Plastic reviews of dooooom

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PFC Long
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Plastic reviews of dooooom

Post by PFC Long »

Okay, since I more or less went off on some guy posting pictures of his model collection I figured I'd step up and prove that I'm not trolling. Note, I'll post pictures from webcam, but you will regret this. Photo quality is nil, so trust me on some things, okay?

Also, editorial comment: I hate when people claim that it is perfectly all right to build amodel and leave it as the molded colors. You aren't fooling anyone unless you are eleven and looking for a neat toy.

MG Char's Rick-Dom review/build-up

Okay, to begin I have to say I was wandering around TDC after I'd finished the EZ8 and both GM C types when I ducked into the local hobby shop. (who now know me by name; this being the only english they DO know...) They have a great selection of platic models from aircraft to armor to anime. They also stock airsoft guns, though I'm sure we aren't allowed to have them.

Right away I saw the enormous Rick-Dom box and figured since I was a self-proclaimed GM lover I'd try something different. Go me.

Upon returning to the barracks and opening the box I surveyed the damage.

WHAT YOU GET: 16 runners, molded in different colors and in clear. No surprise here, Bandai rocks with their injection molding system. No excess flash, no bad molds, everything was crisp Bandai quality.

You get a sprue of PC (poly caps) and a small tan sprue devoted to a figure in Char's likeness. One entire sprue is for the two halves of the beam bazooka, mainly because this thing is massive. I'm talking: longer than the Dom is tall, and the Dom towers over my GMs.

The molded colors are red, light red, an almost olive red and black. Clear and tan for the sensors and Char, of course. So, canon aside, the colors sucked. I mean, what a better way to make yourself a huge battlefield target than running about with a red mobile suit. So the colors had to go. Initially I built an arm, got sick of the red and busted out the Tamiya Olive drab 2 and the Tamiya Desert Sand. On went the sort of splashed camo effect, which looked awesome on the arm. Convinced this was the way to go, I replicated this over the rest of the parts still attached to the sprues. Big mistake. While it looks good on paper, when assembled the splashes of green and tan aren't smooth enough and rather too random even for camo. Out came the paint thinner and away went the paint. Next out with Academy's Panzer Grey and Camo Paint Systems Sand. This worked well, the dull grey working with the sand to make a flat color scheme that would work in combat and still give the Dom a classy anime style look. Okay, assemble the rest of the model.

ASSEMBLY: Straightforward Bandai japanese instruction manual. Lots of color shots and some black and white lineart. I almost didn't want to toss it into the trash can, but I knew from expireince that keeping these things was just a fire hazard, as I never once looked back over them. Parts fit is excellent, but as a modeller knows, test fitting is good and putty is your friend. Even though you can get away with not using putty, the seam lines still show, and unless you try to pull it off as a panel line, you are screwed.

Head: Again, easy stuff here. Bandai packs an amazing amount of detail into each piece while keeping construction so easy said eleven year old can do it. Something notable, the actual 'head' armor snaps over the inner detail piece to make the full head. While this is great and dandy to show off the details, the head armor comes off if you move it around. I glued mine in place, seeing as I would be moving the model from location to location more than I would show anyone the actual details.

Arms: For a newer Master Grade, the arms were almost too simple. joint, bicep, forearm hands. While the arm is double jointed, the design still keeps it from bending a full 90 degrees like most modern GM or Gundam kits, i.e. the 08th MS Team MG kits. I will say that the individual fingers is nice, and the slot for the weapon to go when held is an engineering win.

Legs: Huge. Monsterous. Bulbous. Dinosauric in nature. The footprint of the Dom drawfs the TORSO of most GMs. Wow. I spent a lot of time actually just looking at the comparison between a GM and a Dom's leg. Anyway, suffice to say this is where most of the kit's plastic ends up. You build the innner structure, the armor, the three engine boosters and the foot.

Torso: I am in love with this design, as it is the only kit sans the Gundam MK II PG that allows for waist flexibility I have built. What happens is you build the pelvic section, build a 'core block' and the two go together with a ball joint. Then the upper torso goes on over the 'core block' via another ball joint. How cool is that? Now my Dom and arch his back, slump, or bend to the side as if to avoid an ill-meaning bazooka round.

Gimmicks/weapons: You get a buttload of weapons. The apallingly huge beam bazooka, the normal bazooka, the 120mm machinegun and the heat saber. Of course, being the realist I am, I ditched the heat saber for the idea that mecha shouldn't ever have melee battle with midieval-esque weapons. At most maybe club each other with their dry weapons.

You also get the Char figure, who paints up nicely, though still looks like the anime character rather than the humanized version, like my MG GM Custom's South Burning.

In the end, I had to give my Dom desert type the beam bazooka. It was just too cool to pass up. It's resting on his shoulder like he's had a long day on the range.

Mods: Nothing drastic. Instead of the silly clear plastic window they give you for the visor in the head I cut out a cross shaped bit of mesh from a IDF M60 and glued it in place. I think mesh works better since it won't scratch, won't break or shatter in combat. And it looks cool.

Finishing: To finish this guy I weather and dry brushed as usual, but caught sight of the spackle I'd bought for the 'Ditched GM' dio I gave to Brungardt a few weeks back. I still had a gratuitous amount of the stuff left, and with some dark brown Academy paint, I had realistic looking mud, which I slathered over the feet and lower legs. For good measure I put some sparingly around the torso and shoulders. I sat back and looked him over. He might have just wadded through a riverbed, maybe? He did seem a bit too muddy to be in the desert, though he could have been engaged with Russian forces from the mecha vs. tanks thread from the HAB... no comment on that.

IMAGES

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Generous splotches of mud. Maybe too much for a mech this size, but impressive to everyone who has seen it.

Image
Side view of the huge-ocity that is the beam bazooka.

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Post by Mitth`raw`nuruodo »

... The pictures aren't really THAT bad, IMO. I know nothing about mecha or modelbuilding, so I can't offer much about that. One question though: How tall is that thing? You mention throughout the article that it's larger than <insert some modelbuilding/mecha-related thing here>, but I don't see any numbers anywhere.

Anyway, cool model.
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Post by Mitth`raw`nuruodo »

PFC Long wrote:Thanks, Mitth. It stands about 9.5-10 inches tall. I appreciate the feedback.
Wow, nearly a foot then. Bigger than it looks in the picture there. God, that means the bazooka is really HUGE.

Another question: Is the paint you use made specifically for these type of models-- e.g, is there "gundam paint" one can buy-- or do you use just whatever model paint is lying around?
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Post by VF5SS »

I am happy to see another Gunpla modeller =D Do you think the eye-mesh affects the image of the "pink eye of Doom(u)?" I built a desert Dowadge a while ago and left the eye exposed, I guess I liked the contrast but your method brings the Dom closer to the visage of the desert warrior. One can imagine the small flashes of pink from the eye surrounded by a cloud of dust in the distance. Like a living dust devil.

Oh, Mitth, Guzne Sangyo puts out color sets for new HGUC models. I'd imagine one would need a lot for a Master Grade. The formula for "Gundam Blue" is a heavily guarded secret =D
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Post by PFC Long »

Mitth`raw`nuruodo wrote:
PFC Long wrote:Thanks, Mitth. It stands about 9.5-10 inches tall. I appreciate the feedback.
Wow, nearly a foot then. Bigger than it looks in the picture there. God, that means the bazooka is really HUGE.

Another question: Is the paint you use made specifically for these type of models-- e.g, is there "gundam paint" one can buy-- or do you use just whatever model paint is lying around?
They do, but it ins't worth the money for them. Tamiya or any other respectable modelling company makes good inexpesive paint.

Salm: you aren't fooling anyone.

Master of Ossus: point taken

VF5SS: I would think that since the eye is close to the mesh it wouldn't obscure the vision too much. I think I have a problem, most my mechs are painted for desert warfare.... or maybe I'm just buy all the worong paints? :P
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Post by Beowulf »

Thread Hijack split to here.
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Post by VF5SS »

PFC Long wrote:I think I have a problem, most my mechs are painted for desert warfare.... or maybe I'm just buy all the worong paints? :P
You live in a very sandy world.
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Post by PFC Long »

>< Yeah, maybe it's just my subconscious getting me ready for deployment... don't want to think about that.

Zaku I review on the way, boom.
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Post by Medic »

VF5SS wrote:
PFC Long wrote:I think I have a problem, most my mechs are painted for desert warfare.... or maybe I'm just buy all the worong paints? :P
You live in a very sandy world.
Nay. Any sand here is frozen. :shock:
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Post by PFC Long »

Zaku I review/build up

Stardard disclaimer: poor webcam photos ensue, but only as refrence material.

Alright, so I have the MG Gouf Custom, the Zaku II F2, the GM custom, and the Ramba Ral’s zaku I. I was in no need of another kit, but nevertheless, my will weakened when I saw the original blue and green zaku 1. I had built this kit when I was in 9th grade, and two years later I turned it into a desert zaku, which I donated to the local hobby shop’s display case. So this would be a blast from the past as I endeavored to build an even better desert zaku 1, notably the one from 08th MS Team.

So find the remains of gundamproject.com and look in the images archive and I get three nice pictures of zaku 1 desert types. I find a suitable one and I am on my way. Here is the general synopsis:

Need to modify shoulder armor to add vents and upgrade the backpack thrusters.

Okay, here we go!

WHAT YOU GET: Ten sprues, molded in green, blue and gray. Quality of the molds are good, but I noticed that some parts were molded in the wrong color (aha, take that play-modelers!), namely the spare backpack cover, the 120mm machinegun, the inner detail on the head, the piston in the foot, and heat hawk. Not anything that would stand out, but it’d be nice if Bandai started treating their models less like action figures and go back to molding sensibly instead of conveniently. Anyway, you get the clear parts for the view screen and the scopes of each weapon.

Assembly: S-I-M-P-L-E. I noted that besides the original MG RGM-79 this is the simpliest kit I’ve done. There was nice detail on the lower leg mechanisms, inside the head, in the backpack, but the lower torso is molded as the same piece as the upper torso. Meaning there isn’t even a degree of flexibility, which is kind of a downfall since the zaku won’t achieve any low poses. Not that the leg armor would allow the ankles to do this anyway.

The thing with this is that the seam lines are placed in strange places. Like the head is two halves, which isn’t bad since the opening hatch interrupts the seam. There is also one running down the middle of the back of the hand… for no real reason. I suppose Bandai hadn’t thought of the whole ‘hand piece and single back of hand piece’ idea.

There is little to no flexibility in this guy, but that isn’t a real big deal since I always have him standing there looking menacing in a way only a zaku I could be.

Head: Like I said, two halves of the head. You get the inner detail assembly which includes a little mechanism to swivel the mono-eye around, which is silly. I didn’t bother building that part. My zaku has a death glare which is unflinching. There is an access hatch that opens to show the detail, which is cool and looks real nice when dark grey and dry brushed silver.

Arms: Easy little bits. Upper shoulder > poly-cap into bicep > poly-cap into forearm > hand. Instead of the traditional MG joint covers you are used to, Bandai decided that poly-cap-like material should be used. It’s slightly rubbery but fairly sturdy. You slide it into a poly-cap inside the forearm and you’re done. Not much to it, but it’s effective. Not much articulation, either, but really, I’m not going to play with it.

Torso: A single block made up of front and rear halves. The skirt armor goes on via poly-cap and then the two sides of the upper torso armor go on with the abdominal armor and cockpit door in the middle. It goes together smooth and eliminates that panel line that most GMs have running along the shoulder of the torso. Inside the cockpit are little view screens and next to that is a little fusion reactor. “I can’t shoot, I’ll hit his reactor!” indeed.

Legs: Big, heavy, rounded things that I adore. I’m not sure why. The back of the knees have nice little servo mechanisms and the foot has a piston secured by ball joint to the shin under the armor. It just hangs there inside the foot, but it looks real enough. Not so big a detail that I’d mod it. You’d have to open the foot and take off the leg armor to see it, and I already sealed that seam. Anyway, they’re beefy, and don’t have little conduit cables running about them and what can I say? Retro minimalism is da bawm dowt cowm!

Gimmicks:You get the 100mm, the 120mm, the hyper bazooka and the heat hawk. As far as spare parts randomly thrown in... you get tons. I have about two sprues of leftovers which will be good ingredients to a project soon.

Mods: Snagged three of the circular little joint covers from my donor kit and puttied and sanded for around an hour to get the weld look right. I made a mistake, though, and was holding the shoulder armor upside down when I attached the pieces, so instead of one on the front, one on the back and one on the side, I get one on the top. But it’s okay, and I didn’t feel like tearing it off and sanding and puttying for another few hours, so I left it. I stuck a weathered Zeon insignia on the empty space on the side to fill the gap and it works okay. The upgraded thrusters on the backpack were too big fo reither of the supplied backpack covers, so I heated up my x-acto and sliced through the portions that would overlap the thruster bells. No big deal there. Added the original thrusters to the front chest, angled 45 degrees downward for a retro-booster look. Nice. Also added little brackets to the knees, but this doesn’t really count. No other mods, the lineart I retrieved is pretty faithful to the model.

Finishing: Standard weathering and dry brushing. Extensive use of silver over any grey surface I could find. I used Tamiya Field Grey and Academy Khaki. Looks great, the field grey has a dull sheen that reflects most canon paint jobs in the series, and the khaki goes on thick and juicy. It has an Afrika Korps look to it now. Erwin Rommel reincarnated would be proud. I again used spackle mud, but more sparingly and just on the feet bottoms and around the edges. I say it looks more plausible, but the mud caked Dom is way cooler. I gave him the 100mm machinegun, and stuck the spare ammo drum on his side armor. I vultured the Dom’s 120mm ammo drum and did similar to it.

Overall: I think I may have forgotten about this on my Dom review, ans since I’m at work and 8th Army doesn’t take kindly to bbs, I’ll have to guess. Anyway, the Zaku I gets a nine. It’s got a cool, clean retro look I like, it’s an easy build and easy to mod, cleans up nice and looks imposing with the machinegun and especially while standing next to the Dom. Zeon fire team if I ever saw one. When my Zaku II and Gouf are finished I’ll have a MS platoon to be reckoned with. I fear for my GM sniper, GM-C, and GM Custom…

Image
Rear: Extra ammo drums, backpack mods...

Image
Side

Image
Front: Shoulder mod and chest boosters.
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Post by Elheru Aran »

DIE MECHA SCUM! /standard HAB response

:P




Seriously? Lookin' pretty good, I must say... just a shame you can't get better resolution, but I've used a crappy webcam myself, so I understand perfectly.
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Post by PFC Long »

Yeah. I get paid tomorrow so I may look into a webcam that isn't the suck. That means GASP D-fac for the rest of the month!
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Post by Medic »

Elheru Aran wrote:DIE MECHA SCUM! (standard HAB response)
I gave him the SDN in-processing brief. He's squared the fuck away, I assure you.

As for the models, seeing is believing, they are very high quality if I can attest. Also, he mods the fuck out of them. Any uber Gundam fan-whore will notice the extra thrusters and non-standard weapons that Matt puts on his models.

He also helped me put together an X-32 JSF and put together himself an F-35 JSF. His was better, although mine had an awe-astounding amount of st00pid built in to the design which certainly didn't help. Take for example the Flying HUD of D00m(!) which while laying on the bed near the window, was picked up by a breeze, thrown 10 feet across the room and landed squarely on to the newly spray-painted wing of his F-35 JSF. :shock:

(edited for clarity)
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Post by PFC Long »

That HUD was on a kamikaze mission of doom if I ever saw one. How did the landing gear application go, by the way?

Brungardt's fighter isn't nearly as bad as he claims. It was mostly in the putty and sanding part, which I can be blamed for since I had him using a file instead of normal sandpaper... :oops:
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Post by PFC Long »

EDIT/UPDATE: New camera = new pictures and more! (yes you still get the same shitty grean towel background....)

Image

NOW do you see the muddy goodness?

Image

I have one eye!

NEW!
Image

Still a bit blurry but cool tiger striping on the rifle anyway!

NEW!
Image

This rifle just screams masculinity, right?

I'll do the write-ups on the two GMs here in a while when I'm not so drained.
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Post by Elheru Aran »

More like 'inadequacy'.... :P

And, while the high detail is appreciated, the size of the pics might be a problem... try changing them to links instead, or make thumbnails.

Oh, and pretty good...
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