Pro-hobby September Releases

Above are what scheduled to be released in September from Pro-hobby. The ambulance and fire truck look quite nice.

F-Toys Bi-Plane Collection - Red Baron Albatros D.III

I'm still exciting about the F-Toys Bi-plane Collection. What special could be better than a Albatros D.III Special of "Red Baron" Manfred von Richthofen. I did a search in the web and I can't find any red D.III but a model of D.V as above but I think this should be pretty close to a D.III.

Here is the line up:

1. British Swordfish
2. Japan Type 93 Trainer
3. SPAD S.VII
4. Albatros D.III

Here are a couple more pictures from the web, a bigger picture of the back of the box:



And these from the latest model shows:

F-Toys Bi-Plane Collection

Long time no talk and I had some good time in the past few weeks as I spent sometime in South California with my family and I visited a couple model shops there. Will post some pictures later.

Above is the new Bi-plane Collection from F-Toys. I always love bi-planes so for sure I will buy this set. How about you?

Release date : Mid-November

Takara Midnight Eagle

Here is a new picture of this series. The B-5 Midnight Eagle used in the movie is just a B-2 Bomber and should not be 1/144.

Release date : Mid-November

Furuta Combat Vehicle

The above gashapon tanks from Furuta will be released in Japan on Sept 17. But it seems these are non-scale items which you may get a Japan Hummvee which is the same size as the M1.

Takara 1/144 "Midnight Eagle" Trading Kits

Takara has just announced in this November, they are going to issued a new 1/144 trading kit set partnering with the movie "Midnight Eagle" - which is a stealth bomber coded B-5. Here are details:

Scale :1/144 (B-5 excluded.) All 10 different kits (9 + 1 hidden item)
1. F-15J (Komatsu base 8957)
2. F-15J (Komatsu base 8953)
3. F-15DJ (Komatsu base)
4. B-5 midnight eagle (the low profile painting)
5. B-5 midnight eagle (the WEZARINGU painting)
6. JGSDF UH-1+ Type 73 heavy truck (new)
7. JGSDF UH-1+ Type 73 heavy truck (older model)
8. JGSDF UH-1+ Type 73 medium truck and pickup truck
9. A set of 3 JGSDF Type 73 trucks (new)
10. Hidden

Most items have been issued in other releases before, such as the Type 73 trucks in "Japan Sinks", UH-1 and F-15J in other Takara or F-Toys issues. (They may be different than those from F-Toys though).

Tokyo Toy Show 2007

Here are some pictures from the Tokyo Toy Show 2007. Not many military items and the above is one of the exceptions - the 1/144 LCAC which you probably have seen before. Looks pretty good but probably too big - storage becomes a big problem to me.

Updated: This link has a B-2 and it looks quite nice but too bad it's 1/120, not 1/144.

Tomy Machinami Collection 7

This Tomy Machinami Collection 7 series look good as they are quite useful for a diorama.

Pro-hobby

Long time no talk as I was busy working on a project. Will announce it later when it's ready. Regarding the news, besides the JW3, not much to talk about as 1/144 has slowed down significantly in Japan. Except this company, Pro-hobby. Pro-hobby has just updated the site with some interesting pictures. You can find them here or here. They are not military related but just showing the 1/144 world can be more than just tanks and planes.

Dragon 1/144 B-1B

Dragon US has just posted this B-1B and I think it should still be pretty big even it's a 1/144. You shouldn't miss it if you collect planes.

Project 144

Fumi's blog has some interesting pictures from the latest "Project 144". Check them out here.

Another link on Shizuoka 2007

Here is another link to hobby.co.jp on Shizuoka 2007. Besides the Panzer Korp Tiger I's, I can't find anything else special on 1/144. The 1/72 Dragon Armor M4s as shown below look quite nice though. Please note the link has over 500 pictures so the page load may be slow.

1/48 X-Wing

I haven't seen any 1/144 military kits so far and most interesting items to me are some new Gundams. But I like this X-Wings very much. However, I probably won't buy as I don't think I will build it anyway. I have a garage a un-built models already which my wife complains all the time.

Oops. I forgot the link. Here it is from Run Chickens.

Shizuoka Hobby Show

The show has just started today in Japan. I saw a couple Gundam's pictures and I'll keep you posted if there are any news on 1/144 scales.

New Panzer Korp - Tiger I

It's not a surprise Dragon is going to release the new 1/144 Tiger I in kit form (Panzer Korp) before the Cando release. Unlike the Cando releases which are pre-painted, you will get 3 identical tanks (112, 141, 142) as you need to paint them yourselves. I will still buy the Cando version to complete my collection but I don't see any reason to buy these.

Finally. We have soldiers.

I know. I know. You may say we already have something from Trumpeter/Pegasus, Preiser, or CGD or some other metal wargaming figures. But these figures from Japan looks awesome. At least from the picture. Check here for details.

Targa 1/144 U-Boat

This 1/144 U-Boat Type VII-C looks very impressive with interior details and crews. Yen 4000 sounds reasonable too. 2 different paint schemes, camo and grey. And also it looks like a die cast model. Release date: Jun 25.

Windows Vista

Hi guys
Long time no talk as I was struggling with my new computer with Windows Vista installed. I know it's not advised to use such a new OS in the first few months, my old PC crashed every 30 minutes so I must buy a new one as it'a 5 years old machine.

If you're an ebay seller like me. Please be careful before you upgraded to Vista as I had waited for a while until ebay finally came up with a Beta version "ebay Lister" which some how fixed the bug with Vista. However, it's not fully functioning yet. Beware.

Anyway, no big news lately except there was a rumor in a Japanese site. If I understand correctly, probably it mentioned WTM 10 actually was on show in the Kaiyodo booth in WF2007 and probably behind doors also everyone saw them had signed a NDA (Non-disclosure Agreement). I don't know how much truth is that but that piece of message excited me already. It would be wonderful if anyone can provide more info.

I have many items need to load them into my ebay shop these 2 days as I haven't done that for a while due to the Vista problem, that's it for today and hope you like the above big bird 2 picture.

OMG - Cando "new" Tiger I

Oh my god. It turns out the re-release of the Tiger Is from Dragon is not the worst news. What even worse is Dragon is so lack of imagination that it releases the same tanks with different decals. As you can see from the pictures, one is 141 and one is 142. I know these are early production tanks so the variations are limited but why picked this topic? I think we got similar tanks from WTM5 and you can buy a whole battalion of decals from a Japan seller to build a whole battalion. If Dragon wants to make this more attractive, why not just give us a tank with no decal and then provide a separate decal sheet similar to those from Panzer Korps. I think we will be more happy and someone may just want to buy it for the decal. BTW, what is that special? Is it the one for Operation Sea Lion?

Big Bird 2

I found a picture of the Big Bird 2 today. I probably will only buy the HE-111s. The others I probably will skip. Release date : Mid-May. Hope no more delay this time.