Gunpla Master
He's Alive! I thought you might have went Cosmic
. Looking forward to those pix's. Glad to hear from ya and you think of the ole GM from time to time.
Heh! Sorry 'bout that. I'm a bit of a slow builder, and like some of the other guys here, I tend to work on multiple projects at one time so it can take a while to show some real progress. I haven't left you though. 
I started the kit w/ the interiors of the joints. I didn't want to do the sculpting the joint covers thing because that's what everybody does, so I started working on all the moving parts.
As I noted earlier, I'm building this kit w/ parts from a Raccoon (in green) and leftover bits from a Fireball (in off-white). I noticed that the white parts were slightly softer than the green ones - this difference in the plastic may account for why there was so much flash on the Raccoon kit. The white ones were easier to sand and fit, while the green ones had sharper details.
I sanded and fitted all the parts to make sure they moved, but didn't bind up when doing so. If they bind, they can cause the seams on the outside of the legs and arms to split open, so I went slow and careful. This took a few hours, and then I was going to paint them black along w/ the interiors of the leg and arm pieces, after which they would need to be test fitted and possibly sanded again...
I realised I was just making extra work for myself, so I packed the joints w/ putty and had done w/ it. I did manage to keep the hip connectors, though.
I chose the skirts I wanted and fitted those before gluing the upper hull together, choosing the Raccoon part for the rear, and the fireball one for the front. No real reason, just personal preference. As part of the style of this build, I really want to emphasise the in-humanness of the design, so I began adding little hex nut and bolt details to various parts - I'll probably add a bunch more before I'm done.
I added the cable housing part to the backs of the feet, but only as a gap filler, I then sanded them flush to add my own bits there. My initial try at using short lengths of brass tube as cable housings didn't work as well as would have liked though... so I pulled the parts I made, filled the holes w/ Aves and sanded them flush again. I'll try something slightly different next time. Maybe more hex bolts.
Looking at the box art, I like the way the hands seem very mechanical and somewhat dangerous. They remind me of those graspers on Dr. Octopus' tentacles in Spiderman II - you can almost hear the clickity-click sound they make when doing their precise, deadly work. I want the finished model to have that look, but the kit parts are just plain sad.
I started by carefully cutting the fingers and thumb off the hand w/ a razor saw. I'll replace them w/ the digits from some 1/100 scale replacement manipulators. It's okay if they're a little big, I want them to look all graspy/clutchy like. If it turns out they're too big, I can always cut them off and use some 1/144 hands instead.
So that's where I am. I literally keep taking two steps forward and one step back, but I think I'll like the results when I finally get finished.