Back to work.

With the move to my new apartment complete, I finally found time to get the page for the Sinanju Stein up and going! I had to get everything put together again but it’s extremely nice to have all my kits together under one roof again. You can see they gallery of pictures of the Hi-Stein right here!

I’ve already started on the first of four of these. Still a little tweaking to do with the backpack but I love how those side skirts look.

The end (again!).

Full page and photoshoot coming soon! However, I’m moving in two weeks and it’s likely that it may delay updating for just a little bit. Stay tuned!

I’ve created a monster.

The Stein is entering it’s final stages of construction. All of the weapons are built and painted save for the funnels and since the parts for those shipped this morning you can bet that those will be completed soon.

First up, the Armed Armor DE is finished. It took a little bit of work to make it so I was happy with it but the results are well worth it. I should also note that those two pictures are before I touched up the gray vents, there’s no white showing now. The gold may seem like a strange choice right now but I plan on taking a page from Busterbeam’s book and making a backstory for the build that explains how it came to be and why those parts are gold.

With the shoulder mounted weapons finished, we’re quickly approaching the “Decal Hell” stage of the build. The top half of the mobile suit is done but there’s still along ways to go on the legs and weapons. Still, this kit has come together really well and I’m pretty proud of how it’s turning out. Syd has been busy with the OVA Sinanju and Type-C ReZEL but I suspect we’ll see more of the Tallstein (or is it Steingeese?) soon!

The End.

Of the gauntlet, that is!

That’s right folks, the Nu Gundam ver. Ka Gauntlet is now officially OVER! It was a really excellent GB that saw a lot of entries but only seven out of the nineteen entrants (counting only the open and newtype styles as they were the ones who were painting their kits) managed to finish this kit in time for the deadline. There were a few people who came close but finished is finished and I’d be selling the others who pulled through and got everything done in time short if I let others slide on not having their kits totally completed. Like Busterbeam said in one of his posts over at the GAF thread, there was a big difference between this Gauntlet and the one we held for the PG SF. With the Nu GB, everyone came in cold whereas with the PG SF we were all a ways in to the build and we just had to make that one big final push to wrap the kit up. Obviously everyone starting from zero made this a more demanding GB all around but I also think that it makes what people managed to accomplish in the three month time frame all the more impressive.

By now, everyone has seen my own Nu Gundam in Karaba colors. There were only two entries in the Newtype Style, but that’s alright. We’ll get to the other entry in a little bit! This is still one of my favorite builds that I’ve done to date, especially with the Double Funnel set attached, which I still need to snap a few more pictures for before I can update the page with those. Let’s get on to the other excellent entries.

GaiGun of the Gaijin-Gunpla fame finished his kit shortly after me with a nicely executed darker colorscheme using Tamiya’s spraycans. I especially like the bold choice he went with on the psychoframe parts, electing to use a popping candy green that would be shown off in it’s Invoke mode. His entry marked the first of the few to finish up in the Open/Gangnam style category and you can read his excellent writeup of the build as well as look at a gallery of pictures here and here respectively.

Falldog was next with his entry in to the Open style and wow, this build came out extraordinarily clean. I think by now Falldog should be known for how tidy his builds are and the Nu is no exception- all the toned down colors play off each other really well and the grays accentuate the blues and whites just right. The alternate position of the Fin Funnels looks nice too and the addition of Sazabi’s escape pod really makes for an excellent display piece! You can see the full gallery and his thoughts on the kit here.

Wolfman X’s Nu came in with a really solid military feel to it, something that really makes his kit feel unique. The colors almost feel Titan-esque but have their own spin on them that makes it stand out from others. Most of us went with brighter colors or toned down shades of bright colors and this was one of the few that took the dark color route. I also want to point out how well the stock Nu decals work with Wolfman’s colorscheme- I had to use Hi-Nu decals on my own Nu and a few others got custom sheets printed up for their builds so hats off for making them work with this kit! More of his pictures can be seen in his Catapult post over at GAF.

Shaid is up next, and is the only other person to enter and finish up their build in the Newtype field. I really like all the choices he made with this kit ranging from going with the glossy metallic frame and flat armor parts to the very well kept secret of attaching the Commander ReZEL’s wing binders to the Nu’s backpack. Sure, it cuts down on the number of Fin Funnels the kit can have equipped but frankly the choices he made go so well with the Zeta Plus A1 scheme that it hardly matters that the suit isn’t packing all 6 of it’s iconic weapons. Not to mention the paint and work overall on this kit is just plain crispy! Even the photography has a lot of pop to it. While I’d love to see pictures of it with all the armor on, given how much work Shaid put in to the frame I can see why he’d want to show it off. You can see a full gallery of this impressive kit over at his blog!

Khai was the next one across the finish line, wrapping up his build of the Titan’s colored Nu Gundam. It’s a given at this point that pretty much everything looks great in Titans colors and this Nu Gundam is no exception. Khai’s paintwork on this kit is so smooth and fresh that it almost looks like the kit was molded in these colors! The decals he used here really bring the kit to life and his mod work is just crazy! The railgun in place of the hand on the arm, the weapons on the shield, the different weapon in hand and the shoulder mounted bazooka are both top notch additions to the kit and give this a look all it’s own. There’s a full gallery (and I’m sure you can track down WIPs for how he did his mods) right here.

Last but certainly not least, Busterbeam managed to finish his monsterous kit just two minutes to midnight on the last day of the GB. He definitely didn’t disappoint with his entry! The last few models he’s done have had very well executed colorschemes and this is another one for the record books for him if you ask me (he even used his own blood in the paintjob!). The work on the frame is really tight and it’s obvious why he went took some pictures with half the armor off- I’m always impressed by people that can take frame detailing to this level and the next kit I work on after the Stein is done with I’ll give it a shot myself. The really impressive thing he’s done here is the head! No one else in the GB knew what he was doing with this so like Shaid’s ReZEL wings it came as a big surprise to everyone when he unveiled it. Something else I love about BB’s builds is that he always has a really awesome backstory for builds like this which is something I’ve already thought of for my customized Stein. You can read the story and get a good look at this kit by checking out his blog!

This GB was only as hugely successful as it was thanks to all the folks who participated and gave out feedback or got involved in various ways from making banners (I have to give a big thanks especially to fury-s21 for making an entire application that helped a lot of folks get their colorschemes in order before they started painting) and of course the GB wouldn’t have even existed without the kindness of the Gundam Australia Forums and my main man Sonar. GAF is absolutely my gunpla home on the internet outside of this little blog (fun fact: I still need to do a year 4 wrap up post! I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for so long), to the point that apparently there are people out there who think that I’m an Australian, haha. I also have to give a big thanks to HobbyLink Japan for both sponsoring GAF and in turn providing prizes for those who took part in the Gauntlet 2.0. I’m grateful to everyone who took part in this event and helped it become as large as it was and now that this is all wrapped up, we can start getting things together to decide on prizes and the like for the brave few who managed to make it across the finish line! You can keep an eye on the GAF thread for developments in that regard since that’s where everyone involved will be most likely to see it.

Thank you again, everyone!

Showdown WIP 5 – Main Body

While it’s just the primer, I wanted to put things together and see how they looked at this stage in the game. We’ve run in to a lot of equipment issues on this build due to age and my own mistakes (bent a fluid nozzle, the air regulator crumbled from the inside out) but so far things have managed to turn out pretty good regardless. The chest, feet, part of the arms and backpack are finished, decaled and hit with the characteristic flat coat.

Once the new regulator shows up it’ll be time to start prepping the weapons and getting the whites finished up.

RG Karaba Zeta Gundam – First Look!

I know that a lot of people have been curious about this kit and while I mentioned some things about it in the last post, I wanted to make a quick update before work with some actual pictures of what makes this kit so special.

The box itself is much larger than the standard Zeta Gundam box due to the fact that there are 5 extra runners involved with this kit.

Three of the I and E runners in gray, pink and white and two of the A runners with different coloration. Bandai really wanted to make sure this thing looked as good as possible out of box! I did some looking and if you could get your hands on another frame runner, two d runners and the runner that has the white armor parts you could build an entire extra RG Zeta Gundam and then some with what you won’t be using…but the cost of ordering those parts would likely run you more than the cost of just buying another RG Zeta.

This is a big one. When the promo shots for the Karaba Zeta came out there was an error on the leg sticker- “Karab”. People (myself included) were pretty annoyed that such a blatant typo could make it through Bandai’s QA and actually make it all the way to production again (phase shit armor, oops) but I’m pleased to report that the issue isn’t present on the kit after all! This is a huge plus and makes me really happy.

Given that my attention is focused pretty hard on the Stein right now it’s hard to say when I’m going to get to building this but it WILL be my next build and while it’s getting painted in stock colors you can be sure that I’ll be using every little sticker and bringing out every detail I can to make it a really impressive build.

Showdown WIP 4 – Hi-Stein

Tentative name, I haven’t quite found something that gives it that proper “custom” feeling. In any case the mods for most of the weapons are done now save for the shield/rifle mounted cannon (still mulling this one over- might be a step to far to mount it to the already oversized beam rifle) and leg mounted missile racks which I haven’t even begun to fiddle with yet.

Let’s talk how I got these parts on there. First and foremost the shoulder mounted weapons are connected to the shoulder via the shoulder joints from the MG Hi-Nu. I they fit in there by opening up the small gap on the shoulder frames just a touch, then tightening them up with super glue to ensure they don’t flop around at all. Using the shoulder joints gives the weapons the ability to rotate on the X and Z axis with the arm from the new Type-C ReZEL giving it movement on the Y axis. The huge cannon on the left shoulder was easy enough to fit since that’s the part it’s supposed to mount to in the first place but to mount the gatlings I had to get a little creative.

I forgot to take a picture of it, but there’s a PC part cut down and jammed in to the opening of the S8 part of the Type-C ReZEL and then I sanded down a chunk of sprue so it fit in the PC part. After that, I drilled some holes in to the side of the gatling guns and used superglue to tighten those joints, though they aren’t locked in to place so they can move up and down independently of one another. I’ll cover up the holes with some pla-plate to keep things looking nice and clean but for now that takes care of our shoulder mounting adventures.

I was initially worried that I would need to drill holes in to the Steins shoulder armor to accommodate the shoulder part’s male end but as it turns out the part that covers the area I attached the joint to is actually covered by the part that goes on top of the shoulder and all I had to do was cut off a little extra plastic to make it work. Here’s a comparison of the two parts, one modified and the other stock. This leaves enough room that nothing is in the way of the shoulder joint.

The last bit of work that I had to do on the shoulders- and this is something I realized I had to do maybe five minutes ago- is cut down a side of the part that hangs down from the shoulder since the balljoints are in the spot for the back side that slips in to the shoulder frame. This was a quick and easy thing to do and to make sure the part stays put with half the support I just tightened the remaining area up with superglue which is becoming shockingly common with this build.

The end results speak for themselves though, the joints are all rock solid and have plenty of movement to allow for the rifle to come under the arm so the kit can grip the cannon or have it sitting above the shoulder for firing. You’d think all these modifications would result int he suit having poor balance but thanks to the Stein’s larger size it supports all of these extra parts quite well and doesn’t suffer much in the way of stability. There are only a few things left to do now like figure out what I’m going to do with the Armed Armor DE and the second beam cannon. I really like how Syd’s fantastic build and my own are going towards two different schools of thought- high speed combat and overwhelming offensive power. Maybe I’ll have to mail my Stein to Japan when this is all said and done so they can be photographed together!

In other news, my Real Grade Karaba Zeta Gundam has arrived from Gentei Kits! I have a three day weekend this week, you guys can expect to see a preview of the kit at the very least because I know a lot of us were/are wondering why the ox is so much bigger than the regular RG Zeta Gundam box. There aren’t any extra weapons, but Bandai did go the extra mile on color separation and gave us multiples of the same runners in different colors to ensure that the Karaba Zeta looks are true to the artwork as possible. Be on the lookout for pictures soon since we’ve got some serious free time coming up!

Stein Showdown 3 – Mad Science!!

Now we’re really getting things underway.

Test fitting most of the gear now that my Type-C ReZEL got here (I’ll build that later- I want to finish up some other projects first), I need to drill a hole in the shoulder armor but the arm from the Type-C fits the Hi-Nu shoulder joint perfectly with no extra work so that’s excellent. Aside from that it looks like most this will come together relatively hassle free. I might need to tighten up the balljoints on the backpack to compensate for the fin funnel’s extra weight (those still need to be painted as well, they won’t be staying black and dark red) but as you can see the it all works together pretty well. There are still more things to come so keep your eyes peeled for another update later in the week with the finishing touches on this thing mod-wise.

Also, My RG Karaba Zeta Gundam shipped so you’ll probably see a build of that up soon too- I’m painting it in stock colors since that’s the whole point of the kit but I’ll be sure to put it lots of extra effort to make it a really outstanding build.

Stein Showdown progress!

Thanks to having an actual legitimate weekend off for the first time since December, I managed to get most of the reds on the Stein and a few of the silver and other details wrapped up.

Don’t mind where that missile rack is, it’s since been moved to an area that doesn’t result in a bunch of ugly looking empty space. I’m REALLY loving how this is turning out so far, the colors are all really bright and pop together well. As you can see, the V-Fin and chest vents got changed to silver and I think that change gives it a much more look that is it’s own instead of borrowing everything from the Deep Striker.

I really love how the backpack on this thing turned out. I’m just waiting for new Hi-Nu parts before I atach the funnel racks to this area, the funnels themselves will probably be done over the next few days along with most of the whites on the suit. The parts that are painted already all have their pre-decal gloss coats down as well, so that will save some time when we reach that step. A few parts suffered small scratches but since there’s still red to paint repairing them won’t take much time or extra effort.

Here’s where I’m putting the missile pods on the waist for now. It sits a little too low for my taste, but seems like the best available simple solution for mounting missiles on the waist. It doesn’t get in the way of the arms or anything else and it doesn’t create weird looking empty space.

I should have most, if not all, of the whites done over the next two days depending on how much energy I have. I’m still torn on how to handle the Armed Armor DE due to the psychoframe parts, I might just paint them gray or some other color and make up a ridiculous explanation for why they aren’t ‘active’.

Showdown!!

When I was starting my build of the Sinanju Stein, I made a quick update on the It’s a Gundaaaam! Facebook page with the V-fin in place, prompting a comment from Syd of the Gaijin-Gunpla fame; ‘You should see what my Stein is getting.’

That sparked a fire. Syd and I got to talking and decided that since we were both at roughly the same point in our builds we would wrap up what we were currently working on and then we’d have a showdown of Steins, each of us customizing our respective units.

As you can see, I’ve already the majority of the frame painted (aside from the backpack frame), and while I’ve painted a few parts yellow I’ve decided to change their color so even that won’t be the same on the final kit.

Digging in to the first of many mods (apologies for reusing the same picture from the last update, but I’ve already taken the backpack apart to paint it up), we’ve got the addition of the Hi-Nu funnel racks on to the Stein’s existing backpack.

Started by cutting a hole in to a section of the backpack armor, low enough so that where it’s mounted it won’t get in the way of shoulders OR ruin the suit’s profile. Maintaining a certain flow of a suit’s design is always an important aspect when doing mods like this and I rather dislike it when people just slap a ton of weapons and/or equipment on a suit. Remember kids- just because you CAN add 0 Raiser wings to something doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

It took a long time to come to a conclusion on how to set up these funnel parts. I wanted to maintain their ability to rotate, spread out and move up and down and to do that I ran through a lot of ideas before I landed on using the hip joints from my old MG Hi-Nu and while it’s sad to use the kit as parts, the recast Vicious Project Hi-Nu parts I got were so deformed that the resin kit is nigh useless. I hacked the L15 part down to size so it had a nice low profile but had enough surface area to still provide a solid area to glue to the inside of the Stein’s backpack part.

I ordered new parts for the actual funnel racks, but for now test fitting with the old Hi-Nu parts does the job. I made a little more room on the inside of the parts so they fit snugly though I think that when it comes time to load the racks up with the funnels I’ll need to either jam a PC part in there (unlikely- there isn’t a lot of room to put the one that works with the hip joint in there) or tighten the joint up more so it doesn’t turn or move unfavorably. So far so good! My parts from Gentei Kits arrived yesterday which had a lot of the other extra weapons that are going to get attached to this kit- but the MG General Revil ReZEL doesn’t drop until this Thursday (supposedly) and that has the parts I need for the final two big mods to this kit. Stay tuned, and keep your eye on Gaijin-Gunpla for what he’s going to do with his own Stein! It’s bound to be amazing!