Goldhammer,
Wow those sub guns look amazing, especially the seats on the big gun! Please post pics after you have had a chance to prime them. I noticed Shapeways almost always has CGI photos of their wares, which are not necessarily representative of the final finish of the actual product. I bought a few bits from them and was a little surprised about the amount of post-purchase consumer prep needed - bathing in UV light to fully cure the resin (shouldn't they have done that already?), plus all the caveats on the types of acceptable paints.
I got this in last week after pre-odering and waiting for months - Bandai's Premium On-Line 1/100 scale Master Grade MS-09G Dwadge, from the late 1980's TV show "Double Zeta Gundam".
https://flic.kr/p/2gAU9ge][/url]Dwadge-01 by N.T. Izumi, on Flickr
Bandai has started an on-line exclusive program where they sell lesser known kit variants not available in stores. Far from a cheap Hasegawa "throw some resin bits into the box with a new decal sheet" approach, most of them are truly different from their parent kits. They do some cheap-o releases that are nothing more than re-colored versions of retail market kits, but some like the Dwadge have a surprising amount of new tool parts. I think Bandai outdid themselves on this one, as some replacement parts have only subtle differences to the stock Dom kit.
Unfortunately, they only sell to their domestic market, so us foreigners have to get them by third party. The releases are one-time and production is truly limited, so if you miss it, it's gone. My first reaction was that Bandai was just jerking off the foreign market (thus I refer to the program as "Pee Bandai"), but it's not all about me. By selling a limited number of kits directly to the consumer, Bandai takes all the profits and does not have to worry about overstock inventory. I'm sure the Japanese distributors and retail shops are feeling butthurt. But Bandai is a corporate giant like Disney, with annual sales in the billions of dollars, so they don't care. It's an evil greedy plan, but it seems to be working. But at the end of the day, some unique desirable kits can be had for a price.
After all that grousing, I will confess to being thrilled by the Dwadge, and it will enter the fast-track build queue.