Jump to content

Neo

IPMS/USA Member
  • Posts

    64
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    4

Everything posted by Neo

  1. I used to think he sang “Scuse me, while I kiss this guy”! “Help me.” “Help me.” An interesting subject for sure! It really looks like ol Jimi.
  2. A bit of trivia: Gundam is actually an acronym for General purpose Utility Non-Discontinuity Augmentation Maneuvering weapon system. What all that means I haven’t a clue. The “suit” in mobile suit makes a lot more sense: Space Utility Instrument, Tactical. I can’t remember what the acronym for mobile armor was, but it was probably wacky, like GERWALK from Macross: Ground Effective Reinforcement of Winged Armament with Locomotive Knee joint(!!!). And from Sentinel Gundam, VMSaWRS (“vimsaws”) is Variable Mobile Suit and Wave Rider System. But the most sensible acronym from Gundam is AMBACS: Active Mass Balance And Control System. This is the control software that uses the entire body of a mobile suit to effect maneuvers in space, to conserve limited propellant as well as enhance agility. It also helps mobile suits from falling over in gravity environments. And now that the scale guys have melted their brains, we return you to your regularly scheduled program.
  3. Gil, The multi-colored sprue thing was pioneered by Bandai around 1987. They originally called it System Injection 21 and showcased it on their 1/144 Dragonar I kit, which was not a Gundam but was a Gundam-like hero mech. The thing is that they integrally molded things like colored stripes on single parts, truly amazing stuff. I had a chance to examine the actual kit and it boggled my mind that such a thing could be done on a mass production product. Bandai did a couple more kits like this, but I think the mold tolerances were too exacting, so they settled on color separated parts, but molded on single sprues like we see today. But what really blew me away was Bandai's line of Star Wars kits. They combined their snap-fit know how with detail levels never seen in Star Wars kits. I was a skeptic until I saw their 1/72 X-Wing up close. It made me a believer, and I immediately ran out and got their Y-Wing, which actually looks better than Fine Molds' kit. But getting back to Gunpla, I think it's the armor community with their weathering techniques that brought the genre to the mainstream. Even the silliest looking Gundam kits can take on a very different scale-like look when weathered properly.
  4. Wow, I'm the first dog in the room to soil the carpet! 😆 OK so here is my Gunpla story: I started out as a "normal" kit builder at the tender age of five, building mostly 1/72 WW II planes. I got into armor in 6th grade or so when I was given a Tamiya M3 Lee. This interest in armor got me buying books on the subject; I think my first two were on the Merkava and T-72. I spent my intermediate and high school years building Vietnam-era jets and Star Wars kits. Like many self-proclaimed "serious" modelers, I considered Japanese sci-fi/anime kits to be toy-like junk, with wind-up motors and spring powered "rocket punch" arms. Silly kid stuff. Pffft. A trip to Japan in 1980 confirmed this bias, as I was shocked that there were gobs and gobs of models of the Yamato battleship with a rocket engine - sacrilege! Little did I know that Gundam had aired on Japanese TV the year before, and the first kits from the show had hit the shelves. I was however aware during my stay in Japan that there was some kind of ruckus that happened in a Tokyo department store, when customers got trampled on an escalator by crazed Gunpla fans trying to get the latest kits. I left Japan with a suitcase full of Tamiya and Fujimi planes and tanks, with nary an anime kit in tow. And that would have been it for my brush with Gunpla. But on a fateful summer day in 1983 I bought my first Gundam kit for something like $3. I bought it as a joke, and had no idea what a Gundam was or what it would do to my wallet and storage space. After building the kit, I became curious about the series and decided to start digging. This was all pre-internet days boys and girls, so information was hard to come by. I recalled the department store incident from 1980, which only increased my curiosity. What the heck WAS a Gundam? What was all the fuss about? Now I had to find out (cue the ominous music). I bought a second Gunpla kit, something called Char's Zaku. It looked kind of like a football player colored like an orange popsicle. I didn't like the color scheme, so I painted it in military greens. I didn't know it at the time, but this cemented (yes this was all pre-snap fit days) my love for Gunpla and Zakus. A friend got me a catalog book of Japanese anime kits produced in 1983, and inside I saw Gundam MSVs - Mobile Suit Variations, versions of Gunpla that looked more realistic and military than their TV counterparts. And in 1986, my dearest mom came back from a trip to Japan with a Gundam Mk.II and a Hi Zack. The shopkeeper she bought the kits from said these were from Zeta Gundam, which was airing in Japan at the time. By now I was ready to trample customers in a Tokyo department store! The latter half of the 1980s was also when modern Japanese anime exploded with such force that some it washed up on our shores. This made access a little easier, but it was not mainstream - we rented bootleg VHS tapes of anime shows from a seedy hole in the wall joint. The only other way was to get someone to go to Japan and buy the tapes, but at $40-$80 a pop! Yikes. When laser discs hit the market, they were no less expensive than the VHS tapes, plus you had to "flip the record"! But that was the only way to get a Gundam fix. Those were heady days, with classic Gundam titles like 0080 War in the Pocket, 0083 Stardust Memories, Char's Counterattack, and the 08th MS Team. Luckily for us, some local specialist hobby shops stocked the kits we so eagerly wanted. When Bandai introduced their 1/100 Master Grade and 1/144 High Grade universal Century kits in the 1990s, it reignited my interest in Gunpla. The older kits were really hit or miss, with a lot of misses in terms of proportion and overall quality. But the new MG and HGUC kits addressed many of these shortcomings, and per Bandai's evil marketing plan, made me buy all my old favorite kits all over again, in their new formats. They were really banging out the kits right out of the gate, and I was hard pressed to keep up with their release schedule. In the 1990s, before Bandai acquired Nippon Sunrise (the creator of many anime shows including Gundam) and pulled a Disney, there was a flood of Gundam garage kits. Smaller companies made resin Gunpla kits of not only the stuff you saw in the shows, but original takes from famous mecha designers like Kazuhisa Kondo, Yutaka Izubuchi, and Makoto Kobayashi. I developed a particular interest in Kobayashi's works, as his stuff looked positively weird, kind of like Gundam meets Moebius. By the time Cartoon Network aired Wing Gundam in the early 2000s, I was already hopelessly addicted and had a closet full of unbuilt Gunpla kits. OK that ran a little long. My apologies. So what is your Gunpla Story? How did you fall into the rabbit hole? I'm sure the reasons are as diverse as there are Gundams! Oh yeah, to answer the question of what a Gundam is, it's this:
  5. Say, I have a quick question - were the aerosan interiors finished with clear varnish or some other paint? I know a lot of them used plywood for body panels with steel plate on the fronts. Being Soviet Russian, I figure they would have done the minimum to finish/protect the interior.
  6. Sharkit? Sacre bleu monsieur, run! But seriously, this looks like a job for one of the Ukrainian injection molded companies. I think a limited run plastic kit or even a scratchbuild would yield better results than a Sharkit...kit. That's a really wacky looking plane BTW. I seem to recall it appearing in Mad Max: Thunderdrome. My memory fades and I try my best to forget that silly movie. "Me Master, him Blaster. Who runs Barter Town? EMBARGO!" Gah. Anyway, good luck on your search, and may you find something from the Amodel/Modelsvit/Mikro Mir/Avis/AMP consortium in injected plastic.
  7. Yeah, Bandai has avoided Origins MS kits in 1/100 scale for some reason. I wonder if the series was not that popular in Japan. The combat scenes rocked! I have felt the old 1980s 1/144 MSV Zaku Desert Type was the most perfect Zaku variation ever. The slightly updated MSD version from Origins was excellent looking as well. Now if only Bandai would do either as a MG kit. The whole Pee Bandai thing makes me think they want to kill off the mass consumer market of Gunpla, and make us buy pre-assembled toys instead. Their Robot Damashi line covers almost everything the MG and HGUC lines are missing.
  8. Nice! And closer to what Tomino probably had in mind when the Gundam’s color scheme was being worked out for the TV show. I believe it was the sponsors who wanted the “clown colors”, to appeal to kids so that they could sell more toys. The G Armor was also something the sponsors demanded, for the same reason. What a wonky, illogical design! When the MSV kits appeared, I was stunned at how toned down colors and a more military look made the models look so much better. I’m still waiting for a 1/100 Desert Type Zaku, but if it does materialize, it will probably be Pee Bandai. 🤯
  9. Yeah iPhones made me lazy. I used to haul around a digital camera (2MP - it was a LONG time ago!), but now I just use my phone. It was a pain hauling extra rechargeable batteries and all the accessories in the camera bag. I used to have fits when both sets of batteries gave out while at a jobsite, which happened a couple of times. And fumbling with those teeny memory cards. Camera phones get better all the time, but they still have limitations - like taking decent photos of model ships!
  10. Homemade vac-form rigs can be made from stuff found around the house: I made this little "mini-former", but never made the perforated base plate for it. Some PC prototyping board would work well. A simple plunge-former just consists of a piece of plywood with a slightly oversize hole cut for the master to pass through: The trick is you need to plunge from the side the sheet plastic is, so I use the light from the flame to "see" where the hole in the plywood is. HTH
  11. I went back in 2016, and it was a blast! A very different experience compared to the US Nationals. The vendor/SIG area was staggeringly large - I was getting tired walking back and forth the length of the 3 combined halls. The year I went, the vendors mostly had airplane and military related stuff. There was only one car specialist vendor, but the focus was on 1/43. The contest area was small, but the build quality was exceptional. One of our best modelers entered and only got a “commended”. The Cornish pasty from the food vendor was really good! And RAF Cosford is just a short train ride from Telford, definitely worth seeing. But bring an umbrella if the weather is inclement - my friend and I got drenched on our way in. We were soaked to our skivvies and didn’t dry out till we were on our way out. We did buy some spiffy Red Arrows umbrellas though.
  12. Ah yes, the classic case of the most of the host. We had a weatherman here that used to stand in front of the weather map and gesture wildly with both arms, completely blocking the view. If one is not camera-friendly, then staying out of the frame is a good idea. If you look like a movie star, then OK show yer mug. But people want to see the model, not perfect shining white teeth. And if a major disaster strikes, it might be helpful to document it, but don’t dwell on it. Just focus on the recovery procedure. So basically, good lighting and camera angle, organized work area, well scripted and rehearsed presentation, and a little self-deprecating humor will go a long way to making a good, watchable video.
  13. Personally, I don’t like it when the host blathers on and on about unrelated things for 10 minutes. You know, like how he had the best tacos today at some place he can’t quite remember, but the tacos were so good mmmmmm. Or wondering where his left sock went, and going off on a tangent about inter-dimensional laundry dryer theory and such. Eating / chewing while doing the video is also a turn-off. And swigging drinkies between lines. I like hosts who are organized and prepared - it drives me nuts to have to sit through several minutes of the host digging around off-screen to find something, all the while losing his train of thought. Gah. If I had a channel, I would expect to be immediately bombarded with reaction videos with morons doing all of the above. But since I don’t, the wiseacres can just suck it. Guys like Plasmo and Nightshift are good in my opinion. But they do gloss over some nuts and bolts stuff that would have been informative to see. I do like self deprecating humor. The uber-experten who don’t even smile turn me off. I mean… why so serious? Good luck on your videos, and hope a lot of people smash that “like” button!
  14. No silly at all, since there always was a nod to technological evolution of the MS designs in Gundam. But the Hi Mobility Zakus had solid horizontal ribbed soles with no thrusters, which I thought odd. I suppose the Zaku backpack flap is a retcon of the original design, which lacked thruster detail.
  15. For those who watched the movie, did anyone notice two peculiarities - Doan’s standard Zaku had a moveable flap on the backpack that exposed the rocket engines when in use, and the Hi Mobility Zakus just had solid ribbed soles instead of the expected thrusters and skirts like on a Dom?
  16. Very nice! What’s next? The Gundam? Or a GM that has fallen on and busted its head? 😜 Poor Sleggar, I was not expecting that to happen!
  17. Yep, “Pee” Bandai. https://www.gundamkitscollection.com/2022/09/bandai-hobby-teases-hg-1144-high.html?m=1 Curse you Bandai, for urinating on the aspirations of Gunpla fans outside of Japan. Bandai-San, you sakku. 😡
  18. I wonder what Sunrise/Bandai was thinking when they designed the damage on Doan’s Zaku. Were there hungry mice on the island? I know the “long nose” thing was homage to the old TV show, but I dunno, I’m not really a fan of it. At least they didn’t do a “tall head” Gundam! 😜 So are you going to make a rock for the Zaku to throw? How about the Brown Tristars, I mean the Southern Cross, Hi Mobility Zakus? Does the Bandai kit allow you to make any one of the five? Wow, 5 Pee Bandai kits - sounds expensive! Curse you Bandai. I was fortunate enough to get to see the movie last week in the theater, and enjoyed it. The theater was pretty empty, probably because it wasn’t Wing Gundam. 🤮
  19. Good job Mark! I took the Red pill, because my friends told me it was like candy!
  20. Yeah Thunderbolt was too over the top for my taste. The weapons fit looked like they were designed by little kids trying to stick as many guns, shields and boosters on as possible. And the two main characters were highly unlikeable - the Zeon pilot was a wet blanket, the Feddie pilot was a vicious jerk. The animation was pretty good though. Mark, better take the Blue Pill if you don’t want to fall into the Gundam rabbit hole.
  21. The Dom 2.0 (or is it really a 1.5?) improves the leg jointing and has some new arm parts. The rotary hips is a feature all mech kits should have. The only downer is that the parts that used to be ABS are now molded in that sucky KPS styrene. It’s like going back to 1980 when kits didn’t have poly caps. Well, separate bases take up less shelf space, so your approach makes sense. Have you done or are planning to do a Gundam “Last Shooting” or Gundam vs Gouf dio with the Gouf losing both arms?
  22. You have quite the collection of One Year War mobile suits! Is the G-3 Gundam going to be taking on a Zeon MS? Char Dom perhaps?
  23. Zakuformer, be careful - you risk losing your Zeon lapel pin for that remark! 😝 Seig Zeon, down with the Feddie Earthnoids!
  24. Calvin and Hobbes method…ah, enemy fire got me again! 😆
×
×
  • Create New...