Defenseless City manga, Act 5

Story by Hiroshi Yamaguchi Art by Fumiaki Shibata Read Act 1 here Read Act 2 here Read Act 3 here Read Act 4 here Originally published in Cyber Comix Vol. 46 and 47 (Bandai, September & October 1992) To preserve better reproduction quality, these pages were scanned from the collected...

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Actic Gear toys by Takara-Tomy

Debuting in July 2005, Actic Gear was by far the biggest line of Votoms toys made by anyone, culminating in more than 50. By rendering them in 1/48 scale (just over 3″ tall), they landed in a sweet spot for maker and user alike: they were small enough to keep...

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Modern garage kit catalog, Part 1

Here you will witness an impossible task. The world of Votoms garage kits is so vast and deep, it may literally be impossible to catalog. When I decided to make a go of it, I dug into every online archive I could find and came up with over 550 individual...

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Tim Eldred art gallery

I’ve had the tremendous luck of having created Votoms art as both an amateur and a professional, from ‘zines and APAs to comics and box art. The full range is collected here, except for interior comic book pages – which I’ll get to in another article.   Fanzine cover, 1985....

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Garage kits by Project Hurricane

Let’s say you built all the 1/20 Votoms models released by Bandai (see them here) and this still didn’t scratch your itch. Where would you go next? Simple: you’d leap into a hurricane! That’s Project Hurricane, one of the most respected garage kit companies in Japan. Starting in 2008, they...

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Defenseless City manga, Act 4

Story by Hiroshi Yamaguchi Art by Fumiaki Shibata Read Act 1 here Read Act 2 here Read Act 3 here Originally published in Cyber Comix Vol. 41 and 42 (Bandai, April & May 1992) To preserve better reproduction quality, these pages were scanned from the collected edition. TO BE CONCLUDED...

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1/12 Toys by Yamato

If toys are your jam, and you like Armored Trooper Votoms, the biggest and boldest came in 1/12 scale from a company named Yamato. That’s just over a foot tall, which makes for a very impressive display piece. From 2004-2009, Yamato released nine A.T.s and an equal number of accessory...

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Interview: Koichi Inoue, Concept Advancement

Among the masterminds who assembled the primary concepts of Armored Trooper Votoms one layer at a time was Koichi Inoue, whose simple “Concept Advancement” credit represents a lot of complex work. From helping devise mecha gimmicks for the Scopedog to driving the overall story itself, his participation in the original...

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Defenseless City manga, Act 3

Story by Hiroshi Yamaguchi Art by Fumiaki Shibata Read Act 1 here Read Act 2 here Originally published in Cyber Comix Vol. 39 (Bandai, February 1992) To preserve better reproduction quality, these pages were scanned from the collected edition. Customized aircraft can fly across battlefield at speeds in excess of...

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Wave plamodel catalog

These are all injection-molded plastic model kits created and sold by Wave. See more photos at the Wave website here. 1/60 scale models This set is a reissue of the 1/60 models sold by Union in the 1980s, updated with new box styles. 1/24 scale models Brutishdog Marshydog Scopedog Red...

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Wave garage kit catalog

All the garage kits shown here are 1/24 scale resin models released by Wave after 2000. To see their pre-2000 releases, click here Find more photos of these kits at Wave’s website here. Scopedog 21C (based on a revised official design to modernize the unit) Scopedog update parts set Marshydog...

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Wave Corporation interview

Of the many companies that have created Votoms products in the decades since 1983, no one has produced more models than Wave Corporation. They started out as a small garage kit manufacturer working in tandem with Lark Hobby Shop to make their first Votoms resin kits in 1985. By 1989,...

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