Mog

If I was to remake the Alpha or the Legioss, there's a few things I would do to improve the build. If at all possible, I would try to stay with the general look and sculpt of the Toynami/Imai version, but improve the following: 1) Get rid of the die-cast in the arms; it weighs them down unnecessarily. 2) Find a way to make the shoulders/missile launchers rachet-jointed. Anyone that's handled an Alpha knows how frustrating the Floppy Arm Syndrome can get. 3) Redesign the hands, and make them out of much more solid material (POM perhaps?). 4) Either ratchet-joint the hips, or make the design similar to the hips on the Yamato 1/60 YF-21. The Alpha/Legioss has practically the same transformation sequence as the YF-21 in that hip joint area. 5) Try to make the landing gears just a little bit longer. It's shameful that there's so little clearance between the ground and the Alpha/Legioss chest. 6) Either try to make the design tolerances a little more forgiving to get a nice and tight fit in fighter mode. Or up the bloody hell out of the quality control. The last one will probably be the hardest, but it's probably the one that's most responsible for a lot of the problems. The Toynami/Imai Alpha is a fairly complex design. And one screw-up at the factory can lead to a crooked or improper fit at the head, arms that can't open because they were glued shut, a torso that keeps collapsing in battloid because someone didn't glue it properly, weak hip joints that allow the whole upper body's weight to flop over if the legs are positioned too far to the front or back, ugly gaps in the fighter mode because some part won't collapse properly, and a host of other mild to downright massive flaws.

I'd still like to see how CM's Tread looks panel-lined. Especially since it appears to have more lines and grooves etched on it than the Toynami Beta.

Pffft , try having your Yammies survive a real, genuine California earthquake!! -- As I posted last summer, I came home after a somewhat minor earthquake and found my FP'ed Stealth VF-1J had taken a nice little 5-foot stage dive onto the wood floor. The good news: other than a few FP items popping off, she didn't take any real damage at all. -- My 1/48 GBP-armored VF-1J Hikky also took a stage dive that day. It looked like a worse fall with a bunch of various armor pieces and missiles scattered all about. Although one of the legs had popped off at the hip, everything else on the Hikky and GBP was undamaged and was easily put back into place (including the popped-off leg). -- The biggest surprises? 1) The Q-Rau and 1/60 V1 Valk I have posed on flexidisplays didn't budge or nothing. 2) My FP'ed 1/48 Roy shares the same bookcase that the Stealth and Hikky fell off of, and yet that drunken bastard Roy was still standing tall at the end of the day, totally unaffected by some little earthquake!

Minmei: <unintelligible, annoying, self-centered diatribe> Hikaru: <SLAP!!> ************************************************************************* <After Isamu finally apologizes about wrecking his high school plane> Guld: "You owe me 11 lunches." That's probably the only line where the English dub was better than the original Japanese script.

Finally saw the missing Webisode 9. ....So, THAT'S what Baltar whispered in "Butterfingers" Gaeta's ear.

Considering how practically all the other missile launchers are forward facing, I figure that yellow array is used to surprise anyone who gets behind the Tread and thinks they got her dead-to-rights............Surprise! A missile is coming straight at you!

^^I believe DarrinG is talking about the missiles that are supposed to pop up and out of the Tread's/Beta's blue shoulders. On the CM's, in addition to the missiles stored right behind the white chest areas, there's also a cache of missiles hiding in the dorsal/blue shoulder areas of the Tread. These missile racks (which are missing on the Toynami Beta) are directly behind the "MB" and "21" in the picture above. EDIT: Shouldn't the numbering on the Tread be "07" instead of "21"? Unless, this is supposed to represent the Tread that Stig initially crash-landed in.

Personally, me likey this one: Simple, yet effective pose and shot, with everything nicely in focus (including the image on the reflective surface!).

In case anyone's been holding out on purchasing the UBP's, they're selling at Target now for $38-and-change.

Starting with my absolute favorites of 2008: Two 1/60 YF-21's (Loved that bastard love-child so much, I had to make a custom out of the second one!) One long-awaited Beta (She may have her flaws, but DAMN is she a beaut'!! ) After being treated to these two awesome mechas, everything else was pretty much gravy for the year. But just for the record: 28+ GI Joe figures (excluding additional customizing fodders); and Only 3 Star Wars figures (the two Imperial Knights and the accurately-scaled Grievous). I think Star Wars had a bit of a "down" year on the action figure front. Undoubtedly, they kicked ass on the vehicle front. But I just don't have the space to collect all those nicely detailed vehicles and crafts.....Plus, I think the wife would kill me!

Yup, I remember those pics. Sam, your customized connecting boom actually made CM's fighter combo look respectable. All trash-talking aside, the simplest thing CM's could've done was modify the stock connecting boom and make the Legioss sit higher up. It would've made one hell of an improvement. Of course, then I'd still be griping about the exposed tailfins and the just-hanging-up-there Tread missile rack.

Here's the link izzyfcuk was talking about: Linky. Admist the minor overkill of photoshop pics, there's some really good nuggets of info--almost a tutorial if you will--about taking shots and doing lighting and mini-studio set-ups. Best basic/beginner tips I personally learned over the years: Use the macro function, especially for the detailed/close-up pics. Never, NEVER use flash. Use a tripod or some kitbashed (but solid) stand to stablize and settle your camera on. Read your digital camera's manual and learn about some of your camera's advanced/rarely-used features (You'll be surprised by what your camera is capable of!). After doing Number 4, experiment with numerous shots at different settings, angles, lightings, etc. (Don't worry; if it's crap you can just delete the pic. But you'll never learn what works best, unless you experiment a little.). P.S.--The above tips were for some of the newer folks here on the board. Your photo-taking skills and pics are already solid, Vegas!

It's gonna be interesting to see what color-scheme and surprises you have in store for us, Wicked. Looking forward to more updates!

I don't really think it's intentional. Yes, there might be an optical illusion of a slight upward slope because of the paint scheme. But on some of the Alphas I own, the nose and dorsal parts of the fighter look straight. But with my Shadow Alpha, which sports a solid-colored nose? Its got that banana-back look. Something's probably not collapsing/connecting properly somewhere. As has been said before, the tolerances to get the Alpha into a tight/almost gap-less fighter mode are pretty small. It's a flaw in the design and/or how the factory assembled the Alphas.

Yeah, it's called Knights of the Old Republic.

Which is truly unfortunate, since there's still a ton of untapped schemes for the non-VF-1 mecha fighters. Just on this board alone, there's the Dobber scheme for the SV-51, Wicked Ace's Vampires scheme (was that the correct name?) for the YF-19, takatoys' Roy scheme also for the YF-19, my own Blackjack scheme for the YF-21, Scream Man's DYRL Max scheme for the VF-0, Kurt's Enigma scheme for the VF-0, and Wicked's Sundowners scheme for the VF-0. Off the top of my head, Yamato could still do any of the following non-canon schemes for non-VF-1 fighters: * Low-Viz Grey; * Black/Stealth (at least for the -21 and Zeros); * VF-X schemes; * Blue Angels; * Roy schemes; * Minmei Guard (or should those be Sara Nome Guard, Sharon Apple Guard, and Basara Assassin/Hit Squad )

Or we'll have anime-inaccurate toys with a plethora of QC issues that cost three-times what they're currently going for. Competition is good for us consumers/collectors.

The Dobber Scheme strikes back!!! Very nice.

Yeah, it's one of the four or so songs that would be randomly picked as you're racing around the track ("Lose Control" and Garbage's "As Heaven is Wide" were the only two that I still remember fondly). I also loved Maniac Street Preacher's "Everything Must Go," which is the intro music for the US release of GT1. Hell, GT2 had a solid soundtrack too: * Cardigan's "My Favourite Game"; * Apollo 440's "Cold Rock the Mic"; * STP's "Sex Type Thing"; and * Garbage's "I Think I'm Paranoid" Good ol' fashioned balls-to-the-walls music that makes you wanna drive fast! Heck, the GT soundtracks inspired me to burn my own CD of fast driving music.

I still remember playing the original Gran Turismo and being totally blown away by the kick-ass guitar riffs of Ash's "Lose Control." Always got a little more excited for a race when I heard that TIE Fighter flyby start up in the background!

Well, a few folks on this board have upped the color-scheme numbers for the YF-19 and YF-21, thanks to their custom efforts. But it kinda sucks that the 1/48 VF's and the old school chunkies are the only ones that seem to have a plethora of custom paint jobs out there.

Ahh, much better! My display is finally complete*. * I left myself some extra shelf space for that other blue Beta I'll eventually purchase.

So, after watching each webisode and their related commentaries, I think it's safe to say that any shred of interest I may have had in Underworld 3 has been crushed by having to sit through that bloody trailer each and every frakkin' time!!! Who's bright idea was it to have that trailer pop up every single time (without fail) when we decide to click a webisode link? Yeah, yeah, advertising and such. But is pissing off your target audience the best way to generate interest in your film? There's no chance it would cause a backlash and blow up in the marketers' faces, would it? Heck, why not add a Quizno's survey at the end of each webisode too for good measure? I'LL KILL YOU!!! ALL OF YOU!!!!!! (Well at least Sci-Fi's or BSG's marketing folks ).

The shelf's about chest or shoulder high for me. So, it's probably somewhere around 5.5 feet high. The Stealth Valk did take a stage dive off another bookshelf during the last earthquake here in Cali'. Parts came off (mostly the FP items). But nothing broke or was seriously damaged. Since this pic was taken, the Alpha/Beta's been moved to my home desk. I didn't like how crowded the shelf looked with the three sharing the same space. Plus, I'll probably want to display the combo at an angle other than head-on. As for the Blackjack, I'm just a little concerned. Chances are it will probably just collapse onto the shelf itself with minimal to very minor damage during another similar-sized earthquake. So, I'm not too stressed about what may or may not happen with the remaining Macross birds.

Hopefully, God has a sense of humor, or I'm royally screwed with this next caption: Father, Son, and Holy Combo