Trip – Page 180 – Robot Claw

Shin Musha Gunpla

April 21, 2012

Over two years ago, on our last trip to Japan, I went menerk and purchased on our penultimate day a suitcase full of Gundam kits. You can glimpse some of them in the photo of loot from that trip shown in this entry. Some of those kits have since been assembled, some have been gifted and others sit on the shelf waiting for their day.

And for one particular kit – the biggest, best and most daunting, that day had arrived.

It’s the Master Grade 1/100 Shin Musha Gundam kit. This is an imagining of Gundam as if they were designed in medieval Japan. I fell in love with it when I saw it in a store, and despite the large box had to get it. I recall even now the effort getting that suitcase packed (I didn’t joke above; one suitcase was literally packed with just Gundam kits) but I’m glad I did.

Years of just admiring the box however had to eventually end, and two weeks ago when I decided to finally assemble it here’s what I found inside:

Lots of plastic! Lots and lots of pieces! Dozens of pages of instructions! A lot of time ahead of me…

The instructions are (obviously) all in Japanese. But the crafting of the kit is of the highest order, with every piece immaculately molded and labeled. Furthermore this is a snap-together kit (as are all Gundams) with multicoloured plastic, so paint and glue is unnecessary.

The first shot shows the different coloured plastic even on the same sprue, and the second shows the rubberized plastic used for joint pieces. Model kits have come a long way…

Assembly, while not difficult, was time consuming to say the least. The only tools I were using was a small pair of scissors (to remove the pieces) and an emery board (to file down edges), but after several hours work I ditched the scissors and purchased a pair of pliers to make the job easier. The kit contains many, many small pieces with pointy edges, so I found myself working in small batches (< 2 hours) because of sore hands and sore eyes.

In total, I estimate somewhere in the vicinity of 12-15 hours total assembly time.

The kit is assembled in stages. Head, arms, legs etc., and then everything is put together at the end. I’ve made a few Gundams over the years, but never a Master Grade kit, and I was constantly amazed (and showing a mostly disinterested KLS) by the detail. For instance, the almost-complete right leg shown above contains forty individual pieces, a large portion of which are so that when the joints bend moving pistons are visible. Given that 99.999% of these assembled kits will be sitting motionless on a shelf and these inner parts are therefore mostly invisible one can’t help but be bemused by the level of detail 🙂

The above shot shows the weapons, which are the last pieces assembled. Yes the sword has a working scabbard! Happily, the kit has articulated fingers (!) so he can hold any of these weapons as he sees fit. But I’m content to leave them stored for possible future use.

Here’s a close up of my kit after I had finished:

Not the best photo I know, but the best one I took that shows how his hand is resting on his sword hilt. I’m quite proud overall of how he turned out, especially given I won’t be painting (or ‘Gundam-markering’) him. Even so, a photo in the instructions show’s the potential of a professionally assembled version of this kit:

Here’s a last shot of mine, showing scale versus Lego Sherlock Holmes.

He looks quite impressive, don’t you agree?

The kit cost me Y3600, which was about $40 when I bought it. These days it seems to retail for US$60-100 (depending on the seller), and even for that price I’d say it’s worth it as (by far) the best and most fun Gundam I have ever assembled. I can virtually guarantee that making this guy has shorted the remaining time my other kits will remain unassembled on the shelf!

One last bonus shot! I found a photograph of a custom assembly made by a Gunpla Übermensch. I can barely believe this is the same kit:

The Snow Train

March 13, 2012

‘Twas my birthday tendays ago, and on that fateful day we took a train ride on The Snow Train. This winter has been almost devoid of snow, and it was my wish to see some, hence this trip. As luck would have it, it snowed profusely in Albany the few days prior, so we had snow anyway! No matter, since the train itself was part of the fun.

It was an early start (the above photo was taken on the way back), and we woke before the cats to get ready and depart. The trip was about 2.5 hours from Albany, but happily our first-class tickets (in the glass topped ‘dome car’) gave us access to food service. A hearty breakfast was thus enjoyed:

I look young in that shot don’t I? Not bad for 40 winters…

Speaking of winter, here’s one of the views we enjoyed as the train followed the course of a river northward:

Yes, that’s ice sheets floating on the river. Very arctic it was.

Gore is a ski resort. I’ve never skied before, and would love to. It’s a pricey pasttime though – a beginners session including rental ran to about $80 for an hour. We my compatriots eager I would have done it (and damn I should have – it was my birthday after all!) but alas they were not so we didn’t. [Insert comment here from KLS that I wasn’t even remotely dressed for skiing!]

We did, however, ride the gondola to the top of the mountain.

It was early when we arrived, and still a little overcast. Gore mountain is over 3000 feet high, and from the base you couldn’t see the top of the Gondola since it disappeared into the clouds. Here’s what that looked like from the gondola car:

It was frigid at the top. As in beastly cold. As in why the hell did I keep suggesting skiing when I only had jeans on and the winter wind bit through the denim like knives cold. Here I am freezing to death atop Gore mountain:

And here’s Jim looking bemused in the gondola car on the way down:

I think that beanie cap may be older than me 😉

Here’s KLS and myself being badasses:

I’d never been to a ski resort, and was quite intrigued by the goings-on. Don’t let these pictures mislead you – there were plenty of people there. Gore has over a dozen ski routes, and many different chair lifts and paths to cross-country ski. It all seems like a lot of fun. If you’re dressed for it 🙂

After lunch we headed on the bus to another part of Gore where they had innertube sledding. I’d been looking forward to this since I haven’t sledded in years. Here’s what it looked like:

You can see, in the above two shots, that it had cleared up by the afternoon and was in fact getting (relatively) warm. This meant the snow was starting to melt, which meant the sledding runs were quite slow (or so the guys told us). As it turns out, the inner tubes only went to about half the distance they would have if the snow had an ice layer (although the guy told me when it got too fast they actually closed the innertube runs).

Getting to the top was no real work for riders, since they used a lift to pull us up a hill:

You can see the cord on the right of the image. That attaches to a rope connected to the tube, and you sit in the tube as you are pulled up. Once at the top you just walk to the start of one of the routes, sit in your tube, and are pushed off by an attendant. We did this for about 90 minutes, which meant about 15 times down the hill. A lot of fun! Here’s what one of the runs looked like from my perspective:

After sledding it was time for the train home. It was a relatively early departure, and we got home around dinner time. Of course the best was yet to come – after dinner I opened my presents 🙂

Old Man

March 3, 2012

We’re heading back now, after a day at the mountain and some tubing. I’m tired:

My birthday is not over! We’ll have dinner later, then we’re off to see a fine 3D film 😉