captain america

Could that not be explained as the nozzles simply them being at different stages of oxidation/heat discoloration? A slightly different material used depending on the particular variant's needs? I wouldn't look too deeply into it, it's just anime.

Yup. Resin models are like wild flowers: beautiful but breif, and when they're gone, they're gone. This is why I encourage people to regularly keep an ear to the ground, so-to-speak.

Indeed. What truly boggles my mind is that it has 4 engines for foreward thrust, but only four blades on the main rotor, whereas the Hind has five. It's a mystery wrapped in a dirty lymrick, I tells ya!!

Absolutely. I'm also trying to figure out what can (realistically) be crammed into the ventral weapons bay... Anyone got the dimensions for 500lb iron bombs?

Thanks, that means a lot to me. It really does. That having been said, Wave has a very interesting creative opportunity here, and I for one am curious to see what they come up with. Also, we still don't know what it will cost, or whether the kit will be an orphan or if they will do all the other Destroids with common leg parts.

Stickers are a piece of cake: take a small cup with some water and add 2-3 drops of dishwashing liquid & stir. Before you go & apply the sticker, take a small sponge or a brush and wet the area of the plastic with the soapy water, place the sticker down & manoeuver it into place. Once it's where you want it, just apply pressure to get all the water out from under the sticker

While I no longer have the masters for the Tomahawk, I do believe that the current owner has designs on re-releasing it. I had put much foreplanning into making sure my sculpts were accurate to the lineart (or at least, as close as they can be with all the inconsistencies,) which is why I'm so perplexed as to why they keep trying to re-proportion the wheel, so to speak. While Wave might get "lucky," and make it look appealing to some, as soon as one starts to deviate from the original source material, one treads a slippery slope with the fans. Trust me, I know I can get away with that sort of controversy because I'm an artist, and I cater to a very, very small group of people with particular interests, but I'm not quite so sure that the same formula would be successful when applied to a corporation looking to offer a product on an industrial scale.

Which would only be sensible, since the lower body is way too wide-set and bulky; quite perplexing, especially given that there are front/side/rear diagrams that exist for it. Come to think of it, the 1/60 toy isn't accurate to the line-art either...

Yup, I know exactly what you mean. It looks like the sidewall flares out toward the bottom in the 3/4 view because of the panel line, but the font view the sides look flat. The natural conclusion: the panel is not perfectly vertical, but oblique. See my previously posted diagrams

With regards to being too skinny, I would have to say no, as my own plots were made directly off of the scaled lineart of the frontal view, and I even added an extra mm in thickness just to be safe. The canopies on the other hand are a tad bubblier (as seen in profile) than what the lineart depicts; I told myself that it would be safer to start off with something that has more volume, and depending on how they start to look when I flesh them out, I still have the option of flattening them a bit; always easier to remove than to add. At any rate, once I start posting progress pics, you'll be able to see things more clearly. As with almost everything else in the Macross lineart, the 3/4 front and 3/4 rear views of the Commanchero contradict themselves on certain shapes/proportions, so creative interpretation is a necessity.

Sadly, not even that: I picked-up an Italeri Hind kit yesterday, just to see if there might be some parts I could borrow, but it's essentially useless junk. Oh well, more scratchbuilding for me

Yes, that's totally feasible and logical. As Grayson72 mentioned also, they would still need a means by which to get the missiles into the helicopter, hence the need for the lower weapons bay. At the very least, there could be a type of automatic breach-loading system allowing missles to be transfered/fired out the port-side pod for air-to-air missiles, but alternately, that weapons bay could also be configured to carry air-to-ground ordinance, depending on the specific mission. Either way, I feel that the Commanchero gains from that weapons bay. MechTech: yup, I agree, the design doesn't really make sense, but oh well, I didn't design it, I just have to make it believeable

I interpreted that to mean that the port-side (helicopter's left) fairing contains a missile firing mechanism, as evidenced in the below image by the black, circular muzzle-looking thing. Nothing new there. What I added to the design was a centrally-mounted ventral weapons bay, similar to what you'd have on an F-111: it would be just deep enough to hold two drop-launch missiles or iron bombs. comanchero.bmp

THe "stock" color scheme on Ozma's "skull one" is absolutely terrible; I'd have harsh words for whomever came up with that part-time art student wannabe mess.

Definitely a Hind! Here are the comparative diagrams between the Commanchero and the Hind, just to show you what a whale this bird is!

http://www.new-un-spacy.com/sdfmacross/comanchero.htm

September 13th update. I've spent most of the day drafting the blueprints from the Commanchero, so far so good. One of the things that troubled me about this gunship is its size: it seems to have an arsenal similar to that of an AH-64,but is literally almost as large as an Mi-24, and is actually wider at the fuselage than a Hind, due to the lateral placement of the engines. This was causing me some concern, as I couldn't for the life of me understand why the bird needed to be so large. By scrutinizing the line art, there didn't seem to be any sort of troop carrying capability; no room for a lateral door, sliding or otherwise, once again due to the engine placement. As a result, I came up with an interesting idea: why not give the Commanchero an internal weapons bay? So I did! I figured that this little option, while not necessarily canon, would justify the use of such a large helicopter,giving it substantially greater either air-to-air or air-to-ground attack capbilities. I will likely finish the dagrams by tomorrow, and will be committing to Ren-Shape by Wednesday. Stay tuned

Agreed. While my opinion may not count for much, the last few pictures at the bottom of the original post showing the unpainted plastic toy make me prefer it over the overly lankily- proportioned model kit.

I wholeheartedly agree, 1/32 is just way too big and would push the price-point over the practical edge of affordability. On the other hand, a 1/48 VF-25 would be feasible as a Perfect Grade; round about the size of the Zeta Gundam... Assuming they ever decided to go that route.

I honestly wouldn't know, since I have no data or means of comparatively gauging each series' popularity. That having been said, Evangelion was a non-Gundam series, it was different, risky, and yet Bandai promoted and supported the hell out of it, so it just goes to show that if Bandai sense the possibility of gain from pushing something, Gundam-related or not, they will do it. That having been said, in my 20+ years of buying Gundam product, or just about anything from Bandai, I've noticed that they like to test the waters with lower price-point skus, and if those are successful, they go up a notch with the skus. If anything, I would tend to think that the current crappy outlook on the global economy would be the greater reason for their not going PG... But that's just me.

Actually, I think it was literally THE first Perfect Grade. The very first run came with a gimmicky credit card type thing too.

I could accomodate almost double that, but another dozen couldn't hurt. I will start drafting plans for the Commanchero on Monday. I also plan to pick up a 1/72 Mi-24 to see if there could be some interesting parts to scavenge for the sake of realism and parts commonality.

I guess it would be unrealistic to expect Bandai to give the VF-25 the Perfect Grade treatment?

It's not made yet. Demand seems to be pretty disappointing up to now.

As I had tried to say back on the SM forum before Rob so rudely spoke on my behalf and promptly locked the thread, I'm certainly not opposed to the idea if I can find enough people willing to buy one... And provided that Hasegawa doesn't beat me to the punch