Avalanche Astraea Type F Dash

What do you think?  One of my favourite modelers, Schizophonic9 did this.

His photos and finish, as usual, are awesome but... that mass of pink is killing me, even if he did break it up with different tones... I would have liked to have seen a bit more variety in there... a couple more white pieces would have gone a long way I think. Almost hurts my eyes... It's just too much.

I mean it's not like I'm opposed to pink. Check this out.

Doesn't that look nice?  Tasteful.  Not so gaudy.  At first the pink Hi-Nu was making me feel strange but I think it looks okay now!

But that pink monster above...  Wow.

Also... maybe it's just me but I think all the Avalanche Dash armour is a bit much.  If it was just the regular Avalanche I might be ok with it...  might be.

Still... It's no Musha Avalance Astraea. That one will always take the cake for me.

Q&DWIP 4 - HG Astraea Type-F: Alternate Configuration

Thanks for all of your comments on the colour scheme everyone. Take a look at this set up and see how it compares. After seeing it with the Exia parts on I have to say that I like it a bit more and will probably just remove a lot of the white and give it an 'Aqua' look. I currently have it displayed in my room like this so I'm think I'm just going to clean this up, repaint in the same colours and detail it. Man there are so many things you can do with this kit! I removed the Exia shoulder and the 2x beam sabres and traded them in for the GN Short and Long swords on the hips. Each hip can hold two weapons now! That four all together. Man it's just too strong! Love this thing. Take a look.

Strange. I actually want to work on this a bit more than MGIJ but... priorities! I suppose I can just continue doing what I've been doing so far and just work on multiple kits at once.

Q&DWIP 3 - HG Astraea Type-F: Assembled

Sorry I forgot to crop the pics so they're a big larger than usual. My idea of spraying on the panels didn't turn out so well.  Well it did and it didn't. I mean I got rid of the red but... what do I do with it now? I really have no idea what type of paint scheme I'd like to give it! I like the metallic green/blue but I don't think the metallic blue works with it... and I don't know what to do about the white either. Any ideas? I really could use some help on this one!

That said... this model is totally ****ing sick. The weapons. Man... the weapons!!! This thing is stacked beyond belief! I kept the Exia shoulders just because I wanted extra beam sabers. This is it fully armed from a couple of different angles. The display stand was a good call I think.

From Plamo Addiction

From Plamo Addiction

From Plamo Addiction

From Plamo Addiction

From Plamo Addiction

From Plamo Addiction As you can see this model comes with all the parts to make the Exia if that's what you want.  Basically this is a 4 in 1 kit.  Exia/Astraea/Astraea Type F/Astraea Type F2. After making this I can't understand why anyone would NOT want to buy this kit.  This is probably one of the best kits I've ever made just based on versatility alone.  Not to mention that you can use all of these weapons with other HG 00 kits if you're inclined to do so.   What to do about the colours though...

Q&DWIP 2 - HG Astraea Type-F: Runners

First taking a look at the runners... As I mentioned before there are only 2 original runners. This is one of them.

I decided that I was just going to prime and spray the parts on the runners so I can get rid of the red quick.  This runner I sprayed "Gunmetal".  I didn't prime it because I don't mind the tan base colour.  It won't really show up through the gunmetal.

As you can see this runner comes with 4 different colours of parts.

So I ended up doing something like this to make the recolour easier.

Of course I separated all of them.  Gray>Light Gunmetal, Red>White, Dark Red>Metallic Blue. Green clear parts I left as is.  I primed the Dark Red/Red parts.

Same deal here.

This one I primed and sprayed Metallic Blue.

The other panels not pictured here I primed and sprayed the new colour I picked up, Metallic Blue-Green.

I'll post the results later.

Q&DWIP 1 - HG Astraea Type-F

I said I was going to get so I went and got it. No second guessing myself this and no thinking about the consequences and how many other kits I have. I used a 1000 yen gift certificate to get the primer, paint and stand for free. The paint is Mr. Color #57 Metallic Blue Green. I decided to pick up a colour that I don't have while I'm at it.

Q&DWIP - Quick and Dirty Work In Progress. That's right. I'm just going to power blast this and get it done as quickly as I can. Which means I'm going to work on it everyday no matter what. No matter how small a section, I'm going to work on this everyday if I'm home. I'm not planning on doing too much with it but I have standards and I want it to look good but I want it done fast because I want to play with it. Simple as that.

More on the process later.

One interesting thing I've noticed about this kit is that there are only two original runners. The Astraea armour and the runner for the new weapons, which is labeled as "00 Weapons Set" meaning that if you're inclined to do so you can order an extra set of weapons by just ordering the one panel. That's cheap to do. All of the weapons are on that runner excluding the Prototype GN Sword, GN Beam Rifle and GN launcher which are specific to the Astraea runner.

The rest of the kit is Exia parts which means it comes with the short and long swords, plus Exia's own GN sword but I'm not sure if all the parts are there to assemble this pistol section of the sword as well. More on that later. This kit comes with five beam sabers. 1 with a blade built in, 2 beam saber effect parts. I'm sure a lot of you have extra beam saber effect parts laying around if you wanted to get all 5 going for some reason.

This kit also comes with the parts to make the Type-F2 version if you're inclined to build that one instead. I'm still on the fence about that. It looks like the Type-F version can actually hold more weapons because of the absence of GN Condensers on the legs.

That's all for now. Get ready for some heat!!!

*edit - Exia pistol parts are included*

HG Astraea Type F - Released

One word for you.  STACKED.

This thing has got so many weapons that it's ridiculous.  It even comes with Exia's arsenal!  Check it out here.

I'm buying this.  Just because I want to play with it.  I don't care so much about making it look pretty.  I want to play with this thing.  I might do a quick and dirty recolour job so I don't have to look at that red but I won't be doing much else.  Haha I say that now.  Like I could stop myself.  Whatever.  I'm getting it and I'm going to see where it takes me but I'm seriously going to try and finish this one FAST.  I don't want too much of a distraction from the Infinite Justice Project but I must have this.  I've always liked the Astraea design and I like the fact that the Type F comes with a mask.

Oh boy...  And here I was trying to cut down.  Damn it just too many cool things coming out now!

HG Astraea Type F & MG Wing Gundam - Box Art

Oh SNAP! Definitely feeling this one!

Wing?

Not so much.

How about you?

HG Astraea Type F

This armament is ridiculous. Talk about "stacked". I don't think I can afford to pass this up even though I'm notoriously anti-red mechs.

The Astraea design has always been one of my favourites from the 00 series, if not my favourite outright. Glad to see this model coming out. Avalanche Exia, I'm sure, is going to make a lot of people happy as well.

Lots of great stuff coming out soon and it couldn't be happening at a better time for me.

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.