So I finally can take another wack at my MG Sinanju because my replacement parts arrived the other day. Basically… I more or less destroyed some of the black parts on the Sinanju, mainly the shield, while experimenting with how to paint the gold trim. Oops.

Meanwhile, I have my eternally-in-progress Unicorn. Neograde is preparing to release some option parts that include two sets of gatlings and parts to convert the head into Unicorn Unit 2 Banshee that looks absolutely awesome.

These were sculpted by 08team PIA, the same person who did Neograde’s excellent Kshatriya. Now I’m VERY tempted to spring on this when it gets released next month and then just make my current Unicorn into the Banshee, but the problem of course, is that you know as soon as I do this, Bandai will release an MG Banshee with some special goodies of some sort… The only thing that comforts me is that I can’t possibly think of what it could include that I’d want, so odds are life will go on, haha (UNLESS they modify the legs…).

Ultimately, it depends on what the price off these parts are, but I’m nearly certain that I’m sold and my Unicorn will be becoming a Banshee, and then when I get a chance I’ll get another Unicorn, mod the legs again, and paint it up nice ‘n pretty.

So I’m off to give the Sinanju a second go. Wish me luck.

First up, more work on the Susanowo:

Leaning back a bit there Graham…

Anyhow, the adjustments were limited to seperating the hip joints a bit from the crotch. Not sure if they’re seperated enough though… The struggle for less suckage continues. I’m yet to slightly de-extend the chest too.

On a different note, I repainted the GN Sword III from the Trans-Am Raiser for my current 00 Raiser:

In the close-up pic you can see some of the paint chipping due to me making a mistake and not sanding down the beam part enough, so it scraped off some of the grey paint on its way in. Hardly noticeable in person, but a shame nonetheless.

Slapping it together to see what I’ve got…

I don’t know how happy I am with the torso… I think I might have extended it a tad too much. Same goes with the hip armor. There’s something still bothering me about them that I’ll try to address…

So I have at last settled on the revised waist design, and there it is. Compare with some screenshots of the machine:

I have to hold it together because at the moment it’s a bunch of rods through drilled out holes. The waist armor has moved down and inwards since its last appearance, and as a result, I had to cut off the pegs that mounted the legs and drill new holes for them.

I’ve also been working on a torso mod a bit… More on that in the next day or so when some stuff dries and I can reassemble this bad boy.

The other day I received my HG Susanowo, as well as a few other models, but the Susanowo is the only one that I think I’ll end up doing modding of any real degree to. The main purpose is to fix the fact that the HG looks fugly as hell.

The proportions are just mixed up… Below is a comparison shot I whipped up a while back to show how the HG loses the sleekness of the design that the show had.

I’ve basically decided the two main areas that need adjustment are the hips, as the thruster things are just mounted far too wide, and the torso. The torso is just seems to short and fat, so I’m not positive how I’ll go about modding it, but we’ll see.

Just some quick shots of the kit… My apologies for the cluttered background, but I just wanted to communicate the problem of the hip mounts quickly.

This is what it looks like after I’ve begun work. The left hip (viewer’s right) is approximately how the finish product will look like in terms of how it’s mounted. I’ll try to get a far better pic once all of the glue and whatnot has dried…

So there’s been an obvious lack of progress on pretty much everything…

I’ve been studying in London for the last six weeks and head back on Friday.  I can’t say I’m all that excited to head back, since I love it here, but all good things must come to an end, right?

So I wrote up in a rather unnecessarily large amount of detail what I have to do when I get back, so I figured I’d convert it into a post.

So, when I get home I’ll be keeping myself busy as I have the HG Trans-Am Raiser, 0 Gundam, Exia R2, and Susanowo to keep me company. The Arche was supposed to be included but they accidentally sent the GN Archer apparently (><), but they’ll hopefully include it with my MG Exia next month (just realized about the problem so I’m yet to hear back from R10).

So basically I have to finish up:
- HG Seravee – Minor detailing and flat coat.
- HG Seraphim – Minor detailing and flat coat.
- HG Arios – Minor detailing, painting all of the orange, and flat coat.
- HG GN Archer – Minor detailing and flat coat.

Then will also have:
- HG Trans-Am Raiser – Unsure of what I’ll do with this. See below…
- HG 0 Gundam – Snap, detail, and flat coat.
- HG Exia R2 – Snap, detail, and flat coat.
- HG Susanowo – See below…
- HG Arche Gundam (Eventually, ha) – Snap, detail, and flat coat.

Trans-Am Raiser

I’m somewhat split for this one. I’m between two options:
1. Detail it, gloss the hell out of it, and leave it Trans-Am mode.
2. Rip the GN Sword III away, repaint it, and give it to my 00 Raiser, then repaint the entire Gundam with a custom paint scheme and slap the XN Raiser on it when it comes out.

I’m certainly leaning towards #2…

Susanowo

I won’t be sure until I snap the figure together in the next week or so (for obvious reasons), but some thoughts of mine:
1. Lengthen the legs – We all know that the proportions on the HG Susanowo look a tad off, so this will be one of the first things, unless…
2. Reshape/Redo the connection point for the hip thrusters – I’m convinced that part of the thing that is throwing off the proportions of the Susanowo is that the thrusters/claws/beam focusers (damn those things do a lot) on the waist connect in such a way that they can’t fit snugly up against the waist as they should. Pic for thought:

Perhaps you agree, perhaps not, but to me, it seems like a huge chunk of what’s throwing of the sleekness of it all is that those things aren’t on the hips, but are instead next to them. So readjusting those is actually the first thing I’ll do, since it may render #1 unnecessary, but we’ll see. Odds are this mod will remove the ability to swivel them backwards, but I hardly consider it a sacrifice.
3. Convert it to Masurao – This is just an idea I’m playing with, since I rather liked the Masurao’s color scheme and hugeass beam sabers (which shouldn’t be all that tricky to whip up with clear plaplate), but I think we can say with pretty much 100% certainty that they’ll release an HG Masurao eventually (Plus Trans-Am coloring of it and the Susanowo, because Bandai is Bandai), so odds are I won’t. The basic idea came about because of…
4. General slimming down – Aside from the hips I also will probably adjust the shoulders and torso, and in the process will probably completely remove all parts of the cannon gimmick.
5. Detail and paint when all is said and done. So this’ll actually be the first HG 00 kit that I’ll completely paint (Arios is going to get all of its orange painted, but that’s still only like 1/3 of the paint scheme).

MG Exia

And then we have MG Exia Ignition Mode. Woot. Odds are this is going to be a panel-line plus flatcoat for me too. I really wish I could give the whole kit a good paint job and all, I just don’t have time as I’m still struggling with painting/finishing modding my MG Unicorn, ha. Plus I only have like a one month gap in which I can use my spraybooth… Such is life.

Bunches ‘o Other Stuff

And then along those same lines, I have of course the eternal WIPs of MG Unicorn, MG Sinanju, and the HMM Blade Liger AB. I really want to make a strong push to finish the MG Unicorn for the sake of it being in progress for far too long… The Sinanju is questionable since I messed up some of the armor parts while experimenting with paint and am waiting to hear back on a parts request from HLJ. The Blade Liger… Well that’s just at the end of the list, so let’s now even pretend like I’m actually going to get around to it.

…so speaking of Graham Specials.

The 1/100 GN Flag is still very much kicking around in my head, I’ve just been without time/CAD software all summer. I’m hoping this fall when I get back to school I’ll have a bit more free time that I can commit to working on it. My ultimate, idealistic, far-out-there goal is the be able to have a final product that is actually pretty damn good, and recast it into a kit, but that’s neither here nor now.

Anyhow, that’s what’s on my plate.  Or part of it at least.

I have decided that the following could be used to describe me as a modeler (and to some degree, as a person):
- Ambitious.
- Decently Skilled.
- Good at Formulating Ideas.
- Loves the Hobby.
- Lazy.
- Busy.
- Lazy.
- Like to play with formatting on his blog posts.
- Lazy.
- Why even act like busy is part of it?  Just really.  Fucking.  Lazy.

So tomorrow I leave for a six-week study abroad trip in London. Should be a fun time, but for discipline’s sake, here is a list of things to do when I get back:

MG Unicorn Gundam:
- Finish mods on leg joints.
- Paint.

MG Sinanju:
- Paint.

1/144 HG Seravee, Seraphim, Arios, and GN Archer:
- Minor detailing work.
- Flat coat.

Zoids HMM Blade Liger AB:
- Minor Detailing/Mods.
- Paint. Unsure whether I’m going to make this guy blue or red… We’ll see.

In the wake of the Shizuoka Hobby Show, I just wanted to make a quick wishlist to myself… The price in yen from RainbowTen is listed alongside it for reference:

Already Released:
- HG Arche Gundam – 960
- HG Gadessa – 1200
- HG Garazzo – 1200
- HG Trans-Am Raiser – 1600

June Release:
- HG 0 Gundam ACM – 960
- HG Exia R2 – 960
- HG Susanowo – 1200

July Release:
- MG Exia Ignition Mode – 4000

August Release:
- HG Gadess – 1200
- HG Reborns Gundam – Unknown Price

And looking at all of that, it seems like a lot more than I thought when I had the list in my head, haha. The Trans-Am Raiser is questionable… Part of me wants it just to see what the Trans-Am finish is like, but also for the GN Sword III since I didn’t get around to having it 3D printed. We shall see… The whole Gadessa, Garazzo, and Gadess series I might also pass on. On a somewhat similar note… The HG Susanowo is kind of looking fugly but the Robot Damashii looks amazing. What happened there?

Some quick thoughts on certain things announced at Shizuoka (Head over to Ngee Khiong for coverage):

MG Gundam Exia:
Thank you lord. It looks good from the pics I’ve seen, and if it seems that Ignition Mode comes with parts to turn it into Exia Repair, so there is in fact a god after all.

HG Gundams with Weapons Sets:
RAAAAAAAAAAAGE. I’m not surprised in the slightest, but part of me just hoped Bandai would release an HG weapons set. On a similar note, anyone wanna buy the Gundams on the cheap if I keep the weapons? Kyahahaha…

HG Unicorn and Kshatriya:
These are said to be display only, but that doesn’t stop them from being pretty to look at.

XN Raiser:
I have no idea what the plot significance of this is but it looks awesome.

Things That Tragically Were Not Announced (but are still somewhat realistic):
- HG Gundam 00 Weapons Set (see above…)
- MG Banshee
- MG Kshatriya

Things That Tragically Were Not Announced (but are not realistic in the slightest):
- MG OVERFLAG WITH CONVERSION PARTS FOR MG GN FLAG FUCK YES

So I finally got a new camera… This was long overdue.

(Source of the above hot as hell pic)

Samsung DSC-T900. Nomnomnom. Nice little compact 12MP shooter with a nice touchscreen that can shoot 720P video.

So I had some fun with it…

More within…

These were all done without any tweaking. I just turned flash off and shot the pics. But it’s astounding that just by doing that, the pics are DRASTICALLY better than any pics I could take with my old camera after fidgeting with it for 5 minutes, using manual focus, etc etc…

Just some other random pics… I’ll do nicer completed pics of the 00 Raiser and Cherudim pretty soon. Tragically I can only take two pics at a time because I THOUGHT for some reason that the camera had 4gb internal memory, but it actually has 11mb… Hm… So I’m waiting a few days until my memory stick gets here, haha. But I could not possibly be happier with this camera thus far. I’m anxious to see how nice the video is once I get a memory card so, y’know, I can actually record some, haha.

I finally sat down and finished this guy… He’s been a torso sitting there for months upon months, and MY GOD is it beautiful.

I’m in love. When I was building this I kept thinking “shit, this is detailed,” but looking at the finished product I’m amazed…

I have never built a model that was this:
- Detailed
- Intricate
- Fragile

As far as intricate goes, I’ve built plenty of MG Gundams, the most recent being the Sinanju, and this blows them out of the water.

I mention fragile because posing the BL tends to make things fall apart… Whenever I finish this model (see below), I’ll glue a ton of the parts on to prevent that.

As for finishing the model, I’m not quite sure what to do at this point. My options are:
1. Paint it blue (Ban’s Blade Liger AB).
2. Paint it red.
3. Just flat coat it.

Of course the above three all include detailing little bits and such. I originally was pretty set on painting it blue but the red has grown on my quite significantly… We shall see. I won’t really have time for any of it until July or so, so I have plenty of time to decide. In the meantime I might detail some small metallic bits, but nothing crazy.

And also here’s a quick pic of my finished 00 Raiser and Cherudim. I’ll be getting a new camera at the end of the month so I’ll take nice gallery pics of the two then.

The top of my microwave is starting to look rather cluttered… I’ll probably get a little display case for ‘em next year when I have a bit more room.

Finally got my 0 Raiser. There was a bit of a shipping mixup that stalled it another week, but life goes on, haha.

Same deal as on my previous HGs, only with a tad more detail work.

- Panel lining with Sakura Micron markers.
- Touching up with a gray Gundam Marker in a number of places. There aren’t any stunning examples of this in these photos since a lot of them were in the back. The gray stripe on the bottom of the nose is the clearest one in the photo.
- Carefully colored the parts of the sensor (under the clear orange piece) in metallic silver. It gives the whole thing a nice metallic look while still keeping the detail of the sensor parts.

Aside from the flat coat, when I have access to my spraybooth I also have to paint the white area on the blue flap at the very back of the 0 Raiser, as it is currently just a sticker.

So I realized it is only a little over a week until I finally have access to my spraybooth… Exciting… I might bring a few cans of flat coat back to school so I could just go outside and spray if need be, haha. If I like the end result of this enough I might put together a full-on tutorial with videos (once I get a new camera, haha) on how to get a nice looking HG on both a financial and time budget, haha.

As for my 00 itself…

Little update to it. I colored in the rings and slots with metallic green and am pretty pleased with the result. This was a bit of a process for each GN Drive:

1. Put metallic green Gundam Marker in hole and press down for awhile, this lets paint flow down into the bottom where the marker can’t reach.
2. Color in the rest of the hole.
3. Repeat 1 and 2 for each hole.
4. Use marker to color entire ring. This is pretty much impossible to do perfectly so I just was messy and made sure to cover it as thoroughly as I could.
5. Sand the entire drive with sand paper evenly, so it gets rid of the excess paint on the ring and leaves an even look around the whole drive.

And one last pic of the 00 Raiser in a bit of an attempt to replicate his fight with the Arche Gundam (Or possibly the Trans-Am Raiser).

And that’s all for now! I’m going to put an order in before too long for basically the rest of the CB Gundams, the GN Archer, and the Gadessa. I’m pondering whether or not to wait until the Garazzo gets released as well… So in a few more weeks I’ll start churning out a new model every few days.