Gunpla

I'm going to start off this review by saying I don't know who exactly made this kit. I got this kit from Samuel Decal (I don't always buy third party kits, but when I do it's usually through him). He's referred to it as being from E-Model and Model Principle. The product itself says it's the result of a collaboration between Dimension Studio and Eastern Model. There's also "Kokoro Link" mentioned all over the place... based on context maybe that's something to do with this version of Ultraman specifically? I'm also unsure whether this is official or not. I've seen sites selling them as officially licensed, and there's copyright marks for Eiichi Shimizu, Tomohiro Shimoguchi, and Tsubaraya Productions all over the place... but that the same time this came out of China, the manual is in English and Chinese, and isn't one any of the 100% legit sites (eg HLJ, AmiAmi). Assuming it is unofficial, it's one hell of a nice original kit.

What I do know is that this a 1/6 scale Ultraman model based on the new Ultraman manga that came out a few years ago written by Eiichi Shimizu and drawn by Tomohiro Shimoguchi. There are two releases of this kit, apparently, one with plated chrome silver and red, and one lacks the coating. When I placed my pre-order way back when I went with the regular because I didn't know the quality of the coating and whether or not they were going to undergate the parts. Good news for anyone seeking the plated version, yes, pretty much everything is under-gated. It's not always perfect though. There will be visible nub marks but I feel like they did a lot of smart design to hide most of them. Quite a few of the undergated parts but up against connection pegs or are on curved surfaces so it's one of those "bring your hobby knife" builds. From a complexity standpoint, if you can handle that, you can handle this build.

While I'm fairly opinionated about many things, including Gunpla, I always wondered what the general consensus was about the best and worst kits of the line. I can answer pretty easily for MG and PG kits, but because I've decided to focus my collection with those grades I can't say much about HG while most of my RG thoughts are all second hand. Thus became the impetus behind the Great Gunpla Census of 2018. While planning things out I decided to add a few more questions to get a general idea of what the franchise fan base was thinking. After a few weeks of being called out on r/Gunpla and r/Gundam the census was completed as best possible by 839 fans. While parsing numbers and fixed answer questions is easy, trying to produce simple takeaways from open ended questions not so much, so I didn't want to go crazy and find myself with a 15,000 collection of answers to sort through. 

I’m a sucker for all things Unicorn, so when Bandai announced a RG version with light up features I had to have one. A limited release from Gundam Base, this TWC Lighting Model is stupid expensive. Like $200 after shipping expensive. For a RG. To some extent I get that, gotta have a high price to subsidize the development cost for a limited run, highly specialized kit.

Here's a clever and dynamic opening paragraph that gets you interested in reading what I have to say about this build instead of skipping to the photos.

After my MG Deep Striker got put together I wanted to mix things up and go for something that could be played with just a tadddd more. Where the Striker is a static kit, very little movement, zero poses, the MG Cat is a world apart. I’ll get into it a bit more in a second but wow, is this kit an absolute joy to play with.

For those who are unfamiliar, the N3K-0 Cat, specifically the first numbered varient, was originally designed by Kunio Okawara as a late-season upgrade for Char in the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Unfortunately Sunrise insisted that the use of Char’s iconic red colouring did not work with the design, feeling that it would negatively affect merchandize sales. Together with Tomino, Okawara developed a purplish colour as an alternative. Again Sunrise rejected the colour scheme. Rather than work in another colour, Okawara substituted a yet unfinished design, the MSN-02 Zeong. Due to the rushed production Okawara would not add legs to the Zeong until after production and the Cat would be lost in obscurity until its release as a MSV design. Since then it’s become wildly popular and the subject of many memes and running jokes, especially in Japan. Hell, it just recently got a lot of attention by franchise fans petitioning for it to replace the Zeong in the upcoming Origin reboot of the original series. But I digress...

Okay, let’s get this out of the way first. Should you buy the MG Deep Striker? If you have to ask then no, this kit is not for you.

This kit is purely for fans of the design/Gundam Sentinel. It has zero effective articulation. No gimmicks (the pointless shoulder expansion doesn't count). Its size means most will never see the inside of a display cabinet. To top it off, it’s more expensive than many Perfect Grade kits. Why Bandai expected anyone to buy this kit is beyond me. Yes, I have one because I’m a Gunpla-holic, and a fan of the design, but I’m an outlier. When you think about all the kits that should’ve gotten a proper MG release before the Deep Striker, this decision is downright absurd.

When the Chinese company BSC first announced their ‘third party’ 1/35 scale Unicorn bust kit I threw all my money at the screen. If you weren’t aware, I’m a big fan of the Unicorn design. Despite various ups and downs with third party kits I just had to have the it in my collection. To my surprise, I had very few issues with the kit. Granted, I was a bit daunted by the LEDs and have yet to attempt them, but other than that things went together well. One day, maybe, I still hope to give it the paint and detailing job it deserves.

Fast forward to BSC announcing this, their 1/35 scale Sinanju. Holy shit I threw money at the screen like Scrooge McDuck throws himself into a vault of gold coins. After what feels like a long wait the kit finally showed up and I couldn’t be happier.

After about two months I have completed my PG Exia build with mini hanger diorama and detached GN drive!

For my PG Exia build, which I have been too lazy to share WIP images of here, I decided to gunk wash the stand. I wanted to create a nice contrast between the clean kit and the grimy hanger scene I'm going for. All in all, I think it turned out well. In addition I'm prepping some old action bases for a proper gunk wash tutorial!

Here's how the stand looked before the gunk wash. Just a bit of paint, some pre-shading, decals, and a flat coat...

What happens when your local hobby shop is going out of business? You buy all the paint of course!