Well, its been a week since my previous post. Lifes been busy as usual, filled with uni, tafe and work. And ofcourse, there has been more new gunpla soon to roll out of Bandais factories, including the PG 00 Raiser, and 2 MG Astray frames.
After a couple of weeks at tafe, after getting through all the basics of Maya, we've begun to build some simple constructions and work with some simple animation. Heres some progress of the stuff i've made so far.
And as usual, i tend to go a little overboard with the use of glass materials, and also use the most complicated light calculations available. Hence, doing this 720p still shot render still took around 5 minutes on a Q6600 overclocked to 3.1 ghz.
And now we move onto the main part of todays post. As most of you may already know, Onderon and I have both now gotten our MG Exia Ignition kits. And since he's too busy making love with his sabre tiger, I decided to go ahead and start on our kit review.
My very first thoughts......what looks like a giant round sticker on the right hand side of the box is actually printed on. Which is rather odd, as the sticker says "Premium Price". Now for a kit that costed almost an extra 40% compared to the standard mg, how are gunpla fans paying a premium price??
But i suppose from a Japanese point of view, the words would seem to attract buyers even if they have to pay more.
Now we move onto the parts. A and B runners. If koto thinks that they're chasing up to bandai, think again. 4 different colours moulded onto the same sprue, and with laser etched words into the transparent green plastic. Koto still has a LONG way to go if they want to be head to head with bandai.
C and D runners
E and F runners
G, H, I, J1, J2 runners, and 2 LED units
One of the BIGGEST mistakes i've made about this kit was to assume that they would give you a J2 runners. ie the standard grey runner, and the bling bling.
However, this time, bandai wasnt feeling as generous, so they only give you the bling.
This means more work would have to be done on the blades to hide the sprue marks.
K, L, M, polycaps, beam sabers, foil stickers, decals, and special plastic sheet for the transparent parts. Once again, we see bandai's superior moulding....4colours on the same tree.
And the extra cape, which is most likely rolled out from bandais latest ecopla plant.
BUILD PART 1
GN Drive
The GN drive unit
Consists of 13 parts and plus one for the stand.
The drive cone on the end can extend out slightly to reveal the bling bling flywheel, which is encased in clear plastic. As you can see from the pics, the part pops out around 1.5mm which isnt alot, and most of the time, when pulling the drive out, the rear cone would also come out aswell. A small dab of cement would help solve the problem.
With the Ignition kit, LEDs are included in the drive. Unfortunately, I dont have any LR41s lying around at the moment. However, Onderon and I have ordered 100 of these online, and when they arrive, i shall post up pics of the glowing drive.
So i suppose thats all for tonight. Would continue to build over the next few weeks and keep you guys up to date about it.
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