Sinanju "Ver.Ka" Poster

Trying to scan these things and I want a proper archive of them here.  Blogger won't let me upload the full file size (3200x2400) and re-sizes it down to 1600x1200.  I don't really want to keep them on my Flickr because access to that is temporary.  Oh well.  I'll think of something.

Just talking - Early Feb 2012

Well it's been a year since I've been back and I have to admit that I'm kind of surprised at the amount of gunpla I've managed to get in since I've been back. It really helps to have so many unfinished kits to work on.

Granted I’m not always doing gunpla stuff... I spent most of my time looking at other people's work but gunpla has definitely been a consistent thing during the past year. Off and on. There’s always something to work on.

Recently it’s been trying to improve my photo taking ability and that really hasn’t worked out so well due to my lighting situation and generally how I like to take shots. I generally do it with one lamp light and it tends to flood the shot and cause some saturation making things 'glow'. Maybe there are some settings on my camera for it but... yeah.

My talent is in making models not photographing them. I can’t be bothered with the setup. I’m kind of a guerrilla photographer like that. I want to get the angles, the poses, keep my hands steady and go for it. I don't like spending a lot of time setting things up. It’s hard to get the angles I want with a tripod (even though I have one) so it all comes down to a cool hand in my case. What makes matters worse is that I generally shoot low light shots which just compounds the damage. What to do... Oh well.

Here’s a shot that I quite like of the White Demon and Ebon Enforcer, plus some shots of Elenor and Shino combination mode I called Elenor Assault Setting. Painting will be happening on both kits sooner than later. My sister said she wants my pink armour parts because she wants to go for purple and pink would be a good base for that. If I can keep the blue parts I may keep most of it as is and just do some highlights, detailing and panel lining. We're both gonna sit on the idea for a bit.

hm.. same camera but different light settings.  It's definitely my lighting setup that's the problem.

Got something planned for the dark face too.

A bit blurry and saturated.  Can't quite get it right with this lamp.

Exit Strategy 2 - Sinanju

Z mentioned that when he was feeling down this summer he stayed away from posting so that his negative attitude wouldn't come out in his posts.

I'm not exactly feeling down like that (life is pretty damned good!) but I do feel that just because something isn't positive doesn't mean that it needs to be ignored.  It just doesn't need to be dwelled upon.  So let me apologize now for some of the posts recently that have been a bit "melancholy".  It's just... well... it's just that time in my life now! haha  It's only natural that I'm going to be sentimental at this time!  AND I'm still staying on topic!

Anyway, I tried to re-pose the old boy but I forgot how brittle and fragile he is.  Fell apart in my arms.  Sad...  I kept looking at him thinking, "I really loved you...".  Ah!  The memories.

Enamel poisoning... I didn't know any better.  Mistakes of youth and inexperience.  The joints have just been eaten away and it's going to take repair work beyond my current skill set to resurrect him.  Someday down the road I'll come back to him but when he sees the light of day again he'll be little more than a statue.

But I only need him to be just that.  He alone has brought more non-Gundam fans over to my side than any other model I own.  Anytime I had a guest over and they looked at him the quintessential reaction was either "Did you make that?!" or "Is that what a Gundam is?!"

Girls would take pictures of it on their cell phones.  Pride.  I have some pride concerning him.  I can't just leave him to wallow in darkness but for now...  So long old buddy.  OYW will be your torch bearer until we can be re-united again.

Yeah I could take more care with the packing but... he's going to be getting another overhaul down the road so...  I'm just going to let it go.

HGUC Sinanju - WIP 2

Worked a fair amount of time on this one today and got almost everything done except for the backpack.  What a joy this is to build.  Different from normal HG's.  More sturdy.  As it's MG counterpart was sturdier than standard MG's.  If you don't want to go through the trouble of making the MG this is definitely a good substitute.  It's beautiful and the construction is impressive.  All the details you need are there minus a bit of the articulation.  5 sets of hands, 4 beam axes.  Better than the MG in some ways!  This thing is good.  Maybe one of my favourite HG's.  Damn... Can the Sinanju really do no wrong?!

HGUC Sinanju - WIP 1.1

I was taking a look at Dalong's review of this kit and there was one picture in particular that made me question what I'm doing.

I really stopped to take a look at the shape of that movable thruster set on the outside of the legs.  My approach to this new kit was to "add" but now I'm thinking that it'd better to "subtract".  I'm being intentionally vague.  Something is better than nothing right? haha

I took a hard look at my puttied parts today and decided that I want to go in a different direction.  The putty has already cured so there's nothing I can do about that now but as it turns out my putty work will still be necessary.  I just won't need as much as I thought.

Inspiration can really come from anywhere at anytime.  It's good to just spend some time looking at models.  You never can tell when and where the next idea is going to come from.

HGUC Sinanju - WIP 1

Following the age old adage that "something" is better than "nothing" I've decided that I'm going to do this WIP from my cellphone simply for the sake of speed. I can bluetooth the images straight to my PC and make a quick post from E-Mail.

Not my regular high quality stuff but it'll be fast and I'm willing to go for that right now, just for the sake of switching things up. I will be taking higher quality images with my new digital camera but in my down time between regular posts I'll be shooting these off a bit more.

So take a look. Guess what I'm doing.

HG Sinanju

Gaijin Gunpla!  Why did you make me buy this?!

Ebon Enforcer - The Saga Continues

Decided to enter this into the HLJ contest because I couldn't get anything new done in time. Here is the story of the upgrades.  Please see here  if you don't know the first part of the story.

As the battle with the Federation forces continued and with mounting loses on both sides, the Ebon Enforcer was forced into a more supportive role in battles as opposed to it's' standard role as an escort / long range detection unit for VIP's.

Through many vigorous sorties this Sinanju was put through it's paces and while completing all of it's missions successfully the results were less than satisfactory. The PsyCo-RPX system proved to be too taxing on the pilot and on the actual mechanics of the suit itself resulting in increased damage and deterioration of the frame material.  This happened particularly in exposed joint sections and in those places where the design of the suit itself wasn't that strong, specifically, small connecting rods that linked armour parts to each other or to the frame itself.

Because of this, the suit was sent in for repairs no less that 12 times resulting in a suit that performs suitably lower than baseline specifications. The left elbow assembly had to be entirely swapped out in a field repair and was never properly replaced due to time restraints, lack of parts and available resources.

However, before the problems with this Sinanju came to surface, special weapons for the unit were already in development. By the time the Ebon Enforcer project was discontinued the new weapon systems were online and ready for testing.

The primary and most noticeable armament upgrade is the bazooka. This bazooka has an extra powerful scope for extremely long range targeting. The real gem of the design however lies not within the bazooka itself but within the shells. Conventional nuclear and atomic weapons were banned under the Antarctic treaty but these shells are an experimental and highly classified new weapon known as a "LUMP" which stands for "Localized Ultra Magnetizing/Polarizing" shell. The LUMP's, in short, cause anything metallic within a 100m radius to be pulled towards the point of detonation. Each LUMP is a 'double' explosion, the first irradiates the local area with negative ions and the second explosion creates a ultra dense positive ion epicenter held together in a Feynman QED field.

This, in theory, would cause all mobile suits/armour within a given area (with allowances for distance, mass, velocity and direction) to either be immobilized, or slowed significantly. This would enable a secondary unit to pick off the suits with relative ease.

The shell amount is limited to 5 in the magazine and one in the chamber. Each shell costs roughly as much as one Geara Zulu unit.

The second upgrade is the main camera which is no longer a main camera but a highly powerful optical laser weapon. For the laser weapon to work all 3 cameras (2 on the bazooka, 1 on the rifle) have to be used for targeting. The range is unknown but the weapon has been shown to be capable of punching through a battleship's hull at a range of 500 meters in ideal conditions. Many miniaturized cameras for the 360 panoramic cockpit monitor have now been placed in numerous strategic positions around the mobile suit itself to substitute for the loss of the main camera.  All zooming and targeting function are now done through the weapon scopes.

Laser power is fed from the main power line, thus enabling the pilot to use up their remaining energy reserves in a powerful blast or be most conservative with many short low powered bursts.

As of yet both weapons have yet to be used in actual field combat.

Best UC Mobile Suit!

	131 (71%)
UNICORN	52 (28%)
SINANJU	131 (71%)

And there you have it.  What more needs to be said?

Only showing mine off here because you've all seen so many other Sinanju's already. Looking at it... The poses, the fierceness, the weapons, the sheer air of menace that this suit has... It's worthy. Definitely worthy of being called the "The Best Universal Century Mobile Suit".

And with that... this 2.5 year era of polling for best UC MS is now finally, finished. Thanks to everyone who has voted over the years! This is the suit you choose in the end and what a suit it is. A personal favourite of mine as you all know.

Best Sinanju Ever

Sinanju FWS (Full Weapon System).  Look for yourself.

Just when I thought this thing couldn't look ANY cooler, someone has to go and prove me wrong. Damn. You need two Sinanju's to make this + 4 extra limited edition parts but still... My goodness. I am just blown away.

Unicorn OVA Sinanju

I like it! It looks quite sturdy and strong. Powerful. Like a Sinanju should. I think what they're going to do in Ep.2 is going to be really good. Too bad we have to wait until Autumn to see it though.

Finished: Ebon Enforcer w/ Rocket Bazooka

Ah! I forgot I saved this as a draft! I don't know why I just didn't post it right away. Well this is it I guess. I don't think I'm going to get down and dirty with a 'proper' photo shoot so I hope these pics will be sufficient. I tried using a different background and lighting set up this time and I have to admit that I don't really like it so much. Overheard florescent lights. Too cold. The lamp light in the upper left corner adds a bit of warmth but not enough.

I don't mind the background so much but the lighting could use more work. I like the wooden table background that most of my "WIP" pics have but I figured I'd try something more uniform this time (as is the trend with most Gunpla pics)

All assembled... He's quite a beast

Is that dust?! OMG.

Loving the lenses, I have to admit...
Now if only I could remember where I put the rest of those Aurora decals! O_O

New home (Since changed with the addition of two more MG's)

It's been a long time coming but now I think I can finally can this Sinanju "Done."

Only took about a year. Yikes. A lot of up's and down's including more than my fair share of breakage. I really wanted stability with this project but the painting process actually caused the opposite effect. Now I'm afraid to pose it out of fear of it breaking. It's become more fragile then I'd hoped but... Like with everything I do, it's been a learning experience... And I definitely learned a lot from this project.

There are a lot of models out there and you all know that I have enough to keep myself busy for some time so... time to move on and put the Sinanju behind me. Other kits await and demand my attention. More projects to learn and grow from.

I think this model is the best one I've done so far and the most complete.

This year that's going to change.

Sinanju - Repair Log 2

Supplemental images to go along with this post. I know I'm super late posting this but better late than never (finally managed to get some free time).

Here he waits. I can almost here him saying "Will you hurry up and fix my goddamned arm already?!"

It's been long fixed, as much as I had the patience to manage at least. Pics to come soon.

Best Zeon MS Design!

Hundreds of votes and a bunch of different polls have finally taken us to this point!

MSN-06S Sinanju_06
Originally uploaded by cyruz13

AMA-X7 Shamblo 3 (2%)
AMS-129 Geara Zulu 10 (8%)
AMS-129M Zee Zulu 0 (0%)
YAMS-132 Rozen Zulu 1 (0%)
NZ-666 Kshatriya 24 (21%)
MSN-06S Sinanju 74 (66%)

The people have spoken! And they have chosen the current 'flagsuit' of this blog...

MSN-06S Sinanju

wins the top prize of best Zeon MS design EVER.

Now to do it all again for the Feds but I think I can predict the winner right now...

Pretty sick paint job in this pic though eh? Frame was done in a nice bright metallic silver. Very well done.

So what do you think makes it so popular? I have a bunch of reasons myself. Way too numerous to list here... again but I'd like to hear all of your thoughts on this.

One thing that I like about it is that no matter what colour you paint it in... it's ALWAYS going to look good.

Here are some examples.

Flag Fighter?!

Last but not least