Bandai 1/100 MG MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam Version 2.0

This can be considered as the last kit that I finished for the year 2011. This is the upgraded version of the previous MG 1/100 Zeta Gundam released back in the 90's. The upgrade to the previous version includes a much better inner frame & transformation gimmick, plus a better proportion (in my opinion) and better articulation, esp. the waist.



What I did with this kit, is my usual out of the box build with the original color scheme, but with some minor experiment in detail up for this is the first time I used metal parts but only in the mega beam launcher, and also my second try on custom decal instead of using the included decal because the decal included with the kit is the marking decal (sticker type) and the dry transfer decal, which I'd personally prefer water-slide.











The posing of this kit is advised and done by a fellow modeller that I knew in Zero-G forum, who's a very good modeller and has a great sense of vision in creativity. I did planned to use this kit to enter into this year GBWC 2011 Malaysia together with the MK-II Gundam that I did previously in a diorama set piece. The result is like in the following photo.



It is not easy to do a diorama because of the sense of space and also the message that I tried to deliver to the viewers. Plus, there's something really bad happened to this set because of the internal heat cause by the spot light that's causing the base to wobble. Realized it too late, but at least gained experience that next time I'll need to do more planning.

After this year competition, I'd try to come out with a work that's cater for the competition because I usually only do out of the box build, of which it's not going to go any further in the competition due to the high standard that's been set by all previous modellers that joined the competition. Plus, I don't believe that standard should be compromised at all cost, so I'll try to step it up this time to see how far I could go. The coming build for 2012 shall be my first (and hopefully the last) to be competitive in modelling, I hope...

Bandai 1/100 MG RX-178 Gundam MK-II Ver. 2.0

Actually I've finished building this kit 2 months back, but I haven't got the time to post it. This kit was entered for the ZeroGunz Community Female Fatale group build, which has stated that it has to be an out of the box build, which is exactly my cup of tea. Even though it is only out of the box build, I tried to improve on my modelling skill by trying to enhance the detail on this kit.



First of all, the thing that I tried to do is to add extra details to it. After some thoughts and consideration by looking at the kit itself, I find that it doesn't need much detailing to added because by itself alone it has a lot of details already with all those nicely done details on the armor itself. With that, I decided to only add a few extra panel lines that would enhance the detail a little bit, and also scribed existing mold mark & panel lines on the armor to sharpen the overall image.

The other things that I did was using the Kotobukiya detailing parts to replace the details of the armor because those details are not really molded nicely due to the parting line. I've tried to fill in the underneath of the front skirt armor as well with epoxy putty followed by some detailing with pla-plate. Then, due to the reason that there's a lot of places where the internal armor would be exposed, I painted the inside of each armor pieces with the frame color. Lastly, since I couldn't get the Bandai water slide decal for this kit, I tried to use custom type water slide decal that I bought from a local hobby workshop for most of the kit, and also using some of the water slide decal of the old version kit, which is also from Bandai, for the marking on the shoulder.

Without further ado, here are some of the pictures that I took. I retake the following pictures for the group build organizer to create a photo booklet for all the completed kits.





















Overall I'm quite happy with it. I must confess that without decal, a Gundam would indeed looks pretty dull, which is what happened with my previous Wing Gundam TV ver. build, which I should have done better with it. I'll be going to enter this kit for this year Gunpla Builder World Cup 2011, which it is going to be part of a MS deck diorama with my latest build, the MG 1/100 Zeta Gundam Ver. 2.0, which will be revealed after I'm done with the building of the whole diorama.

Bandai MG 1/100 Wing Gundam TV Ver

Yes, another Wing Gundam. I bought this because its mechanical gimmick. I must say that it's way much better as compare to Ver. Ka, but too bad Bandai didn't really remake the Ver. Ka. with a better frame.

This is the build that I used to join in the ZeroGunz forum Weathering versus Metallic Group Build, of which the purpose is to learn something that has never been done before. I chose to join the weathering side because I never really did weathering before, so this is considered as my first attempt in doing it. This is where I learned how to do the battle damage, washing and dry brushing. Enough talking, let's see the picture instead.

Bandai MG 1/100 Wing Gundam Ver. Ka.

The Wing Gundam Ver. Ka., as its name implied, is a design by non other than Katoki Hajime sensei (Japanese word for teacher). I'm a big fan of the Wing series designed by him, and since Bandai and Gundam Ace are re-introducing this series anew, the rest of the redesigned Wing series protagonists' Gundams are going to be produced as well.

This particular MG Wing Ver. Ka was produced by Bandai back in 2003, thus therefore it is not as advanced as the latest MG, but still I really like it. There are quite a lot of works to be done on this one, and I've also being trying to apply a few tricks that I tried to learn, i.e. scribing extra panel lines. Without further ado, here are some of the snapshots of this finished kit.







I must admit that this is not an easy kit to do because it has quite a number of parting lines that need to be dealt with. Plus, the colourful wings are the other difficult parts to deal with because there are lot's of masking need to be done in order to get the the parts coloured. This is where all the funs began because this is the first time I tried to do part separation, of which it is quite a success.

The other difficult task is the application of water slide decal. Since this is Katoki designed mech, and Katoki has a tendency to design really nice marking (in huge volume), it took me quite a while to apply those decals in various places. Next time I'd need to think twice before working on a Katoki designed mech.