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M'Kyuun

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  1. M'Kyuun
    I shall never be accused of being a football fan, or any sport for that matter, but even I have heard of John Madden. he was the voice of pro-Football for years, and he always struck me as being a jolly giant of a man, especially in tv ads where he became known to me growing up. RIP
  2. M'Kyuun
    Thanks, Chris. I didn't see any projection, but that works for me. I've no doubt it'll release soon, and I rest easy knowing the payment is already done, as I've already had a couple things canceled due to not seeing the emails requesting payment on some previous products. I don't want this one to slip through my fingers due to my own inattentiveness. For now, it's a waiting game, and I'm good at waiting.
  3. M'Kyuun
    I searched the forums to see if there was already a topic dedicated to books we've read, or are reading, that made an impression, and came up with no pertinent results. So I'm starting a topic dedicated to good books, graphic novels, etc that was interesting for one reason or another and worth sharing. To kick it off, I'm currently reading Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. I'm only about a fifth of the way into it, but I'm finding it to be one of those reads that's both easy yet compelling. It's essentially a series of narratives set in three time periods- one in the mid fifteenth century Constantinople, one in 2020 Idaho, and one in a future period on a colony ship in space, all revolving around a central theme of Antonius Diogenes' eponymous utopian myth. The primary characters are all very well developed, and Diogenes' tale, the constant thread that ties all three narratives together, is itself a fun story as it's told little by little as the overarching narratives continue. I enjoy a read like this; there are usually esoteric bits of knowledge to be gleaned from such works if the author has done his or her due diligence, the interweaving of a constant thread amidst separate tales skillfully done is deeply gratifying, and an easily navigable prose unassailed by numerous tangents or difficult abstractions makes for a relaxing and absorbing read. The history of Diogenes' writings is itself interesting, as he wrote a series of tales, each beginning with one of the 24 letters in the Greek alphabet. Unfortunately, the original volume is lost to us, and what remains to us of this extensive work is a synopsis by another Greek writer named Photios in his own tome called Myriobiblos. With any luck, the original volume in its entirety will be discovered some day. For all the ancient writings we have, it's sad to think of the untold volumes of stories and knowledge lost to us through time by nature or the hand of man.
  4. M'Kyuun
    @slaginpit@mikeszekely Payment went through on the 21st. I'm not panicking so much as just wondering out loud why it didn't ship with payment made. I've waited this longfor it, and I find as I grow longer in the tooth, so to speak, my patience for such things grows longer as well. It'll get here eventually, I've no doubt: Showz hasn't let me down yet.
  5. M'Kyuun
    @Dobber Still waiting for Sci-Industry's Fiery Thunderbolt Helo to ship from Showz. Kinda curious what the holdup is on their end; the description on my orders page says, "all payment received; waiting for release", which strikes me a little odd if they have stock in warehouse, as that's generally what prompts them to ask for full payment. Has yours shipped, or are you waiting for release too? My Iron Factory take on Beachcomber shipped, and I paid for it right around the same time. I figured both would ship together, but apparently not.
  6. M'Kyuun
    Just got back from seeing it, and it was definitely another strong entry. Spiderman has long been one of my favorite Marvel heroes, so I have an ounce of bias when watching these movies. That said, I have to concur that the performances were strong, but I'm not as excited by introducing the whole multiverse idea. I think I'd prefer their keeping the stories in the here and now with a cossover character here and there. That said, it was a really fun and nostalgic jog to see so many former players from previous Spiderman films in this. Too, the story was well-written around the central choice that Holland's Spiderman makes as opposed to Dr. Strange's solution. It's a bolder and more interesting choice from a story-telling perspective to show allies in opposition rather than just portray them as always in agreement, and IMHO, this movie did it well. Anyway, the actors from the older films stepped flawlessly back into their roles, and it was great to see.
  7. M'Kyuun
    I love it when sets can be stored in their boxes with minimal teardown, as that's how 90% of my collection is stored. Takes up a lot of room, though, which has become the primary albatross concerning my hobbies. We like what we like, and I hope Titanic, big lady that she is, brings a sense of fulfillment. I never would have dared imagine that LEGO would make stuff like Titanic as a kid, nor the Architectural stuff, so I applaud them for stretching beyond the limitations of their more child-targeted themes. Of course, LEGO has been making more mature sets for decades, starting with their Expert Builder sets in the late 70s, moving on into Technic and Model Team in the 80s and 90s. I think, if not purposefully like today's adult-targeted sets, there was always the subconscious appeal of a lot of LEGO's more mature offerings early on that grabbed the attention of adults. Unfortunately, a lot of us kept our LEGO buying on the down-low for fear of ridicule. I did, but no more. I'm proud of my hobby, the wholesomeness and creativity that it offers. I wish I'd felt that way in my 20s.
  8. M'Kyuun
    The Titanic set lives up to its name. It's a cool set, but with limited space, and less interest for it than for other sets, like my glorious UCS AT-AT😍😍😍, I'm happy enjoying it vicariously. LEGO's botanicals are some neat sets, as well. I've been thinking about getting the Bonsai Tree. Ironically, we recently had a friend offer us the real thing, but hers is a rather large specimen, and we just have nowhere to put it where it would get the sun it needs, nor the pruning attention. So, the LEGO version seems even more appealing. Gotta pick up a few of those dk green Technic panels they used for leaves on the Bird of Paradise for a MOC I'm working on. Have fun with the Titanic- gonna be pretty sweet when it's done!
  9. M'Kyuun
    Looking forward to picking this set up. The combined mech is a little unrefined compared to any number of Bandai Super Robot offerings and combining Transformers over the years, but as LEGO's second combiner (Ideas Voltron was their first), and their first homegrown design, it's exciting for the promise of more to come, and hopefully a bit of engineering /parts evolution. I can only hope.😍 Note the new streamlined hip joint pieces, which I've been begging for for years, as well as the new socket joint, which appears to have more surface area in the cup, and hopefully, too, more friction than the piece it's replacing. I keep hoping they'll start making this piece again to accompany their Mixel joint system---so, so useful. I wish the new Lunar sets were releasing on the first as well, but I believe they're slated to release as part of the summer wave. Alas, Christmas provided me a few new 2021 sets to build, so I've still got plenty of bricks to click before 2022's bounty of new goodness arrives. There's a rumor that LEGO is going to be making Horizon: Zero Dawn sets, with an alleged listing for a 90 Euro Tallneck set having been spotted in a European retailers' catalog. Man, I hope so. LEGO is already set to resurrect their Overwatch license next year, which pleases me greatly, but I've been hoping for official H:ZD sets since having owned the game. There are some incredible MOCs of the various machine creatures from Zero Dawn that demonstrate how well LEGO lends itself to replicating the look of those designs, and it seemed a remarkable lost opportunity for LEGO to not pursue a license. However, with a second game set to launch very soon, I guess they felt it was successful enough to gamble on, or at least I hope so. Should the rumor prove true, I'll be getting most if not all the sets. Dreaming a little, but now that there's an agreement in place, LEGO's acquisition of the Macross license would be glorious in the extreme. I think it's extremely unlikely due to its relative anonymity outside of Asia, not to mention the challenging engineering involved, but like I said, it's merely a dream. hell, I'd be happy if they just resurrected the Exo-Force theme with better built bots.
  10. M'Kyuun
    Nice display- just oozes G1, with all the feels. I feel the same way so far as brand loyalty; I have none. I have preferences, but that's not the same thing. I buy every fig on its own merits and by how it strikes me. I have a few nitpicks, but little in the way of regret, which is about as close to content as you can be in this hobby. I'm just glad that Transformers existed past the 80s, that it has enjoyed such an evolution in engineering and quality, and that we have the privilege of choice often times with which iteration of a character(s) we want. It's beyond what I ever hoped for in my teens looking at my nigh-immobile G1 toys and dreaming of better.
  11. M'Kyuun
    I never met nor spoke with Derrick, but like many other artists who've had a strong impact on a show or franchise that I like, I appreciated his contribution with extreme gratitude. I didn't start off as a fan of Derrick's art direction, but between the visuals and Marty Isenberg's incredible storytelling, I quickly embraced Animated as one of my favorite entries in the TF Universe. I'm also a big fan of the toys that the show spawned, and greatly lament that neither fourth season, nor its toys, ever came to pass. Alas, Derrick was more than just an artist, and by all accounts he was a talented, fun guy who defended his work on his own behalf and the behalf of his fans. He himself was a fan, especially of Ben 10, for which he also contributed, and it makes me happy that as an artist, he had that opportunity to work on something for which he had a deep passion. My heart goes out to his family, friends, and fellow fans, for such a profound and untimely loss. Wherever he is now, I hope he's wearing an Omnitrix and enjoying the heck out of it.
  12. M'Kyuun
    Sad news: Derrick J. Wyatt has passed away Although his body of work wasn't limited to just Transformers: Animated, that show is how he became known to me. Love it or hate it, or at least the art direction he created for it, it made a mark on TF history for being something different, and the subsequent toys followed suit. Like many fans, I initially balked at the art design, but after watching the show and becoming a fan, I came to embrace it as one of my favorite takes on our beloved Robots in Disguise. That was all Derrick, and I'm thankful to this day that Hasbro took the gamble on that new direction. It certainly posed challenges for Takara, as they weren't designs easily translated to three-dimensional transforming toys, but IMHO, the majority of Animated toys did a fair to excellent job of capturing the nuances of the on-screen characters. They remain some of my favorite TF toys ever made, and take up a fair portion of my desk's real estate to this day, and for the foreseeable future. Thanks Derrick; you left a cool legacy, and you are lost to us, family, friends, and fans alike, way too soon. RIP good sir.
  13. M'Kyuun
    Cool how two different interpretations of the old parody follow the lyrics and tell the same story. The second one is especially well done, IMHO.
  14. M'Kyuun
    I may have jumped the gun- mine's also paid for, but I too am still waiting for a shipping notice. So, whichever of us receives it first will have to do a little write-up. I thought the J-20 was pretty well done, too, but I have no room for any more of this stuff (yet I keep buying it), so since it didn't totally "wow!" me, I passed on it, with a twinge of regret. But, I've long been a helo fan, and this guy was done so well, and that bot mode so striking, especially in color, that I couldn't let it go. I felt the same way about Dreamstar Toys' Harrier and F-16 figs in their very stylized take on the Aerialbots. We so seldom get good looking jets in the TF world, especially these two aircraft, so I took the plunge on both. Actually, I think all of them look pretty good except poor Silverbolt, who never seems to get a good looking jet mode devoid of the bot-box-under-a-Concorde treatment. Given what Dreamstar accomplished with the other team members, I expected their Silverbolt to be just as well done, but sadly no. Anyway, I'm looking forward to having all three of these toys in hand. That pic of Sci-Figure's Flanker has been around for a while, and I'm loving the design of the bot mode. If they can get the jet mode looking as realistic as they managed for their helicopter fig, I'm totally sold. The Flanker's a beautiful bird, and to have one that transforms into such a cool bot mode is most welcome.
  15. M'Kyuun
    Admittedly, I've never been a MotU fan; fantasy was never my jam. However, I have a soft spot in my heart for all toy makers- their creativity and imagination put into three-dimensional form makes the world a better place. Mr. Taylor certainly left a lasting legacy which I celebrate in spirit with all the true MotU fans. You had the Power, Mark. RIP
  16. M'Kyuun
    Oh this thing looks so cool! Mine's on its way from ShowZ, and I'm definitely looking forward to messing with it. This is the first I've seen it painted, but that matte black with metallic gold accents looks beautiful. this will be my first piece from this company, but I hope all other aspects are as good as the aesthetics. I'm hoping they'll roll out a proto for their Flanker concept a must-buy if it turns out as well as the Thunderbolt helo or the J-20. I'd love to see their take on the V-22 Osprey- funny the Soviets or Chinese haven't made their own version yet. a little something to further whet the appetite.
  17. M'Kyuun
    Seems like the old cast have fun doing these stop-motion shorts. They featured a couple of them prior to the '86 Movie in the theater, w/ Stan Bush singing a verse or two of The Touch. Stuff like this as well as Garry Chalk's and David Kaye's annual Christmas vids make this a fun fandom. Cool that they still have fun with it too, as let's be real, these were just paying gigs for them at the time, but they seem to have embraced it all these years later. That's good for all of us.
  18. M'Kyuun
    Of those I only own the Eva Unit 1 colored Lio Convoy, but the lion mode isn't the best. I skipped the other two you mentioned precisely for the reason you cited- the alt modes are way too abstract. I did recently get their Powerglide, and that's a neat little fig that has IF's usual artistic license, but is still recognizably Powerglide, at least in bot mode, with a nice-looking sci-fi jet alt. I've also got their Huffer, Beachcomber and Seaspray POed, as they all have nice looking alts. I feel a morsel of regret for not picking up some of their earlier G1 figs, especially Jazz, Sideswipe/Sunstreaker, Mirage, Hound, Wheeljack, Cliffjumper, Warpath, as well as their adorable Windblade, and their Bruticus. All of these hewed pretty close to the G1 alts and looked good. But at that time, I wasn't really into legends, focusing mostly on Hasbro's main line and some MP. Incedently, I was at a local vintage toy show/market a couple years ago, and a guy there had Titan class Metroplex and IF's Windblade. I wasn't interested in Metro, but I wanted that little WB; he wanted something like $75 for her, so I passed. He said he wanted to sell them as a pair anyway, given her role as City Speaker. But, I'm still a little regretful that I didn't pick her up back when she was first released.
  19. M'Kyuun
    Much obliged, good sir.
  20. M'Kyuun
    Magic Square's Ratchet looks leagues better than Takara's MP. Actually, they're knocking it out of the park with all these G1 figs. Really impressive at this scale, especially after so many years of mediocre to just plain bad legends scaled figs from Hasbro. I like a lot of what New Age has done, and are doing, but, Magic Square generally has more refined sculpts, better integration of joints, and generally better overall proportions. If I had to choose only one company, I'd have to go with MS on most of these figs. I guess the girl Seekers hits a niche market for the folks that like the girl wearing mecha/plane/tank/machine-of-choice as armor trope. Not really my thing. @Convectuoso Is there a site where these guys are being exhibited? Please share a link if you have one. Thanks!
  21. M'Kyuun
    It's hard to believe nearly four years have passed since LEGO released a couple waves of sets based on Overwatch, and then no more. Despite having never played the game, I was a fan of many of those sets, which were mecha-heavy, and lamented their absence in the successive years. Well, it appears that they haven't abandoned the license, and with a second game potentially releasing, amidst a number of high-profile departures at Blizzard including Overwatch designer and director Jeff Kaplan, LEGO has at least one tie-in set, based on the large mech in the trailer. There's an article and more pics over on The Brick Fan. While this looks a little anemic in comparison to the bulkier animation model, it's certainly recognizable, and on its own is a pretty cool anime-ish looking mech, which rightly floats my boat. I'm especially pleased to see the new 2022 Technic/ Exo-Force hybrid joints showing up here (I count at least four) used to create streamlined hips and shoulders. I can't say enough how excited I am that LEGO at long, long last have finally made these, and I can't wait to get them in my greedy paws to build something with them.🤤 Too, I love this bolder direction towards mecha models; these sets are ever increasingly looking more like MOCs than official mecha sets of the past, and I welcome the change. Add to this a no-kidding combiner mech coming out later next year in the Ninjago theme, and it's getting pretty exciting what LEGO is doing. I'm hoping a good-quality transforming mech will appear in the very near future; that would be a dream come true. For now, though, I'm just happy that they're doing stuff like the Overwatch Titan here, and Zane's excellent Titan Mech. LEGO have come a long way from and Now if they would just put knees on most of these. (Zane's Titan Mech does in fact have knees, BTW, but their appearance in mecha sets is still, frustratingly, an exception rather than the rule).
  22. M'Kyuun
    Not sure what they're waiting for. They showed their proto a couple years ago, which already looked pretty good to my eyes, and then went totally silent on any further development. It would have been great had they had the release coincide with the US showing of Macross Plus, putting a lot more effort behind promoting both, with at least a tv ad to promote it; had I not been on this forum, I never would have known about its release in theaters, so I'm thankful for this community. Anyway, Bandai has to be aware that there's demand for a YF-21, at least among its Asian audience. I don't think they really have a good gauge on the American audience, but judging by the rollout of M+, they're never going to achieve much of an audience without more widespread promotion and marketing. I think Plus was the most likely film, next to SDF:M, due to Robotech, to capture a Western audience, since the storyline mirrors the real-world ATF contest in the late 80s, which ultimately ended in our leaders choosing the wrong plane to be our next gen fighter. It's a shame they didn't promote it, and more of a shame that they didn't have a shiny new toy to make it more enticing. At this point I hope they didn't scrap what they had to go in a similar direction as Yamato, prioritizing the fighter over battroid, giving us yet another unbalanced looking b-mode with disproportionally skinny legs.
  23. M'Kyuun
    Yeah, it was time for a replacement, and I'm glad they went with this new neck bracket, which will, in true LEGO fashion, likely start showing up in other themes and in different colors. I don't mind it; it lets you see what's going on inside clearly, which works well from a toy perspective. Granted, you'll never see that amount of clear glass on a pressure vessel at the current limits of technology. Imagine how hot it would get in there if something went wrong and they were stuck facing sunward for any period of time. Yikes! These and the 2019 CIty Space sets are all inspired by actual and conceptual machines planned for NASA's intended lunar and Mars missions over the next decade(s), albeit with varying degrees of license on LEGO's part. I wish they'd exercised much more license with that rover, i.e., more this 😍 and much less this: 🤮 I was attempting to see what was so questionable about the 'misbegotten' SLS launcher you mentioned, but all I found were pics of the rocket they've been using, which looks like a typical rocket with two typical rocket boosters. Besides the basic phallic nature of rockets in general, nothing questionable. What were you referring to? Share the humor, man. Yep, the Mario bit has the CS logo on it. A studless verion of that was used on the UCS AT-AT to represent the second floor external hatch. There was a drilled hole found in one of the Soyuz capsules, as well. I didn't follow the story any further, so I'm not sure who they blamed. Given NASA's safety record compared to that of Roscosmos, they have some gall to throw any shade our way. Anyway, NASA astronauts have taken drills and drill-like tools into space for decades [the Hubble repair mission (STS 125) stands out], so it didn't seem odd or out of place at all when I saw the pic. In fact, I like the idea of putting tools into the sets, as repairs will always be a requirement in any human endeavor requiring machines and equipment, and it also harkens back to the old classic wrench/screwdriver from Classic Space. The recurring element I see in these new sets, as well as the 2019, is the new portal bit whose use was somewhat superfluous in some of the 2019 sets. it would have been nice if they'd made the effort for it to be a perfectly usable form of transit from model to model, but in some, like the Lunar Space Station and its mini-shuttle, it was more a point of simple docking without the ability to move a fig from one vessel to another. It was a serious missed opportunity for some cool realistic playability. Too, the fact that all those portals opened directly to 'space', without any sort of airlock to adjust for pressure was a bit disappointing. But I guess they don't expect kids at the lower end of the age recommendation to recognize certain physics realities. Not sure if I would have recognized them at 6 either, so The new Moon Station continues the trend, as I doubt it'll have an airlock either, and that rover certainly doesn't. God forbid that hatch springs any kind of leak, as the driver's only in shirtsleeves. We'll need a space mortuary set for all the dead astrofigs in the next wave. Sometimes, it sucks being an adult anchored more to practicality than imagination. Life was certainly more fun as a kid guided by imagination over science.
  24. M'Kyuun
    It would indeed.
  25. M'Kyuun
    Double post; Mods, please delete.
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