I have noticed a number of people in the Introduce Oneself thread have said they enjoy building plastic robots. So let's see them!
This thread is for showing off gunpla and any other plastic models like cars or planes or Warhammer etc.
I've been making gunpla on and off for years. A few years ago I got really hot and heavy with it but now I rarely make any because I bought too many video games. But I want to make some more. I want to do something with the kits for the Gundam and main character from the new Mercury series.
Anyway, here are some of my builds. I mainly do high grades because you can rattle through them and do lots of different builds. I've done a lot of straight builds with panel lining and top coat but a few years ago I got into doing a lot of custom paint schemes and part swaps.
I'm excited to see this thread as a cool plastic robot enjoyer! Your builds look great @“Chopemon”#p92755 - excellent photography, too.
I've been into gunpla for about a year now, and began by sternly proclaiming I would only do HGs ([here's a brief introduction](https://www.mechamodels.com/gunpla-introduction/) to the terms/lingo for those curious) for the sake of time and bank balance. But, of course, I now have a ridiculous backlog of mostly MG (specifically Ver Ka) kits looming over me. I am fully entrenched in this hobby.
My most recent build is the RG Eva Unit 08. I'd snapped together a few RG Evas before this, so the core experience was familiar (but still very enjoyable), but man I love the colour and the ridiculous rifle.
Next on the agenda is the MG Gundam X. I have a few HG G-Witch kits in the queue, too. I'm enjoying the show a great deal (especially as it's gone full Punished Gundam mode in recent eps).
My favorite build of everything I've done was the Syd Mead's Turn-∀ Gundam, which was also the model Bandai chose to commemorate the 100th kit released on that grade.
Beautiful lines, amazing build and incredible flexibility in terms of articulation and posing, I even did some tests trying to emulate some JoJo poses, and was very impressed by how well it was able to pull those off!
@“JoJoestar”#p92766 Turn A is my favourite Gundam show and it‘s one of the best gundam suits for sure. Syd Mead was a king! I loved his interviews on the Turn A blurays (they’re on YT I think).
One day Bandai will stop being Bandai and actually reprint the MG Turn X...
I've been playing table-top war games with a group at a local games store for the past few years. If you're curious about specifics, I started with [Guild Ball](https://steamforged.com/blogs/resources) (now defunct) and primarily play "[Infinity: The Game](https://infinitytheuniverse.com/games/infinity)" now. So my experience coming to a gunpla model came with this for my context. So the "value-added" work for me is mostly in the painting process rather than the assembly process. Another key difference is that the Gunpla models are mostly display pieces, whereas the war game models for me are ultimately extremely high-end tokens for a board game.
Here's an example of a reasonably recent kit I did - this is a pair of remotes that are made out of a newish injection mold process called "Siocast"
[upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/6GpGWJg.jpeg]
[upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/UFejjfG.jpeg]
For visual calibration, these specific models are on 40 mm diameter bases.
On a whim and as a Covid Project, I ordered this Bandai/Wave Corporation model kit of a _Persona 4 Arena: Ultimax_ cabinet off eBay.
[upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/D7oUVuG.jpeg]
One of the primary observations I had putting this kit together vs. my years of putting together war game model kits is how much easier Gunpla was to assemble. War game kits are usually sold in blister packs (or boxes for bigger kits) with no instructions and lots of clean up needed before you can really start assembly. You need to wash off the injection molding release (soapy water and a toothbrush) scrape or file away any mold lines or flashing with a file or hobby knife and even sometimes drill tiny holes to glue in paperclips for strength when the tab-slot connections don't do their job.
The gunpla kit was seriously a joy to put together. It's much more complex in terms of its assembly and number of parts, but the manufacturing engineering was brilliant. It just goes together and even with no Japanese-language ability, the pictures make it unambiguous to assemble. I used Google Translate on a few items and it was mostly along the lines of "Hey, be sure to put this sticker on first before you snap it together".
If you've never done one of these kits, I encourage you to go try one. They take a little work to assemble, but they are fun and look good right out of the box without extra work.
Here's where mine lives now. My kit came with two dozen different screens to put behind the display. It rules.
Those arcade cab kits are really cool. I got a Cave themed one. That Persona Arena looks like it has more detail and looks cooler!
A friend was going to help me swap out the screen for some kind of Pi setup so I could have playthrough videos looping on it whenever the setup gets power from my PC's usb but it has yet to happen.
Been a while since I’ve built or painted anything. I have a few unbuilt EVA units that I’ve been meaning to get to, and I recently picked up a model kit of Sumire’s mech from Sakura Wars, but again, haven’t found the time to get to it.
Here are two of my most recent painted models though, a beholder from D&D, and a model of Killer Queen from Diamond is Unbreakable!
@“antillese”#p93134 Whats the story behind that full size cab? I would love to have something like that. Is it a kit or did that come out of an arcade?
@“KingTubb”#p108869 Those early RGs do get floppy for sure. Fortunately they moved away from that type of inner-frame with newer kits. The recent RGs have all been total bangers!
I thought I posted it in the hardware showoff thread but I can't find it.
It was a kit from the old management at https://recroommasters.com/ . I cannot speak for their current management or product line. To my knowledge I have the last sit-down one ever made.
For years I'd been avoiding building a cabinet out of some kind of desire for authenticity, but what I really wanted was something that felt like a candy cabinet, but ran modern stuff. Once I realized I wanted a glorified Ikea kit I went and ordered it.
Behind the coin door (which is a sweet sticker) is pawn-show Onkyo home theater receiver driving a comically large Yamaha sub I got off of craigslist and cartoonishly small Pyle speakers I got on Amazon for the tweeters. But they're totally fine. I've got a nice 1080 HDR monitor, but because of the older receiver, I can't actually do HDR on the monitor right now. It's fine - it looks great.
Because it's effectively a home theater, I can connect anything that eats HDMI. So I have a hand-me-down Windows PC in there for emulation and PC games that don't require a ton in the way of horsepower (it's a 9th Generation i5 Intel). I can play _Streets of Rage 4_ on Steam, and emulate up to GameCube which is great. If I want to play _Persona 4 Arena_ or _Guilty Gear Strive_, I connect the PS5. Gonna do that for _Street Fighter 6_ in a few months too.
I'm very proud of the control panel. It's a full custom replacement of what it came with. I did the layout, and mechanical/manufacturing engineering myself in CAD (SpaceClaim if you're a CAD nerd). It's two Sanwa sticks, and the buttons are all 30mm Sanwas which I put silencing pads in so I don't annoy my wife. It's driven by two Brooks Universal Fighting Board PCBs which eat the button inputs and spits out USB so I can connect it to anything that takes accepts a USB joystick. I threw an extra switch dock in the cabinet too so I can play Sega _Ages Thunder Force/Litening Force_ on it too. I commissioned a buddy who is a graphic designer and he did the marquee and panel artwork and I love it.
It completely rules and any time I get to play something on it or share it with friends I feel like I'm getting away with something.
… But this thread is about painting! Here's what I finished most recently: I painted a Hero Forge model for a buddy who plays D&D. This is his character:
I play Aleph (top) and their sworn enemy the Nomads (bottom two). The majority of my Aleph models are in my case for game night (though I haven't been able to play since January 😭😭). I'm intending to bang out that Marut (the big primed one on the left) over spring break. We'll see!
I very recently gave my boy a little tlc after more than a few years on display. Washed some caked on dust off of him and gave a once over with rubbing alcohol. Redid the panel lining too because it had mostly faded.
My most recent build was an RG Zaku which I didn’t have much fun building. Too fiddly.
I have completely fallen off Gunpla after going hard on it for a few years but as part of my mental health rehabilitation, I have turned back to another form of plastic; 40K.
I used to play 40K as a teenager and then in my early 20s when I had a good friend group and before I moved away for work. I realise that I need to get out and socialise and do something that isn't making and playing games so I've picked 40K back up so I can go to a local game shop and play.
I used to play Sisters of Battle and I've gone for them again since they have all been redone in plastic. I really like the new models, the detail is phenomenal. The new paints are great and I've invested in decent budget brushes and I'm having a great time painting them. Soon I'll be going to a store and learning to play, just in time for the new edition to change everything.
Here are my first couple of figures. [URL=https://i.imgur.com/ShoXVZ2.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/ShoXVZ2.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=https://i.imgur.com/ayIlsrE.jpg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/ayIlsrE.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
I haven't played 40K since … 2nd edition. GW just announced 10th ed.
I _do_, however, listen to some lengthy 40K lore videos on youtube. Often while falling asleep so I only really hear the first few minutes and need to play the same video about 5-6 times to actually hear it all.
I always liked the models, I still have some from the 90's (when I had 2nd ed) on a shelf at my parents' house. I had some khorne chaos marines, and then some tyranids - probably the best of the lot there was a carnifex. I'll try to remember next time I'm visiting to grab a photo.
I finished the Marut for Infinity recently and in the grand tradition of freshly painted miniatures, it was a total clown show on its first outing. Didn't really kill anything and got hacked, possessed, and killed all of my own midfield units. A+, would paint again.
