Dengeki Hobby vs. Hobby Japan

I'm starting to get agitated by this. Why is Dengeki Hobby so much cooler than Hobby Japan? FA MG Unicorn vs. Armoured Messiah? I know which one I'd rather see. Seriously... that FA Unicorn has got to be one of the coolest models I've seen in a long time.

Don't get me wrong I love the Armoured Messiah as well but... I just feel that Dengeki Hobby is a better magazine. Higher caliber of models and execution, better photos...

Did I get a subscrition to the wrong magazine? It certainly is looking that way. I do like the Gunpura LOVE sections in Hobby Japan though. And the FIX lineart posters... Oh well. Maybe I should have just gotten a subscription to both of them!

XN Raiser

As a lot of you know, Hobby Japan is shipping the XN Raiser (pronounced ZAN RAIZA in Japanese) kit with it's October issue which is coming out next month. This seems to be a 00V design.

So here is the question I have for you. Are you feeling it or not?

In my case, I'm not. I think the 00 Raiser is already way off balance with that space ship on its back and now this... I think it's over kill but some of the poses do look cool.

Another thing is that it was made to connect with the 0 Raiser but you can also connect it with almost any other 00 1/144 scale kit. Take a look.

I much prefer what Dengeki Hobby did with it's GN Sefer/Rasiel kits. Stand alone kits that, while having almost no points of articulation, didn't require another kit for it to be used.

That said... I actually like the design sketches of it as I'm a big fan of these kind of space ships (like the Vic Viper, R-9 etc. from video games.)

As I have a subscription to Hobby Japan I'm going to be getting this automatically... I'm wondering if I should pick up the 1/144 0 Raiser just to make it work. It might be nice to work on a space ship instead of a robot just for the change of pace. Also, I could just get the 0 Gundam that I've been looking at for I don't even know along and just attach it to that. God knows it's plain enough and could use a bit of sprucing up.

But to be honest, from the pictures above, I think it looks best on the Susanowo. Too bad I think the Susanowo design sucks @$$.

Oh well, maybe I'll be struck by lightning and get an idea for what to do with this thing.

Last set of Gundam posters

Finally, we'll finish this poster run with FIX posters. These are ALL my personal favourites and I have difficulty choosing which one I like the best. The RX-78 got a special place in my room, along with the FA version. The "Hummingbird" is my desktop wallpaper at work.

More Hobby Japan Posters

This set will deal with real life models made into scenes from the anime. The Zaku one is my favourite, but the one for Seed-Destiny is pretty cool too.

Gundam Storm Dynames

Top copy
Originally uploaded by Busterbeam

I was going to talk about how I picked up the Sinanju Bazooka and how I'm willing to send out some if anyone's interested.

I was going to talk about how I've deconstructed my PG Strike and am doing frame comparisons with the PG Astray.

I was going to talk about all the new **** that's coming out like the 1/100 Gold Frame, 1/144 R2 Exia and O Gundam, MG Igloo 2 Gouf Custom and how I have to really stop myself from buying more Gundams.

I was going to talk about all of that and more until I got home from work this evening and found my new Hobby Japan in the mail.

I saw this.

And now... EVERYTHING is on hold.

More at my flikr.

PG Red Frame - Hobby Japan 5 scans

hj0905010
Originally uploaded by Busterbeam

I'm sure many of you have seen this already but for those of you who haven't I decided to put up this months magazine spread from Hobby Japan. Images are from srw hotnews. I decided not to scan them myself because apparently a chinese company has went and done the whole magazine already. What I really want to show you are the images from this months Dengeki Hobby but I haven't been able to find it on the net yet, so I might have to do it myself for a change.

Anyways take a look. A couple of mods where done to this to make it look sharper, particularly the V-Fin. More at my flickr.

VF-25 Messiah - Nakajima Megumi custom

Continuing with the theme of real life Japanese female entertainers and pink mechs...

Ranka Lee's voice actor, Megumi Nakajima recently had a contest sponsored by Hobby Japan. Apparently she designed a custom scheme for the VF-25 from Macross Frontier and the folks at Hobby Japan built it for her. The contest is a trade!

Scan courtesy of Tokyo Hunter. I read all of this a while ago in my own Hobby Japan but he's already gone through the trouble of scanning the image already, saving me the trouble. I find this way to be more efficient than scanning it myself. There's always someone on the internet that's beaten me to the punch. Most of the time at least.

Participants can win her custom designed VF-25 by sending in one of their own! Participants are to send pictures of their own VF-25's to Hobby Japan which will then be judged by Megumi and some of the Hobby Japan staff. The winner then gets to trade for this one.

What do you folks think? Does this sound like a fun contest to you? I'm not sure if I want a pink Messiah but maybe if I were a fan of Megumi's I would? And giving away a model that I spent so much time to build? Well trading... but even still... I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm not sure if I could do it. It would be a nice souvenir. Maybe if she made it herself...

And another thing... I know these women are very pretty and feminine and want to express that when asked about what they want their mechs to look like but... really... does it ALWAYS have to be ALL PINK?! Surely there are some other feminine colours.... Hell even a little bit of white tossed in there... Anyone remember Lacus Clyne's Zaku? Or even Strike Rouge for that matter.

Oh well. Here are some more pics of the young woman in question. And I do mean young. Only 19 years old!

*grumbles* I was young once! *shuffles away with cane and corn cob pipe* *sits in his rocking chair and carves a small Gundam statue out of wood*

She seems very... pleasant.

Recent work, using the tripod and a rant about decals and hobby magazines.

I love my tripod.

It makes taking pictures so much easier. And more fun too actually. This is pretty much the exact way that it looks with the lighting in my room. My room lighting is a bit softer but this is pretty close. Tungsten white balance setting. Just wanted to show off the pics of what I've been working on recently.

You can see with the tripod that the details of the parts really come out. Even on the Sinanju piping for the lower torso... you can see that I missed a couple of tiny spots when I took this picture. I think I got most of them later... it was done by Gundam markers so... it's not perfect. I didn't want to spray it because I wanted the spring underneath to remain its original colour.

The most intricate detailing I've done so far is painting the crest on the front of neck piece, black. It's really tiny and took a bit of work to get it symmetrical.

GM Command shield... took a bit more work than I anticipated.

1. I painted the spare magazines on the inside.
2. Also did a panel line wash on the inside.
3. Fed crest had to be filed down so the paint would stick on the topmost edge.
4. Fed crest was also painted by gold Gundam marker and lined in black very lightly.
5. Shield vents at the top gave me some trouble. Started with a black Gundam marker just on the edges (not the inside. It was very difficult to do with a marker. It would have been easier with a brush). It looked too bold so I tried to get rid of it with thinner and made a big mess, but ended up doing my panel lines in the process. Blessing in disguise maybe. Looked at GM Command art for reference. Vents are grey and solid inside and out. Went for gunmetal with a brush (so much easier on all fronts) and easy clean up job with a knife. Just dragged it around the outside edges of the vent to get that nice curve. Worked perfectly. Better than masking probably.

Now it is time for my rants.

Rant # 1 - Waterslide decals

First time to use them and I'm NOT impressed. I bought an extra set and tried them out on the GM Command and found the whole process to be messy and inefficient. And in the end they didn't stick for me. Or they got stuck in the wrong place. Or they ripped. Dry transfer or stickers with mark setter all the way for me. There was probably something wrong with my technique but I can now officially say that I'm not a fan of water slide decals. At all.

Rant # 2 - Hobby Japan vs. Dengeki Hobby

Went to a book store yesterday and was taking a look at this month’s Dengeki Hobby and realized that it is a superior magazine to Hobby Japan. Never mind the give aways, but they give you decent posters of real kits with/or computer assisted art instead of the standard GFF line art posters that Hobby Japan gives you.

Not to mention this month’s massive 10 page spread on PG Astray... Hobby Japan had TWO and they were like the Bandai press release stuff. NOT impressed.

Unfortunately I made a subscription with Hobby Japan so I'm getting them every month but I won't be renewing it. Dengeki Hobby seems to be better to me. Smaller, better content (Gundam wise at least) and better models. This month’s photo shoot on the GNX-3 A Laws was beautiful! They painted it in like a... metallic ruby colour. Just gorgeous. But in Hobby Japan this month it's all Zaku's and tanks! Who cares?! Is this 1979 and people are still going crazy over how great the Zaku is?! Ugh...

End rant.

Anyways I was not happy about yesterday's revelations. Other than that... it seems like my enthusiasm for modelling as came back. It helps when you can see the progress quickly. It kind of inspires you to keep going. Just going to keep plugging away until the Red Frame comes out and then we'll see what happens then.