Reflections 3 - Tofu (Supplemental)

Done.

He's beautiful.

Worth every yen and every minute. Speeding up the process just means that I can enjoy him longer and sooner.

No regrets.

*passes out*

Reflections 3 - Tofu

I don't know how much time has passed. I decided that I wasn't going to start working on it until I cleaned up a bit. Cleaned up the kitchen, started the laundry.

Was going to do just a small section. Finish by 9. Was mid-way through a lot of parts. Snipping while the paint dries. Assembling while other pieces dry. Painting parts as I see that they need painting. Lining at the same time. Some where along the lines I lost my patience. I got sick of doing it by increments. I wanted to see the end result. I don't know how long that frame has being sitting on my table waiting for the armour. Decided to put a bit on just to remind myself to keep it up. It looked really incomplete with just the calf armour on. Shield parts finished drying... What's a body without a head? Decided to work on that... I want to finish this thing!

Working and working... thought that I got to a point where I could stop for the day... but I couldn't. I couldn't stop. I decided that I was going to go all the way. Not worry about the details right now and just assemble the damn thing. My idea was to prepare decal and line all the pieces and then have the final assembly be the FINAL assembly. Didn't work out that way.

I got to thinking. You can do things by increments. Little by little. Day by day. Sometimes it seems like nothing's really happening but you're getting closer to your goal slowly. Even if you can't see the results. When I first came to Japan I couldn't say the simplest things. Even before that I used to watch animation and wonder how people could make heads or tails of the language. I told myself that I'd learn it someday. It seemed SO foreign to me. And then fast forward 10 years later I'm living in the country getting my driver's license renewed sitting in a lecture with a bunch of Japanese people and actually understanding a lot of the content. How did this happen? So gradual... and then suddenly you just break through.

I guess tonight was my break through night. It was gradual and then I kicked up the pace considerably just because I was sick of waiting. Sick of being patient. Sick of taking things slowly, doing just a little bit each day. I've been working on this thing for over a month and I want to see the results now!

Working. Push forward. Forgot about the time. Forgot to eat. Forgot about the laundry. Just focused on one piece after the next. Not getting it done. Just getting it together. I'm going to finish it the way that I want to but I just... need to see this thing fully assembled now. I realized that there are still a lot of parts that need to be taken care of better. Lots of touch ups. Lots of lining, decals left to do but I'm putting a large dent in it all tonight. Getting it all together.

Parts are ready. Not assembled. Midnight. Work tomorrow but I'm not thinking about that now. Obsessive. Addicted. Clean up. Take the garbage out. Go for walk. Eat. Tofu, kimchi, green onions and seaweed.

Is this just a phase? Am I going to be 50 years old with plastic robots scattered around my house? Am I still going to be doing this? I just can't stop. I'm ALWAYS making one. I've always been doing it. I always have something that I'm working on. Since I bought my first one when I was 17. Even now after I finish this one I've got at least 6 to work on. Crazy. When does it end?

The final assembly has become almost ritualistic to me. Clean the work area. Clean everything. Nothing left to do but burn the incense, build and pose it.

It's not finished but it's well on it's way. After tonight I'm going back to increments. Lining here. Touch ups there. But tonight I can finally see what it is that I've made. I can finally see where all those tiny increments of time have gone.

As I was walking to the bus today I thought hard about 'Where the time goes'. Trying to answer that age old adage. I look at these Gundam's and see solid manifestations of the answer to that question.

You know what's silly? Is that when I put them away in boxes because I don't have the room to store them, after a while I start to miss them. And I think to myself that I didn't treat them right. Silly guy. It's just plastic! But they're all infused with a part of me. All the time that I've spent... they own it. It's theirs now. And the more time I give them the more character they have to me.

OK. Time to assemble.

Avalance Astraea Type F / Musha Gundam Astraea Type F

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Originally uploaded by Busterbeam

Forced to buy the August issue of Hobby Japan solely for this pic alone. I couldn't bear the idea of never seeing it again. 1/100 Astraea Type F has already been released and 1/100 Avalanche Exia is coming out in a couple of weeks. After I saw this pic I thought... 'omg... I can't buy either of them now if THIS is going to be released later.'

But it isn't. It's a custom job. Guess by who...

I'm going to become this woman's stalker at this rate.

She did her Astraea Type F just like her regular Astraea. Only very slight colour changes. She just brings out the potential on the kits she works on without adding too much.

The title of this blog post is actually what they called this variation. They didn't intend for it to look like the Musha Gundam but that's how it turned out in the end. Made me think about making one too. It's possible but I'd have to buy two separate kits and order the katana separately. Not worth it so I'll just have to stare at this picture indefinitely.

Anyways, here's a quick rundown of the magazine contents.

First a colour line art page of the OO GUNDAM! Finally! Looks nice!

GN-001/hs-A01 Gundam Avalance Exia 1/100
MSJ-06II-A Tieren Ground Type 1/100
MSJ-06II-C/BT Tieren High Mobility Commander Type (Scratch) 1/144
AEU-09Y812 Al-Saachez's AEU Enact Custom (1/144 AEU-09Y812/A Agrissa-Type conversion)
GNMA-XCVII Alvatore 1/220 Scratch built
SVMS-01AP Union Flag Orbit Package Colony Guard Type (Union Flag conversion)
GN-003 Gundam Kyrios (Grey with heavy modifications)
MG RX-78-2 Ver. 2.0 released on 7/26
MG Zaku Cannon out in Aug
HG GN-X next month
HG Kampfer in Aug.
HG Rick Dom II Light Green Version in Aug.
SD Exia in Aug.
Large spread on MG Shin Musha Gundam which was released recently.
HG Sazabi (3000 yen! More expensive then a lot of MG's. MG Impulse is 3300 yen! I mean... get real! HG Powered GM is 600 yen for chrissakes. That said, it's probably the most detailed and largest HG I've ever seen. They really stepped up the quality on that one.)
Fix FA Gundam Mark 3 and a lot of other stuff.

Realized that my post count for this month was really low. Probably because I missed an issue in between because they were concentrating on the MG Impulse I'm working on now. Still probably should have picked it up anyways. There were some cool shots with different scratch built Wizard Packs. Oh well. Maybe I can still find it somewhere. Better yet I'll get a subscription... If I can figure that out.

Impulse update: Working on the shield and beam rifle now. Frame is done. Core fighter is done. Anti-ship sword is done.

As usual more shots at my flikr.

Miyuki Uehara's 1/100 Astraea

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Originally uploaded by Busterbeam

So... back onto the topic of women and Gundam modelling.

I did some research into who this women is and couldn't find much. Just some of her previous work. And it's really good. Take a look.

RX-78-2 GUNDAM
RX-78-2 GUNDAM ver.ka
MS-06W ZAKU WORKER
RB-79 BALL

She's a professional modeller and works for Hobby Japan. As it turns out I've actually seen a lot of her work before. This months Hobby Japan cover is her MG Impulse. Issue 2's cover was her Unicorn.

After looking at her stuff I realized that I like her style a lot. She doesn't go for flash or glitz. Upgrades and modifications are minimal and alterations to the paint scheme are extremely slight. She goes for clean lines and simplicity. Trying the make the model easily recognizable.

I like her style but I'd prefer a more creative approach. haha that's just me though. I want to see colour schemes I've never seen before!

I got to thinking about what it would take to influence a girl so much that she'd want to take this up as a job. It reminded me of the time a couple of weeks ago when I saw a women driving the subway train for the first time in my life. She had a uniform just like everyone else but it was pink. She was young and pretty. She didn't look like a tomboy to me but I suppose to drive trains you kinda have to be to a certain extent right?

I wanted to tell her how proud of her I was. And that I thought that she was setting a great example for women. I didn't. She looked busy and I wasn't sure I could say it the way I wanted to.

I'm proud of these women that step outside of their conventional gender roles. Penetrating a field dominated by men can't be easy. They must have to deal with so much bull **** sometimes.

Oh well. I'll salute them this way. By spreading one Japanese woman's work to an English speaking audience. Here's your not-so-silent tribute.

Perhaps this is something that I shouldn't even be surprised at... but we can't say that we live in a world where sex and race don't matter at all. I mean just look at what's been happening in American politics this year.

Impulse update: The Core-fighter is now 100% completed. It's SO advanced compared to the RX-78 one. And... I recieved something in the mail from Bandai Japan today. It made me very happy.

Hot Pink Overflags, girls making gundams and painting your nails.

Been a while... sorry about that. Life gets in the way sometimes.

I little while ago I posted about a black and lime green 1/144 Overflag that I saw at a shop once and wasn't allowed to take a picture of. Well I found another one but painted pink. Almost the exact same colour scheme. The artist probably saw the lime green one that I saw and copied the design. Metallic black and hot pink. It was kinda cool. Maybe something that a girl painted? Who knows. Girls like pink right? I know a lot of guys do too but 'generally' speaking. It got me thinking about girls who make gundam models. I've never met one in person but I've seen their work in magazines. I'm going to try and not sounds sexist in this post so... *cue legal disclaimer.*

I hate to generalize but I think that we can all admit that not a lot of girls are into gundam modelling. A lot of girls are into painting their nails however. I've watched women do their nails before and I noticed that a lot of the 'equipment' is the same as what I use on my models. Solvents, laquers, files. One of my ex's made an awesome gradient colour scheme on her nails one time. She spent a long time on it. I have to admit that I was impressed. I started to wondering what it'd be like if she put those skills into a model...

When I'm playing Kizuna I noticed two couples on a 'double date' playing on the Zeon side. The four of them all had pretty high rankings too. It was suprising. There are times when I think I've got things all figured out and then life throws something at me that disproves the rules I've created in my head. Anything can happen.

I've never actually seen a girl buy a plastic model before but I've seen them at shops looking at the figures or posters of the characters. I started to imagine if a girl would design a gundam (as in paint and modify) to make it look more feminine. For example... can you imagine a giant mech like GP02 painted in pink? With hearts on it? *shudders* Feminizing a war machine? Yeah. Touchy subject. Excuse my ignorance. I can only talk about things from my limited frame of experience.

To each his own though right? or... to each HER own? I'll post a pic by a modeller named 'Miyuki' next time. Miyuki is a girls name so I'm assuming it's a 'she' but it could easily be a man. Although... I've never met a Japanese man with that name. First for everything though I suppose.

Impuse update: Frame is just about done. Found some awesome spray paints to use. Only very minor touch up's left to do on it so the lion's share of the work is done now. Working on the core-fighter now and I'm spending the same amount of time detailing it to make it look just how I want it to. Slow and steady wins the race!

NZ-666 Kshatriya

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Originally uploaded by Busterbeam

This thing is really strong. Look at these numbers.

22.3 m
29.7 t
16540 kw
197800 kg
12 mega beam cannons
24 funnels

compared to Delta Plus

19.6 m
27.2 t
2360 kw
92400 kg

8x the power, 2x the propulsion. Quite the beast eh. This thing is descended from the Quin Mantha

Not the biggest fan of this design. I mean just look at the head haha if you can find it!

In other news.

MG Impulse is coming along nicely. The skeleton is looking SO good right now. Everytime I look at it I feel a sense of pride. A joy to build and the more details I add to it the more the character of it comes out. Pics to come. Eventually haha.