MG Sazabi & Armored Core: FA

Hey guys,

As usual, busy with school all the time so I'm finding it hard to find time to post. I'll update as soon as anything more interesting besides school happens though, lol..

Lately I've been preoccupied with Armored Core: For Answer for the XBOX360. It came out in the middle of September and the game is freaking AWESOME. More on that after Sazabi.

I finally had time today to continue working on Sazabi so I decided to post some pics. I only made the head for today, but at least it's getting somewhere!


Here's a pic of the head before I put all the fancy shiny red armor on. In the pic it's actually upside down but I didn't notice that until now, lol..


Meh, I hate the stickers that come with the Gundams. They look weird. So usually I decide to paint whatever I can with my Gundam markers. In this case I painted the eye of Sazabi. The outside of it is a shiny metallic green and the centre is yellow.


A properly oriented head with the eye in place. Time for the shiny armor!


Well I have problems taking these pics. I don't really have great lighting in my Gundam area so I try taking pics with flash and without and see which turn out better. This is with flash and it shows the shininess of the armor.


Here's a pic without flash. It shows the detail a little better, like how I majorly screwed up with my Gundam marker on the head part. Notice the right side line is a bit wobbly? Bah..


Again a pic without flash. I think Bandai did a pretty decent job so far with placing the nubs in good places so it doesn't show up too much when you build the kit, but there's still some parts that are fairly obvious. There's not much you can do about it though..


A pic with flash. Showing off the shininess again!


A side shot. The upper body is looking pretty good so far and it's pretty huge. Easilly the biggest I've built so far and it's much bigger than my Destiny and Hi-Nu.


Miku was a bit curious so she came over to take a look at Sazabi.


And because she's so cute, here's a close up pic of Miku!

I most likely won't be able to continue building until next weekend or if I get a burst of inspiration I might continue building tonight. We'll see! There's Code Geass R2 final ep out and a bunch of other stuff I need to do.

Anyways, I recently decided to buy "Armored Core: For Answer" for the XBOX360. I must say, this game is amazing. I'm hooked on it and even though it's only about 5-10 hours long to get through the story the first time, there's multiple missions and the amount of customization for your AC is amazing. Not to mention the White Glint is probably the best AC I've seen!

Here's a vid of White Glint in the opening of the game.


And here's a video of White Glint in action.



I remember one of my first games for the original PS was the very first Armored Core game. I had a lot of fun with that game but there was one stage that was freaking impossible with all these jumping blocks and at the end you had to fight a really hard AC in a very confined space. Being the impatient kid I was back then, after playing for a while and not being able to beat him I got sick of the game and gave up, lol..


Fast forward years later and the PS2 launched. If you guys remember, the PS2 games launched BEFORE the console did, so it was actually possible to buy games for it before it came out. I remember for my bday my friends actually bought me Armored Core 2 for the PS2.. for some reason I never actually played it. I was far too busy with all the other games for the PS2 and never really got around to it. I think I popped it into the system once and that was that, lol.


After that I skipped all the other AC games and now finally I've decided to delve back into it! And what an improvement it is.. I highly recommend this game for anybody that loves mecha. The game is like mecha porn, lol..

Anyways, that's all for today. Peace!

Ah yes, the images were jacked from IGN.com.

A Tour of My Place!

Hey guys,

Jeez, it's already been 7 days since my last post. Sorry for the lack of updates. Between being sick and school I didn't really have much time or energy to do anything else, heh. Thanks for all the get well comments as well. Not 100% yet but I'm much much better than before.

Anyways, I decided I'd give you guys a tour of my place! As you may or may not know, I live all by myself in Thunder Bay. First time living by myself so it was quite an adjustment.


The front door of the house. I live in a house that was converted into an apartment. On the first floor (the door is directly across from that main door) there are 4 or 5 chicks living there. I haven't run into any of them yet but I think I saw 2 of them before.


Stairs.. these are a bitch when you're carrying your backpack and a ton of groceries, lol. The ceiling isn't very high either so you can see at the top there they padded it in case you nail your head. Good thing for me I'm pretty short so I just have to duck a little bit when going down.


My door! The left door heads onto a patio that's for the guys that live on this 2nd floor. Behind me is the door to the 2nd floor room, and there's 1 guy and 1 girl living there.


Yes! More stairs! On the bottom of the stairs to the left is where the door is, and after climbing up more stairs you'll be at my crib. As you can see, my shoes are strewn all about the place.. on a good day I arrange them nicely on the stairs, lol..


A view from the top of the stairs looking left. From left to right we got the washroom which I don't think you can see, the kitchen, and then my bedroom. On the floor there, due to lack of space is my Gunpla, lol.


Looking right from the top of the stairs is my living room.


Another view of the living room. Got my TV there which can be conveniently watched when sitting on the can, lol.. and a ton of boxes.


Right in front of me is my backpack and the books that AREN'T in my backpack. Oh yeah and some dirty socks, lol..


My gundam models that I brought with me to Thunder Bay. I still got 3 more from this pile to build, not including Sazabi.


You might be wondering why there's a plastic sheet overtop of them. Well, when I first came here I left them without the cover on it for like a month. When I went to grab another model there was soooooooo much dust on top of them it was absolutely disgusting. I decided then and there that I'd leave them covered.


The mandatory washroom shot. Not much to talk about here. As I mentioned earlier, the throne is positioned perfectly with the TV in the living room so I can watch TV when taking a dump. Isn't that convenient? Hahaha..


A really bad picture of my kitchen.


The table in my kitchen that's littered with food! From the left we got.. expired milk. I kept it for like 3 days after it expired and kept drinking it until I decided I should probably throw it out, lol.. Next to that is some Hamburger Helper. Love the stuff! So easy to make and absolutely delicious. Then some Apple Cinnamon Cheerios which I had this morning.. absolutely the best breakfast cereal there is. Except besides maybe Corn Pops! Then a bunch of granola bars, some fruit cups, Frank's Red Hot Sauce and olive oil. Those cans there are some cans of soup that I got for pretty cheap ($1.49 at Superstore!) and some cans of Beefaroni.


All my appliances in one shot. Microwave in the top left there, water boiler, rice cooker, toaster behind that, and my George peeking out on the right.


A poorly lit shot of my refridgerator. As you can tell, it's pretty empty, lol.. In the top there's a bunch of mini-pizzas. Umm.. my Brita water filter, some lean ground beef (for my Hamburger Helper), whole wheat bread, strawberries, and some milk. There's some eggs on the right and some condiments and stuff.


As any poor student will tell you, noodles are a mandatory food group in the student life! On the left is some instant ones that you just add hot water to and let sit for a few mins, and on the bottom are the ones you actually throw into a pot and let sit for a bit. To the left of that is a sack of rice.


A shot of the view from my kitchen window. I like this view as it lets me see if any punks are messing with my car, lol..


Onto the bedroom! As you can see, it's pretty neat and tidy... lol.. on my bed there is a plush toy of Mashi-Maro. I've had it for almost 10 years now I believe. And as you can see I have my Calgary Flames jersey hanging on my wall. Hockey season is almost starting by the way! GO FLAMES GO!


Just a shot of my clothes and my jeans laying on the ground. Again, nice and neat yeah?


Onto the living room! This is where I spend most of my time when I'm not at school. As you can see, the laptop is nicely positioned in front of my couch. At the very front is a little one person sofa thing that I throw all my jackets and hoodies on. I normally hang them up but when I get lazy I just leave them there.


A shot of my TV and Xbox360, as well as the mountain of boxes that are accumulating. Still playing Tales of Vesperia by the way.. I have about 55 hours put into it right now and I think I'm still a fair bit away from the end of the game. Beside the TV is a bunch of books and random school stuff from the summer.


A closer look at the mountain of boxes. Maybe when i get a whole bunch of them I'll put them all in front of my couch and jump off my couch onto them. That'd be pretty fun I think, lol.. but yeah, I should PROBABLY start throwing some of them out. Maybe.


My figure/completed Gunpla corner! I'm basically out of room here so I think I need to start finding another place to put these.


From the left we got MG Hi-Nu Gundam. This was the first Gunpla I completed in Thunder Bay. Then we got Exelica from Trigger Hearts Exelica in the back taking up lots of space. In front of her is the WonFes 2008 Exclusive Saber Alter. The head on this fig differs from the normal version of this figure and I think it looks a LOT better. To the right is the lovely T-elos from Xenosaga. Hopefully KOS-MOS will be joining her in a few months. To the right of her is the ever cute Figma version of Miku Hatsune. Behind her is MG Destiny Gundam Extreme Blast Mode.


And here is a shot of my lovely Chu x Chu Idol harem. I love the characters from this game even though I've never played it. It's an eroge (x-rated Hentai game) and I don't understand Japanese so I can't play it if I wanted to, lol.. From the back on the left we got ChuChu Astram. She's one of the main characters in the game and she's a vampire. In the middle is Chua Churam. She's actually the "combined" version of ChuChu Astram and this other human girl in the game. Think Dragonball Fusion between Goku and Vegeta. But unlike Dragonball, to form this chick, the two girls kiss each other, lol. To the right of her is the loli-bait Melissa Seraphy in her "devil" outfit. In the front are the Nendoroid versions of Melissa Seraphy. The one on the left is the WonFest Exclusive Melissa Seraphy. She differs from the normal Nendo Melissa because she comes with different faces and the crown and cape. On the right is the normal Nendoroid version of Melissa Seraphy. As you can tell from the pic, WF Melissa is bullying normal Melissa by stealing her pumpkin and making her cry. That's just terrible Melissa!


Here's a shot of my Gunpla building corner. Basically just stuff sitting all around the place.


Closer shot of the desk. As you can see, there's my Sazabi in progress! Haven't had a chance to work on it so maybe today or tomorrow I'll get a chance to continue working.


A shot of the deck door. This wasn't always here. But in July/August it used to be a ratchety old door with 2 windows on each side. The landlords demolished it and put in this door, but it took them like a full month to do. At one point there was a freaking big hole in my wall with nothing between me and the outdoors besides 2 pieces of plastic, lol.. needless to say, there were a bunch of bugs in my house at that time. Not pleasant!


A shot from the deck. I like the view here.


As you can see, there's lots of trees.


And a final shot from the deck. The view from my place is fantastic as you can see Lake Superior directly ahead. I can actually even see it just sitting on my couch. I think I got a pretty good deal on this apartment so I'm pretty happy with it overall. It's big enough for me and has everything I need. It was quite an adjustment at first living by myself, but after a few weeks and months at it now I've pretty much got the hang of it.

That's all for today's post. Hopefully if time allows I'll be able to post more frequently.

Peace!

Sick.. so very sick..

Well I somehow ended up getting sick. I kinda had a feeling this was going to happen.. a lot of people in my classes are sick right now and a few days ago I ended up sitting beside some dude who was super super sick. I ended up feeling sick with a sore throat on Friday and today I've been super sick. Slept most of the day and hopefully I can get over the worst of this before school on Monday.

I actually got my Gundam markers on Friday! Got the Gundam Seed Destiny set and Destiny 2 set as well as a silver plating marker. One of the marker was a gold one and I was trying it out on Sazabi and it looks freaking wicked. I went and painted the yellow coil pieces as well as the front and back yellow pieces. I think it looks pretty killer now.

Anyways, I won't be updating until I feel better.. peace!

MG Sazabi Metallic Coating Version

Welp, things have been pretty busy in Uni. It's been a while since I've had a full course load and you really get tired out by the end of the day. I noticed that the professors tend to go through things a lot quicker as well so you really gotta pay attention. The assignments are starting to come as well and I haven't done any studying after 5 days of classes already and I already feel like I'm way behind. Gotta get started on that stuff..

Anyways! I was working on Sazabi over the weekend so here are some pics I thought I'd share. For those of you who don't really follow Gundam, Sazabi is the last mobile suit ever piloted by Char Aznable (a popular character who first appeared in the original Gundam 0079) in the movie "Char's Counterattack".


The box for the Sazabi. This sucker is pretty big and I believe it's one of the biggest MG kits out there. When completed Sazabi should stand quite a bit taller than any of my other models. In terms of price Sazabi is the most expensive MG kit I've gotten. It cost about $150 CDN. Damn you Bandai!


A look at the inside of the box. There's the instruction manual as well as all the parts for the model. Being the "metallic coating version" all the pieces are painted in a nice red metallic paint. This causes a bit of problem when you're trying to clean up panel lines as they don't want to come off once they've gone on! So basically, don't screw up, lol! It also causes a problem for when you're trying to clean up the nub marks from the cuttings but supposedly the branches for the parts are located such that it won't be that visible when cut. Or at least so I've heard.


This is a snap of the back of the instruction manual. After I'm done hopefully it'll look something like this.


A peek inside the instruction manual. Some people like to build certain parts first and in a certain order such as head first, then chest, then arms and legs, etc.. I tend to just follow the manual so whatever order the manual does it in, I do it in. It looks like I'll be starting on the chest first in this case! For people who aren't familiar with building Gunpla, the instructions are in Japanese, however, as you can see from the pic, you don't need to know any Japanese to build them. The pictures are all clearly labelled and drawn.


Some of the parts strewn about. All you need is a wire cutter to cut these out. Even if you don't have one, you can actually just twist and pop them out by hand which I highly recommend you DON'T do, lol.. When I was a kid though, that was actually how I built them as I didn't have wire cutters handy.


Ah success! The first part of the chest is completed, but it's not quite done yet. Something I noticed with building this kit so far is that there's a lot of little pieces that you have to cut out.. this could end up being quite a pain, lol..


The coil I'm working on there in the picture requires you to cut out each individual yellow "thingy" that then strings onto the coil. Each side requires about 4 or 5 of those yellow pieces. After you put them on the front, congratulations! You get to do it for the back too now! lol.. this was only the beginning of small parts hell..


A pic of the chest with the coil thingy done and the metallic parts mounted onto the chest.


A back view of the chest with the coil as well. I think you end up cutting out like 20 or so of those yellow pieces for the coil, lol..


Alright so Sazabi has these sweet funnel weapons in a pack on his backpack. What these funnel weapons do is they can fly out on their own, and shoot little beams and such. These are a freaking pain in the ass to build. There's a lot of small pieces for these.


Here's a nice little video to give you an idea of how those funnels work. It kicks ass! But what a pain to build... ><


Ah yes, more small parts. These were particularly fun, as you had to be careful not to damage the paint too much when cleaning off the nubs. As well I had to marker the lines to make it look better..


Ahhhhhhhhh success! This is what they look like after being completed. Whew! Worth the effort, they look pretty sweet.


And then you load all these suckers into the backpack holder thing for them.


After building the main backpack which wasn't too much work, you can attach the funnel holders and it looks like this. If you look closely at the funnels you'll notice that some of the paint has come off. This is due to the use of my exacto knife to clean up the nubs from the cuts. Apparently Bandai didn't place the cuts for these in a good spot but there's nothing I can do about it.


And finally, you attach the backpack to the main chest. You can also tell a bit more from this picture the damage to the paint on the funnels. Grrr..


A front view.


And the mandatory back view.

That's about as far as I'm along right now. I probably won't get a chance to continue building this until the weekend so hopefully I'll be updating as I continue to build!

That's all for today, peace!