Building the Gunpla kits can take weeks on a busy schedule especially on the parts painting phase. In my take, I just find some vacant hours in the fine weather afternoon to paint my project kits. Assembly just follows afterwards. The next issue though is on taking photo shots of the completed plamo kit. Having just a low end digital camera makes it hard to get decent shots at certain angles. Anyhow, enough of this rant and unto some Gunpla update. Here are some pics of one of my recent projects, the HG Unicorn Gundam Destory Mode by Daban Model.

Unicorn series kits never disappoint in details as wells as the high number of parts to assemble, even for a HG kit. That at times can be frustrating to build but the completed look makes the work worth it.

I tried to make some action poses of the kit but the painted parts on the joint makes it difficult for the pose to adjust. What also sucks is that I still don’t have a decent photo booth for the background. I will make sure to add that on the list of my future DIY projects.

As for the kit review, the plastic quality of Daban is decent enough and most of the moldings are edged correctly. There is also difficulty in joining some of the parts (as expected to most bootleg kits) which can be easily fixed by trimming with the hobby knife. The kit is good enough for out of the box build (OOTB) but painting is also a good option. I am more of the latter on most of my kits as it makes the looks of the kit even better or to fix some molding flaws.

Overall, it is a good buy for this kind of kit though I would still recommend buying the Bandai brand if given the extra cash.

That’s a wrap for this project and until the next Gunpla update post.

To reduce my current backlog of plamo kits, I’ve decided to have one of them built by my friend who’s skilled enough in painting military kits. The commissioned-to-build kit was the High Grade 1/144 scale Guntank from the Gundam Universal Century. The looks of this mobile suit at the most resembles that of a real life military tank so I think my friend can build & paint this project well.

His previous build for me was the RH-35E Draken which he detailed very well for a small type of kit. On this project, it took him about two weeks for the overall job. I let him decide on the paint job theme of the kit. The results were superb as expected, even if it cost me 500 pesos for the task.

I would recommend him in painting your Gunpla kits if you are just around Iloilo: just pm me for more info. Oh, and make sure to join us in our FB Group, Gundam Builders Iloilo.

Here is a slideshow of the finished build of the HG 1/144 scale Guntank. Enjoy!

Here is a short review of my first commissioned made kit painted and detailed by a very good friend whose expertise is on building military tank model kits. The kit that I’ve requested for him to do is the RH-35E Draken, the bonus small kit for the HG 1/144 GM Sniper II of the Gundam 0080 War In The Pocket.

The kit itself is a challenge to paint because of the small parts as well as the separation is not that of a detail. There are two options sets for the arms, one on normal and the other to use for cargo loading. I let my friend chose which set to use to best suit his planned paint job.

I think it took him around two weeks to finish the project and contacted me for the meetup. The kit turned out great & beyond my expectations.

The pics’ slideshow post to follow below.

*Banner pic from Gundamkitscollection.com

It is another job done for me as I have finally finished my January first Gunpla build: the SD 00 Qant (Warrior). It was an SD scale but its components and parts are no joke. Bad thing though is I can only do much of the basic panel lining and wash and didn’t mask some parts for the color separation. Anyhow, it was still an enjoyable build for an inexpensive bootleg kit.

I did some standard mug shots of the kit and a very few pose shots with its very limited articulation. See them below.

Overall, this bootleg SD Qant in terms of plastic detail is obviously below to that of Bandai quality. That though could be sufficed if given the right tools. For instance, you needed some Tamiya putty to close up the gaps in the arms and legs, and then prime them afterwards to hide them. Also, the plastic stickers for the color could be replaced by just hand painting the parts for longevity purposes.

To conclude, if you plan to buy this kit but you’ll just build it out of the box, I suggest you go with Bandai for minimum kit issues.

Until next post.

My recent Gunpla project done was the HG 1/144 scale GM Sniper II by Bandai. This was a recently produced kit so I’ve expected the color separation of the parts and its articulation would be superb. One issue I’ve encountered was that it could not hold the sniping pose with its rifle. The manual showed the pose but I could not seem to imitate it.

The two guns (rifle & mini beam gun) included in the kit presented me several options to do the gun pointing pose. Here are the weapons.

Here are some pics I took of the HG 1/144 GM Sniper II.

My third SD kit, the SD ZZ-Gundam with Mega Rider (actually fourth) has finally been put to the completed projects list after I had took some decent review photos. The painting of this kit was quite a challenge, especially in separating the colors of the armor parts and changing them to the correct colors.

As I have noticed after assembling the kit, the size seems to be smaller than that of the SD GP04 which made me wonder why as the 1/144 scale is of a correct proportion. The equipment that comes with the kit though is quite amusing because the mega bazooka actually has a spring inside & a switch mechanism that lets it shoot the plastic rockets. You can have the option to play with it and shoot your other SD kits lol.

Here are some review photos I took earlier today:

To conclude, the kit is okay overall because of the gimmicks included and the mega rider which you can work on the detail if given the proper paints and airbrush. The color separation is just the major concern and downside.

Until next post.

After the busy Hobby Con weekend, I again found the time to take pics of my recently finished Gunpla projects. For this blog post, it will be the HG 1/144 Gundam Mk-II + Flying Armor. I hastened to do this one because this was included in my list of toys to display in Hobby Con.

As for the kit review, the mobile suits articulation is just of an average. Maybe it was because it’s a semi old kit (made 2005), wherein articulations are not that of a priority that time. I got to made it do some good poses though. Another issue was that it can’t hold its bazooka well so I didn’t include it in the pose shots.

Other accessories of the kit included the huge Flying Armor and a pair of unpainted beam sabers. I also didn’t bother to pose the kit holding the beam swords. Seamlines of the kit are just a pain to avoid so I just disregarded fixing them and did a top coat of most of the outer armor parts. Decals were also placed, in which I used the EFSF designs as I didn’t have those of the AEUG. It’s not a rule to follow right?

Here below is a slideshow of the completed kit, HG Gundam Mk-II + Flying Armor. Enjoy!

Hey guys, weekend is just around the corner once again and I hope you get to spend your time finishing up your current kit projects or start a new one. Anyhow, this kit I’ll be sharing in today’s post is a long due finished kit about a month ago. This is a bootleg kit version of the mobile suit nemesis of the 00 Raiser. It is the High Grade 1/144 scale Susanowo. Note that there is another version of the kit which is the Susanowo Trans-am.

I won’t discuss much of the kit’s paint job as it was just the basics. What I can say overall is that the kit didn’t have major flaws whatsoever, aside from the usual tight pegs and holes which can be easily remedied. There also no mold deformities.

Here are some photo shots, a few action poses, I’ve done of the kit. Pardon the cardboard background.

Click on the link below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/79476832@N08/sets/72157633625198008/

For the continuous updates of my finished Gunpla kits, I present to you the completed HG 1/144 scale GM Command Space Type. The work period of this project was around a week, as I had to wait for my ordered decals from Samuel to arrive. The spray cans paints I’ve used were Honda Red, Flat White, Flat Black and Dark Grey.

See the finished look of the kit on the pic slideshow below.

Here is once again a late upload of one my previously completed kits. I’d really wanted to make the finish shots as presentable as possible but the location and my camera specs somewhat hinders that. I guess I’ll be buying a chain base to be used as background, which is relevant enough to show the mech nature of the mobile suit kits.

Anyhow, the paint jobs I’ve are once again the basics since the kit’s original colors are solely based on black, white, and grey.

Here are the poses and snapshots I’ve done on the kit:

After checking through my archive posts of my Gunpla hobby, I have discovered a lot of missed posts on the completed kits: a few of them ended up without having the last or completed part. So to compensate, I will be posting the completed kits not yet added to this blog. Let us start with the HG 1/144 Zaku II FZ.

This kit was already done way back in January in which its only blog post is the unboxing of its package. The paint job I did was another of my basic method: top coat the armor parts. The difference here though is that I purchased its own custom decals. I’ve added a shading effect on the shoulder and on the feet using the Tamiya Weathering Set A.

Here is the finished kit. Big thanks to my friend Masyong for the pose shots.

I somewhat got time last weekend to do some camera shots of my finished & built Gunpla kits. That is despite my busy time on reading stuff on Modern in preparation for next week’s Pro Tour Qualifier in Manila. This recent kit was one of the grunt mobile suits from the Gundam AGE series. Its affiliation is that of Vagan, the Mars colony which was the antagonist of the story.

This is a high grade 1/144 scale model of the Baqto and what I did are just a few panel lining and wash and top coated most of the green, light green armor parts with Flat Clear to achieve a more realistic look. The black parts are usually painted Flat Black.

Here are some photos of the completed HG 1/144 Baqto.