GUNDAM Questions

Well the biggest most detailed would be the 1/60 scale Perfect Grade and the glorious series, which are similar to PG but have LED and stuff.  Poly Caps usually aren't visible, since they make up the inside of the joints.  I never paint mine and you cant see them.  If you painted them the act of putting the joint together or moving it would scrape all the paint off. 

Actually, I was wondering about this, too.  I know polys don't hold paint well ( at least, no paint I've tried ), but I'm working on some of the 1:144 scale Macross 7 2-fers and all the kits have hands in the polycap sprue.  If there's no type of paint that'll work, I may have to resort to recasting the hands in resin and hope they don't break when I put them in.

I agree w/ SkullGundam; most Bandai kits are so well engineered that you never see the caps at all.

On those rare occasions that I find I must paint the poly bits, I use Floquil Model Railroad colors. They seem to stick reasonably well w/out melting the part, but as SG points out, any real handling will peel back the paint.

Kugai: I always replace the hands on my 1/144 kits w/ aftermarket parts. Kotobukiya just released a couple of sets that are reasonably priced. I bought some of HLJ last week:

http://www.hlj.com/product/KBYMB-26

http://www.hlj.com/product/KBYMB-27

There are others for sale too, there might even be a specific set for the models you're building. From the HLJ home page, go to their sci-fi page and search 'Option Kits' under Item Type on the mid right side.

 

poly caps arent really plastic, there more vinyl then plastic.  You shoudl most definatly prime them first.

As far as the most detailed/parted kits out there.  go for the Perfect grade

You can also go for the newer master grade, they have alot of nice detail
The high grade are alright, but not really high up in the detail and what not.

If you really want a challange Go for the glorious grade kits  There the same size as the perfect grade.  They dont have an internal frame like the perfect grade to, but they have a massive amount of LED lights.

 

Use any kind of paint you like.  I use enamel for the base, laquer for the top coat, and acrylic for pannel lining.

Normal paint won't stay on polycaps.  If you apply it right, it'll go on and it'll stay put - but it'll flake off pretty easily.  If you put a thick coating on it'll come off in big chunks.  If you just dust it with paint it'll come off in little scrapes.  To paint polycaps and have it stick you'd need to use a paint that sticks to vinyl.  There is such a thing, called "v-color" I think...

As for recommendations for high-end kits...

As others have said, Perfect Grades are the most complicated and intricate robot kits Bandai makes.  IMO they're also highly overrated.  There's lots of pistons and such on the internal frame - not really a level of detail that can compete with really good scale models, but still better detail than the MG line for the internals... But once you put the armor on, most of that detail is hidden - and the few areas of the interior which may be visible when the kit is all together - things like the cockpit, for instance, are often a lot less detailed than they should be. So think long and hard about whether it's really worth getting one, I'd say.

Glorious Series is really more like giant High Grade kits - not particularly intricate apart from the wiring.  Simpler than MG kits, really.  They'd be damn fine kits if they weren't so horribly overpriced.

Master Grades are generally the best Gundam kits in terms of value for the price.  The price has been gradually going up, though...There's a lot of hyperbole about the internal frames on MG kits these days - they are always improving but there's still a big difference between the frame of a MG and that of a PG, in terms of intricacy, detail, and function.

well, I guess I better put my 2 cents in.

IMHO the new MG 2.0 kits are the way to go both price and quality wise. they provide an excellent frame for a kit their size and are the most poseable kits on the market. sure, PGs have better joints and whatnot, but the 2.0s are catching up quickly.


but in the end, its up to you to decide for yourself now, isn't it?

Well, since we're talking about it, anyone have any experience w/ these kits?

http://www.hlj.com/product/BAN948831

http://www.hlj.com/product/BAN74439

http://www.hlj.com/product/BAN956654

 

 

 

The sniper is a nice kit but needs ALOT of work, no parts hiding poly caps, really bad ugly seams, etc.

The other two are fairly new, coming out in the last year, and without having seen them unbuilt, my experiance says they would be good kits and worth it

That GM sniper is worth it just for the miature mobile armor that comes with it.

go to www.1999.co.jp find the gundam tab at the top, and find the item your after on the left menu.

they give shots of the box, every page of the instructions, the trees in the bags.  Best resource for pre buying research.  they hve a limited scale armor selection too done like that.

smeagol the vile wrote:

go to www.1999.co.jp find the gundam tab at the top, and find the item your after on the left menu.

 

Also, http://www.1999.co.jp/eng if one cannot read Japanese and the Gundam tab would be at http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/gundam/

I've been looking at this one for a while... http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10017582 but know very little about the kits/series

I've been watching the 08th MS Team on Youtube though, I'm trying to catch up (have not got to the episode with the sniper kit, from the boxart it looks like it was in an urban setting- so far the 08th have stayed in the jungle, also the art has this one depicted as part of the 07th? Just wondering, I'm sure I'll make it to the featured episode eventually)

Any kit reviews/"must watch" series would be great if the topic has changed in that direction, if not I'm terribly sorry VIPER0177, not trying to hijack this one

08th ms team ended in a urban setting, in a ruined city, for the final battle or so.

The kit there isnt that bad of a kit, the frame and build up is the same as the new MG GM sniper, and the MGs Ez-8 and Rx-79{g}

I cant think anything bad to say about it, has alot of seams to be fixed, but is a rather nice kit altogether, though, the weapons have alot of thin brittle pieces.

One good thing, these kits come with no water slides, instead you have (crappy decals) and a nice sheet of Dry transfer decals.  They also sell waterslide after market decals from bandai for about 5$ a sheet

check www.gundamstoreandmore.com for a good place to get gundam kits cheap. 

If yall ever wana know about a kit, run it by me, ill tell you all you wana know

Yeah, that was the website I was going to get the kit off of, I was thinking of hiding the sniper behind the buildings and rubble and having a Zaku walking by unaware. I think I found a 1/100 MG Zaku for around the same price ($40) so now it's just a question of $ and time

 

 Thanks for the confirmation about the final battle scense, I was hoping it wasn't all jungle as I wanted the Zaku to be out of it's camo/forest element (being all green) and the sniper to look at home with the stark white/orange patterns in a big urban mess.

I look forward to finishing the series and if I have any more kit questions I know where to go now

well, the Zaku green is not a jungle camo, thats the mass production color of the Zaku II, the Zaku I is green and blue, the Zaku III is white and black.  Dom is black and purple, gouf is blue and black.  Just for an example.

You COULD do that with the dio, but a few things come into play that you dont get in scale.  The sniper rifle is a few stories tall, it uses a stationary power source, and it doesnt fire bolts, its a solid beam (See the end of the series) its meant for taking out large targets at a distance, fortifications, mobile armors, not enemy suits.  Even if it was, the distance would be larger then any dio could do without using two dios that are the same dio, but different areas.  

If a mech was close enough to get the drop like that, combat training tells them to use the beam saber if mech passes near, or close enough to close the distance in a few seconds, or to use the assault rifle if there is a clean shot to disable then move in to finish.  Most mechs do not have their beam weapons/heat weapons close enough to defend from a suprise attack, if you watch the gouf cusom does this against the mass production guntanks.  

Later version mechs, around the Zeta era have the beamsabers close to the hand.  The Qubeley for example, the sabers rest in the wrists, they connect and work as it's ranged beam weapon and quickly pop up for close combat.

Also, the way the weapons are, 120mm yield weapons as assault rifles. and such, buildings arent left in enough of a usefull size for anything the size of a standing mech.  The issue with the mechs is that cities tend to... get completly destroyed, it is why bases are in the jungle, or underground. Ramba Ral was stationed in the desert.  Kojima batalion was stationed in the jungle. Jabrau (EFSF command) was underground in the amazon.

Also, earth is less populated then it is now, many have immigrated to space, alot more have immigrated out of fear.  After operation Britan when the first colony was droped on earth.  The colony missed it's target, being damaged during drop by the EFSF, missing Jabrau, but hunks fell over the planet.  If you see 0083 you can see this clearly.  Nina purpleton is on earth for the first time, shes on the EFSF ship the Albion.  Shes marveling the ocean then asks when they are going to be over Australia.  The Commander tells her they are, and they are where Sidney used to be before part of the colony hit it and broke a hunk of the continent off.

Oh I'm sorry, I wasn't planning on having the MS armed with the sniper rifle at the time, I was going to have him holding the assault rifle, I just assumed it was referred to as a sniper suit. I also wasn't aware that the Zaku's were simply painted by mass I thought that was to blend them into the jungle. That’s good to know. But yeah, it just threw me that the 08th was white and red and stationed in a dense green jungle. Thanks for the info.

I was going to try and have the Federation suit as close to the ground (not prone but spread very wide and low) as possible behind a very badly knocked up skyscraper that has not totally been flattened, having taken a few rounds but not direct fire. I was also going to try to really add a lot of small arms battle damage to the two suits. I think I'm trying to take them out of their anime element (and as I’m primarily a WWII-Modern armor dio builder) and try and make them more real world. I was thinking as they would be moving with ground forces, the ground forces would also be fighting each other/taking cover behind their friendly suits so there would be heavy small arms damage from the knees or so down- having taken hits from everything from tank rounds to soldiers and their rifles. I was going to weather them pretty heavy with mud and rain streaks/rust in hard to maintain places. (I understand that they would take care of them and do preventive maintenance, but that can only go so far as they have limited crew support from what I can see when they’re at base and these things are literally the size of a football stadium)

I feel like the series draws heavily on a WWI/WWII style theme with Zeon’s (sp?) forces being reminiscent of an Austrian/Nazi element as far as their uniforms go. I could be wrong I’ve seen very little of the shows and know very little of the timeline etc.

Oh and on a side note if I remember correct the sabers on this Federation model pop out around the knee? The wrist does seem like a more useful location for a quick draw to counter a close range surprise attack.

Thanks again for the help

This falls under the category of Research my good man.

Mobile suits are weapons, just like tanks.  They did have infintry that went with them at points.  Mobile suits were used as the main weapon for the space forces, not necesserially for ground forces.

The federation had corefighters modified into Bomber/Fighter hybrids (youll see in 08th)

Zeon had their Dopps 

the Federation also had their type 61 Main battle tanks  

To counter the Zeon Magella Attack Tank

Which had a detachable turret to act as an escape pod.

The federation also had the Hover truck, which you no doubt saw.

Both sides did use ground forces other then the mobile suits, the federation moreso then Zeon, as can be shown by the Zakus having an anti person option mounted on them (as seen in 08th).

The federatoin actuially had hand held artillery ment for taking out Mobile suits 

As demonstrated in the OVA Mobile Suit Gundam, IGLOO 2, 'Gravity of the Battlefront' As well as in the Gundam hardgraph kits that have come out recently in 1/35th scale.

 

 

Zeon was influenced by the Nazis in a few ways.  Other then the symbol , the flag, the weapons. (see Panzer schrekt and Panzer faust.)  Also, zeon and the nazi party had the same idealism.

In gundam, those born in space and have lived in space for their entire life have started to evolve, getting a sort of ESP, connecting them to those around them.  Zeon thought these the new step for humanity and wanted to foster their growth by destroying those living on earth.  They said those on earth were holding space back and knew nothing of those in space and had no right to rule them.

Hey hijack away I'm learning more and more and I'm liking it. Thou I do want to know why they always say sold out on most websites. Are these kits limited runs or just so many are sent to the US?

Yeah, I figured as much with the way the suits were used alongside other units and I've known from other random Gundam shows I saw back on Toonami as a kid that 90% of the time they were fighting each other in space. That's one of the reasons I liked the 08th OVA as they were fighting on Earth.

When you were talking about the Zeon idealism, were you also talking about the Newtype ace? Again, that was something else I liked about the 08th team was they were just ordinary pilots and even the way their Gundams took damage and the way they fought, it was much more believable.

I finished the series the other night and managed to come across this scene, which almost exactly fit with what I was picturing:

I’d just change the suit to the orange/white 07th as I like the look better than the 08th’s blue/red and lower the suit into more of a kneel and take the building down a story/add a bit more damage.

But you'll notice how clean the two suits are overall. Very little if any physical damage. I understand that they are made out of gundanium, but I feel like at least the paint would chip somewhat and suffer from smashing through villages/forests/being submerged waist deep in water for extended amounts of time while also taking fire from everything from machineguns to explosive shrapnel/tank rounds etc. (I did like how after losing the head off the suit, Karen's suit got a replacement GM head)

So I just meant that I would want to rough up the paint, put a lot more battle damage on them and make them look well used. As most of the research (aside from whatever books/comics were made from the subject) would be taken direct from the TV episodes, I feel like I would be extending myself away from that and making them my own as they appear to be somewhat mint condition from episode to episode unless a firefight continues on into the next one. It just appeared somewhat impractical for a small jungle cell of Gundams manned by a minimal crew could make all the repairs and repaint/replace all those parts as frequently as they must IMHO.

Wikipedia (and I have a very love hate relationship with the information the site provides so I'm not taking it for canon) has a little section about the themes in the 08th and after having read through that, whoever wrote it mentioned some of the same things I was talking about. The series being more soldier perspective than big picture and politics/it represents more of the MS grunt work in the trenches than the ace pilots flying around etc.

I just thought it was an interesting take.

Thanks for all those pictures! A lot of them do look familiar

I think I'm going to start watching the original MS Gundam series and see the big picture the 08th fits into. The research part for sci-fi is fun

 

PS. Thanks Viper glad you don't mind, I'm learning a lot as well, great topic

Heh, Im enjoying your questions, its either, everyone knows what I know, or noone cares what I know about this.

The 'newtype ace' I suspect, is Amuro they are talking about, in 08th.  Him, and you could say the entire crew of the white base, were the only new types the federation had during the one year war.  The newtypes were aces because they could sense what the enemy was going to do before hand.  At the end of the one year war Zeon started producing mobile armors and mobile suits that had weapons designed to be controlled by new types, beam weapons attached to cables.  The Elmeth, piloted by Lalah Sune, was the first mobile armor to use a 'bit' which is a small laser cannon with no attachment to the mobile armor that the new type controlls with their mind.  By 0087 (zeta gundam) they were started to be used again, with Haman Karn and her Qubeley, by ZZ gundam, the majority of Axis Zeon mechs used this technology.  Its this technology that destroyed the Red Comet's (Char Aznable) mech in Zeta gundam, the Hyaku Shiki (100 years, for those that dont speak Japanese)

It does seem more believable, to see them on the ground, but you need to realise the ones for space, were build for space, and the pilots trained for space combat.  Go look at MS Igloo, the hidden one year war, the 3rd episode "Dance of the Orbital Ghosts" or "The Rapid Illusion above the Orbit" depending on what translation.  Shows the zeon forces trying to retreat from the earth, and the federation, using balls and a few GMs, catching the ground type zakus in their escape pods and tearing them up because those zakus wernt built for space combat.

Even the gundams needed to be refitted for space (rx-79 and GP01 specificly)

 

As far as damage, the Zeon suits were almost universally made from Super-hard steel alloy which wouldnt take much damage from small arms fire, but tank shells, anti mobile suit hand held ordinance (See the one pic from above of the infantry), or suit weapons would all damage it.  They most definatly took scraps and dings, armor is always armor, and paint is always paint, if ya get my drift, if you drop a kit and the paint chips, the mech's armor will chip as well.

The federation armor was almost universally Lunar Titanium alloy (to be renamed gundanium in homage to the origional gundam (an exception would be the CLASSIC GM  another would be the BALL  They were made out of plain old Titanium).  The lunar titanium did protect the gundam from more, but not ALOT more, they still took damage from most weapons (as seen in 08th). The one you put up in the shot, the EZ-8 if you remember, is actuially a hodge podge of a few different mech's parts because there were no spares, the Rx-79{G} was a prototype with no replacement parts laying around.

As far as the animation, when your doing a large series like that, itd take to much for them to weather the mechs in every shot.  Here are a few examples of modeler's interpretations of damage to a mech.   

Paint chipping would be very common, so would dents and dings.  Make sure you remember your scale for doing damage and weathering.  Always keep teh 1/100 scale figure handy to give you perspective.

Also, modding mechs is a big +.  There are so many variations out there, its encouraged to put your own spin a bit.  

Check this site http://www.bakuc.com/ for inspiration.  Search the gallery for Expert and Advanced, there is alot of junk around if you dont (including mine)

Oh man! That's no fun, well glad to ask then. I appreciate all the info.

I didn't necessarily mean that it's less believable to see them in space. I just meant as far as my preference modeling them goes I think I'd just like to see them in urban/Earth bound combat to kind of tie in the World War aspect and also make use of their legs as far as photographing them goes. If I could find a nice way to model them where it looked like they were flying around in zero gravity (maybe somehow incorporating them into a big hunk of floating space wreckage)

The pictures of the damaged model techniques didn’t show up but if you get the web address out of the properties and paste it into the bar they’ll come up fine. But yeah, that’s exactly what I was talking about. I understand that the fact that this is hand drawn frame by frame cuts back a lot on the weathering, I just totally didn’t think about it, good call.

I’ll go and keep Googling around with all the new info you keep giving me. My list of episodes is getting longer!

I’ll check out that bakuc website too. Thanks
I’m sure yours aren’t that bad!

 

EDIT: guess you got the pictures working! They show up now

if you wana see some space things, ill show you a few things, heh.

http://www.bakuc.com/modeler/yamato78/1130

http://www.bakuc.com/modeler/yamato78/1105

 

Reading my mind? Those are some great examples of creative mounting methods that look so much better than shoving the back end of the model on a stand
I especially like the second link...

I don’t know, it must just be something with me and ambushes, the dramatic irony is key.

The last one taken from a different site, I feel like I've seen it somewhere before (perhaps FSM?)

haha so speaking of reading minds, it turns out I was speaking to the choir...

"...that the white base had all of the parts and paint to repair and make the gundam guncannon and guntank look perfect battle after battle."

I liked your beat up multi-color version. That's the basic concept I was talking about.
I also liked your Gouf dragging the upper half of Amuro’s Gundam across the desert. Very cool. I didn’t mean to stumble across you page, just noticed some comments on that space piece which bore a familiar screen name...

 

heh, I had good ideas, but they were never done well, its why I dont linkem here, Im not proud of them (not really proud of anything I built).

That last pic is a Fitchen foo kit, though I dislike the person, I love his builds.

What multicolor thing are you referring?

The ambushes can be good, I'v wanted to do a reverse ambush for a bit, have a normal ambush with one ambushees droping behind the guy who thinks hes going to do the ambushing.

The multicolor thing I was referring to was your guntank. From what I could tell it appeared that all the salvaged parts that had been added on and thrown into the mix had kept their original look/paint and had turned into a big combination piece. (of course I’m comparing that one with the guntanks I saw in 08th MS which were all a solid dark blueish color- I’m not sure what campaign yours was from and don’t know if they had those colors/parts originally or not to be honest.

Your double ambush idea sounds promising, as long as it’s all in a somewhat close proximity, I feel like unless there was a lot of space junk or thick urban environment in-between the three, it’d be had to pull off without one of the parties getting wise.

I looked through the Fitchen foo site; he does have some breathtaking pieces. May I ask why you dislike him?

I feel bad about all the stuff I link to FSM, 9 times out of 10 it’s an unfinished half build that wont get updated for a few more months...

I dislike him because he has a superiority complex, plain and simple.

As far as the guntank, it actuially went through stages of evolution.  First I dislike the anime colors, to bright, so I darkened them, using dark blue, dark red, and deep yellow.

From there I added the skirts and the front bit of armor, then battle damaged it.

From there I repaired the damage with the bits of styrene replicating armor additions.

Its not really from any campaign, its one of those hack/mod kits that are so encouraged. 

About 08th, those are the mass produced version of the guntank, they dont ahve a core fighter in them.