Gallery for HGUC Shin Matsunaga Zaku II Coming Soon

I'll have the gallery for this kit posted late tonight or early tomorrow morning.  I tried a new lighting setup and tried to be a little more inspired with the poses.  Hopefully this leads to a better gallery than the Lightning.

How I'm gonna do galleries from now on

I decided that from here on I'm going to use the same format for all my Completed Kits galleries.  I'll start with an overview and touch on good and bad points.  I'll also add in what I used for paint.

I'll do my best to not start each gallery with a wall of text.  Look for my Lightning Gundam gallery to be up soon.

Returning to Gunpla

It's been a long time since I've posted anything or even viewed this blog.  But sometimes that's how life is.  Certain things take priority, like kids and job searching.

I'm writing this post to say that I'm going to try my best to start maintaining this blog again.  I live in the US in the Mid-West so fellow gunpla fans are few and far between.  I may not be in the same ranks as blogs like Gaijin Gunpla or GoodGuyDan, but this blog made me feel more connected to the gunpla community when I was updating it regularly.

So on that note be on the look out for regular updates. I have a few kits I've finished in my absence and I will add galleries for them as soon as I can. 

Until next time...

TT Hongli MG Sinanju

Just finished building this guy today.  It was a weird building experience to say the least.  One thing this has over the bandai version is the stability of the rifle. It pegs into the hand a lot more securely.  Secure enough that the only weight issues I get with the combined beam rifle rocket bazooka come from the elbow.  Well thats all for now.  I'll probably do a proper update video soon.

Been Gone a While...

So... I've haven't posted in a while.  In fact I haven't really done much with Gunpla (aside from yesterday) since my last post.  On that note I do have some good news, well good for me anyway.  Come March my wife and I will be welcoming our second child.  It wasn't exactly planned but our daughter is 2 and we decided around 2-3 is when we wanted a second so it all works out.  Well, personal life aside, this is what I've been up to Gunpla-wise.

Well I haven't been up to much honestly.  Yesterday I airbrushed my final color for the Wing Zero (which is taking too long >_<) and started hand painting some details and color apps I didn't feel like masking.

Got a few new things for my Gunpla collection.  A new HGUC, a RD figure, and a couple MG's that haven't been delivered yet.  I'll probably post an update with some pics later this week.  

I'll have the final WIP for the Wing Zero up as soon as I can.  There's still a bit of hand painting I need to do to it but I'm thinking I'll have it completely finished in the next couple days.

Until next time..

Lazy Weekend

So... I spent most of this weekend lying around.  I mean it was a holiday weekend.. Anyway I accomplished ZERO on the Wing Zero.  HA get it? But I did actually finish the decals on my Sazabi, as well as finally clean out my work station.  Woo no more lap desk.  After I was done I decided to take some pics so.. onward!

Well, here's my work area.  My basement is semi-finished so I set up a second living room/den area in it.  Which is great since I basically have a living room set up for my daughter upstairs and a living room downstairs where my wife and I don't have to worry about our laptops getting smashed by said daughter.  There's a big 'closet-y' area where the stairs cut in and I basically made this my Gunpla hole.

I happened to have this desk which fit right into the cubby made by the stairs.  This is my primary station where I do just about everything.  Recently I've been using a lap desk because a couple hours ago this desk was covered in clutter.  The huge cutting mat was a gift from my brother.  I threw the Assault Kingdom figures up there because I was constantly fiddling with them.  So I stuck them up there out of the way but still in fiddle reach.

Random IKEA shelf I hung.  I usually put the kit I most recently finished on it.  Well that's sort of what's on it.  The HGCE Strike Rouge was technically the last gunpla finished in my basement, even though my wife built it.  And the Wing Zero is going to officially on that shelf as finished soon enough.

Side note here:  I can say the Strike Rouge, and thus all the new Strike HGs, is an excellent kit.  Everything from the balance to the aesthetics to the articulation.  I was presently surprised while posing it after my wife had finished it.

Tool/Supply shelf.  Also a holder of clutter and random spare parts.

There's an actual small walk in closet (bit of irony there I know) built just across from my desk.  All the boxs are full of spare parts and other miscellaneous-ness.  You can also see the feet of my wife's unfinished PG Strike Rouge up there -_-.

Well I thought I'd end this post with some close ups of my display shelf. 

I use the top shelf for HG's because of the obvious height restrictions.  On the left is a semi-forgotten Zaku kit-bash project, along with a semi-forgotten Hyaku Shiki.  I don't remember why I took the DX's satellite system off...  On another note, I mentioned a custom Sinanju in a previous post.  Well there it is.  It's a kit-bash mod mix of sorts.  I'll start working on it again after the Wing Zero is done.

I like these kits so much I dedicated a whole shelf to them.  

Shelf of MG's.  The Exia is well.. yeah, I'm not even sure whats going on with that Exia at this point.

The Delta Plus has all sorts of problems.  I put it on the shelf next to my desk in case I ever decide to fix it.  The Stein is all laid out cause it's currently for sale on eBay (funding for a side project).  

I took a couple more shots of the Nu and Sazabi because A) I think they look awesome, and B) The Sazabi.  I've seen and read a lot of reviews of the Sazabi Ver Ka that say 'oh this guy's too heavy for an action base, don't even try'.  Well I tried.  It worked.  It works, great.  I find that the clip piece you have to use from the action base clips on super secure and the base arm itself can hold the weight.  However, it isn't perfect.  Sazabi is so big and massive and heavy that it's balance is easily shifted by just it's limbs.  Especially those huge legs.  That being said.  It's very easy to set him up and see the arm start leaning.  My base here is actually leaning ever so slightly.  Basically I'm telling you Yes, you can get Sazabi aerial.  But it IS a big, heavy kit so be careful balancing and getting the center of gravity just right.  Like I said, it isn't perfect.  But at least Char isn't just standing there while Amuro's flying around.

Well that's all for now.  I think after I get my other room cleaned up I'll do a post about it too.

 

Talking about some things to come

When I started this blog not too long ago I mentioned that I'm terrible at staying focused on one project at a time.  For instance my Sazabi Ver Ka is still awaiting some decals and top coat.  I also have a few kit bash HG's I've been messing around with for a while, as well as other MG's that need decals and top coat.  Well, one of those kit bash kits is a Sinanju that I've been playing with for quite a while now.  Basically its mostly Sinanju with parts from Unicorn Mode Banshee Norn and Delta Kai.  Last night I couldn't find the motivation to work on the Wing Zero so I dusted off the 'chimera' Sinanju and did some more work on it.  I know there's a bit of taboo it kit-bashing.  In this case, I'm taking 3 kits that had broken parts and turning them into one.  After messing with it for a bit I decided that this Sinanju was going to be the 'bad guy' or rival to my Wing Zero.

Anyway, I plan on buckling down and getting some work done this weekend.  So look for more Wing Zero WIP's and a possible Sinanju WIP.

HGAC Wing Gundam Zero Rant (Cont.)

Ok so I took some pics last night and was planning on uploading a WIP this morning.  However, my daughter was having nothing to do with me sitting on my laptop.. sigh..  Oh well.  Anyway, the first WIP will be up tonight after I get home.  I think I might try to convince my wife to jazz this blog up too :).

HGAC Wing Gundam Zero Rant

This is going to be an introduction of sorts to a custom build of the Wing Zero that I'm doing.  Basically I wanted to make a Gunpla that I would use if Build Fighters and Plavsky Particles were real and all that.  I already attempted something like this with a custom HGUC Gerbera Tetra I built a while back, (come to think of it I should really copy it over to this blog), but there was a lot that I ended up not liking on that kit.  My paint job was spotty and my scratch building wasn't very clean at all.  So I decided to make another Build Fighters custom and this time try to actually be pleased with it at the end of the build.

I wanted to use a more modern HG that would be easy to work with.  Also, I wanted it to be a solid kit on it's own.  Nobody likes starting a project on a floppy mess -_-

So I ended up with the HGAC Wing Zero.  It met the criteria I had perfectly.  Newer HG-Check, Solid-Check.  For some reason I can't find a single custom build of this kit aside from some painted lite-mod builds.  Honestly kind of a little bonus for me as I did want something that hasn't been done ten times before I get to if ya know what I mean.

Well tonight I'll actually try to post a real WIP with pics and whatnot instead of just a rant.

Fresh Start

So, this is my second gunpla blog.  I decided to scrap my first one and start completely fresh.  This will be a blog where I post my WIP's of custom kits, my finished kits, and other random rantings.  On that note, here's some things I'm working on that will be up soon... er .... at some point.

• HGAC Wing Gundam Zero (doing a build fighters-esque custom build with this)
• MG Sazabi Ver. Ka (just need to finish the decals and top coat)
• MG Nu Gundam Ver. Ka (currently just snapped together)

Also I'm going to working on and off on some other side projects but these are my priority ones right now.  Especially the Sazabi.  I got burnt out during the decals and the kit has just been sitting for about a month now.

I'm going to post a WIP on my HGAC Wing Zero either tonight or tomorrow night.