Master Grade GAT-X102 Duel Gundam

Update!

Another forgotten post. LOL. A friend actually asked me if I've built any of the new MG Gundam Seed mechas, and I said 'yeah...lookit up on my blog man...'

But there wasn't any, except for the conversion duel that I did awhile back.

So here I am, posting it now. After...jeez I can't remember how long.

Alright, what's the story? When it was first announced that the Duel Gundam was coming out, I think I was the few that cried out in glee. As a tear dropped, I vowed to get one for myself. You see I've always been a fan of the Duel Gundam. Aside from the Strike (which IMHO is one of the most nicely designed gundams) the Duel was always my second choice. And after almost a year it was announced, it finally came out. I grabbed one for myself and took it home to build it with careful and ease. I wanted to paint it, but due to work constraints...I had to hold on to that.

Until a good buddy of mine asked if I could paint it for him. He's built it, but needs the necessary paints to get it looking good. And with a big smile, I agreed...

The paint apps for this guy is actually interesting. Firstly, the Duel isn't white or gray. He's actually on a very light tone of gray...I made the assaultshroud armour a little bit darker since i wanted it to go with a military feel to it. (It's going to be repainted soon since my friend wanted it to be lighter...)

Okay, so here it is...

MG GAT-X102 Duel Gundam

With the Assaultshroud Armour

Will be sharing more Gunpla works soon once I'm done with a few more. Yep, it's been Gunpla months for me lately.

See you when I see you!

Master Grade 1/100 Duel Gundam Conversion

Update!

Well, looks like my last posting caused quite a stir within some of my regular clients. LOL.

I must insist again that I'm not RETIRING. Just taking a break from doing Transformer repaintings. I have my reasons, but the most is I'm burned out. Period.

And now, here's something that I've been working on for...emmm...a year plus. Yep. That long. So being able to finish this, was a great conquest for me! And it's my first MASTER GRADE conversion.

So what's the story?
Pretty simple. The Duel Gundam (Gundam SEED series) was one of my favourite mechs. But it saddens me that Bandai never actually produced an MG kit for this guy. They came out with the usual normal grade 1/100. So, having an extra MG Strike body and a Duel 1/100 I decided to make one.

Here's the original kit. (image courtesy of dalong.net)

The process was a long one. It went through many stages. And since it was my first time doing it, all I can say is...you better make sure you think it through! I had a basic design that I wanted to do, but worked around it later to suit the concept behind this kit.

What did I want?
A Duel Gundam that actually looks like his namesake. The world Duel itself means that it is a close combat unit. The simplicity of it's main design shows that it was meant for close proximity battles. And I also wanted to show that he has been in many battles without showing any battle damage. So the idea was to have a robot that has a rough look and yet looks streamlined for combat. I included the back part of his 'Assault Shroud' armour to the hips to give him a more sturdier look. What do we get?

A very 'macho', 'rugged' looking robot...

I present my first MG'fied Duel Gundam (it has some flaws, so hope you can forgive me for that)

Armed!

I'll be planning to work on his 'Assault Shroud' armour soon. But in the meantime, I do have more Gunpla works that I'm doing. So stay tuned!

Heh...it's good to do Gunpla again...

Gundam Works: Zollidia, Exia and Astray Red Frame

UPDATE!

Hey hey..guess what? I manage to get some pics of my previous Gundam works. Thanks to my good ol' buddy Fahmi (letting me take images of his precious took a lot of courage...heh). Anyhoo, I have taken the liberty to post 3 of the whole lot of Gundam kits that I've done using my trusty airbrush...

Okay, first up is the no-grade scale 1/100 Zollidia from the V-Gundam series. I've had this guy for quite some time and among all my collections, he's practically the only 'bad mech' from the Gundam world in my possession. I painted him before a while back by hand painting and it wasn't such a nice job. So when I got my airbrush, this guy got his paint stripped and done up properly.

Before:

After:

Next up is the no-grade 1/100 Gundam Astray Red Frame. This particular fella is the 3rd one that I've done in my lifetime. Yep...you heard it right. The 3rd time. And none of it was mine. LOL. Well, with this guy I used pre-shading. An airbrushing technique that I've been practicing on. It turned out okay. If you can see the seamlines, well, its not that I didn't want to cover it...it was the insistance of my friend/customer. So forgive me. No worries though, I've slowly started to work on my 1/100 Blue Frame...heh...my own kit...so it will be better. Trust me.

The third fella is the no-grade 1/100 Gundam Exia from the Gundam 00 series. This is the latest kit from the new Gundam series and all I can say is that Bandai's Gunpla technology has improved so much. The kit now sports superb joints nearly as close to the Master Grade kits. The amount of details put into the kit is amazing! I was having a whale of a time building it, but like the Red Frame, the seamline covering was omitted. (It's because of the fee that I charge...heh...) But like I said, no worries...my own Exia will be making its way in this blog of mine.

Alrite peeps, that's the update for now. Next update we'll be going back to Transformers. Maybe a good healthy dosage of Gundam kits, Armored Core kits would do a lot of good for the blog don't you think so?

Until next time!

Cheeeeerios!

Non Grade 1/100 Astray Red Frame

Since I'm working on a new repaint project at the moment, I thought that I could post up some of my previous Gunpla works. It will be random and not in chronological order since I don't really remember when I did some of them. For starters, here's the Astray Red Frame. I built him around February 2006 and haven't gotten my airbrush yet.

When the kit came out way back as a non-grade 1/144 scale (not much mobility..pretty sucky) I had to have it. Even for a non-grade it had details that was quite amazing. I managed to get hold of it and built it using my very noob skills at that time. As time passed by I prayed that Bandai would come out with a bigger version of this fella.

And they did.

Woohooo! I quickly got myself one and worked on it. *Note: This kit was painted using handbrush, so excuse the certain...erm...how shall we say..errors on it..heh*

First of all, it was a fantastic kit. Despite being a non-grade 1/100, not only the details but the poseability to it was as though it was a Master Grade! Before painting, I snap fitted it and it took me a week just playing with this guy..yes..I played with him. Giving him cool poses and such.

Anyways, got to painting and adding the decals to him..so here are the images of this magnificent non-grade gunpla kit.










For those how don't know, the Astray Red Frame is from the Gundam Seed series. They never showed him in the normal series but had his own manga and one animated clip for promotions.

A good kit.