Gundam Models Discussion Thread

[ZeroXSEED]

Originally Posted by Aurelis

Oh yes. The Kampfer looks like a nice catch but I'd like the Build Fighter version too

<Bandai>
Just buy the original Kampfer, then buy the Amazing Booster
</Bandai>

EDIT:

Sasuga Bandai, too bad you have shitty international market

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Those weapons could easily worth 300-500 yen each, and you get one for free for each HG you bought

[Aurelis]

I'm liking that Set C beam rifle and Set F Gattling Gun.

[helois]

Spoiler for image:

i feel the Wing Fenice is with all the parts for a complete wing..

that with Meteor Hopper will be a lot of customization!


hint: like two wing fenice+2 meteor hopper: one four dual winged(wing and side booster of the hopper) speed mod using the who lances as weapons(maybe this at top of shield) and another ground based with two weels,shields and double cannon on the shoulders..



i need to move on the HG Delta Kai..

[firefox]

Originally Posted by helois

Spoiler for image:

i feel the Wing Fenice is with all the parts for a complete wing..

that with Meteor Hopper will be a lot of customization!


hint: like two wing fenice+2 meteor hopper: one four dual winged(wing and side booster of the hopper) speed mod using the who lances as weapons(maybe this at top of shield) and another ground based with two weels,shields and double cannon on the shoulders..

That's a very interesting custom

IO broke yesterday and bought bearguy III, it reminds me of my ex in angry mode, might have it beaten to death by some gundams .......

[Knight_SV]

though Proto Zero is a nice kit, but there some flaw that i complained the most. was it wings and the movable joint between backpack and the wing. the wing really lack movement and too small. overall still a very good kit.
Now i'm going to build the kits that i havent built since 2010 lol

[Arze]

Originally Posted by ZeroXSEED

I'm not into UC much, unfortunately, AU-fag and all.

Zanspine is the only unit I'm familiar with (it's non-canon), Zanscare and their freaky design is good, but the colorings are horrible.

Neo Zeon unit though.... they're awesome. Even the Gearas are bling.

Oh, so that is the name of the unit I saw some time ago as a SD gashapon in a anime event, it looked cool, but I didn't had any idea where it was from.

[Appel]

I just realized that I never really told you guys what I think about the PG Strike Freedom!^^
And while I did buy a knock-off I don't really think that has an impact on what I think about the kit.

First of all, the construction:
A little boring really. Nothing truly spectacular. It was essentially like building a Master Grade and didn't feel like I was building something truly amazing. But it was a good build because it went without any major problems.
The backpack was awful to build though... When you finished the suit itself you are just halfway done! And everything just repeats over and over again... I started to feel a little stupid while building the wings and DRAGOONs :P
Building a PG really doesn't seem to be that different from building a MG. There are just more pieces and more sub-sections involved in the assembly. That's it. For example, the torso of a MG is usually just once center piece with an abdominal joint and you wrap the armor around that.
The torso of the PG Strike Freedom has 4 sections that you need to build. One center section with the cockpit inside, two sections that connect to the side that contain the connection to the arms and the abdominal joint with the connector to the waist is it's own section as well.
That is essentially where all the extra pieces go. You just build more individual stull.
A PG isn't all that difficult to build at all. If you have built something like the MG Sinanju you can easily build a PG as well.


Articulation is great. Everything bends in a way to allow nice poses. Also, nothing really pops off while you are moving something. Even though it is a giant, heavy monster of a model everything holds together very well.
The only thing that kind of gets in the way of posability is the giant backpack, but you can easily fix that by taking the backpack off, posing the suit and the pack seperately and then connecting them both to the base. And since taking the backpack off and putting it back on is no problem at all this really is an easy way to pose the kit.


Then there are the looks of the kit... It's impressive, to say the least.
The suit itself is a little plain. It pretty much looks like the MG with a little more details here and there, especially in the legs.
But while the backpack was a chore to build it certainly does look incredible. Gold everywhere when you pop out the DRAGOONs and the wingspan is massive.
You should definitely invest in some gold paint though. The kit looks SO much better when the exposed frame pieces are all painted! Out of the box the pieces that didn't get any paint from Bandai (or in my case from Daban) just look awful. It's not gold, it's this ugly dark orange and it just looks weird together with the plated pieces.


All in all I can only recommend this kit for the looks :P I am glad that I bought it as a knock off and not as the original because this way the build was a little more challenging here and there and I honestly think that paying 300 to 350 bucks for this kit is too much. For that price to make sense you have to be a huge fan of the suit or a PG collector.

[Arze]

Thanks for your thoughts Appel, yes I’m aware that it is just a big MG but I really want to get that kit sometime in the future.
If you had posted those build pictures a bit earlier, probably my own presents for this Christmas would have been a bit different.

But on a different matter, there is something I would like to ask.
What do you guys think about 3d printers and how do you believe it will affect the gunpla market?

I ask this because some weeks ago I came across a 3d printer in an electronics store, it’s too expensive at the moment (2000€) but I believe in one or two years we are going to see printers being sold at around 300€ in normal stores.

But I don’t believe it will make the gunplas go extinct when these printers reach the mass market.
But I’m aware the possibilities of sharing the blueprint of models thru the web will affect the market somehow.

What I believe is that garage conversion kits will have a hard time dealing with this . And it is also likely that the 3d printers will kill the bandai online exclusives. It no longer will be viable to sell a remold just by changing two or three pieces.
I know there are people that prefer OOB, but it easy to swap the color on these printers so that won’t be a problem.

Now think about kits like X-3, tallgese 2, astray noir, normal astray, etc. It will be far easier to print the needed parts that buying those kits.

I’m really looking forward to get my hands on a 3d printer, as soon the price becomes more affordable I’m definitely going to get one. And with that I no longer will have to pray to Bandai to release less popular variants.

[ZeroXSEED]

Originally Posted by Arze

But on a different matter, there is something I would like to ask.
What do you guys think about 3d printers and how do you believe it will affect the gunpla market?

I ask this because some weeks ago I came across a 3d printer in an electronics store, it’s too expensive at the moment (2000€) but I believe in one or two years we are going to see printers being sold at around 300€ in normal stores.

But I don’t believe it will make the gunplas go extinct when these printers reach the mass market.
But I’m aware the possibilities of sharing the blueprint of models thru the web will affect the market somehow.

What I believe is that garage conversion kits will have a hard time dealing with this . And it is also likely that the 3d printers will kill the bandai online exclusives. It no longer will be viable to sell a remold just by changing two or three pieces.
I know there are people that prefer OOB, but it easy to swap the color on these printers so that won’t be a problem.

Now think about kits like X-3, tallgese 2, astray noir, normal astray, etc. It will be far easier to print the needed parts that buying those kits.

I’m really looking forward to get my hands on a 3d printer, as soon the price becomes more affordable I’m definitely going to get one. And with that I no longer will have to pray to Bandai to release less popular variants.

I dunno, 3d printer is in the hype for... how many years?

I can't really imagine industry being dead, honestly, at worst it'll turn into niche expensive market for obsessed fans and all that. People who want to pay thousand of dollars for resin gunpla exist even today, and they will exist in the future.

Besides, as much as I hate bandai, there's also issue of quality control.

Such scenario will come in many-many years, probably 10-15 years at best.

[Arze]

Originally Posted by ZeroXSEED

I dunno, 3d printer is in the hype for... how many years?

I can't really imagine industry being dead, honestly, at worst it'll turn into niche expensive market for obsessed fans and all that. People who want to pay thousand of dollars for resin gunpla exist even today, and they will exist in the future.

Besides, as much as I hate bandai, there's also issue of quality control.

Such scenario will come in many-many years, probably 10-15 years at best.

I agree with you, I also believe that resin kits will continue to exist, or probably will become better, since the sculptor can print some parts and build the shape from there

But from what I’m aware an affordable printer won’t be able to print an inner frame (printed plastic only as the 30% of the normal strength), so it will be mostly used for simple conversions.

I’m looking at the price of 3d printers for about 6 years now, and they are steadily dropping, so it won’t take long to reach mass market, although the quality may not be perfect.
But as the things get better I’m sure there will be people with amazing talent that will rival bandai engineering.

But ZeroXSEED, if you had the possibility to print the needed parts to make a conversion, what kit would you choose?
For me I don’t know, but probably I would have tried to make gale strike RM

[ZeroXSEED]

Originally Posted by Arze

I agree with you, I also believe that resin kits will continue to exist, or probably will become better, since the sculptor can print some parts and build the shape from there

This

Originally Posted by Arze

But from what I’m aware an affordable printer won’t be able to print an inner frame (printed plastic only as the 30% of the normal strength), so it will be mostly used for simple conversions.

Haven't you heard? Plastic that have similar ultimate strength as steel do exist now.

Originally Posted by Arze

I’m looking at the price of 3d printers for about 6 years now, and they are steadily dropping, so it won’t take long to reach mass market, although the quality may not be perfect.
But as the things get better I’m sure there will be people with amazing talent that will rival bandai engineering.

Yeah, that's possible.

Originally Posted by Arze

But ZeroXSEED, if you had the possibility to print the needed parts to make a conversion, what kit would you choose?
For me I don’t know, but probably I would have tried to make gale strike RM

No joke, rather than conversion I'll probably print tons of Sky grasper, Moebius, and hangar set.

But if it has to be conversion, Raphael Dominion, as well as various mod featured in the magazines.

[Appel]

I don't think 3D printing will have any kind of effect on Bandai's Gunpla sales.

First of all, printing 3D stuff is expensive. I am not even talking about the printer itself, I am talking about the printing materials. A new cartridge of raw material costs coughly 80 bucks as far as I know. And I have no idea how long a cartridge like that would even last.

Then there is the fact that these printers aren't as accurate as Bandai's molding process. These printers always create very rough surfaces. So you would have to invest a LOT of time into making each piece look good and you can forget about molding very small pieces.

The prototypes that Bandai makes are created with extremely expensive and highly advanced machines, there is no way we are gonna have printers with capabilities like that any time soon.

The only thing I can see a use for would be for modifying existing models. Want to turn your MG Exia into the R2? Go to the internet, download the files (because I am sure that a Gunpla community would form around this where people share their projects), print them, paint them and put them on your model.

[ZeroXSEED]

Originally Posted by Appel

The only thing I can see a use for would be for modifying existing models. Want to turn your MG Exia into the R2? Go to the internet, download the files (because I am sure that a Gunpla community would form around this where people share their projects), print them, paint them and put them on your model.

Exactly what he meant

Also, the cartridge consumption can be measured by the volume required, but to make gunpla is a lot more than to create tabletop minis

[Aurelis]

I briefly studied 3D printing and while the possibilities sounds amazing, like being able to print parts and even moveable frames, the finished product is far from perfect Gunpla material.

The way the layers or particles are bonded means that sanding is going to be a pain due to the harder material and aforementioned rough surface. And as it is, printer and material cost is high. Not to mention the type of blueprint which needs to be of a specific file type and designed such that it allows 3D printing, such as the layering and ensuring the details don't cause the piece to collapse in itself.

If it does finally work, it'll be a wonderful master key to the Gunpla world as you can create any suits, parts and design that you wish. Probably the best bit would be using coloured materials so that you don't even need to paint or cut, requiring just assembly. 1 printer probably could buy me a 100 HGUC though

About the PG review, I agree in the sense that the different grade doesn't really mean anything once you've at least built a HG cause there's nothing special required. Cut part from sprue and assemble. Not like it requires glue, melting or special tools. I say this cause a friend of mine made a PG Strike Freedom and he had previously only did a HG Seed Justice. Granted his PG looks quite sad with no panel lines and with nubs. Making a low grade look like it's higher grade, now THAT is difficult.

Still that PG of Appel looks like the desirable centerpiece and I'll be honest in saying that I've never seen a PG permanently in a pose that maximises its articulation. They're best standing there and looking intimidating.

[Appel]

Originally Posted by Aurelis

I'll be honest in saying that I've never seen a PG permanently in a pose that maximises its articulation. They're best standing there and looking intimidating.

That may be because most PGs are not meant to be put on a stand. The only PGs that you can put on an action base are the Strike, the OO and the Strike Freedom.
Every other PG can not be put on a stand without modifications.
And as it is with almost all Gunpla kits, you just can't do a whole lot with ground poses...

[Aurelis]

Originally Posted by Appel

That may be because most PGs are not meant to be put on a stand. The only PGs that you can put on an action base are the Strike, the OO and the Strike Freedom.
Every other PG can not be put on a stand without modifications.
And as it is with almost all Gunpla kits, you just can't do a whole lot with ground poses...

I'd imagine risking loose limbs due to weight issue would be a factor too

Just wondering, will you look into panel lining or decaling that Strike Freedom?

[ZeroXSEED]

Yeah, the joint burden would be massive on that kit

Speaking of which, I really disappointed at gundam marker, so I use rotring pen instead.

[Shinobi2013]

The Gold Gundam Marker is dissapointing, sure it looks shiny if it's newly applied but it will become duller when it ages just around few weeks or lesser.

[Chiu_fan]

Finally got to finish my MG Jesta!

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[Skye629]

Originally Posted by ZeroXSEED

Yeah, the joint burden would be massive on that kit

Speaking of which, I really disappointed at gundam marker, so I use rotring pen instead.

What pen? Im always in the market for new workarounds

Originally Posted by Shinobi2013

The Gold Gundam Marker is dissapointing, sure it looks shiny if it's newly applied but it will become duller when it ages just around few weeks or lesser.

Mine is a POS, it comes out brown and lumpy.......not too sure whats up with that

I shake it for a good 5 minutes straight before using and it still comes out like that