Archive for the ‘Bandai’ Tag
There is a whole host of new 3D printed replacement accessories for your vintage robots available now in the PRHI Shapeways Shop. You can now buy replacement shooting fists for all of your Takara Jeeg and Gakeen magnemos, and Mego Micronauts figures such as Baron Karza or Force Commander. Also available are Microman MicroGander replacement fists with and without 5 mm holes to hold accessories, and replacement missiles that will fit in the chest and foot launchers. For you vinyl fans, you can now pick up missiles for your vintage Bandai Missile Fire Vinyls (MFV). You can get regular replacement missiles, or missiles that end in a 5 mm peg so you can add your own custom warheads. For links to each product, read after the cut.
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I built up this old school Bandai 1/60 scale kit of Ingram Unit 3 from Mobile Police Patlabor for a friend. There were two goals for this build- first, to replace the gross rubber joint covers with sewn cloth parts, and second to keep the finish looking pretty clean, with a softer 80’s model kit finish. The covers were made with some help from my mom, and came out perfect. The paint job was a bit of a departure for me, but it was a fun experiment. In the Patlabor anime, Unit 3 is the reserve machine that’s mostly kept around for spare parts, so it does not see much action. That meant it should have a pretty clean finish, but I couldn’t help doing a little shading and dust buildup as if Unit 3 had been drafted into active duty during a particularly busy season. The support car got a little more road dust and rain streaking from everyday use.
Here’s a shot of Unit 3 squaring off against the CMS Corp Economy Model Ingram. The scale is not quite right, but they still look great together. Check out lots more pics after the jump, showing off the rest of the accessories and more scale comparisons.
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C-3PO has seen better days…
More pics after the fold!
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No wonder R5’s motivator was bad after such poor maintenance.
More pics after the fold.
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The hero of the Star Wars franchise can get down and dirty!
More pics after the fold.
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Since Disney took over the Star Wars property, it has been a licensing free-for-all, with a massive influx of products from every manufacturer imaginable. The best toy and model products, of course, are coming from Japan. Bandai has been making some excellent new SW toys and models, including these new 1/12 scale plastic kits of some of some of the franchise’s most famous droids. The kits are masterworks of engineering, just like Bandai’s Gundam plamo lines. They are designed to be built without paint, with most parts molded in color and decals for the rest. In C-3PO’s case, the entire kit came with a vacuum-formed chrome finish. I used the kit colors, but obviously couldn’t leave them so crisp and clean. I applied the kit decals, painted the silver bits with a better metallic color (Monster Kolor!), and then hit everything with a coat of satin varnish. 3PO did not need any additional paint except for the wires, belly bit, and his palms. From there, I went to town with the weathering, showing these three after some hard times trudging through the sands of Tatooine. I’ll be posting full galleries of each this week, so check back!
Here’s an extra pic with a cameo appearance by my PRHI 3D Printed Gonk Droid!
Mobile Suit Gundam AGE is the current Gundam franchise incarnation, and it is pretty great. The AGE-1 Normal is also a recent entry in Bandai’s Mega Size model kit line of 1/48 scale mobile suits, which are also great. I did a comprehensive review of the kit over at CollectionDX, and it is worth a read. Bandai is really pushing the limits of what you can do out of the box, including making the entire kit tool-less. The engineering is pretty incredible, and the result is a gigantic (~15″) tall action figure model kit that is chunky, posable, and rugged.
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So, I wrote this review for CollectionDX without realizing that we’ve already covered this figure. I didn’t want what I put together to go to waste, so I figured I’d post it here for my own edification.
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When I posted the finished shots of my Master Grade RX-78-2 Gundam painted with Monster Kolor, Matt Walker aka Dead Pre$idents asked me if he could display it at the booth he was sharing with Max Toy Co at Winter Wonder Festival in Japan. Monster Kolor paint has been a huge success for Matt, and he is always looking for demonstrations of its use in new and creative ways. My MK on plastic Gundam model fit the bill, and was shipped off to Japan for display at the show. These pics of the booth come courtesy of Kaiju Korner Andy, who has been providing the best English-language coverage of Japanese shows and festivals out there for a couple of years now. Go check out the rest of his extensive WonderFest coverage here. He took a gazillion photos, and there’s more still to be posted.
Here’s a shot of the whole Max Toy Co and Friends booth! My Gundam was in good company. I think it’s giving Max Toy Co’s new micro Kaiju Negora sculpt a bit of a shakedown!
Bandai’s Master Grade RX-78-2 Gundam ver. 2.0 is a heck of a kit. The design is clean and ‘doughy’ in a way that manages to capture the feel of the anime very well. The sharp and clean design made the perfect subject for a Monster Kolor powered airbrushed paint job. I wanted to do something more original than a clean white Gundam, so I followed a scheme similar to the original Clover Gundam toys, which were silver instead of white. Obviously I could not leave it just clean and smooth, because that would be boring, so I proceeded to apply the entire waterslide decal sheet Bandai sells for this kit, making for some interesting contrast against the clean sculpt. Katoki would be proud.
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Prometheus Rising Studios 