Friday 24 September 2010

Master Grade 1:100 Wing Gundam

Engage geek mode...

Clicky clicky for pictures...

Finally! The first Gundam I bought all those years ago when Gundam was shown on Toonami and was cool and popular now has a pwoper awesome master grade!
The first Wing Gundam I ever had was 1:144 scale, the colours were nothing like the real thing... before and after I tried to paint it. It fell apart after a while due to the many many times I transformed it. It was... It was pretty bad, I'm not gonna lie.
This, however... Oh man, this is amazing. The build was great; there was no point at which I thought, "Ok... getting booored noooow..." It was a lot of fun putting this guy together. I was also very impressed at the complexity of the build; it was on a par with my Unicorn and, I won't lie, it was a lot more interesting to build and a lot less of a pain. There were no annoying bits that didn't like to stay and kept popping off unless coerced gently but firmly to click into place...
The colours are nice and vibrant and pretty anime accurate too; you've got the standard bright red, a nice dark navy blue, a bright yellow with a hint of orange and a nice clean white. It's got a really nice lean, slender feel to the mould without suffering any weakness. It's a good, strong, sturdy model that has no trouble holding pretty much any pose. It's uber posable; the articulation on this bad boy is fantastic. With an action base you could pull off some seriously impressive poses. And I really like the wings; they have such a wide range of positions, it's great for aerial poses. The joint strength of this kit is brilliant, something that really impressed me; combining the low weight of the limbs with good joint strenght leads me to believe that everything's going to stay nice and solid for quite some time. There are really only two slight niggles; the arms like to pop off at the shoulders if you play about with them too much, but that's forgivable. The shoulders are also brilliantly articulated as you're able to pop them forward and bring the arm right out and accross the front. Also, the wrists are a little loose and wobbly, but that's nothing major; that could be corrected with a smudge of super glue over the ball joint.
The Wing Gundam has a fairly large rifle and you might think that, with slightly loose wrists, it would have issues there. However, the yellow claws on the arms incorporate a lovely little design feature: they clip onto the back of the rifle, keeping it locked and steady. Without them there would be rifle drooping issues...
It also comes with the mandatory beam sabre and
the shield has a brilliant little feature to store the sabre handle. In the anime, the sheild would split open and the sabre would pop out and they've incorporated this design into the model. It works so well; it's a tiny little addition but it just adds to the overall awesomeness of the kit.
I didn't do anything major to this kit. I did some panel lining, but there wasn't a lot of grooves to ink which is always a positive. The original Gundam Wing series kits were covered in grooves, lines and the kits look pretty intense when inked. This is much better. For decals I used a few of the dry rub transfers on the wings, but I used mainly the clear stickers; some from the sheet for this kit and some gleaned from leftover sticker sheets from other models.
The final feature of this kit is the transformation into Neo-Bird mode. It's a nice transformation, although it does cause some slight problems. You have to rotate the waist 360 degrees and that tends to cause the side front and back skirts to pop off which can be a bit of a pain. But, once everything's changed around and the transformation's finished it holds very well; nothing flops about or wobbles which is great. It looks great, holds together really well. It's a generally brilliant mobile armour mode; puts a lot of Gundam's mobile armour modes to shame.

Overall, this is an awesome kit and I have nothing at all to complain about. It looks fantastic; it's a little more slender than it would have been in the anime, but that's in no way a negative point. There were practically no loose parts that needed gluing. In fact the only piece I glued was the v-fin/ forehead jewel. I'm so glad that we're finally getting some Gundam Wing master grades. The Wing Gundam, then the Deathscythe Ver Ka. (even though they're calling it the Endless Waltz version... ¬_¬). Hopefully we'll get a Shenlong master grade soon... And I really don't mind if it's the ver ka.

End geek mode.

Wednesday 22 September 2010

Sword Impulse Gundam


Sword Impulse Gundam, originally uploaded by Infrasmell.

I'm loving having my flickr linked to my blog. :P

I need this guy. It pretty much sums up my favourite type of gundam style; Gundams with unusual weapons. It has no guns, no rifles or anything. Just two, massive swords. Yes please.

Monday 20 September 2010

Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn


Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, originally uploaded by Kelvin 凱文.

I love this mobile suit. The design of it is just pure brilliance, and the way the photo's set up is really nice. It's clean, sharp.
Yeah, total Gundam geek here...

Saturday 18 September 2010

I just wish you'd talk to me.

Sometimes I feel so isolated from you and at other times I feel like you're my best friend. You're my little sister and I care about you. Okay, I know I may not show it very well but that's because I'm your brother. I'm a guy and we suck at that kind of stuff. But I just wish that you'd talk to me. I feel like I don't know you, like you're living a life in a totally different time zone and city to me. You never tell me anything but I still hear whispers. Minor things you mention, little things you let slip. Sometimes they annoy me, sometimes they frustrate me... Sometimes they worry and scare me. I just wish you felt like you could come and tell me. I love you so much because you're my little sister; I only want the absolute best for you in your life. But I feel so distant from you sometimes and I hate it when you make me and mum the bad guys. We don't want to stop you from having a good time and seeing your friends and blah blah blah. And it really hurts when you say I've changed and that I'm no fun and that I'm boring and that I hate having fun. It really does. I just don't like mindless stupidity.
Meh, this is turning into a rant and that's not what I wanted to do...

Wednesday 1 September 2010

Purpose. Grace.

I constantly have trouble with myself. I feel like I'm currently going nowhere and that I will always be going nowhere. I have no self belief and hardly any self confidence. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to believe that I'm going places; that I'm destined for bigger things. However, sometimes the only thing that I truly believe is that I'm going to be stuck at Roys for the rest of my life, moving up until I'm the head of fashions, spending all my time and money out side of Roys on my Gundams and living my life as a reclusive, awkward, lonely uber-geek at the end of which I would die old, cold and alone...
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't feel like that all the time. There are people in my life that make me believe that one day I might actually find someone. That I am mildly attractive and not a hopelessly ugly troll. That all my idiosincracies and my weirdness are good things. That I'm not a useless speck on this planet that will never have any impact on anything worthwhile... They're so good to me and I love them so much.
One of these people told me something and I know she has no idea what it did for me and to me. She told me "if it wasn't for you I'd be on antidepressants and I'd be playing with blades."
I know you'll read this and all I can say is thank you. Thank you for reminding me that I have a point; that I can make a difference. <3

Yesterday I was having a rant to mum. I ranted about everything; how I feel lost and alone, how I feel like there's nothing going on in my life nor will there ever be. I was hurting... a lot. I felt useless and hopeless and completely and utterly insignificant. What is my purpose? What is the point to me?
And then I remembered. Love is my point. I'm not good at much. But one thing I'm good at is love. One thing I can do is take the grace God has shown to me and turn it on other people. I care too much and I love too deeply, but that's not a bad thing.
I have a theory, well... not really a theory. A picture, an allegory, a metaphor. I believe that our souls, the things that make us us are made up of billions of tiny little pieces. When we become close to someone, whether it's through friendship or through being in a relationship, the peices can transfer. A peice of you can switch for a peice of the other person. You rub off on other people...
There's a quote by Chuck Palahnuick that I love; "Nothing of me is original, I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known." And that is exactly how I feel. When we rub up against people in life we leave parts of ourselves, of who we are on them. It can help turn them into a better person or it can bring them down. You just have to make sure that what you leave behind is good.

That's all for now...

PG 00 Raiser


PG 00 Raiser, originally uploaded by vegeta8259.

Oh to have painting skills like this... One day.