MSW

I'd say check out Kenshin Corps (released stateside under the title Geo Armor here is a link http://store.yahoo.com/animenation/11488.html )...takes place in an alternative history during WWII with and alien invasion going on at the same time...it's sort of adventure in the vien of Indiana Jones...Fun little OVA series, part adventure, comedy, mecha war...with a slight "super robot" undertone...one of my personnel faves

It's the watermark of the guy who did the Photoshop job, "DragonX76". The guy seriously needs a new watermark. Looks like one of the mech thingys from Rayearth...prolly where he sourced it from

Erm...this is a potentialy really bad idea... First off movie basied games are often pushed out the door early just to meet some anal retentive pre-established release date set to ride piggy back with the films release...hell, read the postmordems over at Gamasutra ... if they wouldn't try to make AAA games (requireing tons of art resources) in such little time frames, well they might be capable of produceing better games...part of the reason movie basied games often have such low review scores is because of the micro-management overhead under which they are developed. Second off, you think publishers will be leary of finaceing the development of licensed games...the developers themselves will be even more adverse to takeing on such projects knowing how well (and often) pubishers can/have/do screw them over on regular non-licensed games... Third, the game industry is publisher driven, and in many respects mirrors the film industry...there is a huge push to make as much $$$ during the first couple of weeks a game is release, then due to retail shelveing space...last months hot new title is pushed aside for this months hot new freshness (much like movie companies push for the big opening weekend box office take)...however unlike films where the movie comapnies can still re-release older works on VHS and now on DVD where they can still make the company money...game publishers have little ability to re-release older games in a way they can still make some $$$ (and when they do, it often requires the investment of writeing emulators and/or porting the game code to newer systems)...you start putting the squeeze on publishers, and as crap runs down hill, so they start putting the squeeze on developers....which equals even more risk adverse publishers Fourth, if movie companies were so concerned about the quality of thier wares...shouldn't the be instituteing a simular policy in the form of cheaper movie tickets for lower quality films? cheaper DVDs of bad flicks? why not pass thier concern on down to us, the paying customer?

Oh my, lots of nieve people here Folks, the primary emmision of a gasoline fueled engine is water...jeesh, why else do you think your car's exaust system is the first thing to rust out (from the inside out, I might add)? every alternative fuel sources faces huge hurtles before reaching mass consumption...for starters, how exactly do you plan on storeing hydrogen?...How exactly is alcohol (and or derivitives line ethonol) to compete with gasoline when it costs more to produce per gallon (not only that but has a lower BTU, requireing more fuel to make the same net engine power)? Even then you still have to deal with unburnt fuels and emissions, as the major contributor isn't the fuel but the lack of efficenty within the design of the internal combustion engine... Even then alternative power sources like the fuel cell have thier own set of problems...idealy fuel cells run the best on pure hydrogen and oxygen, but that requires a means of fuel storage on par with NASA rocket engines...Hydrogen is a netoriously small element that leaks through everything, so you would need some form of carrier fuel, and a process to refine the hydrogen back out again...that process takes energy, energy that the fuel cell produces...which in turn reduces it's overall efficientcy... We could easily double or even triple our fuel economy for even SUVs overnight (heck withing the next 10 seconds) if we only change the way we drive (and it's a big, BIG change)...but this of course would require some drasticly different rules of the road and means to police them...and not one bolt needs to be ajusted, not one engine computer needs to be modified...but that won't happen, it's just easyer to let the engineers figure it all out

Depends on the character..what are thier dreams, hopes, ideas...what is thier personnality, thier ambitions or lack there of... as they say "a picture is worth a thousand words"...let who the charactes are dictate thier dressing prefrences...are the characters complicated, conflicted, crass, annoying, happy, stressing out, stress free, bored, introspective, mysterious, respectfull, extroverted? ... reflect this in thier manner, style and the way they dress and how they "model" thier clothing ("body language" is important too) as this can communicate far more then dozens of pages of scripted dialog. It's not what we would prefer to see the characters dress in, it's what the charactors would prefer to be seen in

it still scares the hee-bee-gee-bees out of me Course I was alive when it originaly came out, and first saw it when I was about 8... In a way it, like the original pre-special edition Star Wars, was ahead of it's time...the world haden't quite seen a horror film like it before...as such it set a standard that many films that followed measure themselves against...as such the Exorcist seems to not be up to snuff for the people who either wern't alive or can't recall the time before the film premired... It's kinda like the person you lost your virginity with...sure, you may have had much better sex with others sense...and in hindsight, your cherry poping experience wasn't the best and may now seem overated...but you never forget that person, and what the experience ment to you...erm...good god, I can't believe I'm useing sex as a metaphore

IIRC on the second and third disks of the ADV Shin Getter Robo DVD release a new character was introduced...a blond American dude that piloted a stealth fighter looking ship that transformed into a robot. What was the characters name? What was the robots name? Has anyone run across any lineart online of that robot? Where there any toys/models produced of it? thanks

Erm... Exactly what is realistic or even plauseable about a space going carrier with a flight deck? Space, remember has no gravity, there is no up or down...you automaticly throw realisam and plauseability out the window when you design without that in mind. For works of fiction it has EVERYTHING to do with apperance...flight decks are placed on Gundam/Macross ships because the audiance understands how they work on Navy vehicals and therefore it can be easyer for viewers to understand the ship in question is a carrier...doesn't mean it's realistic, or even plauseable...it's about takeing something the audience knows, and useing it on a fictional ship design so the viewers can relate without haveing to involve a big huge long explanation...fictional ship design, be it in books, movies, anime, videogames is always about appearance...you design your ships so they look like they can fullfill the mission, you design your ships with appearence in mind. re-read what I wrote, I never said you had to make the ships neat or cool looking, never said anything like that...but I said it's important to make them interesting, to play up some details rather then others, to make them distinct...to a large degree you already do that when you put a flight deck on a carrier, or cover a battlecruser with gun turrents...by doing so you are playing to our preconcieved notions of the differences in such craft here on earth, an enviroment with distict gravity and sense of up/down...in that sense your designs have points of intrest, focal points if you will, that help inform the viewer of just what the overall picture says (the purpose of the ship)...All I was trying to say before is for you to refine this approch, get away from the "me too" generic space craft design (where everything seems basied on Earth bound submarines/carriers/battleships) use the zero gravity no up/down enviroment to get your design sense to "think outside the box" so you can get away from that generic design look...there is a hint of that in your first ship, the potential for improvement...

Here is that write-up on the Perfect Change Getter Robo...SHE is produceing a new one with some design improvements, but this page talks about the old one: http://www.toyboxdx.com/rumble_plus/121100-hegetta.html not for the weak of heart

You own this? PICTURES!!!! Show us some decent pictures of the mechanics!!! I don't yet own it...but the thread title "Which toy have you own or know as being..." pretty much says it all Toybox DX had a little write up of the older version with some pics...IIRC the transformabtion instructions numbered about 40 pages

Everything listed so far has been a piece of cake...an absolute breeze...compared to the perfect change Studio Half-Eye Getter Robo... http://halfeye.m78.com/products/newgr/ngr.html absolutely in-F'ing-credible!

I voted for the first ship...GF Brekhov Class Destroyer...Not because I think it is the worst or most in need...but because it has a definate core shape that only needs refinement... I'll be perfectly honest, and please take this as constructively as possable...of all the designs, the GF Brekhov Class Destroyer has the most potential. the rest have a sort of "me too" overall generic quality that isn't helped much by the noisey textures....I'm not trying to be mean by saying this, rather I hope it comes across as helpfull... The overall shape is the key to designing such fictional spaceships...the shape of an X-Wing is much different then a TIE Fighter, much different then the Millenium Falcon...the Enterprise is much different then the Defiant, much different then the hovercraft from the Matrix films...When looking for inspiration for the shap of your ships, don't look at established ship designs, take inspiration from everywhere else instead...the Slave One was inspired by a art deco street lamp...other ships have been inpired by insects, even the shape of a hamburger with a bite taken out of it...draw inspiration from wildlife, from fish, from fingernail clippers, whatever...just try to bring something new to the table and don't forget that there is no "up" in space, so it can pay to take a shape and flip it around in various ways to find interesting angles to present as the "front"....your first ship has that, the others don't as for detailing, be it the location of guns, the cockpit, or stripes and/or other surface markings...treat the shape of the ship as if it were a blank picture remembering your art classes talking about "center of intrest/focal point" in composistion, and how all the other details of the image are developed to draw the eye to the focal point...tis the same with ship design, pick some detail you want to feature on the ship as a focal point...is the ship ment to be very fast, then maybe make the engines the focal point...doesn't mean that they have to be huge, rather that all the other details are developed to to draw the eye to that section of the ship...another thing to keep in mind it the "guts on the outside" look popularised by Star Wars...look at the ships in those films, notice how the texture of the "guts" act to draw your attention around the ship's shape...how some areas are rather lightly detailed, but other areas have all sorts of insane detailing...the little trenches on the sides of a Star destroyer, for example, are highly detailed, but the decking one the main horizontal flat sectionsis pretty minimal...notice how those trenches on the sides help pull your eye around the shape of the ship (almost like the pen stripeing on a car) ... you can use both texture (guts on the outside) and color to do this, but notice how it doesn't really alter the shape of the ship. as for ships that relate to one another...motheship, carrier, fightercraft, all from the same alien race, nation, whatever... a big key componet is the used of shared design motifs...the yellowish egg shapes on the Macross Zentradi ships, the near featureless gemoetric flats on the Star Wars imperial ships...thease also don't really effect the overall shape of the ship, rather like most details, they are areas of intrest...but shared across much of the line the ship originated from...these deatil bits don't have to be exactly the same, but like the yellow antenna on a Gundam, they should be featured prominately enough (and be simular enough) to allow viewers to clearly understand that this is a shared detail of the particular design line... I hope that helps...might also want to do some googleing on "concept design" for more ideas and critices

Thanks so much for that ... Order sent When I first saw the VF-17 I wasn't very thrilled with it, it just looked too average...but over time it has grown on me, so much so that it is now one of my favorites Speaking of which....have there been any toys or models of the FBz-99 ZAUBERGERAN? Or even the VAB-2?

Now it all makes perfect sense...thanks Question though...how good is the Bandai VF-17S toy? ... I've got the Bandai VF-18 Fire Valk, which isn't terrible, much more toy-ish looking then I would like...how does the VF-17S compare?

No, I can figure out most of it, the arms, legs, chest, backpack, head..no problem...it's what happens to the cockpit that I'm curious about....it seems it just folds up sorta like on the Zeta Gundam...but given the lineart of the VF-17 in bot mode it seems the pilot would be (nearly) upside-down in that mode...just wondering if that is right. I put this together from some line art...purple is the nose, green the upper legs, blue the chest...and orange the cockpit (it would seem)...just wondering if it folds over about 180 degrees (as it seems to given the depiction in the line art...meening the pilot is possably upside-down) rather then the 90 degree fold of something like the Zeta Gundam?

Anyone have scans that they can post of the transformation instructions for the Bandai VF-17 (either version)?

Gotta second the battles from Outlawstar...one of my favorite anime

70 years ago today, we hadn't even developed the first microchip, haden't even broken the sound barrier, hadn't even developed rocket engines or H-bombs, or even TV...1934 was merely 70 years ago, and look how far we have come sense then! Robots developed to clear space garbage don't have to be big complex Gundam like machines anyway, they just need to have manuvering systems and possably a pair of arms (one might do just fine)...so why would such a robot have to attach a rocket to some space junk, when it could just use it's own propulsion systems, and if need be just ride the junk down into a firey re-entry? ... they would'nt need to be very intelligent, and could be easily disposed of and replaced as needed. Besides, we arn't very far away from haveing space elevators...which could dramaticly cut down on the clutter we are still throwing up there in the first place So it makes more sense to put humans into space, keep them alive, inorder to burn up the space junk? why not collect it for recycleing? Why launch a big rocket to mars, leavieng behind junk over earth, only to reach mars, pick up some raw materials, drag them back to Earth...where they will get used in the construction of more rockets to repeat the process? Anyway... This obviously has nothing to do with the show, where science as always, is in the service of the story...and a cool story it is

I wasn't trying to put the show down by my earlyer comments, not at all...just trying to point out that it's not as "realistic" as it may seem..and useing "realisam" as some sort of measure of quality in sci-fi is more then a bit foolish...

It may get the science mostly right (smokeing cigs onboard a pressurized spacecraft not withstanding)...but the central premise of a human team of space going garbage collectors, ain't exactly realistic...space is big, really, really big...and although the potential problem of space junk is plauseable (it's been greatly overexagerated however) , the prospect of useing a human crew to clean it up isn't...it's far cheaper and much, much more efficent for orbital robots to do that sort of thing

AWSOME WORK! I wish I could draw like that, very expressive character designs...very cool style Let us know when the book is coming out, and where to get it (through Diamond?) I've been working at developing a comic too...ironicly also steampunk basied... http://www.deviantart.com/view/6658323/ Thats a rather old concept piece showing a mecha and early character design (real styleized, almost Peter Chung like) Anyway awsome stuff, looking forword to the book...and your site has been bookmarked

CONVERTORS ... cheap little transformable robot toys rule! course the line had Macross, Orguss, Dorvak, Beetra and my favorite Galvion mecha in it...and those little transformable birds were some of my favorites

Spiders are cool, I love them ... I've had several pet tarantulas over the years, worst part of that was trying to find out of season bannanas A couple of years ago, I was helping a friend who owns a fireworks display company (he puts on shows for 4th of July, new years, etc...) at one end of his property he had this old shed where he stored additional mortor tubes (6" diameter four foot tall tubes that the shells are launched from) anyway he was prepareing for a memorial day show or something and we needed to get some tubes from the shed...His normal tubes were off in another county for another show, so we had to pick from his backup supply in the shed...problem was that the tubes in the shed hadn't been used in a year or two...so when we opened the door it wasn't a big suprise to find the remains of a snake skin sitting on the floor... Anyway we started picking out tubes that would work for the upcomeing show...I picked up one and looked inside, there was something dark at the bottom...usualy this is just left over burned foil used to encase the shell and lift charge...so I turned the tube over and tapped out the contents...out pops a wolf spider as big, if not bigger then any of my pet tarantulas...I had never seen one so big in person before, and the way it landed on the table, it almost seemed to have been dead...I took a moment to look a little closer, and it sprung to life, jumping right over my shoulder onto the shed wall behind me. I turned to see it quickly climb up into the rafters...woah! damn thing was quick!...now if only I could have taught my tarantulas to do that

It's Turner for me Truth be told all these artists are awsome, each in thier own way Ross has that classical retro semi-realistic look down, very eye catching...but it doesn't work for me. Lee is quite cool...but Turner beats him in edgyness...but then again, I'm not into superheros

they dont usually make prototypes clear, looks more like a limited edition or something, either way its rare so to TF fans, worth the price I just kind of woundering if any of you guy's knew any thing, because I read on one or two websites that clear one's like that are fake prototypes that people make in there spare time with out permission from the factory supervisers to make a quick buck. Maybe if this figure was recast in tinted clear blue resin...but not from the injection molding machines... Changeing the material (plastic) from one type to another is a fairly involved process...purgeing the old material completely out, loading the new stuff in, letting it get up to temperature, run through a couple of test shots and readjust the machine accordingly, make a few parts, purge the material back out, reload the correct material, get it up to tmperature, test shots and machine adjustments...that is a minimum of twenty minutes, minus the time spend produceing parts...ain't no way that you could do that on a factory floor without the boss knowing (then of course the "special" parts would need to go through the toy assembly lines to get built, as the folks on the molding machines don't perform that operation)