Gundam Collection Neue Ziel vs Dendrobium

Ever heard of the Gundam Collection series? For most of it's length, it's been a bunch of pretty nice PVC Gundam figures. I have quite a few of them myself, since I love to collect gashapon. Sadly, I have my gashapon boxed up at the moment, else I would snap some photos of my cute little Gundams. Anyhow, all of these figures are 1/400 in scale, which makes for some pretty tiny mecha. Though Bandai has been known to pull out some incredible tricks! One time they released a 1/400 White Base kit, with all sorts of opening hatches and storage compartments for your little Gundam toys. This time around, Bandai releases one of my all time favorites, the GP-03D Dendrobium! Oh yeah, and the Neue Ziel, so the Dendro has someone's trash to kick. I know, I know, I can hear it now, "Oh, but Zak, the Dendrobium was wasted in the final battle, and the Neue Ziel went on to plot spoilers someone." Yeah, so what? The guy who was piloting it, he was a world class wuss. Anavel Gato would have toasted him handidly if their Mobile Armors were switched.

Anyhow, onto pictures!!!

The two figures come in one box, since it is a vs. pack, and said box is loaded up with all sorts of sweet graphics!






The parts come on about 43 runners, if I count correctally, and here's the best part:


They're pre-painted!!! All the parts that need painting have it supplied right out of the box! Some panel lining would make this model sing, but it's as close as you are going to a snip and snap kit.

This kit is so awesome, because it comes with all the miniature goodness of the sweet HGM 1/550

but with all the awesome detail of the 1/144 HGUC Dendrobium. Look, the weapon boxes even open up to deploy missles and weapons!!





As with the HGUC, all it's really missing is the Strike Chain!

The Neue Ziel never had a HGUC to compare against, but it shows some considerable improvement over the HGM version.

It's supposed to have four beam cannon/beam saber arms that pop out and provide additional support. The HGM model did this by four removable arms that you can attach at will. The Gundam Collection Neue Ziel has four articulated arms, with removable clear beam sabers that you can deploy, or fold them into the shoulders of the figure, sweet!



Both figures come with stands that support them and they also come with additional Mobile Suits to complete the scenes. Included is the Gerbera Tetra, complete with an attachment to stick it on the end of the Dendrobium's Long Cannon, and the GP-03 Stamen module, complete with additional arms that are attached to it's various weaponry, and also extra arms with the extended claws for retrieving said weapons, and also with said weapons, for storing in the Orchis module's weapon boxes for deployment!





All in all, these make very nice looking models, I'm thinking about getting a set!

















And until next time, amuse yourself with a sweet Gundam Evolve video!

Click me!!!

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The MG Strike Freedom is out!

So! It is out! I visited Hobby Search as I often do, and I found the scans to the MG Strike Freedom sitting there, waiting for me. There are so many cool things in this kit! First of all it has some really sweet gimmicks built into it. As I have mentioned, the entire internal frame is molded in gold plastic. There's a bit of concern for me in terms of the Special Edition though. First of all, the gold plating. I understood that the gold plating on the SE Ver was supposed to be a gold chrome. This picture shows parts that are clearly gold chromed, whereas this picture shows parts that could have somewhat of a metallic sheen to them, but by far are not chromey. I supposed it could be a scanner issue, but as this picture shows, there is clearly no plating on the SE Ver gold runner, it looks the same as this frame in the regular kit. I know someone out there is looking at this and thinking that I am a freak for analyzing this so much, but analyzing is what I do. Anyhow, if I am gonna end up getting three types of gold in a kit, I would just as soon get the regular release and spray some gold paint on it. But enough of that.

The MG Strike Freedom has some cool torso flex. One of the things I liked about the MG Wing Zero Ver Ka was the torso flex, though I was kinda bummed that it could only flex forward, not backward. I knew at the time that it would be remolded into the Endless Waltz version, and knew that it was built to facilitate it's wings-spread-firing-straight-down pose it had when attacking that bunker. Anyhow, the MG Strike Freedom flexes backwards, to make it's flying poses look wicked cool!

I really love the attention to detail on this. When the Strike Freedom combines it's two gun together to make a more powerful rifle, the butt of the forward gun needs to rotate out of the way to accomodate the second gun. This part now has a cool sticker on it that shows it to be a secondary sensor scope. Also cool is the way the rear skirt armors move out of the way to allow the hip guns to move to the back. Oh, and I really like that the hip guns have a cool extendy feature on them too!

The wings are cool, they have all the internals, including the actual DRAGOON mounts, molded in gold. Something cool that I have never realized until I read the instructions, (probably just because I don't understand Japanese) is that the wings, which move to widen the distance between the DRAGOONS, move automatically when the wings are rotated.

One thing that has me interested, though I haven't gotten to the bottom of it yet, is the beam shield. On one of the previous posts I had about the MG Strike Freedom, I mentioned that the shield had a variated look to it, though I decided that it could have been painted that way. Then, on another post, I saw pictures of those two kits in the case, and one of them had a shield, and it looked the same as the "painted" one, even though the kit itself appeared to have no paint on it. Now, thanks to Hobby Search, I have seen images of the shield straight out of the box. The Special Edition Ver. looks to be completely blue, wheras the regular Ver. looks distinctly varied. Now, I have two theories on this. I discussed this issue with my brother Benjamin, and we decided that it was possible that Bandai had molded it with two colors of plastic, injecting them both into the mold at the same time, which would allow them to mix and streak and make the distinctive shading. The fact that one shield seems to be done right and the other seems to be too blue actually is in line with this theory, assuming that it was a new and imperfect technique. Arguments against this theory would be that, for example, the shield is not on a runner or molding frame of any type. Even the big Strike Freedom Lightning Edition shield, or the massive base for the MG Ex-S had frame parts on them. The second theory is that the shield is somehow printed to painted to have that look. The fact that it is not on a frame supports this. Furthermore, if it was done by hand, there would be a certain degree of variance to them, like the differences between the SE Ver and the Reg Ver. However, there is the issue of too much variance for it to be a printed thing, but it would be too expensive for a person to paint all the shields. Who knows? *shrug*

Anyhow, this kit looks to be totally cool, and I am totally thinking about getting one. You can find them at most online stores that import Gundam models.



Technorati Tags: Gundam, model, Master Grade, Strike Freedom, Bandai

Mahoro-san on bike, from Kotobukia.

So, back in November of 2002, Kotobukia released their Mahoro & Sports bike figure resin kit. It was kind of an interesting mixture for modelling fans, since it mixed two different types of kits. First of all, the figure. Mahoro is a fixed pose resin kit, and, like most girly kits, there's not a lot of parts that go into her. However, there's also the bike, which was, like most mechanical type kits, made up of a bizzillion parts, most of them very tiny. So you have the figure for girly fans, and the bike for mechanical fans, it was a very interesting mix of styles. I wanted one, since I'm a huge fan of Mahoromatic, but the $167 (not including shipping!) price tag, AND the fact that I had never touched a resin kit in my life, both dissuaded me from buying. I did see a built one in Vancouver BC once, but it was about $300. I was tempted though!

Fast forward to current times, where Kotobukia felt they would take pity on us poor guys with no modelling sense, and release a PVC figure that takes no sanding, test fitting, drilling, gluing, priming, masking, or painting! YAY!! Other than that, it's identical to the previous release.


Mahoro comes dressed in her standard maid's uniform, or as she likes to call it, her 'battle dress uniform for the home.' She also is armed with her personal use magnum, though sadly, the sweet bike never made it into the show. It did, however, make it onto the cover of one of the DVDs.











All that needs to be done when this figure leaves the box, is just put the cowling on the bike, put Mahoro on the bike, and clear some room! Here is the internal details of the bike.

Wave's upcoming SDF-1

A few months ago, Wave announced a figure of the SDF-1, as seen in the Macross movie Do You Remember Love? The DYRL version looks a lot different from the version seen in the TV show, and I think it looks cooler. Anyhow, I'm not sure if this is going to be a preassembled toy, or if instead it will be a kit that you put together. Since it will be built from ABS, PVC, and Diecast metal, I would think it to be a toy, though you never know. Here are some pictures of this, let me know what you think! Pictures from AmiAmi.com.

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The best Wii Strap evar!!

So, I don't know if anyone here has heard about the Wii Strap problems. Apparently, people are swinging their Wii straps furiously as they get their butts kicked in Wii Sports, and the strap breaks as teh g-forces hit 300G's, then the Wiimote goes flying at 200mph and they are damaging stuff with them. I have heard of several TVs falling to the dreaded strap, and some windows, and some lamps. No casualties have been reported yet, and no Wiimotes have been damaged yet either. Anyhow, this strap here will solve all your flying Wiimote problems for good!

BTW, for the record, I have never encountered any problems with the Wiimote. All I can say to the people that ARE, is just focus on your grip! Don't let go!

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VG Cats.

So, the guy who runs VG Cats is currently doing a contest sponsored by Play-Asia.com where the fans of the comic make comics of their own, first by downloading a starter pack that has character sprite, then by doing some Photoshop snazziness on them. One of the Leo sprites looked like he was constipated or something, and was directly pushing the comic I made in the direction it went. I figured I would take a cue from my own life, as artists often do, and make a joke about playing the N-DS in strange places.

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Unformatted Prime

At first I was just loading this through the Blogger server so I had a place to host this image, but then I figured that everyone would like to see this, so here it is!

MG Strike Freedom Full Burst mode

Ka chow! Found this at Gunota, some awesome pics of the MG Strike Freedom special edition, apparently called the Full Burst Mode. As I said in my previous blog posting, this version includes everything from the regular version, plus the special stand, the DRAGOON effects parts, and gold chrome plated parts.







How's that for a kickin looking box picture? Not quite as low-key as MGs usually have it, but it's still really cool.

Here's a closeup of the boxart:





All the gold parts have nice Photoshop shine on them, I kinda wish I knew how to do that. I guess I have something new to teach myself.











The gold parts are supposed to be more chromey than this, but it's possible that the build threw some dullcote or something on it.











There's that shield again, still looking variated, though I'm certain this model has been painted up, so that could be airbrushed.







I really like that the mounts of the DRAGOONs are also gold, unlike all the previous model and figure releases.








Here is the special stand that this release comes with. It is my
understanding that Bandai is going to start releasing these stands
seperately, and that they doo all sorts of snazzy things like lock
together and whatnot.







This stand has an extendable part and about three joints on the end so that you can stick the Gundam on it and put it in any position your little heart desires.















This shows the snazzy little parts that make the DRAGOONs fly around. Clear blue parts for the thrust effects, and little clear sticks to mount them on.







This image shows the articulation of the wings. The DRAGOON mounts all extend a little bit, and also retract, though it's a fact that is often missed, since basically every picture of the MG Strike Freedom shows them extended.



This kit is gonna be really awesome when it comes out later this month!













Technorati Tags: Gundam, Master Grade, Strike Freedom

(I'm not sure what this does, but I'm gonna try it out)

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MG Strike Freedom!

Okay, so I found this page, I have no idea what it's called. But, it has Master Grade Strike Freedom pics, so I'm posting it, because I ganked their pics.
I don't read question mark language

The first picture is of the display case, with not one, but TWO MG Strike Freedoms inside, pleading with you, "Please! Why do they call us Strike FREEDOM if they put us in this acrylic cage??"
"Just steal us already!"


The design of Master Grade Gundams has been steadily increasing. Anyone remember the days of the MG Zaku II and the MG Gundam? Man, those kits sucked. The only removable armor was on the head, and the backpack. The posability was awful, and the sculpting was done by a drunken monkey. Nowadays, if the model doesn't rock six kinds of awesomeness, Bandai executes the designer and gets someone new.

Both of these kits show off the genius and passion of the designers.


The first picture there shows one with the beam shield and both beam sabers out, the next one has it's beam rifles locked together to go kick some trash.


I think it's getting ready to blow a hole in the case so you can take them home.

The DRAGOON equipped wings of the MG Strike Freedom are much mroe articulate than any of the models to come before. The wings are each composed of two pairs of DRAGOON mounts, and the pairs rotate seperately from each other, then they can also flex outward, like in the previous models. However, they also extend slightly as well, this makes the gold gap in the wings, up towards the base of the DRAGOON mount. BTW, for thos of you curious as to why I am capitalizing DRAGOON, it's because it stands for Disconnected Rapid Armament Group Overlook Operation Network. That doesn't really mean anything, but DRAGOON sounds cool.




The shoulder uses the now-standard off center extending multijoint, which premiered in the G Gundam 'Action Frames.'


The thigh armors have a sliding feature, and the knees have a double motion feature (the black part and the white part both move).


Here's a little bit of Gundam upskirt action. Don't let the kiddies see this!


"You're next, sucka!"

As far as I can tell, this model isn't painted, only having panel lining and decals applied. Meaning, what you see, even the little grey parts on the knees and the red vents atop the wings, are molded in color. The gold frame parts look like the same color as the HG144 and H100 models, but are NOT the same as the HG60 Strike Freedom Lighting edition.


This one seems to be missing some love. It has both of it's beam sabers together in their dual mode. Some of the previous models had a connector they fit into, or an additional part with two openings, but the MG model has the saber hilts lock together to do this.



I should also point out that the MG Strike Freedom will come in two flavors, the regular and special editions. The regular is what you see here. The special edition will come with all of this, plus one of the new stands Bandai is gonna start putting out, plus clear plastic parts to make your DRAGOONs appear to fly around on their own, plus all of the gold parts with be plated in gold chrome, making it extra shiny!




This beam shield looks a heck of a lot better than your average beam shield, though I am not sure if it comes like this. So far, all of the ones I've seen do look this way, but it could be airbrushing. However, I am fairly sure this model isn't painted, so I don't know. I guess we'll have to wait until it gets produced, which will be sometime this month!


"So long, suckers!"