WHIFS found while Google-ing

[Green Dragon]

I still want a kit of the RTL2. Only been waiting since seeing Thunderbirds in the 60's!

Paul Harrison

[CANSO]

Found this google-ing the word "vanship":

A superb idea to turn the anime-vanship into a WWII-ish a/c. The scale of the ship is changed - the figures look like 1:32. The cockpit of the original vanship (in 1:72) is obviously also resized and renewed:

I just don't like the positioning of the antenna.
More here.

[zenrat]

Love it.  Another idea filed away in the cerebral rolidex.

[Captain Canada]

Now that is neat ! Love the trailer or handling cart or whatever it is.

[CANSO]

Now that is neat ! Love the trailer or handling cart or whatever it is.

It's none of them - this is the landing gear of the vanship. In the original model the main gear is fully covered and the tail wheel is very small - the guy changed the wheels and cut out the covers.

[Captain Canada]

Really ? Wow...that's some big ol' drag right there ! Needs some cucheman carrots or somat 

[Madoc]

The "technology" dreamed up in the "Last Exile" anime is on par for tech in an anime show - it's... odd.

What makes those craft go is a substance they call "claudia."  It's a unique bit of stuff that they mine.  Mix it with alcohol and it makes a really zippy high energy fuel.  Enough so, per the anime, that it makes steam engines more efficient than internal combustion ones.  Mix the claudia with water however, and you now have a substance which repels gravity and induces thrust!

So, the Vanships in the anime series all have these big honkin' steam engines up front under those stylin' and chrome trimmed hoods.  Slung underneath and out the rear are the tubes and mechanisms through which the claudia is pumped after that big steam engine heats it up and it's then saturated with the water.

As I said, the "tech" is odd.

Per the show, the ancestors of the humans in the show fled Earth due to disasters there and landed on Prester where they developed a new civilization.  So, they've obviously had the tech to go faster than light across the stars and all that but down on Prester they don't even have so much as radio - let alone radar or laser comms.  They do have electricity though.  And they have a well developed steel industry capable of making massive flying battleships and the like.

And despite coming from such advanced tech origins, their idea of streamlining means putting big chrome grills and spats on their flying machines.

But, whatever, it looks damn cool!  I've been a fan of the show for years now and am glad to see kits of the Vanships coming out.

This WhIf is pretty hella cool.  It's a great mashup of styles and assumptions and the weathering is beautiful.  That paint chipping is exceptionally well done and very evocative.  It just looks right!

No, it wouldn't need most of the junk that's still slung underneath the thing and the builder did remove the claudia unit in its entirety substituting two jet engines in its place.  But, hell, it still looks cool!

[CANSO]

Another vanship transition:

IMHO this one is not using the original 1:72 vanship by Hasegawa. I see the "airbrakes" from another Hasegawa fantasy model though ...and a drop tank from a P-38.
More here
I think it's done by the same modeler who did the "Bangship" (I already mentioned it earlier in a different thread):

[PR19_Kit]

I must admit I don't understand this VanShip business at all, but the modelling is superbly done. 

[CANSO]

I must admit I don't understand this VanShip business at all, but the modelling is superbly done.  

Actually you don't need to.
I watched all episodes of the "Last exile" and this was definitely NOT my type of animated movie. I know (kind of ) the idea behind the vanship power, energy, propulsion...whatever it is, but I don't really try to go deeper. The models I see here and there on the web are unique antigravity vehicles and most of them are really superbly done, as you say.
If there is a general word to describe all vanships, it will be "dieselpunk" I guess, even if the anime originals use steam in their engines (as described above by Madoc ), but in a much more sophisticated way, than Stephenson and Trevithick did it .
BTW I would like to have a vanship (or two) in my garage...

[PR19_Kit]

I hope those  'Flying Standard' VanShips don't go very fast or the girlie sitting on the rear wing is going to get VERY chilly! 

[zenrat]

This was photographed at the South Australian Plastic Model Association Expo at the weekend.
Scratchbuilt and looks to be about 1/24.  It's a good job.

[Dizzyfugu]

Vanships have potential! Do I see a decent Group Build topic evolving?

I also have a scratched, little Vanship fighter (in 1:48, a combination of a 1:72 F4U and a 1:43 Citroen Traction Avant!) on the looong agenda...

[Rheged]

I must admit I don't understand this VanShip business at all, but the modelling is superbly done.  

I don't understand it either.......and THAT Flying Standard looks nothing like the Flying Standard 8 that was my father's first car!!

[Madoc]

Canso,

Yeah, "dieselpunk" would be about right.  They've got some "super science" going on in the show.  Aside from having had interstellar flight capability, the "Guild" - the group which exercises monopoly control over the big claudia powerplants used to run the flying battleships - seems to have retained all the uber-cool super science that made FTL possible.

Meanwhile, everyone else on the planet is limited to a mix of tech ranging from the 1890s to the 1920s.  Any "computers" are mechanical in their entirety.  Gun laying, even on the flying battleships, is entirely optical based.  The most effective long range sensors they have are these acoustic things that pick up the sounds of the other guy's engines and the like.  Plus, they've got this neo-Napoleonic thing going on where each side's troops will line up and aim steam powered muskets at each other's tightly drawn ranks.  The side with the most guys still standing at the end of such "duels of honor" is declared the winner.

Like I said, this is on par for most Japanese anime in that it's... odd.

The thing which really appealed to me though is the idea that they've the tech to float through the air, thanks to that claudia stuff.  So, you have the visuals of full-up battleships cutting through the clouds in as stately manner.  That is just too cool to resist.  And the Vanships all are styled like some 1920's futurist's dream of what an ultimate automobile should look like.  Big spats, flowing curves, plenty of grills, and no small amount of chrome.

So yeah, the "world" of "Last Exile" has opportunity aplenty for expanding upon.