mechaninac
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Everything posted by mechaninac
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Purely speaking as someone who lives in the US... How good HLJ's price ends up being will depend on the exchange rate at the time the payment is due. Anyone who preordered with NY when it first went up will be charged just under $400 with EMS shipping regardless of what the Dollar-Yen ration happens to be then. HLJ's price is given in Yen and works out to $330.45 sans shipping as of today. The question is, once shipping is factored, will HLJ's 25,700 Yen beat NY's price in December? That will depend on a lot of outside factors between now and then that will affect the value of the Dollar and the price of oil (US elections, EU PIIGS sovereign debt crisis, ME turmoil, etc.). If recent past is prologue inasmuch as Yen appreciation towards the Dollar is concerned, then that price advantage could evaporate in a 3 months; of course should events boost the greenback, HLJ's price will be even more attractive (if one can call ¥25,700 before shipping for a toy, attractive ). I suppose that the only foolproof way to know is to preorder from both vendors and wait to see which one ends up being the better value when it really counts... when payment must be made.
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The Megazone 23 Garland By Yamato Thread
mechaninac replied to Renato's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Mine never broke so I have not had any reason to take the toy apart; I'm sure you know exactly where this particular part tends to break and are engineering yours accordingly to avoid Yamato's innadequate version. My statement is more along the lines of good general engineering practice which Yamato and/or their contracted design house tend to ignore too often when designing their toy parts... in short, sharp inner edges are an engineering no-no, a .5mm to 1.0mm fillet on such geometry is a quick no-brainer addition that makes a huge difference in a component's strength. -
The Megazone 23 Garland By Yamato Thread
mechaninac replied to Renato's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
Fillets, that needs fillets!... But seriously, that's where Bandai, and specially Yamato, get it wrong a lot. They seem to fail to round off a great many sharp inside corners which lead to stress facturing and failure. -
I was about a year or so between first release and reissue for the 29. I'd expect the 25s, all of them, will see reissues as well, but since there are so many more variants -- the VF-25G and RVF-25 have not even been released yet -- and there's the 30th aniversary VF-29 and, maybe, more VF-171 releases, it may be a while before we see repops of the Messiahs... maybe by this time next year Bandai could anounce or release more Alto's and Ozma's 25s so that those who missed them the first time around can have a chance of getting them without paying though one body orifice and out the other (I'm missing the S version myself and really want one to go with the Armor Pack that I got for it, but not at today's 3 - 3.5X MSRP); but you'll have to be quick on the trigger for any reissues if the YF-29's second round is any indication.
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YF-29 Durandal.
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I stand corrected. I never noticed the canards on any of the Mig 29s from Macross Zero before. Personally, I still don't think it looks that good -- the design, not Zubique's execution which is incredible--, but having it in context gives it validity.
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Technically, Xyphos is the name of a Bronze Age, Greek (Spartan) short sword, but I can uderstand that having a Gundam share the same name can make it less appealing. In keeping with the bladed weapon theme, how about: Scythe Sickel Scimitar Shamshir - I'm partial to this one (Persian saber) as the word kind of rolls off the tongue and is very unique. Aikuchi Tantō Kodachi Wakizashi Khanda Khopesh Here is a link to a pretty comprehensive list of ancient weapons that may prove an asset in finding a fitting name to your craft.
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That Fulcrum looks awesome. My only advice, based solely on my personal opinion, is to lose the mid-spine forward swept canards... to me they just don't suit the MIG-29; maybe smaller, conventional canards mounted on the leading edge of the blended fuselage LERX, just aft of the cockpit, would look more complimentary of the fighter while still giving it a custom, ATF-esque upgrade to the airframe. Just my 2 cents.
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Given the aesthetics of your design, how about: Razorback, Arrowhead, Spear Head, Flechette, Sabertooth, Tory (Spartan Spear), Xiphos (Spartan Short Sword), Kopis (Spartan Curved Hacking Sword), Rapier; anything pointy, edged, or barbed could lend it's name to your creation and be highly appropriate.
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Definitely not their best interpretation of line-art. The crest should have been more prominent, with the sensor dot sunken in (and made of clear red plastic as others have mentioned); the curvature of the forehead should've been less rounded to visually slope more; the chin is too "weak"... it should stick out a little; the visor is too much of a thin slit... it should be twice as thick as they made it; the surface under the visor also looks wrong... it should be comprised of variable sections along a spline instead of a single curve. Overall, it's not that it's "bad"; it's just that it could have been so much better. Bandai's head rendition for the VF-171EX is dead-on, while Yamato's VF-17D's is 70% there, at best. Even taking into account that the 171 had animation grade 3D meshes for reference, there is no excuse for Yamato's lack of fidelity in their interpretation in light of feedback that Graham gave them when the resin prototype was first shown... to me, the production version looks no different from that prototype, so they did not bother to improve the outlook at all.
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With prices increasing about 1000 Yen, or more, with every subsequent release, and the ever weaker Dollar, I'm afraid you have a point...
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What do you know? Spill the beans or suffer the consequences...
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Fair enough. There is, however, one more thing in addition to painting the yellow/red bits the correct shade of blue (French/Royal blue?) you'll need to do to existing super packs to convert them to Michael's specs. ... you'll need to create decals or stencils for renumbering the components to his G's SMS 003.
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Why, bother? Unlike the 25s themselves, the super and armor packs for the renewals have been easy to secure through Nyppon-Yassan, likely because they are exclusive items instead of the limited production mass market Messiahs.
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So up until now, NY is still the "cheapest" place one can pre-order the G. Almost makes me feel a little better securing one from them... almost. 1500th post...!
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Choosing Paypal is what makes the most sense to me since it gives me the chance to specify the funding source, and I don't mind the extra step of having to issue payment myself... I've never been a fan of relinquishing control to automatic billing conducted by any merchant.
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Starship Troopers: Invasion - New SST Anime
mechaninac replied to VT 1010's topic in Anime or Science Fiction
That bad, huh? I guess I'll wait until it makes it to broadcast TV before I spend time on it... comercial breaks make the original semi-watchable. -
If I had to hazzard a guess, that would be mine as well... as far as truly new stuff is concerned.
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You are correct, of course; but when most think of how a low viz should essentially look, they think of the LE 1/48 low viz (to this day, the crown jewel of my collection). Something like this would be really cool...
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Finely sandy textured surfaces yield a flat/matte look. The specific type of texture determines how matte. Polished surfaces yield a glossy look. The finer the polish the glossier the surface. When you're in the process of designing a mold tool you have to make a decision on what surface treatment to give the surfaces of the cavities into which the molten plastic are injected. Yamato decided from the onset that the toy would be shiny so they had the tool makers polish all the surfaces that are outward facing on the toy to a mirror finish; this means that there is no way to produce the parts in anything other than high gloss. In order for the P to be made matte would require redoing all the highly polished areas with an acid etch or other process that would give these surfaces the irregular sandy texture that would cause light to scatter instead of reflecting. There is no way that Yamato would make a whole new set of tools to produce the P version, and changing the existing tools in any way would 1) prevent them from ever issuing reissues of the Kay, S or F variants in their glossy incarnations if just the texture is changed, and 2) eliminate the possibility of making those models entirely if the molds are retooled to P component specs. What Yamato will do, what they have done for the S and F, is to have new molds made for the specific versions... no molds are changed as most of the parts are shared, and just the parts needed for the new toys are tooled for the new production; and since the shared parts come out glossy from their mold(s), the new tools must also be polished to the same standard so that they match. Long story short, to answer your question, It is an impossibility to go back and forth between gloss and matte on the same injection mold tools... the finish is cut into the steel.
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For some, the regret comes after spending a lot of cash on something that in hindsight is not worth the amount spent and will just end up taking shelf space 99% of the time or be buried in storage anyway. I'm not saying this will be the case with the VF-4G, but that could very well be how it turns out, specially if you happen to be one of the unlucky few who gets a lemon with little to no recourse to achieve a satisfactory resolution. Also, if one does adhere to one's principles regarding price, there is no way, other than coming into a lot of money, that one would spend even more money down the road; having principles means having discipline, so that if $400 is to much today, then $700+ later is even more out of the question... that desire for a thing (and the thing's priority is entirely dependent on its real importance, and a toy just does not rate very high on an importance scale) becomes a passing infatuation that wasn't meant to be, and instead of regret, one gets a sense of pride in oneself for having resisted a temptation to engage in mindless consumption. In this regard, I'm reminded of a line from Spock in the original Star Trek episode Amok Time: "After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical; but it is often true."
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I can't comment on others' trepidation regarding the steep price of the VF-4, but for me it's not an affordability issue (I could buy multiples If I were so inclined), it's a principles thing: $400+ for a chunk of plastic and diecast is a lot of mullah, no matter how amazing the toy turns out to be, or how limited in numbers. Up until this preorder, $230 with shipping (no chump change) was my upper, self-imposed, limit on any toy, and the reason I refuse to buy a 1/3000 SDF-1, VF-19S/F/P, or VF-17S/D. So I'm still trying to decide why I thought it okay to commit, however tentatively, to an item that blows my cut-off point by nearly double its amount...
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I feel myself in the same quandary as you. I most certainly want a VF-4G and jumped on the preorder with Nyppon-Yasan as soon as I read here that the preorders were open, but the price tag (a sizable chunk of my yearly budget for such things) is a hard pill to swallow, and if I ever come to my senses I just might cancel and use the cash for other things. You know the old gag of having a little angel on one shoulder telling you to do the right thing, and a devil on the other egging you to do the wrong thing... because it's awesome? Only, in my case, it's an accountant vs. a man-child fanboy... who'll win, I wonder?
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I'm sorry, did you wright some cogent comment pertinent to the discussion at hand? I couldn't be bothered to read previous posts, not even the one immediately before my own, so I'll just go ahead and add a non sequitur right here: BOMBA! Edit: This thing is due at the end of September/early October, right?
