Penguin

Finding that I suck at using washes for panel linings (despite the excellent guidance found all over this site), I moved to markers and pencils exclusively. For Gundam markers, I recommend getting the soft tip grey or black markers (links below). Simply draw the lines (which will deliberately go outside the lines), then immediately wipe off the excess with a paper towel. You can get some very thin, clean lines that lack the "drawn in" look of using the hard, thin-tip markers. Working on a gloss finish gives a very clean, crisp line, while a semi-gloss or flat surface naturally results in a soft, smudged look, but sometimes that looks good too (softly darkening the edges of the panels). Soft Tip Black Marker Soft Tip Grey Marker As Miriya stated, using mechanical pencils can be excellent as well. There is a trade-off that you can't get soft, darker leads (2B or softer) in the really fine sizes, so you can't get nice, heavy lines. That being said, you can always go over the line a few times to darken it, or apply a clear coat afterwards, which also tends to darken the line. You can also just use a regular soft lead pencil, but you have to keep sharpening it every couple of lines. Hard leads have a slightly shiny, metallic look, especially when applied heavily. This can be softened with a stomp (or just a piece of paper towel, rolled up fine to a stiff point) to smudge the pencil inside the panel line a little. You can always use an eraser around the edges to clean up after yourself, although be careful as the eraser may pick up the paint or finish if you rub too hard. A slightly damp cloth can also remove unwanted lines. I tend to use Gundam markers for aircraft, due to the very fine lines, and pencils for larger items with deeper lines (like Yamato VFs) and anything I want to look a bit more "dirty" ('cause pencil is easy to smudge in a controlled fashion). Hope this helps.

I'd be up for at least one, maybe two.

Actually, I think that SpacyAce2012 might be right, at least as far as the Macross Plus: This is Animation book is concerned. The book has a bunch of illustrations at the end depicting a variety of squadrons and attempting to conform to US naval conventions for squadron designations (i.e. "VF"). In that book, at least, I think they did refer to it as "SVF-1 Skull", which can be confusing of course since VF-1 is also the designation for the fighter itself. Of course, none of that section in the book is canon, but then I don't think there is an in-canon answer. Edit: DH beat me to it...

I'd absolutely be interested... preferably a bomber mode-only VA-3M. Not really interested in transforming kits.

My kudos too, VA. You really made that old model more than the sum of its parts. Nice work!

Honestly, I wouldn't pay anything for it at all. I did build one, several years back, and was unimpressed by the quality of the model - clunky transformation, poor posability in battroid mode, too chunky in fighter mode. It's essentially the same as the 1/65th scale toys Bandai put out for the VF-19, but smaller and less robust. I'd post pictures, but it didn't survive my last "culling" of old kits and long since hit the trash bin. If the model really intrigues you and you're intent on getting it, then I'd say no more than $20 and prepare to put a lot of work into it.

Heh. I get annoyed enough at the plethora of Americans on eBay who won't ship to Canada... Japan doesn't even enter into it.

Like many others, I too found my way here from ye olde Valkrie Exchange. I believe I was looking for places to pre-order the original Yamato Macross Plus VFs, before their North American distribution was nixed.

The music of Macross has always been an element that set it apart from other mecha anime for me. I love VFs, love the stories, and love the music. I find all three elements strong on their own, but together they create something more than just the sum of its parts. Like Graham mentioned, Macross is one of the few series where all the elements gel really well. The Macross Plus soundtracks are some of my favourite collections of music, in any genre, and set me up for a lifetime of Yoko Kanno worship. I especially enjoy the more atmospheric pieces. The combination of "Santi-U / Torch Song" from the "Fans only" soundtrack is one of my all time favourite musical compositions. I think "Coma" from the second volume is wonderfully moody, and the "Macross Anthem" is terrific as well. Honestly, I never dug the Minmay tunes too much until "An Angel's Paints", which I adore. I have a strange soft spot for "Sunset Beach" too, since the first animation I ever saw from DYRL was a digital clip I found online of the "Saturn's rings" scene from the movie. Most of the rest are a little simple and light for my tastes. I kinda dig "Runner", too. I really enjoy Basara and Mylene from Macross 7. Mylene is my favourite of the two, with "Love It" and "Sweet Fantasy" my favourite of her tunes. For Basara, I love "Parade" and "Diamond Calling". After the constant repetition from the series, though, I could happily go the rest of my life without hearing "Planet Dance" or "Totsugeki Love Heart" ever again. I found the BGM for Macross 2 sorta generic synth-ish, but dug all the vocal pieces, especially "Riding In Your Valkyrie" and "Deja Vu". Macross Zero didn't have much musical impact for me at all.

"Smoother" is the answer. I 'm not sure where the conversions happen... the console side or the TV side ... but the resolution adapts for the monitor without scaling the size of the text or graphics up or down.

I've used amazon.co.jp many times, being completely illiterate in Japanese. When you first get to the site, there's a button on the blue bar on the right that says "IN ENGLISH". Click on this to go to the "Shop In English" page. Once you've done that, all the regular Amazon navigation buttons and text appears in English for all your subsequent searches and actions, including the account and checkout screens. Sometimes it will switch back to Japanese, but just look for a little "Do you want to see this page in English?" link, click it, and voila. You do have to create a separate account for Amazon Japan (e.g, you can't "reuse" an Amazon US account). Product names, descriptions, and so on will remain in Japanese, so it usually helps to know what you're looking for, or to have other sites where you can look up products in English. I've also found that searching for the names of items using Japanese text usually gets you more results (e.g. putting in "マクロス" instead of "Macross"). I usually find at least one item under the subject I want, then just select, copy and paste the Japanese text for the series into the search window. Of course, you need to know what the name of the series, book, whatever you're looking for looks like in Japanese, but that usually pretty easy to find.

promethuem5 is right about the IMAI kits being quite delicate. They are very finicky to transform and don't stay together terribly well. However, they are fairly nice looking and well-sculpted. When Aoshima re-released them, I bought two of each along with some extra Wave ball and socket joints. I built them fixed in each mode (i.e. one with bike and rider, the other in power armour mode) and used the joints for some extra posability in the arms (elbows mostly). If I had a digital camera I'd share some pics. They turned out quite nicely (if I do say so myself). So, to sum up, nice to look at, crappy to transform.

I've got a Japanese release of the individual Macross Plus episode DVDs, and they have the Manga Video "international dub" as well as the Japanese audio track. Don't know whether they are the original release or a later re-release, but they aren't bootlegs. I wouldn't count on these being included in the remastered version, though.

I think you hit the nail on the head, there. A lot of the griping I hear about movies being "tamed" for greater appeal seems more to be about nostalgia for better movies that happened to have harsher ratings. AvP is a great example of this. "Alien" and "Aliens" are far superior, but it's got nothing to do with the elements that brought them harsher ratings (although, that first "chestburster" scene would have been a lot less viscerally terrifying if it was as bloodless as the similar scenes in AvP). An assemblage of film makers skilled in their arts made these films great, not their rating. A mediocre movie won't get any better just by adding "R"-rated elements. My biggest concern about the Hollywood trend to mass appeal is more about how many interesting, provocative films are we not seeing for lack of funding and distribution, when the studios won't get behind anything that they can't exhibit to teenage boys? It's getting so that real fans of the art, the ones who will go to the theatre just to see a great film with the big-screen experience, are being driven to DVD and other home formats to find the films that the studios wouldn't distribute to real theatres. The biggest contributors to declines in ticket sales, IMHO, are the studios themselves.

I remember that my mom and dad went to see "Star Wars" before the school holidays began, after which my dad picked up the novelization. I spent all summer looking through the few pages of pictures in the middle of that novel, wondering just what I was seeing. He then took me to see the film itself on my 7th birthday the following October, in the same theatre he and my mom had months before. Man... how many films these days survive over 5 months in first run theatres?

They've already produced many of the robots that Mattel imported as "Shogun Warriors"... Grendizer, Mazinger... some of which are out of production. Personally, I've been waiting for a decent SOC Raideen for some time. Definitely on my list!

I tend to rotate little displays around on the tops of bookcases, TV stands, and so on. New acquisitions usually get a spot on display when I get them, and then might come out for another display at a later date. Right now, there's 1/48 Hikaru's VF-1J with urban camo armour, 1/48 Roy's VF-1S and 1/60 YF-19 facing down Masterpiece Megatron. The rest of my valks, 1/48 and all, are neatly packed away.

Where did he get that from? I always thought the death still occurred since Hiro teleported back to the present before he could warn her? Mohinder mentions her death later when talking about the list (don't remember which episode)... but that could be the result of the blood clot that she mentions to Hiro, and not Sylar. Admittedly, I've never read any of the comics online, so I don't know if it was revealed there.

I think I'd rather see some existing VFs get more mileage than getting a whole bunch more. Seeing the VB-6 or VF-14 kickin' ass and takin' names in some real animation would be cool.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it... not that Hollywood every learns...

I think it's partly caused by the fact that Warner Brothers and DC are part of the same corporation. Marvel farms out its licences to whoever wants to bankroll the film. Just this year, we've got Ghost Rider (Columbia), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (20th Century Fox), and Spider-Man 3 (Sony)... although I think Columbia is (or was at some point) owned by Sony. Quality is all over the place (Spider-Man very good, Elektra not so much ). DC's parent company doesn't want to farm out its licences anywhere (well, it might for Vertigo stuff, but not the flagship properties), keeping them all "in the family" at Warner Brothers. That puts all the development costs on one company. In today's risk-averse, invest-in-the-"sure"-thing corporate attitude, Warners isn't going to stretch themselves by funding a lot of superhero movies at once. I recall a spokesperson saying that DC was going to put out one good movie a year, rather than throwing licences out everywhere (obviously a dig at Marvel). With "Wonder Woman" still stuck in development hell, and the lukewarm reception "Superman Returns" got from fans and critics alike, the only strong, viable franchise DC's got right now is Batman. As it stands, DC has a track record for great cartoon series, far exceeding any Marvel production for quality of character and story. For movies though, I think they're going to lose the race to Marvel unless the corporation loosens up and considers licencing secondary characters to other studios rather than expecting Warner Brothers to carry them all. Personally, I'd go crazy for a good "Green Lantern" flick. Lots of cool sci-fi possibilities there.

I think the big problem with a JLA movie is portraying a world full of heroes to a movie audience. To date, pretty much every superhero movie has approached it from the point of view of that hero being the only one around (okay... J. Jonah Jameson did refer to "Dr. Strange" as being taken in "Spider-Man 2", but that's about it). X-Men 3 had lots of mutants, but didn't mix in any other types of metahumans. They keep their world small in order to not overwhelm the non-comic-reading-viewer with a lot of backstory. The JLU cartoon worked so well because it basically just jumped straight into the DC universe, expecting the viewer to accept the idea of a world full of brightly coloured heroes. Since most fans were already comic readers, this wasn't a stretch. They also had the luxury of introducing new characters in individual shows. Plus, half-hour cartoons are cheap by comparison. I wouldn't be surprised if a season of JLU costs less than a single "event" film, which JLA would definitely have to be. But a live action film, with all the budget that implies, the studio will definitely be after some way to get appeal outside of comic fans. The cast size of a JLA movie would introduce too many characters that most viewers aren't familiar with.

I always figured the UN Spacy was becoming more focussed on space-borne threats, and thus did not envision the VF-11 operating in an atmosphere often. Having a simple VF with add-on weapons is probably cheaper to produce and maintain than a plane with lots of integral weaponry. Colony worlds seem to have their own defence forces, usually with older VFs that have better in-atmosphere weapons payloads. That being said, why bother with a canard then? Atmospheric agility is improved, but the plane itself isn't sufficiently armed for any real combat in an atmosphere. Seems kinda shortsighted. Design by committee strikes again? The canard's performance is superior, but then someone cuts cost afterward by vetoing internal missile payloads?

I always loved Raideen since the old Marvel Comics "Shogun Warriors" days (back when I was a young'un and didn't know they all came from Japan ). I'll be all over that one, for sure.

I've always got the Japanese catalogues from HLJ, but I've seen the "truncated" English versions too. I was looking at last year's catalogue and noticed that it did have coming attaction blurbs for the 2006 additions to Hasegawa's Virtual On line. I wonder if there's something different in their Macross deal, or maybe they just keep new items under wraps until they're really sure they're going to produce them? Maybe the various Macross licensing issues make Hasegawa more cautious in their development process?