One Year War GB 2011-2012 !Extended time! 30sept 2012

Real G - email reply!

Quick update: Zaku's body finished, just needs some (more) weathering, and small (I'm talking nearly microscopic) touch-ups. Weapons are pre-painted and ready for assembly.

Sorry I've been away so long. Some things came up, but I was able to hit the LHS while away. Picked up the 1/100th MG Mobile Pod Ball (ver. Ka). Is this canon enough for this GB? I know that it's a 'custom' design based on the original Ball from the One Year War.

 I'll be back with pics of my work when I'm able to do so.

Just got done with the 3rd movie - WOW, this one was a LOT different! Seemed to be much more...serious. Total carnage!

I have to say that I've got a thing now for the Rick Dom, and can see one happening some time in the (near?) future.

Ric Doms are very cool mechs and I still say that if Ramba Ral had of been given a Dom, instead of the prototype Gouf he would have killed Amuro and therefore won the war for Zeon

I dunno Smeagol - the Black Tristars had three Doms, and they got whacked pretty quickly.

Uh-oh, I'm getting drawn into a "my Mobile Suit can kick your Mobile Suit's butt" argument!  I don't want to start any MS flame wars here!  Peace Smeagol! 

I will agree though that a Dom is different from a Gouf, it's different!  (Dommu wa Guffu to chigau no da yo, Guffu to wa!)

BTW, does anyone have the link to the "real Gundam" video?  I can't seem to find it online anymore.  It's the one where a bunch of Japanese guys reenact the "jet stream attack."  Totally hilarious dramatic interpretation of one of the most iconic scenes from the original TV show.  I loved the pants zipper scene and the Guntank's "Gatling gun" action.  The video was so bad that it was brilliant!  If someone has the link, please post it!

Real  G here you are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raFKb7kjz2g

No updates from me for awhile. Moving out to the Lone Star State aka Texas in a couple months. So modeling no modeling for a few months.

The thing is this though... the duel with Ramba Ral was A LOT earlier in Amuro's piloting career then when he fought the tristars.  Experience is everything and when he fought Ramba Ral, he did not have enough to have beaten the speed of the Dom.

Klik

Quick update: Zaku's body finished, just needs some (more) weathering, and small (I'm talking nearly microscopic) touch-ups. Weapons are pre-painted and ready for assembly.

Sorry I've been away so long. Some things came up, but I was able to hit the LHS while away. Picked up the 1/100th MG Mobile Pod Ball (ver. Ka). Is this canon enough for this GB? I know that it's a 'custom' design based on the original Ball from the One Year War.

I think you may be confusing "kai" with "ver. Ka".  (It's a common mistake)  "kai" is the marker for things that have been altered or customized or whatever.  "ver. Ka" just means it was designed by Katoki.

As for whether the Ball ver. Ka was in the One Year War - it appeared in MS Igloo, so there ya go.  :)  A very, very similar machine also appeared in 08th MS Team (Shiro's ball from the first episode).

(EDIT): Technically, the Balls in Igloo were standard Balls - but visually they were sort of a mix between the original and Katoki versions.  But they did include the double manipulator arms, which is probably the most distinctive feature of the Katoki version...

It should also be noted that most of the machines from 0083 (the anime in which the Ball ver. Ka first appeared) are actually OYW machines as well, supposedly.  Gelgoog Marine, GM Type C, Xamel, Val Valo, the F2 Zaku, Dom Tropen, and of course the Ball type-C (AKA the Ball ver. Ka) - all of them were supposedly leftover OYW machines.

The 'Version Ka' related to the specific person who redesigned that specific unit.  It wasn't necessarily in any of the series, he did this for the gundam, the ball, all of the Gundam Wing mechs, as well as alot of other kits.  It goes to say that any of the units were in the OYW as in... the Ball, the Ver KA goes toward it as well.

Edit, the 'Ka' referes to the artist Hajime Katoki

GreySnake

Real  G here you are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raFKb7kjz2g

No updates from me for awhile. Moving out to the Lone Star State aka Texas in a couple months. So modeling no modeling for a few months.

i forget this out of head video !!! bend in two for laughs

!! but the guncannon position are not real ..

Grey Snake - Hey thanks a bunch for the link!  "Matilda Saaaaaaaaaan!!!"

Sorry.  I have a serious weakness for truly stupid humor.

Smeagol - Hmmm, you make an interesting point.  But if Ramba Ral killed Amuro early on, we might not be here for the GB!

Klik - The ver.Ka Ball is really cool looking, sort of like the 2001 Space Pod, which is what the original design was undoubtedly based on.  As others have said, ver.Ka refers to "version Katoki Hajime", sort of like a designer version of a standard mech.  IMHO Katoki is one of the great mecha designers of anime.  His works include Five Star Stories, Zeta Gundam, and Gundam Sentinel.

BTW, a small bit of trivia:  In the original novel, Char got a Rick Dom instead of the Zeong.  The end of the story is also very different from the TV show.  (I won't say what happened in case someone wants to read the books!)

Anyway, should be starting up a GB kit next week.

Unless I'm mistaken, Katoki had no involvement with Five Star Stories or Zeta Gundam.  You may be thinking of Mamoru Nagano.  Katoki's the overrated hack who designs things very clean, very sharp, very mechanical-looking and refined...  and ultimately very boring.  Well, mostly.  He does some good work.  (Just got a Geara Zulu!)  Really the only thing I hate about Katoki is that people treat him like God's gift to mecha fans.  Not every mecha design in the world is made better by Katoki's magic touch.

One thing about the Gundam novels - cool space battles between giant robots do not make for good prose.  :)  Seriously, there were parts of the book that felt like I was reading "and then Amuro shot the guy, and some other guy shot back, so Amuro returned fire..."

There were some interesting bits of detail in the book: for instance, at one point Char's shield gets hit with beam rifle fire.  But it doesn't explode like it would in the anime - instead, the way they describe the damage, the shield gets a whole lot of microscopic perforations from the heavy metal particles in the beam.  The shield still appears whole but it's rendered worthless by the damage.

Also, not only did Char not get the Zeong, he didn't get the Gelgoog or Z'Gok, either.  The "Duel in Texas" was actually between the Gundam and Char's Zaku (Zakus get some respect!)

I guess technically I've started a GB entry: I'm still trying to finish up that HGUC Zaku, but I needed a little change of pace so last night I put some work in on the 1:144 Zaku (the original one...) - doing mobility mods as well as cosmetic mods along the lines of that video I linked...

Tetsujin

You're right, I had a brain fart.  Mamoru Nagano was the chap who was responsible for Five Star Sories' designs.  I have witnessed the god-lke reverence some folks have towards Katoki, but I don't think he's a hack either.  IMHO he does have talent and a distinctive style which I do like.  I personally like Kazuhisa Kondoh's Gundam designs best, especially from the comic "The Dogs Of War."  I believe he is the guy that designed the stuff from "0080: War In The Pocket" as well.

The prose in the novel was kind of annoying.  But I did find the technical aspects like the beam weapon damage to be interesting.  When the TV show was made, a lot of things got added or changed, probably to sell more merchandise, and to cater to a less than sophisitcated audience.

Good luck on the 1/144 Zaku.  Is that the one with the feet molded integrally to the lower legs?  I look forward to seeing piccies!

Real G

Tetsujin

You're right, I had a brain fart.  Mamoru Nagano was the chap who was responsible for Five Star Sories' designs.  I have witnessed the god-lke reverence some folks have towards Katoki, but I don't think he's a hack either.  IMHO he does have talent and a distinctive style which I do like.  I personally like Kazuhisa Kondoh's Gundam designs best, especially from the comic "The Dogs Of War."  I believe he is the guy that designed the stuff from "0080: War In The Pocket" as well.

Izubuchi did the 0080 designs. Though I believe Kondo probably put his own spin on 'em at some point.

I don't really think Katoki's a hack - he knows how to design robots, and he does make some good ones. But I think he's done a lot of poor work, too, including relatively high-profile stuff like designs for MG and HGUC

Good luck on the 1/144 Zaku.  Is that the one with the feet molded integrally to the lower legs?  I look forward to seeing piccies!

That's the one, yeah.  I already detached the feet and the work I did last night was to add a good, poseable ankle joint to the left leg (already did one for the right...)  It's actually surprisingly easy.  With the feet molded to the legs you would think, maybe, that cutting them apart you wouldn't have a whole foot to work with - but really that's not the case...

I haven't decided exactly what to do about the shoulder armor.  It's tempting to just replace it with a recast of the shoulder armor from the MSV Minelayer, like I did for the HGUC...  Of course, I'd still have to come up with a shoulder part to go underneath.

There are some good builds of the old 1980/1981 kits out there...  I found this one just recently - kind of a cool look, I think, though I liked it better before he bulked up the lower legs...  Best way to find such builds is by searching for the Japanese translation of "Old Kit"

i'll just made a *** entry

my preferred online seller of  gundam kits is restocking ALL gundam series kits at very good price preorder!!

I have also, as old client a 10% discout

some *** price i can write is that RG series comes at 27€ !!!

First grade at less of 4€

generally hguc become at less than 10€ till the 48€ of the giant NZ-666 KSYATRIYA!!!

and actually no money for new kits

found better prices only in japan .

stop bastarding 

the conversation is pretty good guys! even me learning some more. If i not wrong Kazuhisa Kondoh is the same mech designer of patlabor

Then a little update

general painting on sand color

and more pieces on the head

that's all

GreySnake

Real  G here you are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raFKb7kjz2g

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa....*cough* *cough*aaaaaaaaaaa

That is a RIOT!

Real G

BTW, a small bit of trivia:  In the original novel, Char got a Rick Dom instead of the Zeong.

Hmmmm...perhaps a Rick Dom painted up in Char's colors? I can already see me doing a Char collection. Heh.

BTW, what's the difference between a Dom and Rick Dom?

Tetsujin - You got me again!  I think I must be getting senile, as I never used to mix up my Gundam designers!  Thanks for setting the facts straight.

Dupes - Bandai did a MG Dom in Char's colors, I think - Tetsujin please confirm!  The difference between the Dom and Rick Dom is that the Rick Dom is optimized for space combat, while the Dom is for ground combat.  The Rick Dom has larger back and skirt thrusters, and the feet have rockets instead of lift fans.

I have to go take my Geritol and lie down now....

While taking a break on Memorial Day weekend from building a few models for my futuer mother-in-law, I picked up a game called Front Mission Evolved for my PS3 and got addicted to it.  The Front Mission franchise used to be all turn based RPG games where big mechas, here they call them Wanzers, battle it out.  This newest one is a third person shooter, kinda like Gundam Crossfire or Armored Core.  How is this related to the topic... well, you are allowed to customize your mobile suits with different parts and weapons and colors, and guess what mine ended up looking like....

Yea, a Sazabi.  It just wasn't three time faster than others...  It did get me some drive to clean up some more parts of the Ground Type again.

a squred sazabi

a red ground type? sounds good!

So how's the Front Mission game? Decent?

Watched War In The Pocket over the weekend (because Netflix had it in stock)...thought it was alright. The kid was pretty annoying, but when there was actual action it was great - leaning towards the hyper-violent more Akira-style animation.

Up next is 08th MS Team (bought it), hoping it also has an English-language option on the DVD's!

dupes

So how's the Front Mission game? Decent?

Watched War In The Pocket over the weekend (because Netflix had it in stock)...thought it was alright. The kid was pretty annoying, but when there was actual action it was great - leaning towards the hyper-violent more Akira-style animation.

Up next is 08th MS Team (bought it), hoping it also has an English-language option on the DVD's!

The game was okay, just a basic straight forward arcade style mecha shooter with some customization options, but it was no better than something like Armored Core series which started features like that back on the PS1.  The way the game is leveled is also something like the Ace Combat series missions, sometimes with bosses and all.  I would only recommend it to people who had been following Front Mission games for a In-Combat Real Time feeling of the battles, while the older games were just turn by turn table top gaming style and relies a bit more strategy and character pilot skill growth/mecha upgrades and configuration to get through the game.  For me it just felt good blowing things up with a shoulder mounted gatling gun and missile launcher at the end of the day instead of getting too frustrated with car racing sims.  

For the movies, I'd still recommend you to try it once, maybe the second time, to watch it with subtitles and in Japanese.  They actually become less annoying that way because the tone of voice was better captured from the original recording artists.  Do share all your thoughts on the 08th MS team!  You will love the details in there as everyone else had mentioned.

0080 had a lot of scenes with Al since it was trying to portrait the war and its tragedy through the eyes of an innocent typical whiny carefree child as opposed to say an ace pilot, a New Type, or some kind of freakish genetic experiment (Take that, Kira Yamato of Gundam SEED).  To that extent, I think it did a good job to achieve it within such a short series.  There was also a good balance to not put in sooo much mobile suit fights to overshadow the human side of the story.  The best part of the series is, well... the cheap shot gatling gun feature of the NT-1, and come on, the MS-18 Kampfer assault type that took out a whole fricking squad by itself.  (Available in both MG 1/100 and the newer 1/144 in HGUC, you know you want it.  =D)

bsyamato

a squred sazabi

a red ground type? sounds good!

Yea they didn't have any good rounded body parts so I just tried to bulk it up as much as I could with somewhat of a streamlined torso and head with a mono eye.  The trims had a bit more yellow and black also cuz I was thinking about the Sinanju.  It does come with an almost the right size rifle though~  =P

You know, I watched 08th Ms team dubbed the first time I watched it and I had no problems with it at all.  To be honest I preferred it over the subbed version.

smeagol the vile

You know, I watched 08th Ms team dubbed the first time I watched it and I had no problems with it at all.  To be honest I preferred it over the subbed version.

i agree with this, somethimes local traslation don't respect original version , dunno about american version but in italy have some problem to respect original dialogs

While I don't have usable pics right now, I've noticed the traffic that my Ver. Ka Ball comment has generated. Let me settle the dispute.

 Original Ball

 Ver. Ka Ball

The second one is the exact kit I purchased last week, and I was surprised by its simplicity (it only fell together in about 4 hours, with time for the paint to dry). I decided that, until I had the right paint color for the red parts, I would use the clear ones that were included in the kit. Not only that, but it allows me to display the interior without it being "naked".

Will be back with pics after dinner

Keep up the great work all!

P.S. 8th MS team is my favorite, too.

Back, with pics of my Ball for y'all.

That's about all I had time to post. I haven't had a chance to get final pics of my Zaku yet (busy drying).

What do you think?

Klik

P.S. sorry for the double-post.

Klik by me the ball work on, ka version , as i know, it's a sort of custom version as msv variants, i'll put on the list

probably this will be the first kit finished on the gb

tetsujin

.....

I guess technically I've started a GB entry: I'm still trying to finish up that HGUC Zaku, but I needed a little change of pace so last night I put some work in on the 1:144 Zaku (the original one...) - doing mobility mods as well as cosmetic mods along the lines of that video I linked...

tetsujin i sign you in the gb with a tba kit?

Oookay, I will be finally working on something for the GB.  Since the HGUC Dom is a simple kit I will start with it, and work up to the MG Zaku Cannon.  My approach will be "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".  Here is where the kit is at as of today:

The head has been sanded down a bit where the monoeye guard is, to eliminate a small step.

The body components did not fit perfectly, and required filler all around.  I still have a lot of filling and sanding to go before the parts hit the paint shop. 

 The lower arms had some small annoying gaps that will require filler and careful sanding.

The kit hands are huge and not well detailed, so B-Club resin manipulators will be used.  The left one is resin, the right one plastic.  My resin sample had some pretty serious mold shift which will require filling and sanding.  Gudfunnit, why pay more only to have to deal with more work?  Why Mr. Anderson, why?

 The "Giant Baz" has eight triangular gussets molded around the circumference of the tube, but four are not molded well due to limitations in the injection molding process.  The offending gussets were scraped off and the bazooka awaits some sheet plastic replacements.

That's all for now.