mechaninac

Just got mine form amiami today. Impressive looking little figure and power suit. The engineering Bandai did on this is just short of amazing. And I don't know if this has been mentioned before (too lazy to go through all the pages), but Alto is just about in perfect scale with Figma figures... cool.

Thanks for the heads-up and link. This was one of the items on my wish list that I kept putting off because I was loath to spend +/- $85.00 plus S&H; but for app. $42.50 + shipping I'm game. Ordered!

Let me just say I spent too much and leave it at that...

The company I work for has both an SLA machine with a 10"x10" capacity tank, and a Dimension Unit with roughly the same build volume capacity. In my personal experience, Dimension parts are good only for the typical meeting show and tell; if you need a "quick" and dirty model of objects without medium to fine detail than that's the rout to take... the results are good enough to show marketing types in order to get feedback on shape and size of a particular product. Also, since the Dimension process entails the extrusion of a near-melting-point filament of ABS, it is better suited for early stage prototyping where the model being made is still a solid mass -- this process is not kind to shelled parts, ribs, bosses, flanges, snaps, or any form of detail as the bonding between layers is very fragile. On the plus side, clean-up is a cinch since the parts are anchored to the building plate by a soluble support substrate that dissolves in a hot detergent bath. When fine detail is desired, intended for pre-production validation, or the part is to be sanded and painted to be shown to clients or for a photo shoot, then SLA is used. Layer resolution is .1mm (.004") so the parts are supper accurate, and today's resins have properties to meet just about any requirement need by the end-user: rubber like, resiliency, transparency, heat resistance (the stuff we currently have in our machine is water clear and mimics the physical properties of PP... very cool stuff). SLA is very easy to sand... think hard casting resin; it also takes paint and tinting very well. On the down side, clean up is a royal b!tch; the supports that anchor the parts to the building grid are the same material as the part and require a dedicated cleaning station filled with solvent or alcohol, and a lot of elbow grease to detach and clean (it's smelly and messy), and the waste is toxic so proper disposal is a must. Also, parts must be post-cured in a UV booth to finish them before anything else is done to them. I've had limited experience with SLS; but I recall that, unlike SLA, it is limited in the size of the parts that can be built (that may have changed with the possible introduction of larger frame machines), and resolution is somewhat rougher. SLS parts are extremely strong, and IIRC, metal deposition is a supported process as well. And clean up is a breeze since there are no supports; you just shake, blow the parts with an air hose to remove unused media, and go. There is an Israeli machine that competes with SLA for resolution, sandability and paintability that is very interesting too. Accuracy and surface finish is on par with SLA, although material strength was lacking on the last samples I handled. On the plus side, if you need multimedia printing this is your choice (Ex.: lets say you need a part representing a plastic housing with a rubberized grip over-molded onto it, or a button membrane covering a switch slot... this is the machine to use as their top-of-the-line unit can generate your model with both materials in a single building session); and since the build support is a non-toxic paraffin-like substance that encapsulates the prototype, clean-up is easy. That is my experience with Rapid Prototyping. Hope it helps in your search.

Concern for a product's price, be it a Yamato toy or anything else you can buy of a frivolous nature, is the wrong thing to dwell on. The retail price on the primary or secondary market will always, with a small margin of variance, reflect what the market will bear (a function of supply and demand, and the prevailing exchange rate since we're discussing imports for most of us). My solution to the collector's quandary is very simple and works every time with just a little application of diligent restraint: if an item is too expensive, don't buy it or wait for the price to drop (there is always the risk of waiting too long and missing the boat, but that is preferable to blowing your cash indiscriminately); if said item happens to be one of those absolute-must-haves then save/budget for it so you can afford it without sacrificing/jeopardizing more important financial necessities.

You bastid, you made me squirt soda out of my nose...

If that is true it's a shame. Aside from the general feeling of flimsiness of the bike, Beagle's overall design and execution are very impressive... not $155.50 shipped impressive, but a worthy addition to anyone's collection nevertheless. And in the case Beagle/Toynami are out of the game, I wish you success in your endeavor to create the other Ride Armor(s). And make sure to post progress pictures... Cheers!

I've recently acquired a Toynami version of Beagle's VR-52F and found myself underwhelmed by how insubstantial it feels in your hands... specially the bike; and it does suffer from some floppy and/or loose fitting parts. However, I don't have the cujones to risk ruining a $160+ toy in an attempt to fix things that shouldn't need tweaking on a toy of this price point. You guys are far braver (crazier?) than me when it comes to this sort of stuff. All of this talk about modding the MOSPEADA type into a BLOWSPERIOR or a FUKE type makes me dizzy and causes me to beg the question: Won't Beagle continue the series and produce the other two Ride Armor types eventually? Or are the CM's 1/18 versions the only way to get a straight-out-of-the-box full-transformation set of all the bikes shown in the series?

I know I may catch some flak for this, but.... meh! I'm too VF-1'ed out to care about another Valkyrie. Kudos to Hasegawa for making it, and to all those who are excited about it; as for me, call me when they get around to doing the VF-11, VF-4, and VF-2SS in 1/48.

Time to switch to Decaf...

I must admit that Elfen Lied had me a little misty eyed in several episodes... and sickened, shocked, disturbed, intrigued, and left wanting more. One of the best animes I've ever watched. Another good emotions tug-ger was Witchblade... the end was quite melancholy. For Sci-Fi movies, one of the only ones I can remember getting me teary eyed was Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan: Spock's death and Kirk's eulogy, even taking into consideration Shatner's acting style, really pulled at the heart strings.

Personally I couldn't care less about all the non-UC MS releases, so the announcement of a MG Victory is very welcome... and the fact that I'm currently watching the Victory Gundam series makes this news is an added bit of sweet serendipity. May the V2 and some BESPA MSs be in the pipeline for release in the near future as well.

The release of a FV-11C isn't what I'd call "stop the presses" news. Once the Gamlin's VF-22S was announced it was clear that Yamato would jump at the chance to amortize their VF-11 molds; heck, the differences between the B and C 11s are even more negligible than those between the 21 and 22s. Regardless, this is welcome since (aside from more Macross toys being always welcome) the implication of the 22s and now the 11C is that the M7 floodgates are open and we are almost garanteed VF-17s and VF-19s in the future (I prefer the Blazer over the Kay myself), and the possibility of the Protect Armor for the 11. I have just aquired the B version and love it... the soap bubble effect on the canopy is a thing of beauty. The 11C will go on my to-buy list pending either a sale, discount, or more favorable exchange rate... as long as I can get one for aroung $200 USD, shipped, I'm in.

As interesting as these look, they are not worth $30.00 plus shipping. Beside, I would be much more interested in auxiliary equipment such as the tractor, tender, and personnel transport from the series, as well as a slew of figures like maintenance crews, standing pilots and ship's crew in uniform in 1/60 scale to populate a nice display diorama.

I love war craft that transform into giant robots, and non transforming Mecha also... it's what draws me to Macross in particular and anime in general (although, if you wanted to be real picky, most anime Mecha are not Robots in the strict sense of the word since they are piloted machines, and generally incapable of autonomous operation). The concept of these types of machines is great for the medium in which they are depicted, but anything other than a quadruped, hexapod or octopod --one could argue that a legged tank could traverse terrain that even a tracked vehicle could not navigate -- would be completely impractical in real life; bipeds are just too vulnerable to damage, and the complexity involved in having them maintain their balance under even the most benign of environs renders them unworkable as war machines. And if you'd like to make a jet that could transform into a vaguely anthropomorphic humanoid form, you'd just be adding insurmountable (at least with today's computational, mechanical, materials technologies) complexity, and stress/failure points on top of impracticality, for no measurable gain... the term "waist of resources" comes to mind. So, keep the cool humanoid mechs where they belong: firmly ensconced in the confines of sci-fi anime, and leave the real fighting to tracked vehicles... manned, remotely controlled, or robotic.

Every time you think things have reached the bottom of the barrel, Hollywood proves that all they need to do is lift the barrel to bestow upon us even more mindless drivel.

If this AEA thing turns out to be true his passing will still be tragic... in a sick, twisted, pathetic way; it will reek of Darwinism.

To my understanding, specialized tooling is a catch all term. To build something as complex as an F/A-22 you require an assembly facility dedicated to its construction (that once retooled for another purpose would be unsuited to its current one), with Raptor specific jigs, pressed, molds, tools, as well as other support equipment that may or may not be suitable for any other manufacturing/assembly functions other than the F/A-22. Add to that the hundreds/thousands of suppliers who also posses very Raptor-centric equipment tailor made to the manufacture of parts for this specific fighter jet; equipment that may be prohibitively expensive to keep and maintain if the parts they produce are no longer needed because the plane is no longer in production. And to top it all off you've got the expertise of those who make those parts and assemble them... once they're gone, they're gone. Canceling the production of further Raptors would, therefore, have a far deeper impact than just the tooling involved. Once that infrastructure is dismantled, putting Humpty Dumpty back together would be a monumental undertaking almost as complex as devising that infrastructure in the first place.

Mass production; or more precisely, production costs is one reason: Toys, even complex ones, are made to have as few parts as possible to minimize the amount of assembly (not a factor in models since the buyer does the assembly) and reduce overall complexity to absolute minimum to make the toy work as desired. Ultimately, one of the biggest reasons, in my opinion, is the targeted buyer. Toys have to be designed with the compromise of playability in mind, even high end collector oriented items will require allowances for robustness which invariably will impact how the toy is engineered, and therefore, how it looks as compared to the source material. Even with today's higher attention to authenticity in design, the product intent will still affect the final product to varying degrees. With a model, most if not all, compromises that would be true to a toy can be ignored. Since the intended buying public are model builders who will invest endless hours and resources (depending on level of skill, patience, funds, etc.) to achieve perfection in the end product, the producer of a model can break down the components in any way they see fit to get the most detail and assembly flow to the buyer. Complexity, depending on subject, is irrelevant (most modelers welcome a challenge and more parts mean easier painting... less masking, and just engenders a "more bang for the buck" feel when the box is opened for the first time), and durability is not even a real issue... you're not supposed to play with your models; they're to sit pretty on display. Long winded way of saying that comparing toys to models is like comparing apples and oranges.

Love the leg MOD, I've got to try that on my unbuilt example one of these days; it makes a huge difference in the leg's posability and improves the kit by leaps and bounds. Another quick and easy MOD to add to these kits is waist rotation. Just saw off the nose cone of the battroid specific fuselage part and add filler plates with scratch-built peg and hole: a peg one on the radome and the matching hole with a polycap behind it on the fuselage side, and voila... a battroid that has dynamic wait rotation. The only tricky part to this mod is aligning the rotation axis just right so that everything lines up when the battroid is facing front, and a thin saw should be used so that you won't need to get extra kits to act as donors.

FYI for anyone who may be interested: HLJ is currently running a 40% off sale on all three Yamato SV-51 toys. I already had an Ivanov version but couldn't pass up on getting a Nora type for 13080 Yen +S&H, and with today's exchange rate the price is even better.

Just an FYI to anyone who may be interested: HLJ is having a 50% off sale on all Yamato BGC Motoslave toys, except Priss'.

Too many ... and not enough

IIRC, I think Wings of Honneamise had a short sequence in it with a fighter/attack plane, with that general design motif, doing a ground strafing run.

Do you hear him Hasegawa?... Bandai?