mechaninac

Time to update my tally: 1/48 x 4 1/60 VF-1s x 10 1/60 Q-Rau x 1 1/72 x 3

Well, what'ya know?... Any word on the GBP-1S sans VF-1J?

How is it lame when Shran pretty much been tailing Archer for roughly a season now. Has every here forgoten the epsiode where Shran been ordered to take the weapon prototype after helping Archer capture? It's lame, in my opinion, because that plot was fully resolved in that episode. The Andorians absconded with the second prototype weapon, which was the entire reason Shran tracked Enterprise in the first place. Archer goes in pursuit after being collected by his crew and sends the overload code to detonate the device and deny the Andorians their deceitfully acquired prize; at the end, someone in Shran's ship, possibly Shran himself, sends Archer the schematics for the weapon...Shran was doing his duty in getting the weapon at the human's expense, but it was clear that he did not like betraying someone he'd come to respect. End of episode, end of plot. There is no logical reason for Shran to track Enterprise after that, not to mention that it took time for them to find the NX-01 in the first place, and at the end of that episode they were limping home under emergency power. In order to buy Shran's appearance in "Zero Hour" you have to assume that they made it to Andoria, their ship was repaired or they were assigned a new one, and went back to the Expanse without being detected by anyone (Andorians don't have cloaking technology) and found the NX-01 again, were witness to everything that transpired and were aware that Archer had boarded a Xindi ship for the trip to Earth. If Shran had been trailing Enterprise he'd have followed her to Sphere 41 and not Degra's ship as it traveled through a spacial corridor, as it would be doubtful that the Andorians would be aware of that mode of travel, or possibly unable to use it themselves, which would leave them with conventional warp travel that would take too long to let them arrive in the nick of time. The only way to reconcile Shran's presence is if he never went back to his home world, had the ship repaired in route and, out of some sense of personal honor and atonement, kept a vigil outside the Sol system awaiting the arrival of Enterprise or the Xindi; however, if that were the case, he should have fired on Degra's ship until contacted by Archer. Bottom line: too convenient. All that being said, I enjoyed the fact that Shran was the only one to come to Earth's defense. Where were the Vulcans?...being French?

Saw it last night. Overall, it was pretty good, and I enjoyed seeing Shran come to the rescue and Dolan being blown to bloody bits. However, there were a few plot holes you could drive a Galaxy class starship through without scraping the sides: 1. There was only the one space station orbiting Earth. Where was the ship yard, et al? 2. Where were the NX-02 Colombia? The Intrepid? The Challenger? And all the other Starfleet vessels? You'd think that since the first Xindi attack, earth would assign a number of ships on picket duty just in case Enterprise failed in her mission. 3. Shran's appearance was too convenient, and the explanation that he'd been tracking Archer's approach, albeit with trouble, was downright lame. Shran would have no way to know that Archer would be coming on the heels of the Xindi weapon, and in a Xindi ship no less. The Andorians' ability to track human bio-signs through the spatial corridor is just too much BS. If anything, Shran should have fired on Degra's ship until contacted by Archer. 4. The Deflector pulse beam used to disable Sphere 41 smacks of writer laziness. Enterprise exists 100 years before NCC-1701, with a correspondingly inferior level of technology. Even Kirk's Enterprise could only generate a deflection field for safe navigation; it wasn't until TNG's "The Best of Both Worlds" that the Nav deflector was used as a weapon, and even then a number of decks had to be evacuated because of excessive radiation. 5. Hand weapon frequency modulation also hints at the writers having tunnel vision created by what's been done before in other series. If anything, given the level of technology, the phase rifles and pistols would need to be taken back to the armory for their harmonic frequencies to be altered...not have them field adjustable like a TNG hand phaser. 6. Although very cool, what with having P-51s futilely firing .50 cal. slugs at Enterprise's shuttle pod and all, it didn't make any sense at all. If Earth reverted back to the WWII era, and all remnants of Starfleet ceased to exist, then what was the station doing there? And if the station was there, why not the ships? If the effect was more widespread and the future never existed, then why is Enterprise still around? If Earth is still in the 22nd Century, just an altered one, how come technology hasn't progressed beyond 1944-45 level for two centuries? Paradoxes upon paradoxes. Hopefully all will be made clear, if not logical, next season. PS.: Did anybody else get the feeling that they shot two distinct endings just in case this was the final season? That's the impression I got.

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.