My Drawing of the iconic transforming robot VF-1S

Roy Fokker's Skull Leader standing guard.

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Welcome to a very special post from me. Here is a drawing I did of the Skull Leader Battloid from Robotech/Macross. I was an 80's child and grew up watching the legendary Japanese Anime series Macross. As some of you will know, Macross was renamed Robotech in the West. I think it's an amazing series and still stands up to this day. A few years later, I was completely blown away by the animated film - Macross, Do You Remember Love. At the time, you could only get the crappy edited, dubbed version called Clash of the Boinoids/Super Space Fortress Macross. It's a real mess but it was the best you could get in the late 80's. The cheesy Hong Kong voice overs are hilarious now! Just have a look - here -LOL! Great video by JoseBronxRicanon on Youtube. I was lucky to get a real Japanese import VHS of the Macross film without English Subs. It didn't matter that the film was in Japanese. I knew most of the story from seeing the Clash of the Bionoids version. The full version had a half hour of additional animation including some very bloody scenes that were edited for COTB.

I was absolutely obsessed with the series and loved drawing epic Robotech space battles. I drew the iconic Valkyrie/Veritech fighter so much that I now know it by heart. I actually remember all the details of the transforming fighter.

In this drawing, the VF-1S is in Battron or Battloid mode. Check out the toy below. I had one of these as a kid :)

We see pilot Rick Hunter/Hikaru Ichijo on the box.

Pilot emerging from inside on a sort of lift ejection seat.

Here we have the fighter in Gerwalk/Guardian mode with super space armor equipped. The blue armor is loaded with stupid amounts of missiles making it as effective as ten regular fighters.

Hikaru firing a missile salvo at some unfortunate Zentradi.

The is the ultra armor that basically converts the Valkyrie into a tank.

Here is a shot from the game.

Skull Leader VF-1S is initially piloted by Major Fokker...... LOL! Yes, Major Roy Fokker XD

Roy was quite the chauvinist in the film. Shocking....

Rocket Maaaaaan!

Roy buys the farm...

Later on, Rick/Hikaru becomes the commander of Skull squadron and pilots VF-1S.

Well, that's one way to pick up girls...

The enemy in Macross are the Zentradi, a giant race of Clones bred for war. In the series, Zentradi Males are segregated from Females and live in a purely militarised society. In the film, the Zentradi males are actually at war with the Female Meltlandi race. Meltlandi ace pilots such as Milia are some of the deadliest adversaries the UN Spacy face.

An iconic film moment when Max meets Milia after a grueling battle. Max falls in love with her despite the fact that she is a giant clone.

And who could forget the SDF-1 Macross? The human characters actually live on a giant transforming spaceship. The Super Dimension fortress actually changes from battle cruiser mode into robot form. Pretty awesome!

The TV series ship had aircraft carriers for arms.

The film version had spaceships for arms looking even more insanely overpowered.

The inhabitants of the Macross live in an internal city within the ship.

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Right, That's enough nostalgia for one day! I'm going to leave you with one of my favorite battle scenes from the film. The Macross TV series and Movie are pretty awesome and I highly recommend you check them out. The Film animation really stands the test of time and looks absolutely beautiful. It looks better than most modern anime in my opinion.

In this clip, we see the famous battle between Max and Milia as well as the death of Ben Dixon/ Kakizaki. This is the Blu Ray remaster and has some nice new sounds added. Play this loud!

Enjoy :)

Macross Film Clip -Max Vs. Milia