Again I Disappoint You

Well, thanks to stupid insomnia I didn't get to sleep until around six in the morning, so even though I slept until 12:20, I'm pretty drowsy today. Not really the right mood for posting, so I'll get something up later today or tomorrow morning.


Great post, huh?

A Most Glorious Day

Today is the 19th of August, which may not mean much to anyone here, but it just so happens to be my birthday. Which, as you can imagine, makes today fairly important to me. Do I have any plans? No. I've never needed any before, and I don't expect to come up with one anytime soon.


Anyway, I'll be hunting aliens with the Combistick that the Predators gave me, so don't expect to see Pity on Xbox Live today.

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?

Halo: 343 Industries

Recently it was announced that the Halo universe will take a new direction in the form of seven straight to DVD Anime shorts, entitled "HALO Legends". These shorts are being created by five production studios: Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio4º C, and Toei Animation. You may know them, you may not. 

The project is being overseen by 343 industries, a Microsoft team lead by former Bungie employee Frank "Frankie" O'Conner. They handle Halo's conversion from a video game to other forms of media.

If you haven't already seen the Comic-Con trailer, click the banner below.

While I have heard mixed reviews about this (and I had to grimace at the fact that Toei, creators of Dragonball, are getting their hands on my beloved Halo), I will of course be buying Halo Legends.

That being said, my curiosity was peaked, and I took a quick glance at 343 Industries' Halopedia page.  Turns out they're overseeing a lot of new comics and such, but what really caught my attention was something called "The Forerunner Trilogy", a novel series currently being written by Greg Bear.

Sounds intriguing, doesn't it?

My Apologies

Not much to report right now.  I'll be working for the next few days, to make a bit of money.  When I'm done with that I'll get back to posting as regular.

Patience is a virtue.  Yeah, that's a laugh.

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.

I'm In Hiding: part 1

I'm posting this from an undisclosed location. The reason for this is not because alien zombies are trying to kill me, or because an army of robots has invaded Canada, it's just because I need some time off.


So I'm taking some. Be back Monday, or thereabouts.

Bye now. SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE! :)

1/1 Scale Gundam - Report part 2

Before I continue on to part two, you may have realized that my Gundam 00 Season 1 review has vanished, relegated to a "previous" page. Don't worry, it's still there. While easy to find right now, posts may soon be buried by sheer quantity. In case you ever wish to find anything (without scrolling through all the posts) I have included category labels and an internal search bar. Feel free to use them.

And so without further ado, part deux.

The Real-G, striking fear into Zeon Forces everywhere.

Besides having lights built into it (the little red and white ones here) the Real-G is equipped with backpack nozzles that emit jets of steam.

Beautiful. No other word for it.

The nozzles in question also feature blue lights, adding to the effect. While these would be difficult to see during the light-show, they certainly look impressive the rest of the time.

The joints, complete with giant screws.

Detail.... Jaw dropping detail....

The level of detail is amazing! The whole thing was painted based on a complex colour scheme. It even has oodles and oodles of signs and labels stenciled onto it.

It's the ultimate Gunpla instructions!

That much attention to detail....

While the sheer AMOUNT of these labels is staggering, that's not what's gotten the internet community talking....

In fact, it's this:

A timer? Inside the elbow? What can it mean?!

The purpose of this timer is seemingly a mystery. There are a lot of theories circulating: Doomsday, death, destruction, aliens, the list goes on. I suppose it could simply serve some mundane, technical purpose, but that wouldn't be any fun, now would it?

PS. I'm serious about the alien countdown theory. GunStray knows the truth.

You have until August 31st to visit the statue. If you can't get to Japan, well, join the club.

Images from GUNDAM.INFO

That about wraps it up, really. That's the 1/1 Gundam in a nutshell.

1/1 Scale Gundam - Report part 1

I was unable to post yesterday owing to the fact that it was my sister's birthday.  I know, not a promising start, but I'm making up for it now.  

Lately a lot of places have been covering the 1/1 scale RX-78-2 Gundam statue in Shiokaze park.  I've decided it's about time I posted something on the matter, so here's a little collection of photos.

The Opening Ceremonies

The statue officially opened to the public on the 10th.  The opening ceremonies were graced by a laser light-show (real lasers, BIG green ones), and appearances by Yoshiyuki Tomino (creator of the Gundam franchise), Toru Furuya (the seiyuu for Amuro Ray), as well as guest singer GACKT.

The trees look like shrubberies next to that thing!

Hard to believe it began life as this....

All images from GUNDAM.INFO

That's all I have time for right now, but I will post more tomorrow.

Danny Choo - The Master Has Taken Notice

Well, It's very late (or early?) here, and I was sorting through my e-mail when I noticed a message stating that Danny Choo has added my Flickr profile as a contact. It was a month old. While I must apologize to him for my lack of vigilance, I am extremely grateful for this, as it is the first step in my GRAND PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!

In case you're not familiar with him (and here I'm going to assume that you've been living under the proverbial rock, or in some cases, a very real, extremely grimy rock) , I shall enlighten you.

He runs the site dannychoo.com, a massive collection of photos (and such) of figurines, life in Japan, and all that good stuff. While I'm sorry to say that I've never signed up, I'm a fan of his work, especially the mecha stuff, like this article, which deals with Armored Core.

So here and now I'm making two vows: (1) To join dannychoo.com some time in the near future, and (2) to check my email and update this site every Saturday (unless I can't physically get to a computer).

In other news (if it can be called that) I have now finished Code Geass (both Lelouch of The Rebellion & R2). I'm surprised to say that I almost felt some kind of emotion at the end (something sort of... nice, compared to my usual blindingly zealous rage). But I'm not going to spoil the ending for you, you'll have to see it for yourselves, if you haven't already.

It's definitely going on the list of my favourite Sci-Fi Anime series. And Lelouch is now going somewhere high up on my "List of Bad-assery", with Grahame Aker, Char Aznable, Alex Row, and all the others (Boba Fett's on there too, even though he's not an Anime character).

(My, I do use parenthesis a lot when I talk, don't I?) (I do.) (It's a bad habit.)

(I'll stop now.)

Canada Day - 2 Days Late!

I meant to post this on the first of July, which was Canada Day, but the internet on my computer has been stupid lately.  Anyway, this (now past) July 1st marks Canada's 142nd Birthday.  143 years.  That's more than five!

Usually it's hot, humid, and sunny on Canada Day, but this year the weather was cool and, even more bizarrely, rainy!  This is  a very unusual year.

On a slightly less "Canada Day" note, I'm currently working on a ZAFT officer's uniform from Gundam SEED.  This was originally for the final project of my Drama Course, a monologue as the character Rau Le Creuset.  If you're not familiar with the name, he's one of my favourite gundam villains (although he's portrayed more as a tragic figure, who just happens to be a psycho).

Once I get the uniform done, I'll try to get some pictures up, and maybe even a recording of the performance.

That's it for today.  For those of you living in the US, I wish you a good day tomorrow.

Good news and (sort of) Sad news.

Well, this marks the end of the school year!  For me, anyway.  Which means I'm free!  And that means I'll have more time to brush up on some other series (besides gundam).  I've started reading Death Note and Code Geass, in the hopes of living up to my Otaku title.  ;)

On a more saddening note (to me anyway) is the fact that my hard-drive is running low on space, which means lag, and worse, no space to put up photos!  But do not despair, my friends, the photoshoot shall return!

At some point....

Angels & Demons: The Da Vinci Code Prequel/Sequel

Well, the schoolyear is drawing to a close, which means projects, projects, projects.  Bah.

But I've finally managed to pry myself away from doing projects (or more to the point, avoiding them all together), to post a little review, of sorts.  On Tuesday night I went to see Angels & Demons, a movie I've been anticipating ever since I read the novel in 2007.  

It's Tom Hanks.  What could go wrong?

A couple of months ago I saw the teaser, and I was extremely excited.  So you can probably understand why I was horrified to discover that they had completely eviscerated the book.  While The Da Vinci Code stuck to Dan Brown's work in every way possible, Angels & Demons is like half of what it once was.  Scenes, characters, and several plot points seem to have been haphazardly, even clumsily, dropped from the story, taking a lot of what happens completely out of context.  

However, if you ignore these glaring omissions, it's not a bad adaptation.  The only parts cut are those that are not completely essential  to the story, everything else is treated with the respect it deserves.  The music is AWESOME, a pulse pounding variation on The Da Vinci Code's Theme.  Ewan MacGregor's performance as the Camarlengo is extremely well done, bringing out the very essence of the character (reading the book I actually always imagined him looking somewhat how he does in the movie).  

Would I recommend seeing it?  That depends.  If you're a fan of the book you probably won't like it, but if you've never read the book, you won't know the difference.  I'm not sure, to tell the truth.  I saw it, but in the end it's up to you.

"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!