The State of the Gunpla Union – 073111

First of all, I’m still alive. Yes, really. I know it’s been two months since the last post, but as you all know, life happens.  Honestly, there have been a couple of big things that have kept me busy. The first being work, but there is only so much you can say about that. Work is work right? As for the other thing, well I’ll get to that in a bit. First off lets catch up on Gunpla and things.

I’m obviously two months late in chiming in on this but let’s talk Gundam Age. At this point I’m sure everyone is quite aware of the facts, but for those who may have been living under a rock as it seems I have for the last two months, I highly suggest you check out Falldog’s write up here on Gundam Age, if you haven’t already. I’ll wait, go ahead.

Ok, now that you’re back, my opinion is disappointment, but I understand the reasoning behind the move and this media mix style. I’m fastly approaching the middle age bracket that wants to see more UC timeline anime and higher quality kits and what not, but Bandai needs to worry about the youth bracket and to sell those toys as I guess it makes more money for them now.  While Bandai has been unashamedly forward about the media mix style with anime, games, and toys route they are taking with Gundam Age, they thankfully decided to remember the older bracket and give us the animated version of The Origin Manga. While a retelling, the manga was excellent, and I hope they give it a full TV series at least rather than an OVA.   And bluntly put, First Gundam is old animation-wise, so a remake would be awesome on the eyes.

Anyways, back to Gundam Age, on the mecha designs, I will give the Age Gundam a thumbs up and will build the eventual MG, but everything else… Well I guess you have to keep it simple for the seven year olds right?

OK, I’ll build this at least

In other Gunpla news, as we all know, MG Gundam Epyon landed during my blank period, and yes, it’s built and done.  I haven’t taken much pictures of it yet as I’m probably at least going to try and complete decal hell with it and top coat it.  Initial thoughts is that it’s pretty awesome, but for reason, the proportions bother me.  the length of the legs compare to the tiny torso really jumped out at me.  It’s a small nitpick.  You really can’t tell in pictures.

It’s Bluepyon?

I saw this over at Plamo Addiction, amazing paint job.  Flipping it from the dark red to this blue, and having it come out this good is pretty damn nice work.  Honestly though?  I might be going against popular opinion, but I just don’t think blue suits Gundam Epyon.  I think the style fits a darker color scheme, but that is just me.  To reiterate though, it’s an awesome paint job.

Anyways, onto kits that I’m working on or have finished, and really need to just do a month of nothing but photo posts.  First off, the PG GP01 is almost done, considering I started back in March, I should really finish this up.  This also will be my entry into Bandai’s Gunpla World Grand Prix.  One thing I’ve learned in entering contests in Japan is that unfortunately Japanese don’t seem to like recolors as much as westerners do, so I think I’m going to have a better chance with this kit than perhaps my Sinanju.

GP01

I’ve also finished the RG Zaku II, and I have to say it does look really good.  Tiny tiny pieces though, and the movable frame is really stiff which means it does feel like it’s easy to break.  It’s on the table ready to get decaled this week.

RG Zaku II…?

Other completed kits include the HG G-3 Gundam that was a limited kit at last years Gunpla Expo, along with the Ex Finish Char’s Rick Dom which also was a limited kit from a Chara Hobby show a few years back.  I also did finish up the HG ANA Gundam kit too. Nice and blue, but having built the ANA Unicorn first, I think I spoiled myself.  I’ll have to build the ANA 00 Gundam to see if it comes out on top of the three ANA kits.

1/144 Line up

As mentioned, I also finished the MG Epyon, it’s going on the decal table sometime this month too.

For the time being it’s on the shelf

And I’ve had some free time in the last couple of days, so I’ve been doing a simple snapfit build of the Nu-Gundam.

Surprisingly straightforward and easy

And last, but definitely not least is the PG Strike Freedom.  The countdowm has started, and it will be done by the end of the month.

Thanks to Kjasi for the awesome video.  Nothing like lighting a fire under your ass like a countdown.

So in short, August should see the PG GP01, PGSF GAF GBP, RG Zaku II, and Nu-Gundam all being fully completed.  A bit ambitious, but I’ll see what I can do.

But as you may recall, I mentioned a limited edition kit dropping in July.  It was a few days late, but I did get it last week.  Besides work, that other thing I mentioned that was going to keep me busy?  That would be ASM Junior, and he’s a limited one of the kind.

With that said, things maybe slower as gunpla takes a bit of a back seat, but I will continue to post when I can.  As is, I’m already looking forward to being able to build Gunpla with my son in the future.

The State of the Gunpla Union – 033111

Much like GaiGun, I’ve not found the desire to blog or gunpla in the recent weeks following the Tohoku earthquake.  To be honest, I’ve done not much of anything aside from work and coming home and watching the news.  No gaming, no gunpla, not following the latest gunpla news or anything.  As I mentioned before, thankfully everyone at my company was safe, but there arose the situation where people were still affected by loss of homes or family.  Also, as a former JET, I was saddened to hear about the loss of a JET member as well.  This earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis, and rolling black outs affecting the Kanto region will continue to affect things for the long term it seems.  But life goes on, right?  We pick up and rebuild, and even if I wasn’t directly affected, I need to pick up and go forward.  I’m happy that the efforts I’m doing at work is going to help our employees and those affected.

And with that said, let’s get back to the Gunpla!  Moping around isn’t going to get these kits built.  March obviously didn’t see much done, but I have started on one thing…

Yep, doing the PG Strike Freedom got me in the PG mood and I’ve started on the PG GP01.  Yeah, I know I need to get back to finishing up the PG Strike Freedom as well.  As you see, it’s looking big and pretty here.  In fact, it’s so big that it will be pretty hard to take good pictures with my current setup most likely.

But yeah, the goal is to actually get some stuff taken in April, as we’ll be doing some spring cleaning and rearranging a couple of our rooms.   With that said, I’m debating on what to do with some of my older already built kits.  Not that I’m going to throw anything out, but my original backlog was somewhat of a giant lot of stuff I got cheap, and in that were a few kits that I just built and that was it.    So, I may be passing on those kits to people who might want to take them and make them something special.  This is just something floating around my head right now, so I’m not sure how this will work out.  Of course, by reading that, you may think I’m getting out of Gunpla or something.  I’m not, but priorities are priorities, and Gunpla has always been somewhat of an escape for me.  Now with a job that keeps me busy, and that I actually really like, I’m having less time to build then before.  There is also a Gentei kit coming in July that I’m saving up for too, so  I’m thinking about that too.  But no worries, the gunpla is still going on, just not as much.

Of course there are kits on my radar coming up.  As mentioned last month, I’m looking forward to both the MG Epyon and RG Strike.

MG Epyon

RG Strike

The RG Strike especially looks like it’s going to be amazing if the pictures aren’t lying.  If anything, the Strike might be the first real look at what the RG line is capable of.  When you really stop to think about it, the RX-78 Gundam is as about as simple as it gets, and the Zaku-II as well.  So the Strike might be the line’s real chance to shine.  Other than these two kits though, there’s not much else coming out at this point that has got me excited, or that I can really concentrate on

While it’s a bit of a short post this time around, I figured it’s good to get back on the ball, even if it’ll take a while to get back into things.   We’ll see how April goes!