mechaninac

I didn't notice that either until you pointed it out. By the looks of that picture it sure looks like the alpha is going to be a chest dragger; that's inexcusable...did Toynami have multiple engineers working on different parts of the toy who never bothered to check with each other to make sure everything fit and matched the line art? The early 1/60 VF-1s from Yamato dragged the gun pod fin a bit, but this is ridiculous. I hope this due to the rear gears not being deployed when they took that picture or that it is just a pre-release sample, and that the final product will have that fixed, but judging from their track record I wouldn't hold my breath.

Cyc, thanks for the link. As for the Alpha, other than the large gaps on major assemblies, it looks very nice indeed, and the missiles don't look that much worse than the ones on the Yamato Q-Rau.

...speechless...

I have nothing against the man, I even agree with the majority of his views; but as an actor...the plank of wood comment pretty much says it all. As far as action heroes go, Van Damme is rather mediocre. To me he is just the European version of Steven Segal (the king of "straight to video" flicks), not quite as bad, but not that much better either.

That has academy awards smeared all over it. Seriously, though, I refuse to put any money in the pockets of any studio that would hire Jean Claude "Be Damned" to star in any movie...period. And lookie here, a three worded title...Wave of Death = Straight to Video...or DVD.

AFLAC!

I received my items yesterday. There is but one way to describe my reaction to the quality of your work...Wow! They are, by far, the most flawless pieces of resin recast I have ever encounterd; they are even bendy, what kind of material did you use? To anyone who hasn't gotten these yet: go ahead and get them, they are worth every penny.

Thanks for the feedback, all of you. Special thanks to David; you are a veritable fountain of knowledge when it comes to this sort of stuff.

Just as the title and description say. I wish to build a few 1/48 (maybe some 1/72 to go with M+) models of fighter planes to flesh out my Yamato 1/48 collection. Namely I'd like to start with an F-16C or later, and next an F/A-18. I know that Monograms are cheapest, but have raised panel lines, copious amounts of inaccuracies, and dreadful molding quality, and Hasegawas are among the nicest and priciest things you can get your grubby fingers on. What I'd like to know is, from a price vs. accuracy vs. detail standpoint, which brand (Revell, Tamyia, Italieri, Monogram, Hasegawa, Fugimi, etc) gives you the best bang for the buck for the moderately competent model builder. Aside from the aforementioned F-16 and F/A-18, feel free to add info on any other aircraft that suits your fancy (F-14, F-15, F-4, Harrier, etc...go nuts), but the focus should be on 1/48 scale. Thanks in advance for any "brain droppings" of wisdom anyone wishes to contribute. Cheers, Sergio

I've had almost the exact same thing happen to me once several years ago while using a disk utility floppy; instead of formatting the specified Drive, it formatted both my hard drives. I can tell you that I was royally pissed, but at least I didn't loose anything irreplaceable. I agree with the previous posts, get yourself a system's disk program like Norton's and see if that works, or get a professional data recovery technician to retrieve the data if at all possible. From your description of the problem it sounds like you had a single hard drive divided into separate partitions; in that case having backups on zip disks, CD-Rs, or DVD-Rs is must before any drastic system changes or upgrades are made, in case something like this happens. Another precaution, for those who have multiple hard disks, is to disconnect them before any changes are implemented...formatting can't eat what it can't find. I feel your loss man; however, please remember that, while extremely frustrating and even downright depressing, anything you lost is not the most important thing in your life, they are mere things that can be recovered, replaced, or written off in the fullness of time. I'm not saying this to be cold, or dismissive, but to remind you to put things in perspective. When you really do have a loss that you cannot fix, this computer snafu will be but a triviality.

Too true. However, it does look pretty cool, and just imagine how much cooler that hangar/tarmac diorama would look with Yamato's 1/48 Valkyries. Remember this?...

Fantastic, but the head now looks too tiny in relation to the rest of the armor. BTW, I think the side "skirts" are supposed to be boxy in the TV version, not spade shaped as in DYRL.

If you have the small white metal figurines, they are supposed to be about 1/285 scale. Then, for more "accurate" sizing there are the armorcast resin kits in 1/60 scale HERE; for example, the Mad Cat/Timberwolf is 8.25" (21cm) tall at 1/60.

I don't think the English language has a word descriptive enough to adequately convey just how cool this bird looks. I guess that WOW will just have to do.

If you want to get a lot of information on how to build and paint anime resin figures, among other thinigs, go to this Website; this guy is very talented and his tutorials are very instructive.

Welcome aboard Armor, and about time you poked your head out. Sith, I dig your new avatar...very spooky.

Mind posting pictures of your lit 1/48...I'd love to see it.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think Anasazi37 does commissions.

About flattening the tires: Have you tried using a hot knife, or better yet an old clothes iron (better heat control), to deform the tire just enough to make it look like weight is sitting on it. Sanding a flat spot won't create a bulging effect, but heat deformation will, though on a 1/72 plane that distinction may be moot. Just secure the wheels with the tires or the tires alone to a rod of some kind and press them against the hot surface just enough to soften and flatten the plastic...think of it as a variation on the sprue heating and pulling technique for creating antennas and such. My only advice if you decide to use this method would be to try it out on a spare part to get a feel for how much heat and pressure you'll need.

My comment was meant to be facitious; besides, his excellent work is not a discouragement...it's an inspiration. Of course I won't stop trying, but Mr. Cheng does set a rather lofty standard to emulate.

That's it, it's official, time to stop building models altogether. There is no way I could even come close to matching the beauty of your work.

And one more...

Here's another...

Thankfully, I saved it. here you go...

The way I see it, the silly, neutered programming being peddled to kids today, is not a cause but a symptom of the politically correct days we live in. We live in a time when, specially but not exclusively, public schools, are no longer places of learning the basics necessary to proceed to gainful employment or higher education; but are viewed by far too many parents as a convenient place to baby sit their kids, and by higher echelon educators as a venue for social experimentation and mass feminization of faculty and students. There is, today, a cult of self-esteem that permeates education which dictates that equality of outcomes trumps individual achievement. Thus, we get social promotion regardless of ability or knowledge of class material (we can't hold the little darling back, that would affect his/her psyche), codling of egos (you're special in everything you do), abolition of the recognition of excellence such as dean's list or vale dictorian (wouldn't want others to feel left out, would we?), elimination of score keeping in sports (In order for there to be a winner, there has to be a loser, we can't have that!), deletion or rewriting of "controversial" historical events (so that everyone feels included, even if they weren't); it goes on and on. A good example was the big brouhaha in NYC where the Mayor wanted to institute a policy of achievement testing for promotion to 4th grade; there were numerous parents and teachers protesting this as unfair and impugning the test as racist, as if reading English in an English speaking country is racist. Or the farce of ADD/ADHD whereupon parents would rather drug their kids than to parent them. Kids are not being thought to think for themselves, they are being taught to conform to an artificial utopian, egalitarian ideal that has no bearing in reality where they come out of school thinking that government is the solution to all of life's obstructions, everybody should have the same amount of stuff, good and evil are relative, having an opinion is bad, being discriminating and judgmental is to be frowned upon, all cultures are equal regardless of how they treat their own or others...an entire generation of bed wetters. Life's a b***h, deal with it or get the f**k out of the way!.