Chronocidal

Well, dunno how many of you have ever bought any of the large B-Wing releases, but I decided not to pass on it this time (though I would have preferred the original markings, the red Dagger squad paint isn't bad at all). It was a bit expensive compared to the X-Wings and A-Wing I have, but oh well. Since it's still the old ROTJ mold from the 80's, and I've never owned one before, I can't say for certain what's new and what isn't, but I'm fairly sure they've given this ship the same cockpit treatment that they did the new A-Wing, if it wasn't that way already. The adjustable control handles are a nice touch, and the painted/molded details in the cockpit look good. What I thought is really interesting with this one is the interchangeable guns for the wings. Unless I'm mistaken, the original always had the plain movie-styled guns, so that's probably nothing new. But the addition of the alternate missile launchers is a nice touch, not for the missile launchers (while they do look rather cool as guns, the launcher springs suck like a hoover), but for the fact that they actually took the time and effort to cater to both the collectors and the kids. I'm really just glad they didn't replace the normal guns outright. Functionality is pretty simple and effective, the cockpit rotates very smoothly, landing gear work well, and the wing mechanism is nearly flawless (doesn't quite reach 90 degrees) and rock solid, unlike the goofy s-foil mechanism in the large X-Wings. The pilot is nicely done as well, very detailed/posable, and came with a small sidearm blaster. If I can find my camera soon, I'll put up a few close ups if anyone's interested. My biggest annoyance with Hasbro recently is their lack of understanding in how things should be packaged. The last couple SW ships I've gotten have been rubber-banded and twist-tied to death. This wouldn't be such an issue on it's own.. it's just that they always manage to wrap bands around the soft parts of the ships. Long pointy things like gun barrels are always made with soft vinyl now, and Hasbro needs to have it beaten into their heads that long bendable objects are not things you want to use as tie-down points. The barrels on the B-Wing are only slightly stressed on the cockpit, and not too deformed fortunately, but my EpIII Obi Wan fighter was not so lucky. The rubber bands around the guns on that bent them completely out of shape.

Btw, I don't think the wings are actually supposed to have any dihedral.. I don't remember seeing it in the series at all (though I could be entirely wrong here), it always seems to appear on the toys and kits though. Seems like no one can ever get the wings fully level, and it's always bugged me.

I've had it in mind to actually piece together a decent top/side view from the pics in the bandai kit directions.. there are several orthographic projection bits in there for various parts, and they could probably all be assembled into a schematic, given enough work. Personally, I'm really missing having a Hasegawa kit of this now. Their kit diagrams were always a rock solid reference for VF CG models.

Oh man.. I actually hadn't seen that B-wing before... *resists urge to order instantly*.... *fails*

You thinking Roy's TV uniform? If so, I think it's just Hikaru's with gray instead of white, and blue instead of red, with black trim. There may be yellow, but I can't remember where it might be.

If you're not scared to take apart the A-wing, I found a quick fix for the floppy canopy and gear. The gear are held in place when up or down (kind of a ratcheting action) by little "teeth" that are screwed into the bottom of the ship. If you tighten those up a bit, the gear are harder to move up and down, but they also don't droop. The canopy I fixed by wrapping a small rubber band around the internal part of the sliding bump.. there's actually a nice notch carved out of that part on mine. The band keeps a bit of tension on the canopy when closed, because it presses up a little on the canopy's sliding peg.

Just noticed, the SMS patch isn't really wrong, it's just rotated. Spin it around so the M is on the bottom, and it'll look a lot better.

Huh.. I always just thought it was a problem with miscommunication, and someone misheard "T-Wing" as "B-Wing".

Off topic completely, but you don't know how long I've wanted someone to register as "KlanForever" and use a Misa avatar And yes, that is an awesome Misa VF. *simultaneous drool/nosebleed*

Apparently though, the timeline has been effectively fubared. While a lot of things should have happened a certain way, they didn't because something wayyy back when was messed up. A friend of mine and I were actually discussing the temporal ramifications of what the plot appears to involve... it gets ugly and complicated fast. [geekmode] [/geekmode]

I remember there being a very long thread specifically about sabers a while back, it might be worth digging that one up. There was a lot of description about the various types available. My personal favorite was the bluetooth enabled one that would coordinate sound effects to motions via a computer program. You could be swinging the thing around, and have the sound effects broadcast over a stereo system, instead of a piddly little internal speaker. Btw, FINALLY figured out where all the A-wings were stashed at my local Wal-Mart.. turns out they expanded the toys to a couple more aisles to make room for the holiday stock. There were stacks of them up on a shelf, way in the back. Kinda sad to see them sit, but oh well, more for me This new sculpt really is nice, I love that they finally got rid of the clear inserts in the exhaust. The figure is great as well, very detailed and articulated. My only quibbles with it are the canopy and gear designs. The canopy just falls open because there's literally nothing to hold it shut besides gravity, and the gear collapse pretty easily due to that bent leg design they used. I dunno if I'll modify this one any, but I'm very tempted to rebuild the guns to the proper shape and darken the glove vane ..err.... missile launcher slots. Having the little secondary probes on the guns stick that far out has always bugged me about this toy. Fortunately it's a simple cut and paste operation to fix them, since that's the unpainted part of the guns.

Aww, I was hoping they'd get the voice of the computer from Portal. Oh well, no complaints though. I wonder what style of voice she'll use though.. she did an utterly mechanical monotone voice for the original series, I wonder if they'll leave that the way it was, or have her do the TNG onward voice.

Ooooh that F-14 could be a nice fixer-upper project I think. Looks decent enough, but it's another congolmeration of versions, kinda like Shin's in Mac0. Looks like it has cockpit/engines from an A-model, but some of the later modifications for the B/D models like the wing glove ECM bumps (which look like they're HUGE) and the newer modified chaff/flare dispenser sidewinder rails (though those might have been used on A models). On top of that though, it doesn't look like the gear retract.

crud, i better get back to work before I go on christmas break

Anyone have any idea why can I never see the pics Dana posts? The site loads, but the pics never appear.

Well, time for a small update.. been working on this gradually, and thought the face was done (minus hair), but now that I look at it, I still need a few more shadows from the right of the helmet. Oh well, anywho, less words, more picture.

Oddly enough, that's one of the things they haven't even touched.

I want the cartoony vajra eyecatch, but haven't had time to upload it to my phone. Mine varies between that tense music from Kill Bill with the alarm sounding thing (the Ironside theme) and the Hamsterdance song.

You know, I am rather encouraged by the fact that there appears to be a time travel element to this plot.. While they managed to screw up Enterprise (and the entire canon timeline) a lot with it, it's also resulted in a couple of the best movies in the franchise. If they can combine the time travel and fanatical menace elements correctly, you might come up with a plot that mixes the best bits of Khan, STIV, and First Contact. Heh.. you know, as long as time travel is involved... anyone here ever read the novel 'Imzadi?' I know we've seen time travel produced by a multitude of methods, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Guardian of Forever is involved here. That'd be an awesome nod to the original series if they do it.

*secretly hopes they cast the voice of Glados (the AI from Portal) as the new voice of the computer system*

Yeah, but the ships still make sounds in space. After seeing that, I wonder if that shot of the ship was the full picture.. I'm still hoping against hope that the main hull is a bit longer/better proportioned when I finally see it. The ship doesn't look bad from front/back though, the engines look to be at pretty decent angles. I think it's the wonky curved pylons that're throwing a lot of it off, since they looked like they were bowed a lot more from the side. My favorite trailer is still this one though.

Yeah, the F-22 just has an abnormally huge cockpit area, so they didn't have to change the proportions any. I checked mine against my 1/48th Raptor kit as soon as I got it, and it looks like it's actually dead-on 1/32.. every panel line on the model was duplicated on that thing That Flanker is still nothing to sneeze at though, I think that's the first reasonably detailed Russian aircraft I've ever seen in that type of toy line, and still much better than that F-18 I saw a while back. It's just screaming for a splinter camo repaint (aka Dobber scheme )

While I'd love to see Macross stuff in 1/18th, I can personally vouch for the weak joints argument. I tried to make a 1/18th VF-1S with Legos, and failed utterly because the thing was just too heavy to support itself. The arms barely held their own weight, and there's no way any normal lego joint was gonna hold the hips. (did make a very nice aircraft though ). Granted, that was legos, and I'm sure a regular plastic Valk would probably not need to hold up 5 lbs of heavy upper body. But the joints are still going to be an issue, and they're going to have to be very bulky and heavy to support the weight that thing would put on them. You could probably get away with a Chunky Monkey style with limited joints, but then what's the point? Gerwalk is probably the hardest to do... you have to support the entire thing on the knee joint. Sadly as much fun as it would be, it's just not very realistic. On the other hand though, the 1/18 planes seem to be falling out of favor in stores.. what I keep seeing are 1/32 WWII Warbirds. While that's still not action figure sized, I'd love to see 1/32 scale Macross stuff, even if it wasn't transformable. It'd go great next to my 1/32 F-22.

Wow. I dunno if that's just a massive case of forced perspective, but that thing is beyond fugly. The saucer looks like it's sticking out the middle of the hull, unbalancing the whole thing, and the rear hull is just... bleh. What's so bad about it is that the saucer is so much like the old one, but nothing else is... as if they ripped the saucer off the movie-era Enterprise, then had some new-age art-deco interior designer slap a new hull on it. The styles don't match at all. That saucer is nearly identical too.. same exact window arrays on the edge, same phaser arrays, same underside dome... heck, I can pick out the RCS thruster vents that I painted on my old kit, and they haven't changed. There's just no excuse to copy that much of the saucer, but make the rest of the ship so much unlike the original. I can live with the nacelles, they aren't that bad honestly... but that main hull looks.. well.. like crap. I'm probably grasping at straws at this point, but I just rewatched the teaser from way back when... unless they completely ditched the design used for that, the nacelles will be above the saucer.. but some other details don't quite match up to me. The section between the warp pylons in particular doesn't look the same, since you see that clearly in the teaser. Granted, it's under construction, but the shape of the nacelles doesn't look like it matches completely either. I guess maybe there's still hope... but unless this thing looks much better at other angles, I'll probably just ignore it in the film. Btw, is it just me, or does the escape pod Kirk is climbing out of in that one shot look just like one of those pods that used to be on that one rocket ride in Disneyland? The one like Dumbo, but bigger and faster.

Hate to break this to you SeminNV, but games are using MUCH more detailed models now. A 50k poly model is NOT useless by any means, that's the standard range in MS Flight Sim now for high end models. I've put a 120k model in FSX with no problems. More action oriented games use between 5-20k I think, since you have more planes visible on screen, but calling this model useless is just plain rude. As for squadron markings, I'd actually tend to agree. You see so many copies of Skull Squadron that it gets old. They weren't by any means the only VF-1 squadron. Hasegawa has taken this approach to heart with their kits, they probably have 10 different sets of markings available, most of them derived from old Navy squadrons.