greater pixels-per-inch count than even the best HDTV. Anyone here viewing the comparison pic using an HDTV as a monitor, instead of a "real PC monitor"?

Slightly OT----How did Northrop get the rights to the A-10? Fairchild just kind of went away, no one bought them out AFAIK.

****! The new cobalt blue DS Lite isn't blue! It's "blue" in the same way the crimson one is "red". It's exactly the same as a crimson one, just with blue. 90% black, with blue paint on top. C'mon, at least give us colored BUTTONS or something so that when you actually open it up to play it, it doesn't look IDENTICAL to a pure black one....

And we still don't have a triple-changer that's good in all three modes. G1 Astrotrain's still the best of all, compromise-wise, followed by G1 Blitzwing. I'll put the new Octane/Tankor 3rd. His plane mode is just so incredibly disproportionate, regardless of having not much kibble besides around the rear stabs. He's got itty-bitty tailfins, itty-bitt engines, and HUGE nose and forward fuselage. It's like they took a 1/48 C-130, but used 1/72 wings and tail, and a 1/32 nose... Of course, the original was a 2-engined 747, and without the chrome tanker and stickers, few would have called truck mode a truck... (I'm a big Octane fan, one of the very few airliner TF's---and he's a truck, too!)

This would be a great time to post a pic I found, comparing different resolutions. Everything is re-scaled to match each other, so it's as if you saw each format on the same size TV. It's from "I, Robot" if you've never seen the movie. Slight issue though---it appears to be a PAL DVD, not NTSC. So DVDs in the USA and Japan look even worse, as NTSC DVD is encoded at only 480p instead of 576p. Anyone know of a similar pic that shows 480 vs 720 vs 1080? Or is the "Xvid1" at top basically 480?

Couldn't find anything about Paramount, but I did find proof that Sony in Germany is giving you 150 Euros off a BluRay player, if you bring in your HD-DVD for trade. And they may expand that deal to the UK.

How will Starscream be made to look "good"? I mean, he already has "Autobot red and blue" as his main accent colors.

That reminds me, I have to go download some more novels (I only check like once a month when the show's not airing)