Loots & Purchases 15

Another long MIA, again. I'm not gonna lament over the reasons, let's just say in short I had vacation in Paris for 9 days, then after return was busy preparing for exams.

Back to topic, although this post is under Loots & Purchases, I didn't bought any gunpla kits for the past month, but I did get gunpla kits as my Christmas presents ^^. Well that does consider categorise under loots, though free, haha.

What I got:

List:

RG 1/144 Freedom Gundam

HG 1/144 Ex-S Gundam

How my relatives know which to buy for me? I gave them a list of my wanted gunpla kits within their budget xD. So you may be asking, since I already had the MG Ex-S Gundam, why want the HG too? Simple, I'm such a huge fan of Ex-S Gundam, I want to collect all versions of it xD.

Now these adds more to the already big backlogs, and I haven't been building or painting any kits for the past month. Now that my exams are over and I'm having my semester break, time to catch up on my projects, stay tune!

Status Update

This is a post about my current projects' status =)

MG Strike E + IWSP

- Arms & shoulder armour painted details, applied decals and topcoat-ed

- Right leg painted details and applied decals, waiting to be topcoat-ed

- Left leg and hip parts assemble, haven't painted details nor panel lined

MG Strike Freedom

- Main Body's inner frame fully painted gold

- Leg armour painted details, haven't apply decals

- Still finding a way to mod the shoulder armours

- The rest of the body armour untouched

- Wings currently on hold, more complicated than imagined to mod it, might need pla-plates

NG Vent Saviour Gundam (Stalled)

- Paint job didn't end up as expected, might repaint it

NG Avalanche Exia

- Fully assembled, painted and panel lined

- In process of applying decals

- Applying putty in empty inner armour parts

HG Beginning 30 Gundam

- Fully assembled

- In process of painting and panel lining

- Applying putty in empty inner armour parts

HG GN Arms Type D + Dynames

- Fully assembled

- Painted details, panel lined and topcoat-ed HG Dynames

- GN Arms untouched

Other kits fully assembled but untouched

- MG Zeta Gundam 2.0

- MG Gundam 00 Raiser

- MG Zeta Plus

- NG 1/60 Wing Gundam 0

- RG Aile Strike Gundam

- HG Jesta

The reason I'm posting this because I'm going on a holiday trip to Paris, France in less than 24 hours time of this post xD. So all my projects will be on hold until I come back on 10th December, and so are my blog updates. 

P/S: The year end Litt Tak warehouse sales is coming soon, but the date has not been confirmed yet, hopefully it's after I returned to Malaysia >_<

MG GAT-X105E Lukas's Strike E + IWSP - WIP Part 1

I planned to only paint some minor details on this kit, apply decals, and topcoat it. So most of this kit is going to be in original plastic colours. I've only finished the head, torso and feet so far.

Head and torso:

 

 *Nothing special done here, just applied a few provided dry-transfer decals on the chest top and stomach.

*Added some minor silver details around the neck.

*Painted the thrusters gold using Artline gold marker, and silver on the bolt using Artline silver marker.

*Applied provided stick-on decals on side of chest and waist, and also side of head.

*Painted the eyes using Artline gold marker too, with black paint around the eyes. Used Gundam Marker GM17 Metallic Blue to paint the forehead and back camera. The vulcans were painted silver, and the cheek vents were just filled in with Gundam panel line marker GM01.

Feet:

*Painted the ankle's hydraulic pipes and bolts. I used Gundam Marker Seed Destiny GM59 Red for the red parts, but it ended up with a disastrous result. First I painted white as a base colour, then layered over it with red. I have no idea why did black spots appear after the paint dried. If anyone reading this who knew the reason, please feel free to leave a comment to advice me, thank you =).

*The part where the ball joint is located was originally red, but I've painted it gray using Gundam Marker GM12 Gray.

*Painted gold on the thrusters vents, while silver around the rims. Some minor silver bolts details.

*Stick-on decals applied on front top of foot and side of heel.

All of the parts above have been gloss topcoat-ed before masking off the shiny parts, then topcoat-ed with flat topcoat.

Currently finished detailing and applying decals on the arms, leaving only topcoat to finish them. Just started to work on the legs. Stay tune for Part 2!

MG Lukas's Strike E + IWSP - Unboxing

If I were to make a WIP post, I'll need to do an unboxing post first, so here it is =).
This is a custom Strike Gundam piloted by Lukas O' Donnell in the Gundam Seed Frame Astrays series.
The body of this Strike is similar to that of Strike Noir with exception of different colour scheme, and it is fitted with the Integrated Weapons Striker Pack, IWSP in short. IWSP is a combination of the 3 original Striker packs into a single pack.

Front/top/bottom/side view:

 

 

Contents:

*Total of  21 runners

 *-2 screws
   -2 wires for grappling hook

Manual(Front/back/centre spread):

That's it for this unboxing post, will post up a WIP post of it as soon as possible.
So far only done the head, torso and feet.

Loots & Purchases 14

Another long MIA from me, been real lazy to blog recently, lol

BUT, today(or actually yesterday), 19/11/2011, is a very special date for me. It's so special, that I have to blog it no matter what. The reason it's not because Malaysia's Gundam Builders World Cup(GBWC) Open Category is being held in Sungei Wang Plaza from 18th to 23rd November, nor because the Junior Category is being held in MIECC from 18th to 28th November.

It's because I finally bought my dream gundam kit, MG 1/100 MSA-0011[Ext] Ex-S Gundam!!!!!! *cheering*

Finally made up my mind to buy it after holding back for so long. There was a small warehouse sale during the GBWC, and the MG Ex-S was on sale at a price of RM265. Not a very big discount from the usual price of RM280, or RM272 of Gamers Arena's price. However, I thought, since I'm going to buy it sooner or later(the only kit I would die for), why not buy now at this cheaper price? So I went ahead and bought it ^^

Before this I wanted to buy the HG Hyaku Shiki GPB Color (Byaku Shiki), but my friend, Nicholas Chua aka ascentic advised me not to do so, for now, as the price of RM68 is overpriced.

I took his advise, and went to look for another worthy kit, if any, to purchase. Had my eye on the MG RX-178 Super Gundam, since it was rare, and the good thing is I can mount the G-defender on MG RX-178 MkII v2.0 when I buy it in the future. But then I thought when will that be? Moreover I'm not really loving RX-178. Then I saw workers bringing in new batches of stock, so I went and checked out what new items were brought in. That's when I saw MG Ex-S Gundam and the rest are history~

I'm definitely broke now, trying to salvage some cash for the upcoming Mcmodel Nu Gundoom HWS, still surveying for a good price. But this purchase today is not the only reason I'm broke, but also due to I've ordered ALOT of bootleg gundam kits from Taobao. It's not convenient for me to tell the price here, but all I can say it's BIG =X. I ordered a total of 7 kits, that's right, 7!!! Here's the the stuffs I've ordered:

List:

HG 1/144 Gaplant TR-5

HG 1/144 Psycho Gundam

NG 1/100 Akatsuki Gundam

MG 1/100 Sinanju

MG 1/100 Deathscythe Gundam EW

MG 1/100 Deathscythe Hell Custom

MG 1/100 Zaku II J-Type

*I'm not really sure which version of this Zaku II is. It's either the normal version, or the MS Igloo version. They are suppose to be of different shade of green, but I can't differentiate it by using photos from web.

Now that's alooooooot of kits to build, adding up to the large number of backlogs I already had.

Other than Mcmodel Nu Gundoom HWS, no more purchases for me until next year, the most until Chinese New Year, lol. I hope I'm not tempted to buy the upcoming TT/GG release of MG Wing Zero Custom, or worse, the TT/GG MG Hi-Nu Gundam Kai! >_<

That's it for this post, I'm currently working on my MG Strike E + IWSP, hope I'm not too lazy to post up a WIP, lol.

P/S: I'm starting to number my 'Loots & Purchases' posts, it's head cracking task to think up a different title everytime, lol.

I'm Back! Updates & Loots

It's been 2 months since I've last updated my blog. Foremost reason is I was busy preparing for my finals, then having the finals itself. After exams I was busy having fun day & night, and also having post-exams laziness, lol.

For the past 2 months I've made quite alot of purchases, including from the 3rd Litt Tak warehouse sales of this year.When I said alot, I really meant ALOT, lol. I bought so many kits that I'm really broke, up to the point of owing friends =X.

Guess I really have to stop buying, if I control myself, that is, lol.

Here's my purchases from the warehouse sale(Sorry for not updating the prices at the time of sales)

List:

MG 1/100 G-Armor (RM100)

MG 1/100 Zeta Plus (RM100)

NG 1/100 Gale Strike Gundam (RM30)

NG 1/100 Hail Buster Gundam (RM30)

HG 1/144 RX-79(G) GM (RM28)

The most worthy purchase this time is definitely MG G-Armor, as it's usually priced around RM300!!! I almost got the MG G-Fighter at RM50 instead when I didn't see the MG G-Armor earlier. Luckily I noticed Litt Tak worker brought a few out from the storeroom and I immediately grabbed one xD. Later I've found out that they had plenty of stocks to last throughout the 3 days sales, though on the afternoon of last day of the sales it was sold out already.

I've also found out that on the first day when the warehouse just opened, the boss of AF Hobby, a local hobby shop, bought a huge stack of MG G-Armor!!! Then later he put it up on sale in his own shop at a price of RM130, with every unit he got sold within half a day! He also grabbed most of MG RX-178 MKII HD and Scopedog, leaving us normal consumers who came later unable to get it. What a way to do business...

I sympathies with the NG Seed Destiny VS Astray series, it was so unpopular that they had to reduce the price from RM50 of previous sales to RM30 in order to clear stocks, lol. I didn't manage to get Nix Providence and Nebula Blitz, heard they only had less than 10 units each, and were sold out within an hour of opening.

Other purchases bought from separate days:

List:

MG 1/100 Zeta Plus C1 (RM105)

HG 1/144 Beginning 30 Gundam (RM75)

HG 1/144 Gouf Flight Type (RM28)

HG 1/144 RGM-96X Jesta (RM57)

HG 1/144 RGM-79C GM Type-C (RM46)

Mcmodel SD Ex-S Gundoom (RM70)

I mentioned before in an earlier post that I bought a MG Zeta Plus C1, but due to some reason it wasn't with me at that time, so now here it is! If you didn't already know or guess, the GM Type-C is for converting into Wagtail Custom using the conversion parts I've got.

That's all of my purchases, I doubt I will buy anymore gunplas for the next few months, with exception of significant number of China bootleg kits on their way here =P (real reason to why I'm so broke!). My MG Strike Freedom project is stalled at the moment, currently snap fitting kits only, while waiting for decals for my TT 1/100 Avalanche Exia to arrive. More updates to come!

Purchases

Went to Berjaya Times Square(BTS) again yesterday, and now I'm kinda broke from these purchases from there T_T.

First, I got this old kit just out of curiosity and it's quite affordable.

A 1998 HG 1/144 kit of Gundam Ez8 from the 08th MS Team series, selling at RM29 only from Gamers Arena shop.
There's Gouf Custom and Gouf Custom [Flight Type] also, but decided to get them next time instead.

The HG Gundam Ez8 was bought at Gamers Arena BTS branch. Then later I went to the Sungei Wang branch and I saw MG Zeta Plus A1 & MG Zeta Plus C1 in stock! Not only that, it was priced at RM105, which is the cheapest price available for these kits! Time Machine had them in stock but was selling the A1 at RM120 while the C1 at RM140 -_-
I've been finding these 2 kits at this price for a long time and finally they have it in stock! So I decided to break my vow of not buying any more MGs until after my finals =P. However I was short in cash, so I've no choice but to buy the C1 only, as the C1 is more hot selling than the A1. For some "specific" reason, the C1 is not with me now, so I don't have a picture of it.

In the evening, I COD-ed with a seller to get these 2:

It's GN Sword IV Full Saber kit!!! This is the original kit from Hobby Magazine China August Edition, though I only get the kit without the magazine. I got both at RM55, though later I found out MPH stores are selling them at RM12.50 each!!! =_=
Too late to regret now since I bought already, might buy extra if I do see them in MPH store. The problem now is I don't have a HG 00 Qan[T]. Wanted to buy yesterday but it's out of stock in every shop =(. Guess a lot people also got the GN Sword IV so HG 00 Qan[T] also hot selling.

That's it for this loots post!

MG ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam - WIP Part 1

I got this kit sometime end of last year, so I've already snap-fitted it long ago, but haven't painted, panel lined, or topcoated it. I haven't got the knowledge on how to do those during that time, so now I'm trying to complete the kit.

First things first, I bought the standard MG Strike Freedom, not the Full Burst Mode version, nor the Extra Finish version. The standard version's inner frame or supposedly gold coloured parts are an ugly non-shiny gold-yellow, some said "poo" colour, LOL. So my first task is to paint it real gold colour, which I've done on one arm and one leg.
I've hunted high and low for brands that have real gold colour spray can, but most are metallic gold -_-. I can't find brands carrying the chrome gold plating type colour I wanted, so I've no choice but to settle on ABRO brand's High Finish Gold which is the closest colour I can get to the chrome gold I wanted.

Comparison of the unpainted right arm with the painted left arm:
Inner frame:


With armour parts:


Comparison of the unpainted right leg with the painted left leg:
Inner frame:


With armour parts:

*I also painted a bit gold on the ankle armour's details, and a little bit of red in the small knee thruster.

I planned to try the PG Strike Freedom's colour scheme on this kit, so I also paint gold on the inside of the shoulder armour.
Comparison of the unpainted right shoulder armour and the painted left shoulder armour:
Disassembled:


Assembled:


That's what I've progressed so far, next I'm going to paint the the main body first before moving on to finish the other arm and leg. Lastly will the Dragoons pack, which will be a tedious job just by disassembling alone =_=.
Stay tune for Part 2!

More Gunpla Accessories Loots

Today I received another parcel, this time from China. It's my loots from Taobao.com =D


List:
China brand model display box (RM25++)
China brand modeler's side cutter (RM25++)
China brand modeling masking tape 6mm (RM3++)
China brand 3 grit sanding stick (RM3++)
Japan Sakura 0.02mm panel line marker (RM5++)
Mr. Surfacer 1200 (RM15++)

I can't say for sure the exact price as these items are shipped together with other non-gunpla related stuffs, so the shipping cost is different.
Looks like I will continue on this shopping spree now that I've found a way to buy from Taobao.com, LOL =X.
There are so many choices of useful china made items there, and cheap too. I've also found that ship TT/GG kits directly from there is cheaper than buying from local sellers!

That's it for this post, currently painting my MG Strike Freedom's inner frame to gold colour, will post up a WIP post soon!

Gunpla Accessories Loots

I promised myself not to get any more gunpla kits until I finished my current backlogs, or at least until my finals are over. So I've been buying bunch of accessories instead for the past week. Though the rate of increasing backlogged kits is reduced, but not the rate of my expenditure =X.

Two Saturdays ago(29th July), I went to to Berjaya Times Square to watch a movie of Captain America, and of course being there, I wouldn't miss a chance to shop the hobby shops there XD. At the end of the day, these are my loots:


List:
Action Base 1 - Clear (RM20)
Action Base 2 - Gray (RM18)
Mr. Super Clear - Flat (RM39)
Mr. Color - 47 Clear Red (RM9)
Mr. Color - 48 Clear Yellow (RM9)
Mr. Color - 50 Clear Blue (RM9)
Gundam Marker - GM01 Black (RM8)
Gundam Marker - GM18 Metallic Green (RM8)
Gundam Real Touch Marker - GM406 Black (RM8)

I thought of getting a Clear Green colour paint, but too bad Mr. Color don't have such colour, lol.

I also bought this to try out, might get more if it's really uselful

Hobby Base Model Cover - Medium (RM48)

There's 4 sizes in total, small(RM28), medium, large(RM85) and small wide(RM65). Since it's the cover is so simple, I'm showing the contents and the case itself here rather than having another unboxing post.


For your info, the transparent cover of the case is NOT made out of glass, it's just plastic. Not that I'm complaining as plastic is safer, but paying at that price for a plastic case... >_<. As for today, I went to IPC(formerly known as Ikano Power Centre), and I bought these from Popular Bookstore ^^
Dengeki Hobby Magazine Taiwan Edition, May 2011 & June 2011 issue.

Of course the main point of this purchase is the 1/144 RGM-79C GM Type C [Wagtail] conversion parts bundled together with the May issue =D.

Now all I need to do is to get a HGUC RGM-79C GM Type-C~ XD

I found something interesting when browsing in Daiso store

A very cheap replacement for Gundam Marker GM63 Black. Same as GM63, these markers are also water based, with the difference is these costs RM5 only, for 2! For those whole prefer to panel line their Gunplas using water based marker, this is definitely a worthy option *thumbs up*.

GG HG 1/144 GN Arms Type-D + Dynames - Unboxing

This is the GaoGao's bootleg version of Bandai's HG 1/144 GN Arms Type-D + Dynames kit.

GN Arms is a mobile armour/weapons platform add-on for Celestial Being's Gundams, and the Type-D is specially designed for Gundam Dynames. As the name of the kit says, this kit also includes a HG 1/144 Gundam Dynames.

Front/top/bottom/side view:

*This is the first time I've bought a bootleg kit(other than Mcmodel), so I just knew that bootleg kits' box art is different from original Bandai's, especially the sides. On Bandai kits they usually have photos of the kit in action with information, but on TT/GG kits, they only have simple few photos of the kit.

More surprisingly for this kit is they altered the front box art. Where on the Bandai's kit there's a pic of Lockon Stratos on the bottom right, but on this GG kit, they removed it and carelessly re-drawn the GN Arms' left leg, LOL.

Contents:

There are a total of 24 runners for this kit, with 5 runners for Gundam Dynames and 18 runners for the GN Arms. There's one more runner for the included display stand.

The runners for Gundam Dynames

The runners for GN Arms and display stand

*As you may notice, a few parts have came off the runner, nothing surprising as it is quite normal for bootleg kits I've heard.

There are extra unused parts which are actually from GN Arms Type-E. It's actually possible to build the GN Arms Type-E wholly =D.

Foil stickers and screws are given

*This is the first time I've got a gunpla kit with screws, which are used to tighten joints for large and heavy kits.

Manual:

*Needless to say, bootleg kits are produced by China, so of course the manual's in mandarin, hahaha. It does have English too, albeit badly translated XD.

That's it for this unboxing, stay tune for updates!