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

Fan Expo 2010 Preparations & New Look!

Finally implemented those changes I said I'd be making, as I've been nagged into posting again. Unfortunately, my photography booth was taken down months ago, and my Camera hasn't worked properly since Anime North (that was in May!). For these reasons, I felt there was no point in continuing this blog. However, public demand on Xbox Live has convinced me to start it up again. And so that's exactly what I'm doing.

Anyway, FanExpo 2010 starts on Friday, and I'm trying to fix the camera so I'll have some pictures to talk about. I'll be going as a Union Officer from Gundam 00, the same costume I used at Anime North (I really like this one). But because I feel there's always room for improvement, I've worked up some props to take with me. Here's one for your enjoyment.

It's designed to be some kind of Union public service announcement/propaganda article. I'll probably hand some of them out (in hopes of people taking pictures of me).

Anyway, if you're going to FanExpo 2010, let me know with a comment! You may see me there!

Oh, and you Xbox Live guys will have to keep nagging at me to post, it helps a lot.

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.

Cleaning Up My Act - I know, it's a bad joke.

Well, contrary to popular belief, the last few days have been busy for me.  I was going to take some photos of a few of the other Action Figures in my collection, only to discover that almost all of the weapons from my various Star Wars figures are missing.  My "Nerd Rage" was swift and terrible.  In the end I came to the conclusion that what I really needed was a new place to put stuff, to keep away dust and make my collection more easily accessible.  Enter the convenient storage shelves, stage left.  These shelves are in the same room as my Xbox, so I can dust stuff whilst playing, if need be.  The only problem is that I have to share that room with everyone, hence the Photo Albums and stuff....

The shelves, mostly empty.  And yes, that is a MJOLNIR MK-VI helmet on top.

I had to keep the helmet up there, or else it would have fallen prey to the dreaded "costume bin".  And before you say it (or think it), I'm not one of those guys who go around making all the weapons and boots and such.  They are talented individuals.  I am not.  I choose to have a life, limited though it may be.  If you want to make your own set of cardboard Recon armour, you go right ahead, I've got nothing against you (however, there are some people who hate talented individuals).

What with all this organization, and with Toronto FanExpo '09 looming on the horizon, I haven't got much time to be taking pictures, however, I'll try get some more shots of the Throne Eins MSIA uploaded to my Flickr within the week.

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.

All Work and No Play... Sort Of...

I'm currently putting up some new pictures.  Can't say of what right now, but I promise you there is Gunpla.  I'll be updating my Flickr photostream soon, to include these new additions.

I'd have them up today, but some of the photos need a bit of work in Photoshop to make them less... dark and such.  And I happen to feel lazy today.  What else is new?

"Eins" Photoshoot

Notice how every time I don't post for a while, I come back with something awesome? I wonder why that could be? A "don't unsubscribe, I'm still here" bribe, perhaps? Nah, not really.

And so, without further ado, I bring you another Photoshoot!

To view the complete set, click here.

This is The GNW-001 Gundam Throne Eins from Season 1 of Gundam 00. As the personal Mobile Suit of Johann Trinity, It's the lead machine used by the Throne Meisters. It's also one of my favourite Mobile Suits, and the first 00 MSIA in my collection (These things are hard to find here, I'm looking for the Exia next). This figure has an interesting backstory, because it was purchased in a bookstore in Amsterdam, of all places. So basically it was designed in Japan, made in China, purchased in The Netherlands, and brought back to Canada. That's a journey across three continents and an ocean!

This is a bit of an ongoing story/photoshoot, as there are some parts on this particular figure that need minor modifications. Once those are done I'll come back to it, so expect to see more weapons, equipment, and poses at a later date!

"McFarlane Halo 3" Photoshoot

Sorry for my recent inactivity, I've had a lot on my plate lately.  Anyway, I promised photos, so here you go!  

To view the complete set, click here.

The figures shown are The Master Chief from series 1 and The Arbiter from series 2.

Photo Shoot

Well, my Xbox is overheating like crazy, and I think the seals are melting (or some such technobabble), so since I can't use it I've decided that this weekend I'm going to get my camera and start taking pictures.  What kind of pictures, you ask?  You'll just have to wait and see....