Author: Falldog

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The Great Gundam & Gunpla Census of 2020

Welcome to the results page for the Great Gunpla Census of 2020! This is a follow up to a census, of a similair title, from back in 2018. The 2018 census was a big success with a lot of interest and positive feedback. There was also a good amount of constructive feedback that I brought into this year’s survey. This time around there were more questions pertaining to the Gundam franchise in general for all the folks who’re into Gundam but not necessarily Gunpla. 

This year we got over 1400 respondents answering multiple questions, some open ended. Everyone who answered a simple question with a sentence, I hate what you made me do to my master spreadsheet, but some of your comments are provided great insight. It doesn’t help that everyone has 2-3 different ways of spelling the same kit name (looking at you, Mk-II, or was it MK-2, or MK-ii?). If you’re interested in the raw results from the survey you can find them here. For the 2022 census I’m thinking of slimming down some of the questions and creating some more comment oriented ones. Instead of just telling me what kit you hate, tell me why you hated it. read more

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MGEX Unicorn – A review and model retrospective
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MGEX Unicorn – A review and model retrospective

Yeah, yeah, I’m late to the game with my MGEX Unicorn review. Even so I wanted to take some time, since I have an interesting perspective (read: I’ve built a lot of Unicorns – note, that’s three years old at this point), and the MGEX Unicorn is a kit very worthy of discussion. I’m not going to go into all the ins and outs of the build, so if you want a super detailed look pair this with Dalong’s review. I’m sure there are some good YouTube reviews out there by now too. What’s up guys, Rick Dias here… read more

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Customized MG Banshee Gundam
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Customized MG Banshee Gundam

I wanted to take a few minutes to share some photos and some thoughts for a quick build I put together. The fantastic GoodGuyDan is having a Unicorn build off this month and as I have a unquenchable thirst for Unicorn kits I had to participate. Instead of building one of the several RG ‘corns that I have waiting for love, or the MGEX that just came in, I figured I’d help an old boy out. Specifically, this one,

I can’t remember where I got this Banshee – probably a part of numerous used kit auctions I keep getting myself into. I like a good charity case and this one needed a lot of love. Dust, terrible nub marks, and a part missing here and there. I recently just discovered the treasure trove of cheap (well, before you consider shipping in the era of Covid) leftover and extra “junk” parts available on Yahoo Japan. Way back in the day, probably around the time I built my PG Strike Freedom, I had the idea of putting the same wings on a Unicorn kit. It seemed like a waste to buy a Strike Freedom just for the wings to I tabled the idea for nearly a decade. read more

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Falldog’s Sci-Fi Novel Rankings – July 2024 Edition

To wrap up 2018 I wanted to share a something I’ve been working on over the past year, my list of top Sci-Fi novels (slash series where applicable).

First off, let me state that this list is a terrible, awful, no good, bad idea. No matter what order I would put these in there will always be someone who disagrees. That’s totally okay, there are parts of this list that I may disagree with myself depending what lenses I’m looking through. There’s so much going on in the science fiction genre that trying to compare and sort by best is like trying to compare apples and oranges. How do you compare ground breaking works that introduced new concepts well ahead of any real world implementation against enjoyable, albeit unimaginative, military sci-fi serials? What about series with four plus novels that dip and rise in quality depending on what’s going on? Or even works elevated beyond written form by fantastic audio book narration? The short answer is you can’t, not realistically at least. read more

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Archive Reference: What I need to know about chemical compatibility by Jack Jella

This an archive replica of a blog post What I need to know about chemical compatibility written by Jack Jella circa 2014, from the National Association of Scale Aeromodelers. It’s been referenced over on the Layman’s Gunpla Guide for many years and it appears that it has been pulled from the original site. I’m guessing it got left behind when they did a global site redesign. In order to preserve it better I’ve created this archive copy. For further reference here’s the original link, the Wayback Machine Archive, and the last Google search cache.  read more

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RG Gundam Banshee Norn Destroy Mode – Lighting Model
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RG Gundam Banshee Norn Destroy Mode – Lighting Model

I don’t really have anything new to say about this kit that I didn’t already cover when I built the Unicorn ver TWC Lighting Model a few years back. The Banshee version is the same, save for the design differences and a LED setup that’s yellow instead of red.

The paint is a handful of custom mixes. I started with Tamiya X-16 Purple and added various shades of gray for three separate tones. Inner frame is typical X-10 Gun Metal. I sat on this project for ages because I couldn’t quite figure out what I wanted to colour wise. Eventually I just said, “Screw it, I like purple, let’s go with that.” I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. Just enough subtle colour separation and deviation from the typical Banshee colour scheme. read more

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MS IGLOO Inspired Takom PL-01 Tank Build
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MS IGLOO Inspired Takom PL-01 Tank Build

Here’s a quick build report on my MS IGLOO/Zeon inspired PL-01 tank from Takom. The PL-01 is a prototype Polish light tank with a very distinctive stealth (as much as a tank can be stealthy) design. This is my first tank in a long while, and first kit from Takom.

For the most part Takom’s PL-01 kit is pretty straight forward and easy to put together. There are a few issues though starting with a ton of visible seam lines. I did my best to hide all of them by welding and sanding which was, for the most part, successful. The most obvious seam is on the front, which isn’t glue on my build, because I wanted to paint the top and bottom parts independently. To go back and glue would have screwed up the paint quite a bit and I was just lazy enough to not care. read more

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Falldog’s Guide to Gundam Canon and Timelines (2020 Edition)

 

About a six years ago I had the idea to put together a piece discussing the Gundam franchise’s many timelines and many, many complexities. Little did I know that I was opening a can of worms. Welcome to that can of worms.

The Gundam franchise is a confusing assortment of TV series, manga, games, novelizations, and even audio dramas. These are broken across many different universes, and within those universes, similar and sometimes contradictory stories. What I’ve tried to do below is take as much of the franchise’s numerous installments I could muster and lay them out graphically. Before we get to that there are a couple of core concepts we need to cover. read more

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Gundam: Dark History Reference Material

In researching for my guide to the Gundam timelines and canon I took a look into the deep hole that is Dark History (or Black History, being the direct translation) from Turn A Gundam. Here reflects my findings, as limited as they are, as of April 2nd, 2020. 

Huge, massive, thanks to Mecorx for translating this and dealing with my obscene obsession driven trying to map out the entire franchise.

Dark History as represented Turn X’s Instruction Manual

The Master Grade Turn X, released in June 2014, has a small blurb on Dark History…

The translation is a follows, read more

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How to watch Gundam – Universal Century

 

So, you’re interested in watching through Gundam’s Universal Century (UC) timeline? From the quintessential Mobile Suit Gundam which started the ball rolling over 40 years ago, to the upcoming Hathaway’s Flash? Well here’s how.

Watch it in order in which the series was produced and released.

/end article

…alright, let me elaborate.

For the uninitiated, the Universal Century timeline has been the core component of the Gundam franchise starting with Mobile Suit Gundam first released in 1979. Since then there have been various works that have built upon that initial story. Some of them have been longer series, others short OVAs, and even movies, games, manga and novels. Those hopping into Universal Century for the first time should stick to the main shows, movies. After which drive into some of the great manga. To make things confusing Sunrise has a habit of cutting up a show, inserting new animation, and releasing it as a movie – often adding, leaving out, or changing critical events. More on some of that later. read more

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