FanExpo 2010!

Okay, so FanExpo is over. Three days of chaos at the end of the summer break. I met a lot of great people and saw a lot of neat stuff (pictures below). However, before I continue with this account of what I saw and did there, let me just say that Hobby Star Marketing (the company that runs FanExpo) really screwed up on this one. They're known for not giving a damn about what their fans think, but this time was really bad. If I've pre-ordered a Deluxe Pass, I shouldn't have to wait in a three hour line to get in. It was bad to begin with, but on the second day the building filled to capacity, and anyone who left (ie. to get lunch or something) was forced to wait in a massive line that could only move when a large group of people came out (so that's three people at a time with a wait of several minutes in between. You do the math!). The problem is, Hobby Star kept selling tickets! Now, I'm all for letting everyone have their turn, but if the building is full to capacity and you've got eight hundred people waiting to get back in, I think that's a pretty good sign to stop selling entry passes.


Anyway, now that I'm done ranting...

I apologize if any of the pictures are grainy/blurry/too bright etc. It's amazing that I got my camera too work at all.

I decided I should wear my Union costume again (that I wore to Anime North). It's really comfortable, and I love the colours (that's Canadian spelling for all you Americans out there). Not to mention that Canada is a member nation of the Union in Gundam 00, so it seemed befitting.

I took the train into Toronto every day, because it was simpler than driving, and cheaper than staying in a hotel.

Real men take the train.

Upon actually entering the convention, the first things made evident were the large booths in the middle of the showroom. For the sake of simplicity, let us call these the TRON booth and the ALIEN booth.

The Tron Booth, in all its glowy glory.

Stuff at the Tron Booth

Black Guard's Helmet

Just a side note, these suits and helmets are apparently what they actually what they wear onscreen. No CG involved here, folks!

The Alien Booth was in fact meant as a promotion for the new Alien Anthology BluRay. It featured four opening cryo pods, where you could "sleep", and be sufficiently terrified out of your wits.

Weyland-Yutani is bad people.

Some employees of "The Company".

Oh, and they had free cardboard facehuggers. What's not awesome about that?


Hasbro also had a booth, which included numerous dioramas dedicated to their products. Perhaps the best one was the battle of Hoth diorama.

It's no wonder the Empire won.

Trench Warfare

One of the caves

A view of one side of the hangar

The whole diorama was filled with interconnected tunnels, and even had Han and Chewbacca shooting at the Probe Droid.


The Gaming section had a Halo Reach booth, but I couldn't be bothered to stand in line.

All they had was Firefight... I want Forge!

Convention guests this year included Stan Lee, William Shatner, Peter Mayhew, David Cronenberg, Summer Glau, and Ogata Megumi. If you don't know who even a single one of those people is, shame on you (and go look them up). Unfortunately, due to the Con being overcrowded, I have no pictures of any of them. I do, however, have pictures of THE BATMOBILE!

Dadadadadadadada Dadadadadadadada BATMAN!

Of course, as with any convention, FanExpo is really about spending money. Of course, that means there's plenty of awesome merchandise to go around.

Perhaps the most interesting dealer's booth for me was this place that carried video games not released outside of Japan. Of course, most of it was extremely expensive (for my budget anyway).

Haruhi has a game? I didn't even know that.

Code Geass!

I was especially pleased to discover that they had this in stock.

A brand new copy of A.C.E.: R!

Properly called Another Century's Episode: R, this is a Mecha Fighting Game featuring machines from Gundam, Code Geass, Macross, Full Metal Panic, and Armored Core, to name a few.

Some Gundam Games

And that's just one vendor! They had everything else geek-y under the sun.

More stuff! More I say!

I think I'll talk about costumes next... Or maybe just show you.


But since I'm incredibly tired right now, I'll save the costumes and loot for part 2.

Oh, and for those who met me there and want my email, it's Jern_Gundam@hotmail.com

I Am NOT Dead

Well, I've been away for a while. Got some new vids up on YouTube, and I've been taking more pictures. Above is a small sample to keep you all amused.

I'm currently making some minor edits to previous posts, fixing mistakes and such. Check back soon.

The Last Days of Summer Break

People seem to have this bizarre habit of holding events in the last few weeks of the summer break.

Especially in Toronto.

As you may or may not know, the Toronto FanExpo is one of the largest "fan conventions" in Canada. With that in mind, it's obvious why it was held in the Metro Convention Centre, a colossal building right next to the CN Tower.

FanExpo ran from August 28th-30th, a sort of "conclusion" to the month. Unlike most other conventions, which are only geared toward fans of one genre (i.e. comic books or Sci-Fi), FanExpo is designed to appeal to fans of Anime, Sci-Fi, Comics, Horror, and Gaming. Of course this means a wide variety of vendors, artists, and celebrities are present at each show.

But wait, you ask, what kind of celebrities would be present at such an event? Well, the list was too long to mention everyone, but it included Leonard Nimoy, Billy Dee Williams, Linda Hamilton, Mary McDonnell, Beau Bridges, Walter Koenig, and even Bruce Campbell (this is my BOOMSTICK!).

I had the great pleasure of meeting some of my favourite voice actors, namely: Brad Swaile (Setsuna F. Seiei, Light Yagami/Kira, Amuro Ray), Crispin Freeman (Alex Row, Jeremiah Gottwald), Steve Downes (The Master Chief), and of course, Scott McNeil (Ali Al-Saachez)! I have pictures somewhere, but sadly I haven't been able to "retrieve" them yet. Perhaps at a later date.

Before I continue, it must be made common knowledge that this was not only my first FanExpo, but also the first convention I've attended. Hopefully the first of many.

Now on to the main event!

Upon entering the main hall, visitors were greeted by this statue of the Master Chief. What better way to set the mood?

See those white boxes? That's all comic books.

Even with his head mounted on a wall, the Balrog is terrifying

There's just too much!

For me, walking into FanExpo was like a dream come true, except that everything cost money! The vendors section was full of long booths, brimming with collectables, action figures, posters, books, DVD's and comics. Then of course there were the stores that practically sold nothing but Gunpla.

Of course, the Toronto Garrison of the 501st Legion was present, dressed as various characters from the Star Wars Saga. The members of the 501st sport costumes of very high quality, right down to the mouthpiece, which gives them that cold, menacing "Stormtrooper-y" voice. To create the feeling that these were real troopers on patrol, certain people were given a "Droid Hunt" badge. If a trooper approached someone in possession of one of these badges, that person would have to turn it over.

On the first day the trooper patrols were crawling all over the place, but as Fan Expo progressed they became less frequent.

The Fighting 501st: Vader's Fist on patrol

Droids?

This guy was fun. I took a couple of snaps of him, then as I turned to leave, thinking "he didn't notice my Droid Hunt badge, I'm ninja", he said "I'm not finished with you yet." Curses!

Anyway, according to the rules of the Droid Hunt, he took my badge away. However, near the end of FanExpo it was possible to pick up another as a souvenir, with a donation to charity. By that time I only had spare change left over, but gave all I could.

After all, good cause, plus 501st keepsake? How could I refuse?

It goes without saying that people would be Cosplaying at an event such as this. I was very impressed with some of the designs, however, I only took pictures of the ones I recognized.

Mal from Joss Whedon's Firefly/Serenity

For Z.A.F.T.!

The MJOLNIR MK V & VI

I'm no expert, but I think these guys serve The God Emperor of Mankind

On the third day, I wore my homemade Z.A.F.T. officer's uniform (the white one). Not entirely finished to my liking, so no pictures of that yet, but I will get some taken once it's all done.

Fan Expo may be over, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to look forward to. After all, it'll be returning next year: 2010!

We'll be back next year! Rebel scum.

Somehow in between all my running around to get stuff signed, I still had some time to myself, and used it well.

Yay, loot!

As you can see, I did a bit of shopping. I got all this for about $140 (Canadian, of course).

By the way, you may notice some signatures on the Gundam 00 DVD. In blue, Brad Swaile, the voice of Setsuna. The other signature is Scott McNeil's, the voice of (yep, you guessed it) Ali Al-Saachez!

I was exhausted after FanExpo, but just a few days later, I was at it again. This time at the Rotary Brantford Charity Airshow. Brantford, for all those of you who don't know, was once the home of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone. But that has nothing to do with aircraft.

And aircraft is why I was there in the first place.

The Snowbirds: Canada's aerial acrobatics team

Some consider them a Canadian symbol. The Snowbirds, 431 squadron, is a group comprised of active members of our armed forces. They perform all kinds of tricks and maneuvers, including some lethal looking loops.

This, of course, is our Avro Lancaster bomber. One of only two (2!) left in the world that can still fly. This one is usually kept in the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, less than thirty minutes from where I'm sitting as I type this. The other airworthy Lancaster belongs to the Queen of England, and she doesn't let the public take flights in hers. That's right, it's possible to take flights in our Lancaster, although I think there's a waiting list (don't quote me on that).

Yes, that is an F-18. We do have those.

I'm sure there are some people who believe that our Air Force consists of Biplanes and lumberjacks with wings tied to their arms. I reject your blatant stereotyping with the power of the fighter jet.

Accelerate!

It's hard to tell from this picture, but that jet is going wicked fast. Ironically the clearest picture I took all day, with less blurring than the planes moving one third that speed.

In Soviet Russia, trainer plane pilots you!

Do a Barrel Roll!

It's been a great summer, but for once I'm actually exited about going back to school (blasphemy!), mostly because I finally get to choose all my classes. That means I'm going to be spending most of the year on a stage or around video cameras, which should prove to be awesome. Next stop, Hollywood (or Vancouver, if I can't get Stateside)!

Just one last thing. I took so many pictures at FanExpo and the airshow, that I don't have the upload space to put them all in my Flickr photostream. So, unfortunately I won't be able to upload the others for about a month, but if anyone thinks they'll still want to see those photo's around that time, just say so in a comment sometime between now and then.

Thus concludes my last post for the summer.

1/100 "No Grade" Union Overflag: Part 1

This took me a while to write, so it's a day late. Bah, Humbug.

No, I haven't forgotten about my "Lunazaku". I just got bored with it. I'll get it done at some point, but for now I have bigger fish to fry. Like 1/100 scale fish, for example. This particular model was so awesome that even my 1/100 Tieren Ground-Type had to be pushed aside. I speak, of course, of the 1/100 "No Grade" Union Overflag. The Lunazaku may be a cool looking Mobile Suit, but it's not a Flag. End of discussion.

If you can't remember anything about the Zaku, click here.

And so, without further ado....

First of all, I believe some background information would be most helpful. The SVMS-01O Overflag is The Union of Solar Energy and Free Nations (let's just call them The Union, shall we?) response to Celestial Being's Gundams. They are armed with much more powerful weapons than the mass production SVMS-01 Union Flag, and are also slightly different in shape. Overflags, like their older "cousins", are capable of transforming from Mobile Suit mode into a Mobile Armour/fighter plane.

The Overflag is a flight type Mobile Suit, and it looks the part. In fact, even the box shows it in an airborne pose. This is unusual for the box of a No Grade 1/100, which usually show the Mobile Suit in a static, sometimes even boring, pose.

Even in the Boxart, he's still doing the Graham Aker Special

The variant on the front of the box is Graham Aker's Overflag, which can be identified by the fact that the inner barrel of the Linear Rifle is blue, not the standard silver. Graham also holds his rifle left-handed, for some reason (now that I think of it, most of his Mobile suits are predominantly left-handed). I myself am a "Lefty", but being a traditionalist, I chose the standard colour scheme for my 1/100.

The completed Overflag, as yet unpainted

I have to admit, even without any paint, it looks pretty good. The silver inside the rifle and behind the visor are the only parts that need to be painted before assembly. If you're to lazy to paint, you can always use the foil stickers. These are surprisingly detailed, compared to the stickers on a 1/144, which I try to avoid using at all costs. I actually used some foil stickers when working on this kit, but those may be removed and replaced with paint, if I feel that would improve it.

Wow, that picture came out great. I'll stop gloating now.

Seriously though, I'm very happy with most of these photos. How is that relevant, you ask? Simple. The Overflag is black and a mix of greys. Put those against a white (or light grey) backdrop, and you get every photographer's worst nightmare. It was so difficult to get the exposure just right, that every time I was even slightly off, it would become just a black shape against a searingly hot background. But in the end, determination, skill with a digital camera, and a whole lot of enhancing made my work nearly as impressive as the professionals.

That being said and done, you can actually see it here, and it is once again obvious that the Overflag was meant for aerial combat. It has very little armour, relying instead on agility and superior firepower to win the day. It looks relatively light, and certainly aerodynamic. The defense rod on the left arm can be detached to further decrease the Suit's weight.

But perhaps my favourite thing about the Overflag, and the Flag series in general becomes apparent when examining its face. The flag possesses traits from the "bad guy" machines of two of the more popular Gundam timelines, Universal Century (U.C., popular for Gundam, Gundam Zeta, etc.) and After Colony (A.C., Gundam Wing, although some would argue this is not popular). It not only has the "visor" seen on many A.C. Mobile Suits, but also the classic "Zeon Eye" made famous by the original Gundam series (albeit this one is red instead of pink).

Sieg Zeon?

Well, I think that's enough for today. Coming soon, Sonic Knives and Mobile Armour Mode!

Visit the gallery here for all the pics I didn't have time to cover.

I'm In Hiding: part 2

Well, I'm back.  Arrived home late last night, much to the chagrin of the neighbours.

I was a tad (is that a word, I think so) vague in my last post, so I'll explain. For the past three days (give or take) my family took a trip to Port Stanley, a town on the shores of Lake Erie. While it was warm enough to swim at the beach, I did not. Instead I occupied myself with Gunpla and seeing the sights.

Anyway, I'm back now, so expect to be hearing from me again soon.

For the complete photo gallery, click here.