Gunpla

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!

One of my favorite things to do is pick up used kits on eBay for cheap. It's become a lot harder these days with the increasing popularity of Gunpla but there are still deals to be had if keep your eyes open. This is one of two kits I just picked up on eBay, a Perfect Grade Wing Zero Custom.

The listing for this kit made it clear that it was a parts only kit. From the photos I could tell that most of the kit was there, namely missing a piece on the upper torso and the buster rifles (which I planed use, never having done anything with them following my PG Wing build over a decade ago). Since then I've found more pieces missing, such as a rear-leg armor piece, some ankle armor, and one of the yellow detail pieces on the should armor. Still well within tolerances for the project plan. 

What I didn't expect was the condition of the build in general. Simply nasty as shit. I'll let the photos do the talking for now...

For awhile now I thought it would be swell to get all my Unicorn kits and related all together into one big family photo. I've been holding off because, as you may have noticed, that's quite a bit of work. Well last night I spent quite a few hours on what may be some of the worst photographs I've ever taken.

I had a very terrible idea that I'd be able to manage to get them all on my photo table, which obviously didn't work. At the very least I was able to get the built kits onto the center section of my display room though by then I had run out of patience to get everything sorted by height as much as possible. In both scenarios though I had to resort of my wide angle lens which sucks in low light and isn't good at focusing ob objects a meter away. Of course the latter half of the issue is my inability to mitigate those problems. 

As a Unicorn aficionado I was pretty excited to hear about the 1/48 scale Mega Size Gundam Unicorn. My wallet not so much, because you just know there's going to be half a dozen variants Bandai can release now. Anyhow, just wanted to spend some time reviewing this kit 'cause honestly, as a straight build, it's sort of meh... but as a "beast of possibility" this kit has more going for it than any previous Unicorn release. PS. this kit is only Destroy mode, you cannot transform into Unicorn mode. 

If you've built a Mega Size model before, or read my review of the 1/48 scale Mega Size Gundam RX-78-2 (holy shit that was 7 years ago), you know what to expect from this kit...