MG X-1 Crossbone Gundam & New Gunpla

After assembling the kit for about 2 months since I finished my previous MG F-91 Gundam, it's almost come to an end to finish building this kit. It's amazing to find that this piece of art designed by Katoki Hajime is really different as compare to other MG kit; not only the design is nice, but the overall architecture of the kit makes it very easy to construct & less friction among surfaces. I wonder if this stay on for the other Katoki designed Gunpla.

I've done with the colouring of the thrusters for the core fighter. It should be ready for touch-up once I'm back home. I would have the Gundam ready by tonight. Next on the outstanding task would be the weapons.

After this, I'll have to start to work on the following outstanding kits:

1. MG Strike Freedom
2. MG Hi-Nu Gundam
3. MG Strike Noir
4. Armored Core (my first non-Bandai kit since I came to KL)
5. 1/60 HG Gundam Exia

Yup, I got myself a new kit again. But this time I didn't pay for it; I received it as a Christmas present. I bought the 1/100 scale Gundam Exia for my younger brother, and who know that I'm blessed with this 1/60 scale Gundam Exia. I can't wait to build it since this is my first Gunpla from the Gundam 00 series. Sure enough that Bandai may come out with the 1/60 PG for this kit, because they have done that for the Strike from the Seed series, and surely they are going to do it for this one. It won't be that hard since this unit doesn't have any rifle or complicated structure like Strike Freedom.

Talking about Robot Anime...

I remember while I was 7 years old, I was amazed and excited by this anime that has transforming robot! It can transform from a fighter jet, to a jet with arms and legs, and to a robot. Sound familiar? Yes, it's Macross.

Back then, I don't really appreciate Macross story line that much; all I want is to see the Valkyrie in action - transforming from Fighter Jet to Gerwalk and to Battroid mode. I particularly like the variation that piloted by Roy Foker. More information about Macross can be found on http://www.mahq.net.

But why am I all of a sudden talking about this? While I was surfing the net, I came upon the upcoming March 2008 release of the new Soul of Chogokin Godmars, of which there are some people who doesn't know much about it. Godmars is one of the series that I watched when I was only 8 years old. I can still remember back then that my dad gave me a Godmars toys made of dia-cast metal. It really stirs me to save some money to get this Godmars again, 'coz I like it very much.

Those are the days that my dad would buy the toys that I like. But because I was so young and I don't know how to protect them, my toys are all broken beyond repair, and all have to be thrown away. If my memory serves me well, the list will be as follow:

1. Macross - Valkyrie (part die-cast metal part plastic) - Variation S & J
   
2. Orguss - 2 variable fighters of main characters and 1 opponents variable fighter
   
3. Gundam RX-78 - It's not the plastic model kit by Bandai, but it's made of Die-Cast metal that comes with G-Falcon (made from plastic).
   
4. Godmars - part die-cast metal part plastic. This toy is really heavy.
   
5. GoLion - part die-cast metal part plastic (height similar to 1/100 scale Gundam). It is a smaller version. My cousin has a bigger version (similar to 1/60 scale gundam).
   
6. Baxinger - part die-cast metal part plastic. This is the only robot anime that I never watched. It's from the series called Ginga Reppuu Baxinger. Height at 1/100 scale Gundam.
   
7. God Sigma - part die-cast metal part plastic (height similar to 1/60 scale Gundam). Same as Baxinger, I never watched the series. It's from Space Emperor God Sigma.
   

If I have the resources (money of course), I would try to collect the toys of the anime that I have watched. But when I look at the Valkyrie produced, it doesn't look nice at all. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, the nose tip of the jet was not that long when it was in battroid mode. Apart from Valkyrie, I would certainly wish to get a Godmars (if extra, I'd get Vikung-fu).

Toyota Isis 2005

Early this month, I booked a Toyota Isis version 2005 from Mofaz. It's a CBU unit directly imported from Japan. It is a very basic model - 1 passenger side power door, no sun roof, no security alarm, no rear A/C, no ionizer, no front-rear sensor; but it has most of the important features - ABS, Driver seat and passenger seat SRS airbag, side airbag (probably), Super ECT (Electronic Controlled Transmission) automatic transmission, and VVT-i engine.

I drove it for about 1 week. Apart from 1 of the fog lamp is not functioning, the rest are working fine. I must admit that it's not a very exciting car because it cannot accelerate from 0 - 100 KM/H within a few seconds. Despite that, it has been a very versatile car and very fuel economic because with 3 quarter of fuel, this car can go for about 550 KM. It's interesting to know that the faster you drive, the more miles you will gain.

It's interesting to know that the difference between this Isis with the local assembled MPV is that the Isis has electronic circuitry that helps to conserve energy, while the local assambled MPV does not have this feature. I might be wrong, but from the specification that I found on the local assambled Toyota Avanza and Toyota Innova, I couldn't see such feature being mentioned at all.

The other things about Isis is because it is built in Japan, thus it needs to comply with the Japan's measurement of fuel consumption and gas emission to protect the environment. With that in mind, they need to produce a car that use lesser fuel, emit lesser gas, but at the same time could more power and more miles. This is something that we should learn from.

Gundam F-91 - Harrison's Custom Colour

Just finished building the Harrison's custom F-91 Gundam F91. For this GUNPLA, I used a different spray paint - Navy Blue for the most of the body. I won't be able to get the necessary colour 'coz I don't have a spray gun and a compressor that could spray the paint evenly. So I resorted to find a suitable colour that could match the original colour scheme. It turns out very well.

I didn't use the provided decals for the yellow stripe; instead I spray the yellow color onto the parts that would have yellow strip, then I cut the masking tape to the size of the strip, tape it onto the necessary location, then spray the navy blue.

This GUNPLA is way cooler as compare to the original F91 mostly because of the colour scheme and the extra part for the right arm.

Next on the list:

1. X-1 Crossbone Gundam - Started to work on this GUNPLA.
2. Hi-Nu Gundam
3. Strike Freedom Gundam
4. Strike Noir

Favourite songs of the past...

I still remember that the first time I listened to Japanese music was when in this classic anime Macross - the opening sequence. Back then, there's not much resources/material related to Japanese music, until in the late 90's where the "Japan Wind" (literally translated from Chinese, it means the J-Pop wave) started to hit the scene. That's when I started to hear Chage & Aska songs on Radio 5, which is Yah! Yah! Yah! Then, there's this Astro satelite television broadcast started the service, which I was able to watch NHK Pop Jam every saturday night before I moved to KL.

Back in those days - late 90's and early 00's, I've listened to numerous good Japanese songs from some well known singers/bands, of which some of them have not become that active anymore due to the music trend that slowly move away towards hardy rock? Or more radical? I don't really know, 'coz I haven't been following the scene for a long time.

Now, I was actually able to watch some of the music video on YouTube, which I really enjoy. So, who are the singers and what are their songs that I listening to? They are:

1. Chage & Aska -
(all time favourite #1)- You're Free, Yah! Yah! Yah!, On Your Mark (nice music video by the famous animation producer of Chobit Studio)

2. Glay -
(all time favourite #2 - I enjoyed to watch their live performance) - Mermaid, Scream, Survival, Winter Again, and many more

3. Luna Sea -
Gravity, Storm

4. TM Revolution (This guy is really unique when it comes to live performance, but no doubt that he's a really good singer) -
Hot Limit, Vestige, Thunderbird, Burnin' Christmas, Heart of Sword, and many more

5. Da Pump -
Feelin' Good it's Paradise, Raphsody in Blue, Corazon, Cray Beat Goes On, If, Dragon Screamer

6. Fukuyama Masaharu (This is another talented musician) -
Heart, Squall, Sakura Kaza (properly wrong)

7. Toshinobu Kubota (This guy is good, and he's one of the pioneer in R & B Japan) -
Lalala Love Song (all time favourite), AAAAhh!!!

8. SMAP (Basically, I don't think that they're that good, but they do have some nice song) -
Yozorano Mukou (The only song that I would say worth to listen over and over again from them - in my case)

The above were the one with quite a lot of music video to watch. The list could continue on and on. It's really hard to get the japanese CD distributed by local record company nowadays, 'coz the selling is not really that good due to the wide spread of free resources through Internet.

But apart from the above, I would say some theme songs from the past animation are worth to listen as well, such as the one from Yu! Yu! Hakusho!. There's a band called JAM Project that formed in Japan, of which they're mainly composing music for anime and game, most notably Super Robot War series. Their style are the old fashion super robot spirit type. It's worth to listen.

Super Robot War Original Generation on Play Station 2

Super Robot War is a game created by Banpresto, a game division of Bandai Namco. It is a very famous game in Japan and certain parts of the world due to it's story line that involves different mecha ranging from Mazinger Z era till the latest Gundam series. In each Super Robot War, the original character created as the main protagonist for the game can be either piloting a super robot or a real robot.

Super Robot War Original Generation is specially created to feature all original character from Super Robot Wars game. So, in the game we'll be able to see Kyosuke Nanbu, Ryusei Date, Zengar Zonbolt, etc gathered together to fight against alien invaders in order to protect earth. The OG (Original Generation) for Play Station 2 is a combination of OG 1 and OG 2 created for Gameboy Advance with extra scene.

I finished playing OG 1, and right now in the progress of playing OG 2. This game supposed to be rolled last year, but due to some reason it isn't released until late June. It has good graphics and good storyline as well. And, it is much harder to play against certain series (alpha especially).

Waiting to complete and restart the playing in order to make all my unit powerful.

Gundam F-91

Just finished building F-91 last week. It is indeed impressive for Bandai to come out with this kit that it doesn't require any polycap for the joint. However, because I too used to the polycap, I have to be extra careful with this kit, 'coz spraying at the joint means trouble. Because it is completely polycap-less, therefore the joints are made tighter than the usual polycap joint. Thus, because of this, I broke the right hand's joint, making it a handicapped F-91. So I have no choice but to modify the joint a bit in order to stick the hand back.

Even thought so, I still have another F-91 kit awaiting me - F-91 custom colouring from Crossbone Gundam series. I left with the outer layer of which I still hasn't started yet.

Visit to Akihabara & MP-B01 King Exkaiser

I've visited Japan early June when I'm on my way back from USA. It's a good experience to visit Japan to see the land of the rising sun. Overall, the rhythm of life over here is way much faster as compare to USA, and Malaysia. One could see that almost every street and every place near Tokyo is full with people walking very fast. The people here are very helpful, even though they don't talk good English or don't even know how to speak English at all. I'm amazed with their innovative in using technology to help them to improve their daily living - order foot in the restaurant through the use of vending machine, cohesive subway system, precision in doing things that they do, and subway ticketing machine that could receive few coins at the same time.

Managed to visit Akihabara as well. In deed that it is as describe by a lot of people, that it's a place full with electronic items and animation related items (Gunpla :D). I managed to pick up a Masterpiece Brave Exkaiser (at 50% discount). It's not as tall as I would expect it to be, but it's really nice in the aspect of the transformation, articulation, and playability. Could see that Takara has put in a lot of effort in coming out with this Masterpiece (even though it's made in China).

MG 100th - Turn A Gundam

Read from aeug.blogspot.com about the MG 100 Gunpla, which is confirmed to be Turn A Gundam. As expected, there's kinda mix opinion regarding this released. I do remember when I first saw Turn A gundam, I don't really like it at all due to the reason that it's not really a Gundam at all. At first I thought "why would a Japanese came out with such design?" only then I found out that the designer of this MS is neither Kunio Okawara nor Katoki Hajime; it's actually a person called Syd Mead, whom designed the space craft in Star Trek.

Right now the prototype has not been produced yet, but it shall be based between this design and the 1/100 scale Turn A kit. I bought Turn A Gundam, which is a non-scale version, with some heavy metal parts, produced by Bandai, made in China, and is very flimsy. It's not that bad looking after all.

I remembered reading this article in the Malaysia's Comic Weekly back in 1999, that Turn A Gundam is supposed to be the last Gundam. Yes, the last Gundam that concludes all the Gundam saga from UC timeline up until After War Gundam X. That's why it's called Turn A, which Turn A is a symbol like Omega that has the meaning of EVERYTHING. In the prelude to Turn A first episode (episode - 0, I think) Tomino did mentioned that the reason for them to have Syd Mead to design the MS is because they needed some one who can design something that could represents all, and with futuristic design. Probably it's really is futuristic, like in the real-world, that most futuristic cars doesn't really look nice at all and some people still prefer old generic design. So, it's reasonable for Bandai to produce this Turn A as the 100th MG, which Turn A actually represented ALL Gundam. Well, at least, I would say that Turn A is a better choice in another angle. Imagine that Bandai trying to make the 100th MG a Turn X Gundam! The uproar would be even worst!!! 'Coz Turn-X does not resemble a Gundam at all!!!

Turn-X huh... Sounds like Turn A represented RX-78, which Turn-X represented X Gundam... It does sounds like the conclusion of all the past Gundam saga. I wonder will the same thing happened for the Seed Series?

MG 1/100 RX-93-2 Hi-Nu Gundam

Recently I've just purchased a Hi-Nu Gundam MG. The box art is not as impressive as the Strike Freedom Full Burst Mode. The overall size of the box is almost identical to Srike Freedom Full Burst Mode. Judging from the content, it seems that the joints are not using polycap anymore. It gives me an idea that I need to be careful when I'm constructing this model, otherwise it might end up like my F91, which I've broken the joint that join the palm with the arm (even though I've fixed it, it will not be able to move like it used to be).

Speaking of F91, because I've broken the hand, therefore I need to purchase another F91 in order to see it in perfect condition. So I bought the other version of Blue F91 from the Crossbone Gundam universe. I thought of not fixing the Blue F91 because I wanted only the joint; but after much consideration, I might as well just fix the F91 now and fix the Blue F91 later, so that the Blue F91 could accompany my Crossbone Gundam X11 :D :D :D

Gentoo Linux - Important command

It's a very tedious work to ensure Gentoo Linux to be up-to-date with the latest distribution. The module/packages sometime will collide with each other, causing the update process take a much longer time to finish. But I can't deny that fact that in comparison with Fedora, Gentoo Linux does not give me problem like software compatibility issue.

When I'm doing the update for Gentoo, I found out that there are 2 importants commands that need to be executed before running the updated software. These commands are as follow.

1. env-update
2. source /etc/profile

I was wondering the other day over the reason of not able to emerge the necessary driver when I'm updating Xorg-X11 even though I've specified the necessary information inside /etc/make.conf and doing a deep update. After I performed the above commands, it seems to be able to install the necessary drivers into the system.

The other note on the latest Gentoo Linux, is that once the portage tree has been sync with the latest version, there will be possibility that updating certain software such as the Xorg X11 will be blocked by previous old version, which will display a wrong version number (Like mine, I have 6.8.2 installed, but it shows that version 6.9 is blocking). Probably the reason is because I've not been updating the system frequently to the latest portage, thus such problem will happened?

MG 1/100 Strike Freedom Full Burst Mode

I've got my hands on the Strike Freedom Full Burst Mode that I've ordered from a local hobby shop. The box art is nice. The length of the box is as long as my PG Strike but the height is lower by about 40%. It comes together with a poster (featuring Strike Freedom & Destiny), a booklet in Japanese explaining the design of Strike Freedom, instruction manual, MG 1/100 Strike Freedom normal version, plus the extra part for the dragoon and special gold plated parts.

The gold plated parts do not stand out as I would expect it to be for the gold colour doesn't really shine out. The special stand is similar to my Legend Gundam stand. I saw from the latest special 1/100 Seed Destiny edition, that the special stands they used to hold the 2 Gundams are exactly the same with mine and the stands are attached together. Thus, it makes me wonder whether the 2 stands can join together to allow both Strike Freedom and Legend to pose for a showdown.

Update on Gunpla Building & Wish List :D

1/100 Legend Gundam - Construction done

MG 1/100 F91 Gundam F91 - Construction in progress

MG 1/100 Crossbone Gundam X1 - Pending

MG 1/100 Strike Freedom - Pending

Wish List

MG 1/100 Hi-Nu2 Gundam (Saw this in XL Shop last week. The box size is exactly the same as Strike Freedom full burst mode)

MG 1/100 Strike Noir (I'm surprised to know that the frame of Strike Noir is based on Strike Freedom. I thought that Bandai is going to use the frame of Aile Strike as a base. But if I'm going to get Strike, I would get the I.W.S.P. Strike instead because the frame of this version is revised)

Trip to United Kingdom

I went to UK to visit my sister and my brother-in-law during Chinese New Year. During the stay, I was able to visit the Manchester United stadium Old Trafford together with my brother-in-law. It was a great experience to learn about the operation during match day, the history of Manchester United, and to get a home jersey with Henrik Larsson name and number during his loan at Old Trafford.

I was able to visit Edinburgh, Scotland as well. Edinburgh is a nice place to visit. It's a town with a castle surrounded by old buildings heavily influenced by Greek, nice landscape, and friendly people. I would love to go there during summer again sometime in the future where the temperature would not be that cold (it was 7 degree C when I was there).

Overall, it's a great experience and I would love to go back again for a holiday.

1/100 Infinite Justice UP

I'm not really good at writing a review for my kit because I don't really have enough time to sit down and do research about it. So, here's a little summary of this kit.

Due to the reason that I have to work and attend to certain activities during the weekend, I haven't been able to find time to finish off the work on building this kit until the long weekend from the last Saturday of the year 2006 to Tuesday January 2007.

Unfortunately, I still haven't purchase my new Lumix yet because of some financial difficulties at the moment. Therefore, I can only describe it by word. I changed the original colour scheme to metallic red, silver, light gun metal, gold, and lavender. I replaced the yellow part with Gold, and the green line on the torso with silver. IMFO, the green line on the torso doesn't blend well with the rest of the colour.

Overall, the proportion of the body is much better as compare to Destiny and Strike Freedom, and it's slimmer. The shield is bigger as compare to the original animation. As for the posability, it has better and wider joint movement, thus allowing it to pose more action as compare to Destiny and Strike Freedom but lesser in comparison with the MG kit. It is able to stand still with the Fatum lifter attached. The only problem that I have with this kit is the panzer atteched to the shield, which I need to use force to insert it into the shield. Plus, I lost the included pvc wire that used to attach the panzer with the shield for the display action. Fortunately, I can still find a replacement for it by using the one that comes with my 1/100 Blitz Gundam.

Next on the list would be:

1. Finishing the DRAGOON weapon pack to finalize my 1/100 Legend Gundam
2. Building MG 1/100 F91 Gundam F91
3. Building MG 1/100 Crossbone Gundam X1
4. Waiting to collect pre-ordered MG 1/100 Strike Freedom Full Burst Mode
5. Re-building 1/60 F91 Gundam F91 (produced in the year 1991. A gift from my friend)