The GBWC Fallout

I was tempted to call this the GBWC Fallout 76, felt topical at the time. Anyway enough of that stupid joke. I've been wanting to write this since I had heard what has been going on with GBWC 2018 in the US. I feel like there is a lot more to this than just that and I felt like I wanted to address that as best I could, now a lot of this controversy is centered around the winner of the US GBWC, GundamNerd (congrats by the way), but I wanted to provide some more general advice to the Gundam community as a whole.

One of my favourite lines to come out of the Build Fighters series was, "Gunpla is Freedom!". I would expand that to, "Mechas are Freedom!". Any builder/designer should be able to go as far as they want to go and it should be okay for anyone else to have a critical or dissenting opinion. I personally, have a lot of fun building and modding kits to match my own tastes and I'll be the first to admit that my tastes don't necessarily line up with what others like. You take the criticisms with a grain of salt, some are constructive and will help you to improve your craft and some are just chaff.

This is some of my handiwork, it's a MG Zeta Plus that I completed earlier this year it is probably my best work to date and at the same time I can admit that it is still pretty rough. It certainly isn't cannon and it is very much built to my own tastes, I have gotten plenty of both flak and compliments in person and on the internet for it.

To GundamNerd specifically: I haven't actually taken a look at the the entries to the GBWC yet (with the sole exception of ED's Saisei) and I haven't seen what was said about your work on the Elitist Gundam Group, and frankly at this point its irrelevant. To have an entire group taken down for "hate speech" is a major over-reaction, and while you may not be directly responsible for for all of the reports, but make no mistake you are responsible for this. Growing a community is no trivial thing and destroying one on a whim or because one person hurt your feelings, I think most will agree that is a gross overstep. Furthermore you are responsible for destroying a very valuable resource in advice and information for your fellow gunpla builders.

To Everyone: Once more, I'm merely suggesting that it's okay to have an opinion even to be personally invested in something but you don't need to be personally offended by every single dissenting opinion. One last tidbit of advice just leave him alone, don't add fuel to the fire, don't harass or troll, just leave him be.

CAMS 2018

Late last month I attended a local hobby show, the Capital Area Modelers Society 30th Annual Spring Classic Scale Model Show.

I was still a little bit disappointed by the lack of other sci-fi entries this year, they were few and far between. I think my continued harassment of new or maybe newer Gunpla builders for next year. I think it will be a good trend.

So like the previous years, I took four kits with me. Three of which were my IBO matched set, the first of which was my Hyakuri that I originally built for StriderPrime's contest last summer. I would have liked to do some sort of dio presentation with all three of them together but I ran short on time as most people often do with contests.

The second of my entries was my Gusion Rebake, that I constructed as a speed build at Gundam Eclipse. Pretty pleased with it for a 47.5 hour build.

My third entry and last of my matched set was my Kimaris Trooper, that I built for the same speed build at Gundam Eclipse, this one ran a little slower than the first one at 56 hours from start to finish.

Finally, my fourth entry into the show was my Zeta Plus S1, that I originally built for the Gunpla Builder's Association Cannon Fodder Contest, still pretty pleased with this kit overall, and it earned me a bronze metal in the Sci-Fi category.

MG Destiny the Demon WIP #2

Progress on the scaled armour front and a big sword. Will only be doing the scales on the right arm and I'm working at modding the destiny's shield a little bit too.

MG Destiny the Demon WIP #1

So I've been working at this for the last week, I've kind of given myself a due date of May 24th, because I would really like to take this one to a hobby show that following weekend.

That said I've got some plans for this one, I've grown to dislike the massive backpack that is so common in SEED so I'm going without wings for this one and I'd like change the proportions a little bit here and there. I'm getting a little bit of inspiration from the Barbatos/Demon fan-art variation of the Destiny that floats around all the time.

So Destiny has clown shoes, so I chopped them 3 mm shorter and I intend to add some claws to wrap up the feet. From there I would like to extend the fore-arms by a little bit. I've had it in may head that I would try doing scaled armour again as well.

Completed Kits #27: MG Zeta Plus S1

So this is my MG Zeta Plus S1, I built this for the Gunpla Builder's Association 2018 Cannon Fodder Contest. So the theme was quite naturally to build a grunt or mass production suit, I settled on building the MG Zeta Plus A1 Test Colours literally because it was the only MP suit that I hadn't snapped yet. For my build, I have a serious case of MG GM Sniper II envy so i tried to style it after that, with a few changes to make it fit the Zeta Plus a little better and using some spare bits from the S-Gundam.

I've added front skirts and new side skirts since I didn't particularly like the beam rifle side skirts from before. I've changed up the main camera and v-fin assembly on the Zeta Plus. I've been tweaked the tail fin as well, I've cut a gap and added some movable fins on the tail.

Removed the seam lines on the rifle. The binders I've added a few extra wing attachments with laptop screws and magnets and a bit of 90 deg angled pla-plate to keep it up right.

Specifically scratch built a shield since the nose cone doesn't make sense when it doesn't transform and I wanted to bulk up the rifle a little bit too, because it feels a little 2 dimensional. I've added a guard over the hand.

So I've added some pla plate to the chest transformation parts so the head won't move down anymore. Removed the seam line across the side of the chest and then pla plated for good measure.

Removed the seam lines from the head and the face plate and added some fins to the head to give it a more aggressive look. Scribed some new lines mostly Danmo along the edges and pla-plated the shoulders. Removed the seam from the funny leg vents. Replaced the hoses on the backs of the legs with pistons.

For paint I used Vallejo Signal Blue, Sky Blue, Ferrari Red, Gunmetal Grey, Duraluminium, Jet Exhaust, Dark Grey Blue, and Medium Blue, and for the display base I used Vallejo Dark Grey, and Sea Grey.

MG Zeta Plus S1 WIP #7

Final WIP for this one, set up a pretty basic diorama and flat coated everything.