Sunday, July 5, 2009

HG XXXG-01H2 Gundam H-Arms Custom

The smell of fireworks is still in the air, and for the first time in recent memory, it isn't raining the day after July 4th. Yesterday I ended up taking a huuuuuugggeee trip down memory lane by digging up relics from my pre-teen years. So I decided to post some of my earliest Gundams in the next few entries - as a way of documenting my still amateurish journey in the GunPla world from the very beginning. As such, today's Gundam is the HG 1/144 Heavy Arms Custom from Endless Waltz. Back in middle school, I remember seeing the movie on Cartoon Network and being obsessed with getting the figures - eventually during the summer of 8th grade, I did get to start building the Endless Waltz line, and this one was the first. As you guys may already surmise, it is an atrocity from a painting and assembling standpoint - and indeed, it is.

One of my first Gunpla kits!

The assembly of the group of GunPla that this kit was a part of was an exercise in child-like experimentation, curiosity and of course, trial and error. As a middle schooler, I had no access to things like plastic cement, design knives, gate nippers or sandpaper. In their place, I used my hands to tear the parts from the runners and a kitchen knife that was sharp enough to do the work of carving off the flash. Impatiently, yet meticulously snap-built, this Gundam turned out pretty good - for being assembled with a what can be considered caveman tools.

















Detailing this kit involved what I had learned from slapping (*headdesk*) poster paint onto the 3 or 4 kits I built before this one - which meant painting directly from the bottle, a nasty habit that I didn't get rid of for a veeeeeeery long time. This model was hand painted with the same Testors enamels that I use on my more recent work - the paint kit managed to last me from around 2002, when I got my first GunPla until now. You'll see various mistakes that I made during the painting process, which include painting light colors over dark (shoulder pads), not separating the parts properly (the camera above the antennae) and not thinning the damn paint (every freakin' where).

The panel lines were done with one of those Sanford rollerball pens with the water-based ink - I didn't even know what the Gundam Markers were at this point in my hobby days and they were the only pens that were thin enough to get the job finished. As you may tell, that did NOT work out too well. The finer details, such as the face and the light blue highlights on the various panels on the body were done up with a toothpick, a trick that I picked up on my early days of forum sifting.

See all of those ugly mistakes?

Massive chainguns

Better hope you're never on this end of those barrels

RELOOOOAAAAAAAD!!!!11!!1!

The part of this model that I so fondly remember is painting the dozens and dozens of missiles and inner workings of the Gundam Heavyarms underneath the coverings - using the equivalent of a Q-tip, I managed to get all of those little tiny dots in after much RAGE and frustration. It lends a bit of charm to the finished product, if there is any charm to this ugly duckling to begin with. More photos of the finished kit:


2 hours of pain results in a lot of nothing...


Close up of the gunk inside the chainguns


Add some more guns... Open the other hatches...


The pose inside the display case


This model came out at a time when "HG" didn't really imply that the model was at the same level of quality as even the earliest HGUC models. If the parts were separated a little more, I would have probably been able to paint the pieces a lot better than the gunkified mess that you see in the closeup shots. The seams were pretty tight though, if I did end up using glue and a proper flash trimming tool back then, the model would have probably ended up looking much more appealing than what is seen here. However, I don't really recall the building experience, seeing as how I finished this GunPla around 2003 or 2004.

Other issues include extremely loose joints after just a few pose changes - and that's not only for this particular kit, most of my other Endless Waltz kits from around this time also suffered the same fate. Further quips I have about this kit is how many of the covers are handled - all of the hatches that cover the missiles from the hips down all need to be swapped out with "opened" variants of the same part, leading to a lot of pain during posing (and of course, during this photo session...). It's understandable though, because implementing those minuscule joints to attach the covers would have been extremely delicate and annoying during the build process anyway.

It's joints may be loose now, but the model still has a lot of life in it, looking pretty damn good inside the display case alongside my more recent work. For a GunPla made with a kitchen knife and painted with those elementary school-style Crayola brushes, it turned out pretty well.


"Until next time, folks~"

Saturday, July 4, 2009

HGUC RX-77-2 Guncannon

Happy July 4th everyone! Well, to my fellow Americans anyway. Today's Gundam is the HGUC 1/144 scale Guncannon - the first HGUC that I ever built (and first modern HG in general), and the first Gunpla that started my addiction to the Universal Century Series.

The HGUC RX-77-2 Guncannon and it's cardboard prison

Friday, June 5, 2009

A Small Preview

If my 2 readers haven't already figured out, one of my most beloved hobbies is building GunPla. Now, due to technical issues with photographing the actual models, I haven't been able to successfully capture the main attraction properly. I blame my poor camera skills - they aren't yet up to par, but I hope the blog turns out to be a good learning experience.

So rather than assault your eyes with overexposed shots of my first Gundam models, I figured I'd show a piece of history that I managed to preserve this whole time.



This is the box for the original 1:144 Scale RX-78-2 Gundam + G-Armor model that was released in the early 80's. I'll follow up with shots of the actual model soon, but for now, this is all I have to offer.

As for all of you modelers who throw away the boxes, please reconsider! Many of the boxes are pieces of art in and of themselves and make a wonderful display piece to accompany your completed Gunpla!

Friday, May 29, 2009

introduction

So it's going to be 2 in the morning and I'm once again caught in a perpetual cycle of sleep deprivation. There are paint fumes floating around the room from a day of painting Gundams and they're slowly being carried outside by a nice early-early-early morning breeze. Such is my life when I don't have finals kicking my butt into high gear.

If the thinner-soaked paper towels in my garbage can don't spontaneously ignite and take my life in a fiery blaze tonight, I'll be around to shed more light on a few of the endless hobbies that I have. But to sum it all up, being an almost-20-year-old that collects plastic models and toys is simply another way to keep that inner-kid alive in a world that grows increasingly gloomy. If everyone was given some time to just sit around and do things they loved, this world would be a much better place.

In our society today, we're all expected to act a certain way when we start grow out of our teen years. We take up additional responsibilities, experience new things and all in all, grow up. But honestly, what's to say that we're "too old" for things we used to enjoy in our younger days? Why can't I enjoy more sophisticated activities alongside the occupations that I had during childhood and adolescence? It injects a bit of variety and color into a life that will become ever more burdened by the obligations of adulthood. As we grow up, it's important to remember that it's never alright to stop enjoying the things we do simply because those around us ask "Aren't you too old for that?"

We're never too old to enjoy doing tings that we love. If not we would all be living very dull, unremarkable existences.