[GBAFodder] Ball (Press Use Ver.) Part 1

The first quarter of 2018 is coming to a close and I have very little to show. This is not a great start to the year in Gunpla. I have however, been practicing my photography making use of various lenses, shooting in the city, in the woods, and in my home: wherever the light touches! It's been an exhilarating feeling practicing and getting to know my camera better. Nevertheless, There is about a week left of the Cannon Fodder Contest and I am very much behind schedule. So I'm finally away from the woods, away from the bustling streets of Beantown and I'm back in the house, sniffing paint and cutting my thumb! It's time to burnout on Gunpla again!

In this article, I wanted to quickly focus on the subject of the build, the "Press Use Ball." This is a concept I came up with specifically for this contest. I drew inspiration from war journalists along with a variety of television news vans.

Image from Middle East Monitor (MEMO)

Ripped from the internet (sorry)

Instead of creating typical war machines, I wanted to put a unique spin to the build while keeping the war motif that is integral to the Universal Century. I had my mind on making a reconnaissance vehicle similar to the EWAC suits that already exist in the lore, but I decided to take it a step further and make a civilian use vehicle (like one of my previous builds). Enter the war journalist! I started with trying to make something that looked like a camera. With a little tip from my brother, I created a camera using various weapon parts from the HGBF Amazing Red Warrior (or specifically the HGBC Kurenai Weapon).

Posted on Instagram, 09 Jnuary 2018 (follow me? c:)

A part of me thought there'd be no need for a camera this large (for Television), but then I thought of concept of mecha as a whole and what reason there would be for handheld weapons of that size. Rather than going down the dark rabbit hole of practical reasoning, I just accepted that there could be a camera of this size in the Universal Century.

After straight building the HGUC Ball Twin Set, there was life. The project was put down for the next two months. Other than playing around with some parts, no major progress mas made until about a week ago.

I finally took the time to paint the parts of the first Ball and put it together! The camera is attached via a joint found on the Kurenai Weapon which is attached to the Ball's original gun mount. On the other side is a radome-like object that I had concocted after playing around with a bunch of spare parts I had collected over the years. It is mainly composed of a Gatling gun body (Customize Campaign 201X - Set A) with the Hi-Mock blank head from the HGBC Mock Army Set connected via PC06 (the neck joint). The upper handle reminds me of larger professional cameras that would have a similar handle position, and the fit of the Hi-Mock head was such a happy coincidence. I was originally going to grab a Builders Parts Radome to mount on the Ball, but this worked so much better.

The general colors involve RustOleum gloss blue and gloss white with a topcoat of Mr.Hobby flat topcoat. The flat top coat really softens the colors and makes for a much better looking surface. Something I haven't been taking advantage of in recent builds.
The "PRESS" Decals are from the Outline Letter set from Ocean Spirit (purchased from the USA Gundam Store). I decided to position each label on a different angle as if it were view-able from different angles.

Unfortunately, any of the current labels are not seen from the front and back, so it'd probably be best if I added more. I'm currently on the fence about adding more since it'd be time taken away from making progress in other parts of the build: will probably come back to this after I make enough progress on the diorama that I want to make.

Overall, with the lack of moving parts, the build was pretty simple. Let's just hope I can make enough time to finish the rest of the build.

Review: A Year in Gunpla 2017

Ahh yes, it's that time of year again. Time for many of the content creators to look back through the year, find the highlights, and provide a summary of the year's achievements. I definitely want to hop on that bandwagon and reflect on this year as well, especially with certain points written in last year's article.

With articles such as these, I do not share the post on reddit, as this is more of a personal perspective rather than a Gundam/Gunpla centric article. So if you find this article and end up reading it, I thank you for stopping by!

To kick off the year, we wrap things up with a story that started airing in 2015 and picked up again in the latter half of 2016: Kidou Senshi Gundam: Tekketsu no Orphans. It was quite a ride through the past 2 years. The story had a unique enough of a twist that it felt like a fresh take on the Gundam franchise. In addition, Bandai did a great job marketing the toys -- the main kits were engineered to be cheaper while other accessories could be purchased to further customize the base kits. Sort of sad to see the series wrap up.

To follow up the conclusion of Tekketsu no Orphans, another sequel to a popular series arrived, Kidou Senshi Gundam: Thunderbolt. This was later made into a summary movie with an added subtitle, "Bandit Flower". This was not only a great continuation of the Thunderbolt series, but another great addition to the franchise. I'm hoping Yasuo Ohtagaki continues doing a great job with his manga!

The rest of 2017 seems to continue this trend of sequels and continuations. With the popularity of the Build Fighters spin off, Sunrise releases GM's Counterattack and Battlogue, and The Origin gets another installment past the originally announced 4 episodes (with a 6th coming in 2018). With so many sequels and a lack of a new story in October, I felt like Sunrise is milking its current IP. Are they building up a secret project for 2018? Perhaps they're looking as far as the 40th anniversary of Gundam. Who knows, whatever the reason, 2017, in terms of Gundam Anime, felt pretty slow.

...but in terms of Gunpla, we've had quite an interesting year. Glossing over all the High Grades specific to airing TV shows (because of the nature of their near-guaranteed release), Bandai released a large amount of unexpected kits this year. To start, a few highlights in the 2017 HGUC lineup include Barzam and Efreet Schnied as unexpected releases. Moving over to RE/100 Who would have thought Bandai would create a kit like the Hamma Hamma? It is definitely a suit that fits in the RE/100 line. 

Even so, the most surprising kits of 2017 has to go to the Master Grade line. From 2015's lineup of 7 regular production Master Grade kits, to 2016's lineup of 3, I was uneasy with Bandai's direction, wondering how many Master Grade kits will be produced in 2017. Fortunately we are back to a regular number of releases this year with 6 Master Grades by year's end. Further unexpected of Bandai was the amount of Universal Century grunt suits created this year -- for the past maybe 4 or so years, Bandai has been creating lead protagonist/antagonist suits in the Master Grade line. Though prior years we've seen a fair share of suits from lead suits to Balls, it seemed Bandai was filling up the queue with lead suits. To my surprise, we got the GM Sniper II, GM Sniper Custom, and GM Command (Colony Type). Now if only Bandai would release a MG Jegan already...

Through 2017 in this franchise, the biggest event in the world of Gundam was, without a doubt, The Gundam Base Tokyo. In the Spring, we saw Gundam Front Tokyo close its doors, and the 1:1 scale RX-78-2 dismantled, all to make way for a new store and a new Gundam statue. Enter The Gundam Base, enter the 1:1 scale Unicorn Gundam! 

Needless to say, the franchise is still running strong, and there seems to be no end in sight, but can I say the same for myself?

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Personal Highlights from 2017

While 2016 was a year of many transitions, 2017 brought on many new unexpected experiences that make the year a landmark year for myself. Here are a few highlights.

Persona 5: I don't typically see games as a highlight in a year. Rather, I see them as another piece of media to consume. However, I must point out Persona 5 due to the anticipation of its release since the original announcement back in November, 2013 (or even after finishing Persona 4 back in 2008). The game is a solid concoction of style, story, and gameplay, and should have won Game of the Year at the 2017 Game Awards.

Hong Kong and Tokyo: My grandfather passes. I wasn't close due to distance and language, but he was someone I loved in my formative years. For the first time in almost 16 years, I'm in Hong Kong again. Family matters aside, culture shock was strong as the last time I stepped foot on the island, Hong Kong had vastly changed since the handover in 1997. I take it all in, I try to get the most of it, and I purchase Gunpla at amazing prices.

Hong Kong from The Peak

Since I was in the area, I also planned on visiting Tokyo, meeting up with my brother who was just ending his ship rotation. We spent the few days we had taking in the vastness of the city. With a side-by-side comparison of the two cities, I think I prefer Hong Kong more, but there is also quite a nostalgic bias in my opinion. The most unfortunate part of visiting Tokyo in the time that I did was the transition from Gundam Front Tokyo to The Gundam Base Tokyo. I was able to visit GFT on the last day it was open, but all the merchandise was essentially sold out and the 1:1 scale RX-78-2 had already been dismantled. I guess this gives me incentive to return for the 1:1 scale Unicorn Gundam and the new merchandise in the re-branded store.

GFT's last day.

ZakuAurelius 50k Unicorn Contest: I had set the goal in 2017 to focus on quality over quantity -- rather than blowing through a bunch of straight builds for mediocre reviews, I wanted to follow through with fewer projects that involved more than just putting pieces together. Though I had a few builds in the beginning of the year, 2017 was another build-less summer. I made it a point over the fall to enter ZakuAurelius' contest and complete a build that had been in my backlog for some time now.

I've been trying to work at pacing myself, especially now that I have a job, but I'm still burning myself out. Even after this build, I started burning myself out again, attempting to pick up another project immediately afterward. Hopefully I can figure out my pace in 2018.

Hong Kong Round 2?
I found myself in Hong Kong again -- this time, my grandmother passed. I was even less connected to my grandmother, but family is family. Mind you, I am not one to travel, I prefer a relaxing staycation over planning out a trip, and exhausting myself through many hours of travel just to see a different part of the world. That said, family matters brought me to Hong Kong twice in one year and I was going to (try to) make the most of this rare opportunity.

The cat of Fook Le Model

After spending maybe a day bouncing between hobby stores making purchases for friends (and Secret Santa giftee), the rest of my time in Hong Kong (other than family-centric days) was spent on photography. I tried to find some of the most photogenic spots in Hong Kong (within reason) to practice my photography.

A movie set, popular photo spot, and my late grandmother's flat.

One thing I learned from my trip is that photography with friends is much more fun. Exploring a place solo is freeing and fun, but nothing beats being able to collaborate with someone while shooting on location.

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Stealing from 4Gamer
Previous years, I made up my own questions or borrowed questions from reddit. This year, I am stealing from 4Gamer's questions to Atlus' staff (translated at Persona Central).

Among the games released in 2017, which were you the most impressed (or surprised) by?

Fire Emblem Heroes

I consider myself a casual fan of Fire Emblem (who happens to have purchased every special edition title for the 3DS and dropped at least 300 hours per game). While anticipating the release of Fire Emblem Echoes, Tales of Valentia, Fire Emblem Heroes released for Android and iOS. Since then I've been sinking too many hours into this mindless game.
What has impressed me about FEH is the staff's dedication to the game -- they started off slow, and after a couple months, I put the game down, but a few months later the staff picked up the pace in delivering content and I'm once again hooked on the game. I am impressed they heard the complaints of the community and have been refining and adding to the game.

Obviously Persona 5 and Fire Emblem Echoes are superior titles, but they were expected to be good. FEH, in my mind, was going to be a trash-of-the-world time sink. It ended up being a trash-of-the-world time sink that keeps me engaged. Thanks Intelligent Systems.

What did you find to be the most impressive piece of entertainment released in 2017?

Bladerunner 2049

My mediocre words cannot do this movie justice. It takes film of 2017 for me, possibly film of this decade. It is not a perfect movie, but it adds to the Blade Runner franchise despite being made decades later (we know how that can turn out. Right, Ghost in the Shell?).

In 2017, which person did you personally have a focus on?

Peter McKinnon
I think I've mentioned this in my blog a few times -- in terms of hobbies, photography comes first, then scale models (specifically Gunpla). Peter is an inspirational Youtuber. It's not the locations he shoots in, it's not the people he meets, and it's not the equipment he flaunts. His passion for his craft and his passion to share his passion is inspirational. Every time I watch his videos, the urge to just run out with my equipment to shoot grows. Thanks, Peter, for a inspiring 2017!

What resolution do you have for 2018, and can you share a message with 4Gamer readers?

Last year I aimed to finished some projects that have been put on the back burner. None of them were completed. This year, though I want to get to them, I have a different goal. I've been working at this hobby to the point of burning out every time I touch a kit. It's unhealthy.

I want to continue to learn pacing in this hobby so I can work on more during the year. To start off, I think I'm going to join that Gunpla Builders Association grunt contest. Hopefully, in learning to pace myself, I can get to the back burner projects and get something done for a change.

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I believe that covers everything I wanted to write about in 2017. It has been a year. Thanks for sticking with the blog. If you're interested in the day to day and unrelated, consider following me on Instagram. Until next time, may your cuts ever be so clean in 2018. Cheers, friend!

[WIP] Gundariumsmith

I have been stuck in 2014. Aesthetically, I created a set of sub-par banners, graphics and logos, slapped it on Blogger, tweaked the settings to my personal taste, whether it was practical or not, and called it Gundariumsmith. Though I've been satisfied with the design, I know I can do better. Plus the site could use a face lift as we come close to the fourth year of this blog (has it really been four?). In this article, I wanted to highlight the changes that have been made, the reason for the changes, and future (dream) changes to come. I apologize if you clicked on this post looking for Gunpla. There probably won't be much for you here (check out my stuff in the menu above!).

The most obvious changes will be the background and banner. Those are can be seen universally. I originally had a tile of grainy gray squares. Overall the blog had a grain heavy aesthetic because I wanted to have a sort of television grain theme. If I got into the reviews enough, I wanted to start doing video reviews in a sort of VHS aesthetic (if anyone remembers the "Why I Hate Money" cringe-bomb series). Though I still like the idea, I think I unintentionally moved away from the aesthetic over the years as my taste slowly evolves.

ABOVE: Grainy Gray

To replace the backdrop, I have a long exposure of the New Hampshire night sky in late summer -- cropped, duplicated, rotated, and tweaked to be tiled -- hopefully you can't find the seams too easily. I like the darker background, though I'm not sure if the star sky helps or hurts the overall theme, especially since I used the image in multiple places. I'll have to test it out for awhile.

The next change is also quite universal -- the sidebar. I originally had the google+ profile links on the top. Over the years I've grown to detest these logos, not because it's g+ (though that has another can of worms), but because the objects themselves were slow to load and quite rigid in design. Since I barely use the platform, I decided it'd be best to remove it all together. Instead, I have the latest builds right at the top, followed by a link to my Instagram as a shameless plug to a platform I frequent more often than anything else I currently use (seriously, if you're even remotely interested in what I do, please follow me!). The other banners currently remain the same, though I should probably look into remaking them in the near future.

The last two changes are probably the most significant -- the pages. The About section had not been changed since I started the blog, and Gundariumsmith had a format that was not only hard to follow, but hard to upkeep. I needed to change these badly if I wanted to

In the About section, I had a section that read,

You will find nothing special on this blog: just an account of an average guy, and his wishful thoughts, trying to put the pieces together. Updates are sparse with little content, and modeling skills are mediocre at best. Photography is done with an average point and shoot camera in a DIY light box.

Though part of that is true, I have grown as a photographer -- my equipment is not as basic as it once was. Though no one probably reads the About section, I should have changed this at least a year ago. As for the Gundariumsmith section I mentioned I stopped Quick Reviews this year. Because of this, I wanted to downplay the OOB kits by removing the banners, then highlighting the significant work year by year. Inspired by my brother's page update in 2016, I made some changes of my own.

With these changes, I hope the blog will be easier for you, the reader, to go through the content. I still have a lot of improvements to make in the writing of the articles themselves, but hopefully I can get there one step at a time -- this is just a work in progress.

Thank you for taking the time to read this update. If you have the time, please let me know what you think of the changes!

[50kUNICORN] HGUC Unicorn Gundam Unit 02 Banshee

I didn't think I'd make it this far! My motivation to work on Gunpla has been pretty weak this year with the Hobby Zaku II and the RX-78-2 Head Display being my only significant work, all in the early months of 2017. Nevetheless, here I am, at the end of ZakuAurelius' 50k Unicorn Contest with something to show! If you have the time, please stay awhile and listen (actually, you're going to need to read it. Maybe I'll read it out sometime).

Preamble

The year is 2015. Summer comes to a close and my brother is nearing the end of his time at home. We decide to finally break out the massive HGUC dual kit from Gundam Front Tokyo. I'll spare the details here, since you can read (a lot more) about it in the "Special Review" we did. The point is, as I am reviewing the "Strikes Odaiba" Banshee Norn, I had a thought -- can I make the novel version of the Banshee? Ever since I saw GoodGuyDan's 1/48 Banshee Head Ver. Ka Final Battle, I've always wanted to find a way to make this version of the Banshee (without breaking the bank on the actual kit). Since I had a Banshee with a green Psychoframe, I decided to try it out.

Modified "Strikes Odaiba" Banshee Norn

Unfotunately, the Banshee Norn does not include all the parts to make up the novel version -- it would require parts from the Strikes Odaiba FA Unicorn kit in order to complete the look. I reverted the kit back to the Banshee Norn and stopped thinking about it.
A year or so later, I started gaining interest in doing a custom job using a regular production Banshee. After doing some research (on dalong.net, of course), I come to find that the original HGUC Banshee (Destroy Mode) actually includes all the pieces I need to create what I am looking for. If I was too lazy, I could throw a pretty penny at the FA Unicorn for the green Psychoframe, or I could paint the existing gold for the look I wanted. I purchased the HGUC Banshee kit and threw it in the sea of backlogged projects.
That is until August 2017, when ZakuAurelius announced the contest. Rather than trying to think of a new project specifically for the contest, I took this opportunity to just get one of my backlogged projects done.

Background
I am currently in the middle of reading the translated novels on baka-tsuki (it's been a struggle to strain my eyes on a regular screen), but I am not at a point where I have enough knowledge to say anything about the Banshee and how the novel differs from the OVA. However, there are some key differences in the suit design that can be easily pointed out.

Scans from baka-tsuki (link above)

In the novel, the Banshee was simply a second Unicorn Gundam, colored black with a different V-fin. There was no gold collar, no Banshee Norn, no Armed Armor VN, BS, or DE. Simply a Black Unicorn with the Beam Magnum and standard shield.

Scans from baka-tsuki (link above)

The suit is the second Unicorn Gundam unit built along side the original. As it was stationed at the Augusta Research Lab on earth, the Banshee was optimized for atmospheric combat. Without spoiling too much of the story the suit is eventually assigned to Riddhe Marcenas, where, through a series of struggles with Banagher Links, awakens his (true) Newtype powers and turns the Banshee's psycho frame green (okay, that might be a little too simplistic).

Quick Review
Like all Destroy Mode variants, the build feels flimsy with certain parts that come off effortlessly, the ankles feel weak, and the neck joint is loose. Despite these issues, the main attraction is the stunning exposed psychoframe scattered throughout the kit. Unfortunately, the gold psychoframed Banshee is not clear like Unicorn's red and green frames -- this leaves the non-final battle version Banshees not very desirable in my eyes. It's a good thing I prefer the Unicorn Mode over Destroy Mode.
For more detailed opinions about Destroy Mode, please check out the "Strikes Odaiba" review!

"Mid-transformation" posted on Instagram

One aspect of the straight build I was happy to experience was mixing parts between a friend's Unicorn Mode with my Destroy Mode. Through this I was able to compare which parts were compatible, and which were not. A part of me was hoping most, if not all, outer armor pieces were the same -- the only difference would be the psycho frame, expanding the inner frame to "explode" the Unicorn Mode. Unfortunately, that was not the case (if that were the case, this kit would be some engineering genius). At least the joints used were all the same -- I ended up using the gray joints of the Unicorn mode instead of the gold polycaps included in Destroy Mode. That way, the joints would not be as distracting when the psycho frame was painted green.

Contest Build
Because this was a relatively straight forward paint job, with little customization, even in the paint job itself, I disassembled each part and painted pieces according to their color in plastic. The major exception was the gold psycho frame which would eventually be green. Other than the psycho frame, the other major colors were dark blue, gray, and black. Each of these were painted Tamiya's Dark Mica Blue, Tamiya Gunmetal, and Rustoleum Gloss Black (with a coat of Tamiya Clear Pearl) respectively. Both Gloss Black and Dark Mica Blue were sprayed on via spray cans and the Gunmetal was applied using a brush. For the green psycho frame, I attempted to spray Gloss Black, Silver with spray cans and eventually spray clear green with an air brush, but there were two issues: The spray cans leave quite a thick coat which was no good for psycho frame pieces that required a certain clearance for regular armor pieces to attach over. The other issue was the lack of air brush -- I was also unable to borrow a friend's air brush setup, so I ended up hand painting the clear green, leaving an even thicker coat of paint on these pieces.

After weeks of meticulously planning out the painting process, I scapped the plan and painted like I've done in the past.

I ended up ditching the spray silver and gloss black and opted for lightly priming followed by hand painted silver. This gave me more control over how much paint I was putting on these parts, giving me results closer to my desired results. I think I will need to purchase an airbrush soon -- in order to get the results I want, I'm going to need to upgrade my tools.
Once the pieces were painted to a satisfactory level, I re-assembled the parts, painted in certain extra details, applied decals, and moved on. Of all the details I struggled the most on was the gold detailing in the legs. Each leg has eight parts that are supposed to be detailed with gold foil stickers. On the "Strikes Odaiba" Banshee Norn, I painted all gold detailing with clear yellow backed with silver. This time, in order to save time, I used Tamiya's Gold Leaf to paint in these details. All red detailing also use Gold Leaf before the Tamiya Clear Red is added.

I was originally going to use silver for the piping, but I wanted something that would pop more as an accent color.

While the beginning of the build I treated the painting process with care, September (and October) ended up being some of the busiest days -- a majority of the paint job was done in the last two weeks, rushing the process. Fortunately, I was not met with any major muck-ups with the spray cans.

Photography
Normally I don't talk much about my photography -- I just shot with a Canon point and shoot with a few lamps and a light box made from cardboard and tracing paper (referencing an online tutorial). More recently, I upgraded to a DSLR (second hand Nikon D3100 with a 35mm f/1.8 prime lens). Shooting with it for a year, I am still learning a lot of the functions, tapping into the full potential this entry level DSLR has to offer.
One of those learning points I only recently came upon recently is shooting in RAW (and editing with Adobe Lightroom). Photos were pretty good while shooting in JPEG (the above photos), but the amount of control in post with RAW is ridiculous! I don't know how I've been able to allow myself to shoot with JPEG for over a year before switching. I'm not sure I could ever go back!

These past eight weeks (in between all the chaos and busy-ness of work and other responsibilities) has been a fun process, fumbling with paint, learning more about photography, and just diving head-first into two of my favorite hobbies. Now that this project is finished, I should probably go back and finish Persona 5 (definitely before Monster Hunter World releases...).

That's it from me. Thanks for reading this far (at least skipping through the pretty pictures). Until next time, may your cuts be clean and sandpaper rough! Best of luck in your next endeavor.

Custom: RX-78-2 Gundam Head Display Stand

Preamble

Hong Kong: a city of a past memory. It had been sixteen years since I visited the hometown of my parents. Back then, the United Kingdom had just turned Hong Kong over to China, most of my extended family still lived in the city, and my family would visit on average once every two years -- it was my playground. The last time in that fragrant harbor, Gundam was the last thing on my mind -- my flavor of obsession was Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! 

The view from Victoria Peak (not from the tourist balcony)

Though Hong Kong is still a familiar place, much has changed -- cousins growing up and moving away, the gradual disintegration of the Cantonese speaking community, and the inevitable gentrification as old buildings are destroyed for new ones. Even the popular hobby shops have changed! Many of the stores that used to sell scale models have shifted to the demand of airsoft guns and military gear. 

Searching from store to store, I had a hard time finding interesting hobby stores. The big stores chains sold kits I could now easily find in America (thanks to Bluefin and Amazon), and the more exclusive kits were priced too high. It wasn't until the latter half of my time in Hong Kong where something finally caught my eye.

While shopping for photography equipment in Sham Shui Po (深水埗), my uncle, who had known about my desire for Gunpla, showed me to a street in this area that sold nothing but toys. I found my hobby shops -- anything from holes in the wall with piles of kits to the ceiling to something a little more "class." But one thing was certain -- these places were down to sell a variety of kits regardless of origin. There was something...magical about this place.

"something...magical"

The kit I am showcasing in this article is one of the kits I picked up in Sham Shui Po. It is not a Bandai kit, nor is it necessarily a knock off. Nevertheless, Intellectual Property was stolen in the production of this kit. I would not normally purchase these kits, but for 50 HKD (about 6.50 USD), how could I refuse? I present to you the DX Hobby 1/48 RX-78-2 Head Display Stand. 

Out of Box Thoughts

Head Displays were, from what I can tell, originated in 2010 with the Dengeki Hobby bonus 1/48 scale Unicorn Head Display. Other head displays would pop up, like the Sinanju, Banshee, Build Burning, and G-Self (Zeta too?), but overall, it the collection of head display kits was pretty limited. A Chinese company (assumed) decided to play into the recent head displays and make their own based on the RX-78-2 Ver.Ka kit.

Like most head displays, very little color separation exists. These kits are typically produced in monochrome on one or two runners. I was happy to see this kit includes a clear runner for the stand mount and the eyes. It has potential for LED installation!

Unfortunately, like most knock-off kits, the quality of the mold was nowhere on the level of Bandai's kits. Gates were large, flashing was obvious, and pieces would be slightly misaligned. A lot of sanding and cutting was required. If I was anal about the sculpt, I probably would have applied putty to smooth out certain parts too. Overall quality, despite its knock-off status,  was okay -- nothing was outrageously frustrating.

My favorite part of the kit is the fact that the head camera was designed to be removable. This allows for easy LED placement to light up the eyes and the front and back head cameras. For my kit, the front piece of the head camera has a little bit of a clearance issue, but it helps keep the piece from slipping out too easily too.

The worst part of the kit is the beam saber mounting method. Ovals are provided for a friction fit with the ability for a custom position The problem is the underside is not covered, so if one were to view the back, the underside is exposed (refer to image later in the article). It might not be an issue from the front, but even from the side, this exposed underside is clear. The other issue with the Beam Sabers is the position. Typically, the beam sabers are positioned farther apart -- closer to the ends of the torso. It might look a little strange without the shoulders on this head display, but the current positions are not much better. If I wanted to spend more time customizing this head display, the beam saber positions would be the first issue I'd tackle.

...but I'm too lazy, so I immediately jumped into painting and detailing the head display. 

Custom Process

You got an idea of what the final product looks like in the title image, but here it is without the text from the front.

I started with the red portions of the head -- the face is separated between the red and white parts, making the paint job quite easy. Same with the crest with the rest of the V-fin. I used a spraycan of RustOleum Gloss Enamel to quickly paint the parts.

With the inside of the head and the vents, I hand-painted the locations using Tamiya Flat Black acrylic and Gundam Marker Real Touch gray for the panel lines. And with the yellow on the head vulcans, I used a spray can of Tamiya Polycarbonate paint (after masking off the rest of the head).

For the clear sections, I used Tamiya Clear Red acrylic and Mr. Color clear yellow, hand painting the parts. Decals were generic ones from Bandai's MG Unicorn wet application decals. Once the details were set, I top coated with a spray can of Mr. Hobby Top Coat a friend had passed on to me after seeing the problems I was having with Krylon Clear Acrylic.

For the torso, I started off by spraying the underside with RustOleum Flat Black Enamel. From there, I proceeded to spray the same Polycarbonate yellow on the top side. Once the yellow dried, I masked off the neck area to spray the rest a Tamiya French Blue, once again with a spray can. Details around the neck and on the upper "vents" (if you can call those bumps that) were done with Tamiya Gunmetal and Gundam Real Touch Markers. 

I wanted to also put some decal details on the chest, but the Unicorn did not have any generic labels like EFSF and quickly finding decals for RX-78-2 was either hard or costly. Looking through my limited selection of decals, I came across my recently procured sheet of gold decals, which I will eventually use on my Banshee Head Display. Because of the story of the Banshee, the suit has EFSF labels, whereas the Unicorn does not. This turns out to be a great situation -- I can experiment with the gold decals (see what the quality is) and I get a gold decal as an eye-catching detail on a blue background!

The decal was actually pretty tall -- the bottom half of the EFSF had "Earth Federation Space Force" spelled out. I cut the bottom half off for the initial use, but to not let that part go to waste, I found another use for it (as seen in the image below).

I thought the end result was pretty good, but this head display does not come without faults. As you can see on the image from the back (above), the yellow has quite a few blemishes. This was from the flat black sprayed on the underside -- I didn't bother cleaning up the top side before adding the yellow. I knew it would happen, but I disregarded anyway. There are additional blemishes that are harder to find, like tints of yellow and red on the head, and some spots on the yellow neck (closer to the base of the head. I tried my best to hide most of them, but for personal use, this is good enough. With the amount of projects in queue, I'd rather count this as a finished product rather than slaving away at perfection.

On display: HGUC REVIVE RX-78-2 Gundam

As for the actual use of this 1/48 scale bust, I have no intention of using it as a display base. Instead I plan on eventually implementing this piece onto a book end. I'm not sure when that will happen, but when it does, it'll be displayed proudly holding up my collection of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (and maybe Thunderbolt too).

That's it for now. This was supposed to be a quick weekend project as I waited for my brother to finish Persona 5, but I ended up working on the details well past his completion of the game. I think I'll go back to stealing hearts now. Until next time, may your cuts be clean!

A Stark Upgrade: Part 2, Delays

Previously on 宇宙傭兵: スペクターGM: Part 1, Salvage Ops

Flavor Text: Work In Progress?
"You're taking all our resources right now. It better be worth it."
"When will you upgrade my suit, Ana?"
"How much longer until you get back to work?"

"Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!" Anantha said out loud as she attempted to quiet the team's voices in her head. With a few deep breaths, Anantha moved the welder closer. Flipping her mask on, sparks scattered through the machine shop. The smell of flux fumes filled the shop as she slowly guided the welder, keeping the circular pattern with ease.

"This project was a waste of our time and money."
"We should have left the Jegan behind"
BANG!
With a flash of light, the welder blew back, causing Anantha to do the same. As the smoke and fumes dissipated, the machine shop was silent. Anantha looked around to see the hangar and machine shop empty -- not a soul, not a suit. Only the cold metal walls that surrounded her stared back.

"Fuck."

---

WIP: Delays
In the previous post, I imagined this project to take a few weekends, and I would be done by the end of March (maybe even earlier). Unfortunately I've been running into further delays of various kinds. What I thought would be more free time turned out to be more hours at work. Though I am all for more pay in form of overtime, it has left me without much free time. With the little free time I had, I spent a lot of time finishing Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE -- I had the game since its release last June and wanted to make sure I finished the game before Persona 5 released.
On a side note, TMS♯FE is a quirky mashup of Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei. I can't say its a must play game, especially because it's on an outdated console (Wii U), but for any fans of both franchises, it was a fun trip. If you have a chance (and about 60 hours to spend), try it out!
Back to the build, once I got back on track, I wanted to top coat the chest I just finished painting. The same issue I had with the Hobby Zaku surfaced again: the Tamiya, Mr. Color, and Testors paint all reacted to the Krylon top coat and wrinkled. Combine this with a family-related event, I know I won't be finishing this build in March.
Coming back from the family-related event, I'll probably be spending a lot of time on the PS4 -- Persona 5 has been my most anticipated game since 2013. No gunpla kit can compare to this excitement. So when do I anticipate the completion of this "mere upgrade?" Who knows -- I'm just hoping when I get back to the build, I don't run into any more paint issues. For those who wanted to see the final product at the end of this week, I truly am sorry that I am terrible at delivering on my self-set schedule, especially for what was supposed to be a simple upgrade.

As I've mentioned shamelessly in previous articles, if you want to follow my work in a more frequent format, please follow my Instagram. Between Morgenroete and myself, we're trying to use the platform to fill in the gaps between Blogger articles (especially now that I have discontinued the "Quick Review" format). I hope to see you there.
Until the next time, may your cuts be ever clean!

A Stark Upgrade: Part I, Salvage Ops

Previously on 宇宙傭兵: スペクターGM

Flavor Text: Prologue
      "Are you sure they're here?" Al inquired as the three pilots scanned for evidence.
      "You're going to miss them if you keep asking." Anantha responded in irritation. After a short pause, Al snapped back,
      "I'm sure you won't miss them with that fancy camera of yours."
      "Please Al, you still butthurt about-"
      "RADIO. SILENCE." Marinus ironically yelled. The three pilots abruptly stopped and continued to scan the area.

      The war-torn factory district had been isolated from the rest of the colony after a small skirmish during the Laplace conflict. With the district in disrepair, rumors of illegal activity spread through the rest of the colony. Though there was no hard evidence, citizens of the once Federation-occupied manufacturing colony were reporting Zeon mobile suits. So far, rubble, silence, and the blackness of space were the only objects the team could see.

      "Look, Marinus, we're wasting our time. The Zeeks are not coming to this rust bucket of a colony, you won't be reliving your golden One-Year War days, and we're pissing away money the longer we stay out here." Al said, attempting to convince Marinus to halt the operation,
      "You have somewhere to be, Al?" Marinus rhetorically asked,
      "We could have taken that escort job and actually make money instead of catching the wind!"
      "Who are you to question my judgement?"
      "I don't need to be here, Captain! I'll take my skills to another team that actually pa-"
      "Guys!, I see something." Anantha interrupted.
      The three pilots flew to the location of the sighting. No Zeon forces to be found, but a relatively in-tact Stark Jegan had been abandoned on a roadway. Anantha jumped out of her suit and started surveying the remains.

      "Other than its head, the suit is quite undamaged." Anantha excitedly reported "The run time on the computer says less than 200 hours!"
      "Great," Marinus responded, "we'll salvage for spare parts and sell the rest. Take it up, Al"
      "Wait, no! Al revolted "I'm not carrying someone else's scrap!"
      "Just get it done, Al! We need to hurry before any Zeon forces find us."
      "For the last time, Captain, they're not-"
      "You get 70% of parts sales" Marinus said, talking over Al.
         "...deal," said Al as he picked up the Stark Jegan.

---

Concept: Inheriting The Old
After finishing the 'Weiß Hund Zulu' in late 2015, I pretty much abandoned the Specter GM project -- The trio was achieved and the two side characters were at an okay state. Over the next few months I thought of doing u/sandrock465's "mid-season upgrade" like he did with his Strike Ixion (Brave to Jäger) that summer, but I had no intention of purchasing kits merely for parts, so that idea was scrapped and I continued with other projects. Fast forward about a year and a half, Gunplaworks is clearing his shelf of older models, one of them being a Stark Jegan. Now I can play around with the idea of a "mid-season upgrade" without spending money on it. Thanks friend!

The idea here is to add further mobility to this Sniper. With the extra boost on the legs without the increase in armor in the upper body, Anantha can fly around space much faster while still hitting her targets. I don't have a name for the suit yet, but I have a few ideas.
The other goal in this project is to upgrade the aesthetic of the Jegan Sniper Type. The OOB build is quite boring and removing the accent colors to a black/navy color scheme made the kit look even less interesting. I aim to add better accent colors and panel line details not only to the new pieces but the old ones as well.
Part of the aesthetics upgrade is the "iconic" Sniper Type head I created. In the original build, I was experimenting with a level of customization I was not used to. I can't say much has changed, but since I have an additional head from the Stark Jegan, I have a new opportunity to retry the old concept. Click here for more information on the original Sniper Type.

The goal of this project is to finish all the aesthetic upgrades by the end of March. Though a lot of the work is technically done, I anticipate, like February's hiatus, I will be busy -- I do not know how much time I will have to dedicate to something as "simple" as this. Maybe I'll finish a majority of the work over a weekend. Maybe I'll have to hold off until the end of March. Either way, I'll play it by ear. If you want to follow this project a little closer than this blog, make sure to check out our Instagram!

Until next time, may your cuts be ever clean!

[JAN17GroupBuild] Hobby Zaku (Thunderbolt Ver.)

Submission Album | Original Reddit Post

Kicking Off
At the beginning of 2017, /u/soximent takes the lead in organizing a group build on /r/gunpla. At the time I was in the middle of two projects -- both of which I had to put on hold for different reasons (I'm sure I'll get back to them soon). Since I had a Zaku II from the Big Gun kit (for yet another project), I decided it would be a good place to use what would have been an extra suit.

Concept
While snap building this kit on an impromptu Twitch stream, I thought about what I could aim for in this kit (partially aloud to the 2-5 person audience). Two ideas stood above the rest,

• Char's Zaku (Thunderbolt Ver.) -- since Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt is only based on the Universal Century, rather than part of the main canon, I started wondering what Char's Zaku would look like in Thunderbolt's version of the Universal Century. 
• To start, Char would pilot a regular Zaku II, as opposed to the High Mobility (or Psycho) Zaku.
• From there, the idea pretty much stopped at a recolor: Nothing really stuck out to me.
• Hobby Zaku -- What if the Thunderbolt series continues its story to UC 0093? What would a Hobby Hizack look like? I don't want to re-imagine Quess Paraya, but thinking about a civilian use Zaku in this alternative Universal Century would be interesting.

 

Needless to say, I chose the Hobby Zaku concept. I started thinking about General Aviation, trainer aircraft, and the like. Though I would try to stick with the color scheme of the Hobby Hizack, I also thought about what kind of twist I could put into the kit.
Let it be known that the reason had nothing to do with the fact that I would not have to work on any weapons.

Background: Hobby Hizack
The Hobby Hizack first appears in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Coutnerattack as a...well...hobby vehicle. By 0093, the Hizack had become an obsolete war machine, so it was stripped of its weapons and sold for civilian use.

In the movie, we can see Quess pilot the Hobby Hizack like an acrobat in front of many military brass, including Char himself. If only this spawned choreographed mobile suit demonstrations like the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels. That might be an idea for a future project (no! no! no! you have too many half-finished projects!).

The Build
Soon after the Twitch stream, I started thinking about how I should paint the kit -- what parts should be true to the Hobby Hizack, what parts would be left to my interpretation, and what parts would remain closer to "Thunderbolt Ver." Looking at the back of the Hobby Hizack, I noticed the backpack was colored generally blue. I decided to start there.

To keep the color scheme interesting, I did not follow the color scheme of the Hizack (which involves coloring the whole back blue with little to no color separation). Instead, I painted the parts involving the thrusters, among other details, Tamiya's Gunmetal. The Thrusters, instead of the gray/red look, I went for the Thunderbolt gold and red by spraying the inside with gloss red from RustOleum, and painting Mr. Color Gold on the exterior. After removing as much seam line as possible, I finished off by spraying the tank flat white and detailing the stem/connection point a combination of gold and gunmetal. Once the piece of generally dried, I thought the test was successful and proceeded to the rest of the kit.

One part I am proud of (and, as you will see, sad for) is the shoulder-mounted armor plate. The red and yellow stripe is not perfect (like most things on this build), but the way it turned out conceptually had me excited to finish the rest of the build. If I had more time on the kit, I probably would have tried to add a similar yellow and red stripe spanning length of the opposite leg.

After priming the piece, I painted a spot with Tamiya polycarbonate yellow. With the thin layer of yellow dried, I masked and sprayed the gloss red stripe then masked and sprayed the rest gloss blue.

Other than the shoulder, most of the painting went smoothly. Other than the calves and spiked shoulder, no glue was used to remove seam lines. Because of this painting involved spraying ro hand painting parts separately, making the job easier.
The major issue in this phase ended up being the arms. Because the parts are generally two half-shells, color separation involved masking. Not only are the seam lines highly visible, the paint job is well under par. Needless to say, I'm not proud of that work.

Thinking about the shoulder...

Like most Gunpla kits, the Zaku II (Thunderbolt Ver.) lacks the essential play option of hands. For a suit that will not be carrying any weapons, I wanted the open hand option. None were provided -- not even the open left hand for carrying a rifle stock was provided. To remedy the issue, I purchased the Jigen Knuckles (Round), shaved down the top until I could crudely fit the Zaku armor plate on top of the hands, and painted the piece white and gunmetal. Despite some flaws, I was pretty happy with the result.
Furthermore, most Zaku kits will include a pink sticker for the monoeye. It looks cheap, it is cheap. I hate it. To fix this, I used a set of lens stickers from CJ Hobby that a friend had given me. Backed with a silver sticker cut to size, I painted the surface of the sticker with a tiny bit of Tamiya clear red to get the final product.

Crunch Time! The Final Days
From straight build to the previous photo, I took a little over a week. It took me until maybe 2 days before the end of the month to figure out what I wanted to do with the shoulder. I liked the spikes, but it wasn't very "Hobby-Hizack-like." To compromise, I cut off the side spikes and left the top spike for the final result.

While I was letting the shoulder dry as best as possible, I took out some leftover decals and stickers from various kits and started adding some minor details to the kit. Unfortunately, some stickers are very obvious on gloss surfaces.

At this point, I was not completely satisfied, but I was finished -- time was up. January had come to a close.

Faults
With the build time frame set to one month (not to mention my sloppy craftsmanship), many mistakes were made. A lot of the detail work could have been tighter, some scratches and fingerprints in the paint could have been avoided, but the biggest faults of this build lie in two locations: the shoulder armor and the right foot.

The right foot had since been repainted, so the final photographs will not show the mistake. However, if you look at some of the WIP photos, you will notice a strange looking right foot with what looks like mustard (I'll let you find it). I wanted to add a little color separation to the foot to imitate the white/red recessed tip of the Hobby Hizack. Instead of white or red, I wanted to add a little more yellow to the kit, so I masked off the top part and sprayed the polycarbonate yellow, the same yellow used on the armor stripe. The blue reacted to this paint and started warping, causing the foot to look like it had stepped in a puddle of mustard instead of a yellow soled shoe. To remedy the foot, a day before the due date, I scraped off and sanded the piece and repainted it. If you look closely, the right foot does not have the same defining edge of the left foot. The gloss blue had glazed over any detail that used to exist.
As for the shoulder armor, the piece looked pretty satisfactory on the first try. However, I wanted to add a gloss top coat before adding a wetslide decal (the 'GG'). Unfortunately, despite weeks of letting the paint dry, the RustOleum gloss enamel lifted the gloss blue enamel right up. I should have foreseen this, but in a lapse of judgement, I ruined a perfectly OK paint job. Unfortunately, with time running out, I was not able to repair this issue and decided to put the decal on anyway. In certain photos, the shoulder does not look so bad, but in the right light, you can see the full extent of the damage.

Going Back
I considered going back and "completing" the suit by cleaning up some of the paint (re-doing the shoulder) and adding in some panel lining, but I decided to just keep the suit the way it was. It is a suit completed within a month, it was the suit that I submitted to r/gunpla. I'm sure there will be other group builds and custom projects I'll be working on soon enough.

Thanks for reading! Until next time, may your cuts be clean and sandpaper rough.