TallonMetroid

First build of the new year is the P-Bandai HGAC Altron. This is, of course, TV Altron which is the superior Altron. I'm normally all for ver Ka redesigns, but Katoki made a mistake here replacing the original folding shoulder mechanism for the accordian arms.

Also, part of the reason I ordered this kit was because I was curious how they gave it the ability to t-pose, because I have a MG Shenlong that I slapped the old 1/100 HG Altron shoulders onto and wanted to see if I could give it some better articulation there. Turns out the socket for the shoulder inside the torso swings up, instead of forward like with most kits. So that would have required completely re-engineering the MG torso inner frame, which, uh, is way beyond my skill set. Sad.

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"It's just a windmill!" they said. "You're delusional!" they said. Well who's crazy now?!

Featuring Knight Gundam and Nether Gundam. Since I had leftover SD frames from some SDCS builds, I decided to 3D print a conversion kit for one of the Gundams of all time. Strictly speaking, it's specifically a CS frame conversion kit and not intended for the SD frame at all, with the arm pieces wedged against the shoulder armor having basically no articulation at all, and the legs and feet just straight up too bulky to even assemble on the SD frame. If this were any other Gundam, this would have been a problem, but the Nether Gundam has a flight mode, so here we are.

What do you mean, Mrs. Loheng-Rinko totally counts as a Seed kit! I'll fight anyone who disagrees in Gunpla Battle.

Anyway, the Strike is from the BB Senshi Striker Weapon System kit, but I wouldn't have been able to fit it onto her lap if any of the weapon packs had been equipped. Sad. Once I get the Skygrasper painted, because holy crap it needs it, I'll stick all the weapons on it instead and add it to the stand.

Whoof, that name's a mouthful. But anyway. This kit. I love it. The fact that it came with this entire display area, complete with tapestries in the back, is just so ridiculously amazing. Like, sure, this is based on the MG 1.5 RX-78, so the hands don't necessarily hold the weapons that well, but who cares? Just put them in the weapon racks and the Gundam itself in seiza.

Headon view:

Something I've been working on off and on for a few years. Ostensibly a 2xTallgeese conversion kit (one for each), although it really doesn't use very much from the Tallgeese at all, just mostly the limb joints. I found out later that this is because the kit was a rework of an earlier resin Kit that didn't use any Tallgeese parts at all to begin with.

My very first MG kit, originally built almost 20 years ago, newly repainted and equipped with the Seraphim binders and Neue Zwergs from the Effect Wings Snow White addon kit. Had to strip off all the original decals for the painting, but honestly the stickers hadn't handled 20 years worth of dust very well anyway. Also, the original hands were terrible at actually holding the buster rifles, so I put in some magnets to stick them to the forearms

Or, according to the manual "EAST INVINCIBLE", which is some jarring Engrish given how well translated the rest of it was. Now I just need Bandai to release a HGFC Rising Gundam so I can pose them together for the Sekiha Love Love Tenkyoken.

Bonus: Nobell Gundam on a horse

Messer Zwergs are from the Effect Wings Snow White addon kit. The paint mixture I used ended up being more blue than I expected, but all in all it still turned out pretty well.

Bonus: there's something not right about this Snow White, but I can't quite put my finger on it...

Rear view:

I already posted a pic of this in a mostly completed state alongside the Kiryu, but this can now be considered actually done. Mostly just a straight pallet swap (blue > white, red > blue, yellow to red), not including the stripes and shoulder armor. The stylized RX-78 emblem and the star field are actually custom decals I printed onto blank water slide paper, and I'm really pleased with how they turned out. Not pictured is the core fighter, which has also been pallet swapped. At some point I'll do a resin cast of the MG 3.0 core block and sitting pilot figure and replace the core fighter with them so that I can have the core fighter out on display too. Aside from that, probably the only other thing I might do is tint the beam javelin effect parts pink.

Aoshima's Type 3 Kiryu Kai Eva-02 color version, with a partially finished MG 2.0 Gundam (repainted in the American Type colors) for comparison. Since the Kiryu normally just has uniformly silver armor all over, to get the Evangelion style coloring a lot of pieces were pre-painted on the runners. Which is nice in that it saves me the trouble of painting it myself (or gods forbid, applying giant stickers to recolor pieces), but unfortunately it does leave nub marks. Build complexity isn't quite at MG standard, but there is enough of an inner skeleton that I would still rate it as more than HG. Price is a little steep, being more in the high end action figure range than what would be expected for a comparable Gunpla, but all in all I'm pretty satisfied with the kit.

Gundam Epyon (Sturm und Drang unit), with decals and topcoat applied. What I really wanted to do was to have the Epyon hold it straight up with both hands, like the He-Man pose, but alas the wrist articulation doesn't support that pose.

Fun fact: the tip of the tail is actually in one of the holes in the base plate, acting as a brace to keep the model from tipping backwards.

Decent build, all around. If I had one complaint, it'd be the clamps holding the feet to the surfboard. The clamps have a single peg at the back that go into the grooves on the board, which allows for some fairly dynamic poses, but they're at risk of popping out if the Maxter gets jiggled too hard.

I might keep it like this, or I might switch to having the armor blasting off as well; haven't quite decided yet.