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| Heavy Arms Custom (AE86s in the background) |
I started building gundam models around January this year.
The first kit I purchased was a Bandai Heavy Arms custom HG (high grade), the
end product of which is pictured on the right:
I had so much fun building this kit I decided to do a few
more, so I got a Throne Zwei and a Seven Sword, both of which were non-bandai
models.
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| Throne Zwei |
Why replicas? For one thing, they
are a lot more affordable for an otaku on a budget… and since I am still
getting a feel for this hobby I wouldn’t want to invest in it too much just
yet. You can go on and preach about how terrible
knock-offs are and how there is nothing that can justify buying them. Once you’re
done being all high and mighty, ask yourself this: when was the last time you
bought music? How many gigabytes of pirated and copyright infringing content
have you consumed this year? And besides, this is my blog, I’m not forcing you
to stay and read, so get over it. Moving on…
These HG models served as good practice for what was to be
my first serious attempt at gunpla: a master grade Sinanju. These kits go for a
good $70 on HobbyLink for the ”ver. KA”, and about $120 for the Titanium Finish
versions. I wasn’t prepared to shell out that kind of money on a model just
yet, so I opted for a replica, which cost me about one-third the price. I wasn’t
able to take a lot of work-in-progress pics for this build, but here is how it
turned out:
Not bad for a replica, yes? I sanded each part individually and
did my best to get rid of seam lines and nub marks. I wanted it to look like
the Titanium Finish version, so following a youtube guide I did a base coat of
Bosny chrome, followed by 3 to 4 layers of hand painted Tamiya clear red. The
gold trim was also hand painted with Tamiya gold leaf…an endeavor which allowed me to reach my average annual swear count in a matter of a few days.
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| It's Alive! |
I was able to complete this
model in approximately one month, putting in about an hour a day. The paint job
is far from perfect if you look at it up close, but looking at the entire model
it turned out better than I expected. The dry transfer decals were applied
without following the placement guide. And lets not forget the LED mono-eye I
was able to squeeze into this build :
The Sinanju is by far my most favourite mobile suit design.
That said I wasn’t about to keep it looking just like any one else’s Titanium “ver.
KA”. What’s great about this hobby is that you can get really creative with
your builds, and if you aren’t planning on taking your model to a competition,
then you have no one else to please but yourself - it will be sitting on your
desk anyway, so go ahead- paint it, weather it, add weapons to it, customize it
to your heart’s content!
Taking inspiration from a Sinanju I saw online that had
double the backpack engines, here is what I came up with…Sinanju 2.0!
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| got thrust? |
I took the backpacks from two SD Sinanju kits and attached
them where the white tube-like things used to be. All of those metal thrusters
are actually ballpen tips in various sizes – I just inserted some gold eyelets
into some of them to add more detail. I’ll put up more pics once the SHELF section
is ready, but here are a few more:
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| with a scratch-built sword |
Cheers!
