M'Kyuun
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I agree with your suggestion for the leg (strong VB-6 vibe), and I think the wings will fold onto the battroid's back, in similar fashion as the SV-51. The case for the arms lying along the spine and and lower central fuselage, with the vertical stabs attached to the arms (there's a corresponding vertical stab on the lower fuselage as well) seems very plausible, even likely. I can see a hinge at the base of the stab where it will likely fold to be kibble or form a shield. From a practical standpoint, it doesn't make logical sense to utilize a primary flight control surface as a bullet catcher in battroid, but then again this is Macross. The same can be said for the YF-19, having your primary lift surfaces dangling off the legs by a single small pivot point...one little snag and tear, and your fighter mode is moot. Anyway, this speculation is fun, but I'm ready to see this thing in battroid.
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The only remaining XB-70 was towed into her new home last week at the National Air Force Museum near Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Oh. I was there a couple years ago, and unfortunately, due to budget sequestration and space limitations, a number of aircraft were not available for public viewing, including the YF-23, JFK's modified Boeing 707 Air Force One, and the XB-70. They recently completed a new hangar, and this video shows the Valkyrie being towed in. Still a majestic bird. Watching that tow team gives me a warm-fuzzy. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to return in a another year or two- definitely recommend to anyone remotely interested in aircraft, USAF history, or just aviation in general.
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I was thinking that the engines are actually within the legs on either side of the feet, but the angle of the pic doesn't show. For the battroid, that would make sense. Interesting that the canopy is completely opaque, which makes me think the little diamonds in their hair may be a telepresensence transmitter/receiver, essentially a more advanced version of the YF-21's BDI system. Can't wait to see battroid. I still think the intakes are going to form the chest, a la YF-21, and the small squarish blocks behind the intake are going to be swivel blocks for the shoulder, like the -25, and the shoulder pauldrons are the large section that form the fuselage behind the intake. I imagine the arm itself either folds, or inserts into the leg. All conjecture, but I guess we'll see.
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I think Kawamori took what worked on the 25 and the 30, and made a hybrid of the two designs in the 31. The 30 has a novel transformation based around the waist swivel, but the alignment of head, shoulder, and hip was off a bit on that valk, and as much as I wanted to like it, it just didn't appeal to me enough to get one. Looking at the pics of the 31, I'm finding it far more appealing, if derivative. I wish he'd gone a different direction from Frontier on both Delta valks, but at least the 262 will allegedly be different. I hope so. The valks are really what make Macross so appealing to me, and a huge part of that comes from the design differences from valk to valk. Also, is it me, or is the missile container missing in battroid? You can see it in the fighter pics, but I don't see it in the battroid...just a lot of empty space due to the angle of the backpack. I know a lot of folks here don't care for the 25's wing configuration in battroid, but I like it quite a bit; I imagine his HFH based it off of Renaissance depiction of angels. And, it was called the Messiah. Just thinking in text. Gotta say, I like the paint job on that sample...something about blue, white, and gray. Really nice. That red stripe on the canards/shoulder armor really pops from the rest of the thing.
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That sentiment goes for most fighters, due to compact fit of damned near everything, and also for large aircraft. I was an Aircraft Pneudraulics Technician in the AF with experience on the MC-130E , the B-1B , and the KC-135R & T models. The B-1, for its size, was not designed with maintenance in mind in the slightest (except engines...abt 2 hrs with a good team), and why should it be?: Rockwell sold it to our AF Brass saying it would never break, and it was self-diagnosing. The first is blatantly false, and the second to an extent. I could rant about that POS for hours, but I digress. My point, most aircraft are generally liked or loved by the crews, or the pilots at any rate, with Maintenance generally taking a more diplomatic view based on personal experience (mileage varies). That said, I knew a number of old-timers who gleefully recounted the hardships of working some of the old planes, esp F-4s, B-52s, and F-111s, like battle hardened warriors who'd fought the good fight, not without scars to prove it. I still have scars on my fingers from the B-1. I absolutely hated working on that plane, but I still can't help but feel a small pang of pride when I see footage of them bombing the crap out of some a-holes who've earned our ire. Just the way of things, I guess. On topic, Good God, I hope Delta isn't M7 part 2. I've not seen 7, nor will I probably ever, but the garishness of it, plus pacifistic singing pilots, just go against the very grain of military bearing and mindset. I hope there's more of a Plus feeling to it; I loved the grittier, more mature feel of Plus, not to mention it mirrored the real life competition between the YF-22 and YF-23. Macross of late doesn't seem to have that edge about it, other than the death of Michael in Frontier. The poster makes me think this'll be another light-hearted anime with more silliness than seriousness, but I hope it's at least in equal parts. Hopefully, too, it'll be streamed with some decent subtitles. As for the 262 itself, I get a little YF-21 vibe from the forward fuselage, so I'm wondering if the intakes form part of the chest. Hopefully, all will be revealed soon.
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The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread
M'Kyuun replied to slaginpit's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
MP-10 is already a good size. Mp-01 was a nice big chunky fig, but he took up a bit of space. Moreover, I imagine Uber-Prime is gonna cost a pretty penny, and given all the choices we have these days, I'd sooner spring for one of the combiners, the Dino bot sets, or just figs that Takara likely will never produce. For those who bite, though, I hope it's a nice figure. -
The old F-4....quite a bird in its day. But yeah, it's a brick. I'd like to see Kawamori do an A-10 based valk...I don't care what kind of story he'd have to make up to justify it. For now, I'm happy with Combiner Wars Powerglide. I'd also love to see a Ho-229 based valk...really old school, but a flying wing valk would be different from just about anything else he's done, other than the FBz-99G, which is one of his weakest designs IMHO-quite fugly. If he could incorporate the legs into a really streamlined aircraft, that would be a must-have valk. There are so many 5th and 6th gen concepts and designs that would be great to see in valk form... a helicopter would be nice to see, too. I still like his Gazette (TF Whirl) design from Dorvack. I'd also welcome a Macross installment where the story is more terrestrial...maybe a rogue group of Zentraedi have a land claim that's in dispute, requiring variable tanks to fight the big guys in their new variable battle pods, or variable motorcycle armor. I just want more transforming vehicle types in the Macross universe. Like everyone else, I'm really curious to see the SV-262's transformation into battroid; I hope it's unconventional and cool.
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+1 I never cared for the design, but I do like that Kawamori is looking at some of the old fighters for inspiration and variety. I hope the SV-262 surprises with a novel transformation. Though I'm not crazy about the plane itself, I like the two-tone grey scheme with the big orange 1 on the wing...sharp. One other thing I just thought of; by virtue of the legs containing the engines, it looks like the 262 will have two exhausts rather than the single engine exhaust of the Draken. Two engines are preferable...in real world and Macross.
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Shelby's a worthy grail. A fully poseable G1 Prowl was my longtime grail toy; fulfilled by MP Prowl My grail now is to have all the bots from the first season of Transformers in MP form in the current scale, esp a new improved seeker design. Macross-wise, a new improved all-around well proportioned YF-21 to match Arcadia's YF-19, the Variable Glaug, and VF-14
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Man, I used to have the BT vs Airwolf debate all the time with a kid I knew in middle school. At the time, I had a fascination with helicopters, and read a number of books about the mechanics of flight and the structure of the rotor drive mechanisms and such. Anyway, Blue Thunder seemed very plausible, whilst Airwolf was a lovely piece of fantasy. I'm not an engineer or a metallurgist, but I'd say the majority of helicopters in existence, if equipped with the means to achieve Mach by virtue of JATO or some such mechanism, would suffer catastrophic failure of the rotor, or the main shaft, due to the stresses, especially in turns. However, given our knowledge of carbon nano-tube structures, high grade steel, titanium, and various alloys, the feasibility of producing a chopper capable of supersonic speeds is currently considerable, in my uneducated opinion. But, given the helicopter's traditional roles, where maneuverability takes precedence over speed, I doubt many companies are interested in building one or I imagine we would have seen a couple attempts by now. I'm not aware of any.
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Bandai Gobots/Machine Robo Series Toy Thread
M'Kyuun replied to David Hingtgen's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
I was never too crazy about the deluxe Gobots, as most just used the cabin as a head. Deluxe Spay-c is different in that respect, and yeah, looks better than the small version. Even though the new design borrows from the smaller version, I still like it. I also like the SR-71, even iif the main fuselage is full of hinges; it's better than the bot under a plane design that Takara, and Hasbro by default, generally go with. Anyway, I like most of these, and hope they are still planned for production. That Leader-1 alone would be worth their while to produce...pretty sweet. -
I'm happy with my 2 Yamato VF-4s, but I would have considered an Arcadia had they modified the shoulders to articulate, and maybe lengthen the forearms enough to retract the posable hands in fighter. As a straight re-release, I'll pass. I'm happy for those who didn't get one the first time around, though, and at lower prices to boot...lucky bast@rds!
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"I always imagined Star Wars vehicles as space vehicles. Sure, they might be able to move around in atmosphere, but for the most part they're natural environment, and full maneuvering capabilities are in space..." -Myk Still, space vehicles are basically existing in a suspension, requiring a method of achieving thrust in all directions around the craft in order to maneuver, start, and stop. Most SW vehicles have apparent thrust mechanisms for forward thrust, but that's about all. The Millennium Falcon demonstrates landing vectoring jets when touching down on Bespin, but real world examples such as that are few and far between in SW. Much of SW is easy to swallow if you concede that they have mastered various ways of controlling, manipulating, and nullifying gravity by virtue of tech we have yet to discover and develop. If a certain Ben Rich quote is true, the knowledge and tech already exists.
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Good old Blacktron...classic. I bought the LEGO version of the FA X-Wing; aside from the rear engine attachment, the wing structures are pretty solid, including the splitting mechanism. As for the X-Wing's hypothetical real world structure and aerodynamics, the thing that sticks in my mind is that it has VTOL capability without any obvious means of achieving it...after that, it's all sci-fi materials and physics to me. Anything's possible on film; I accept it, I enjoy it, and I hope it inspires some really smart people to turn it into scientific reality (hopefully within my lifetime).
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LEGO and t-shirts pretty much comprise my Star Wars purchases, besides the tickets for the upcoming movie. I honestly don't think they'll be worse than the Prequels..they set their own bar for terribleness, although in all fairness, some of the ship/mech designs were cool, it had pretty visuals, some cool lightsaber action, and Ewan McGregor did a good job as Obi-wan IMHO. Hell, they could make a stand alone series, the Obi-wan Chronicles, showing his adventures in the years immediately following the fall of the Jedi and the formation of the Empire, with Ewan reprising the role, and I'd be interested in watching that. That would make a nice series for Disney. I truly hope Ep VII is awesome; J.J. Abrams seems pretty passionate about Star Wars, and from the trailers, I definitely get an old school SW vibe. If he can maintain it , throw in a little new stuff, and tell a good story in the process, then I'll be satisfied. In the meantime, Dave Filoni and crew are doing a good job with Rebels...great show.
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The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread
M'Kyuun replied to slaginpit's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
I like both third party versions, although my preference is for the beefier Gun Dog. That said, as a collector and fan of the G1 MP figs, I'm more inclined to wait for Takara's official releases. Producing all the car robot figs seems to be the direction they're heading. If I had the ducats to throw at all these third party releases, I'd go for the figs that Takara likely won't produce, such as the remaining Dinobots, Reflector, IDW designs, the triple changers, etc. I broke down and bought Apollyon, since it may be years before Takara gets around to making a G1 MP Megatron v2, which will never be available in the Us b/c of gun /toy safety laws. I'm on the fence to get XTransbot's Eligos ( I really like Cyclonus' design, esp his space plane mode...so sweet), but I've held back since TF: The Movie toys seem to be part of Takara's focus right now, and we may get an official version. Still, XTransbots did a nice job on their version. -
Odd to hear the Major's voice from all previous incarnations coming from a different character. Looks good, but nothing really new or groundbreaking. SAC ended too soon.
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I'm going to side with the folks here who don't think this measures up, esp for what they're charging. As much as I'd like to have a VF-2ss on the shelf, I don't find this toy appealing in any mode; they obviously ignored the various criticisms levied early on, many of which, had they been addressed, would have substantially improved the final version. As such, I'll save my money for a superior toy from either Bandai or Yamato (or for more LEGO). I will give a bit of credit, though: I like their swing bar solution to positioning the legs; however, implementation is visually offensive. Surely they could have found a way to blend it in with the lower fuselage rendering it nearly invisible. Guess not. I look forward to the reviews from those who keep their preorders. Hopefully it makes up in solidarity what it lacks in aesthetics.
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At the mention of space shuttle, I was reminded that Bandai and Action Toys were going to produce a number of MP-styled Machine-Robo (Gobots) figures, as shown back in Feb at the C3 Game and Toy Show in Hong Kong. http://news.tfw2005.com/?s=machine+robo I was looking forward to picking up a few of them, but I've not seen any news about them since they were first revealed. According to TFW2005, when they covered the show, estimated release on the figs was June. Since there's been relatively no news surrounding these guys, I hope they weren't scrapped. I'd love to have their versions of Leader-1, Spay-C, Snoop, Cy-Kill, and Fitor. Probably the rest, too...
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Good luck in your hunt; I hope you find one at a reasonable price, or at least a price that won't bring regrets later. As for the VB-6, personally, its uniqueness among the usual fighter/bomber designs sets it apart. Moreover, it's also unique, along with the Variable Glaug, in that it didn't start out as a transformable mech, but was redesigned as such by Kawamori. Among the Macross designs, this is one that was unlikely to ever get the toy treatment due to its size and complexity, not to mention stability and structural integrity, and yet we're fortunate to have had two toys produced. I'm glad to own both versions, as each offers something different. Perhaps, seeing one "in the flesh" will change your mind about getting one yourself. I hope the opportunity presents itself. In any case, come what may, best of luck. -M'Kyuun
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Yes...mine is always in battroid. I love the design and look of it. Always have. The Yamato version was quite literally a dream come true. As for future Bandai projects, I don't know what's in the pipeline anime-wise, but I hope it's something different from the VF-25/Frontier aesthetic. The VF-25 is one of my favorite valks, and I love the design, but pretty much everything Frontier-related shared a similar design aesthetic. For the sake of variety, I hope the next designs from Mr. Kawamori are distinctly different, but still beautiful. My personal wish list for 1/60 toys would be the Variable Glaug, the VF-14, the Octos, the BG-5C Fatman (very obscure cargo plane design, but cool nonetheless), the Versten Ve-88 (another obscure design. I love twin boom aircraft, and this design is pretty neat), the VF-9 Cutlass (one of Kawamori-san's most complex designs. While I generally find GERWALK modes to be pointless and unappealing, oddly I find the VF-9's G-mode more appealing than the battroid. It would make for an interesting toy, I think). The VF-5000 would also be a nice addition to the 1/60 collection.
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Well, as with any product, the user's mileage may vary. My Yamato still stands tall on my desk. The arm joints are a little loose, although they never were really that tight to begin with. However, overall, the thing still locks together well in all modes, and presents well still. I also have the recent Bandai re-release, and it's a a better toy overall, although the feet are not as lineart accurate as the Yamato. Bandai had the luxury of learning from Yamato's mistakes; their version employs ratchets throughout the toy to excellent effect, has a much more streamlined and lineart accurate shuttle mode, and is more stable, esp in battroid, in large part due to their deviation from the original foot design wherein the heels and feet are joined and move as one unit, which allows the entire leg to move forward at a greater angle allowing the engine exhaust panels to clear the ground. The Yamato's follows the lineart in this respect; the Bandai version attaches the two heels laterally to the leg itself rather than to the foot assembly, and in battroid the exhaust panels are used as a heel, which increases its stability, but sacrifices its lineart accuracy, aesthetics, and a bit of poseability. Given a choice, I'd have to recommend the Bandai; overall, it's a superior toy.
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Good dream, that; Disney has the financial clout to either buy out HG, or outlast them in the courts. Moreover, they've already demonstrated interest in Anime by bringing over Studio Ghibli's works; however, Macross doesn't really fit their target audience. But they could release the various parts of the Saga through Touchstone, and eventually make them available, fully dubbed, for the NA market. Concerning comments on the aesthetics of the VF-4's battroid, I find it interesting that some here find it ugly; I'm quite the opposite in my thinking...I love the way it looks. My only beef with the Yamato version is the lack of shoulder articulation, severely hindering arm movement, which is contrary in the utmost to what one would desire in a combat machine of this type. Yamato also made their battroid a little lankier than the lineart suggests, a compromise they made to edify the fighter's aesthetics. To their credit, it boasts one of the finest fighter modes of any valk. I'm happy to see Arcadia making it available again, although I'd also be happy, if not tempted to buy another, if they modified the shoulders to articulate. Hopefully this mold will see more life in various paint schemes. I doubt it, but one can hope. In the end, I hope everyone who wanted a copy but missed out on original issue manages to get at least one this time around. Good luck!
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The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next
M'Kyuun replied to mikeszekely's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
JBO, so true. For a flagship brand, its scarcity in stores makes me wonder what Hasbro's strategy is for making money from them. Moreover, it seems to take a long time for them to show up when they do make a fleeting appearance. I'm also liking the new Voyager Galvatron; leaps and bounds better than the Classics Deluxe version. -
The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next
M'Kyuun replied to mikeszekely's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Ugh, no. I saw the Sentinel Prime, and for a moment I thought the same thing. And seeing how bad the shuttle is, and how even more egregiously terrible the 'train' mode is, I immediately tried to un-think it. Astrotrain needs his own mold so they can make him look like a proper realistic shuttle and a realistic train. At least they tried with the Classics version.