Looks can be deceiving. The F91 might be small but after putting it together, I realize that it is the same height as the MG Sazabi! Amazing!

:)

Anyway… I’m about to finish the rest of the model (weapons) and apply the decal then I’m calling it good.

Did you all (Americans) had a good Independence Day? I had a blast (literally) ^^;. ~$600 worth burned in two hours xD…

Some of you probably already know one way (someone posted here) or another (rainbowten) that Japan has finally banned the exportation of spray cans (it is reluctantly understandable…). This means model spray paints and… *GASP* TOP COAT! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! TToTT /Darth Vader

*ahem* Anyway… well, this means that I’m SOL if I need more top coat and whatever I have left in my room will be the last I’ll ever have in the US (6 fresh cans). I also have yet to see any American topcoat spray cans in shops. This ban reeks of major suckage because now I have to scrap many “refurbish” projects, possibly my Force Impulse project (repaint), and rationalize what I have left. With six cans and more models than I can remember, I’m gonna have to skimp on some and use this stuff only on the best/most expensive one. This also means I now have to shuffle my model schedule around too… so expect some changes for the next few planned reviews.

I was somewhat expecting this to happen one day…but not this soon. Since last year, I’ve already been seeing imported Japanese hairspray and household chemicals being banned from Asian supermarkets here… so it was only a matter of time. On the bright side, this just gives one more reason (among hundreds…) to move to Japan :D

Just what kind of box art pose is that?! D: That’s almost as bad as the Sword/Launcher Strike box. I do like the drawn look though as opposed to CGI. You’d think Bandai can come up with something better given Sword Impulse and Gouf 2.0’s boxart…

Picture and even post title jacked from the one and only Ngee Khiong ^^

I promise this’ll be my last MG Exia post until my very own arrives ^^;

Here’s what I’ve assembled for the MG Gundam F91 so far. Admittedly, I haven’t been working on this model much recently since I’ve been trying to “catch ‘em all” on the DS >_>. But seriously…

This model is difficult to build. And not for a good reason; The parts are TINY! About 1/144 size and some even smaller. imagine trying to hold onto it and clean the nubs with a knife. Not only are the parts small, they are also fragile and thin. I can feel some of the parts bending as I try to snap them in place.

F91’s hideous mugshot face =_=. The dude means serious business…

Finally looking good to me that is. Now THAT I like ^^. Sleek yet still muscular and a sense of power. So I’m guessing the older photos were just at bad angles… but that’s another bad thing for the Exia then if it looks good only at certain angles.

Finally got a good look at the GN Sword. It’s almost as if Bandai heard my cries and decided to fix this model up :D (haha sike). The MG Exia also have other impressive features too. So just like that… I am finally looking forward to reviewing my MG Exia Ignited Ignition Mode when it arrives at my doorstep ^^. Might need waterslide for it too… hmm…

Stuff jacked from Anime to Gundamu desu.

Yea… I’m a few years late in joining the DS party but hey, it’s still highly popular ^^ (meaning more games to be release). I was quite shocked to learn that both Polar White and Onyx (the pokemon?) Black were discontinued a LONG time ago. Newegg is the only place that still has the black in stock. I can’t trust any of the DS Lite on ebay because half of them are fake (LOLChina) and I’m not gonna take the risk. Oh yea… I do like the Pokemon games ^^. Brings back great… elementary school memories.

The black looks much better in person than in photos. The glossy outside have its fair share of fingerprints already… I should give it a dose of matte topcoat…

WARNING! RANT ALERT! I hate UPS with a passion. I cringe with disgust every time I have to use it as a shipping option. They’re the most pathetic and slowest shipping company I’ve ever dealt with. Not once have I ever thought “wow that’s fast” when UPS delivers but it’s always “wow they’re slow as ****”. When they say “guaranteed delivery in 7 days”, they really mean it. THEY DELIVER IN SEVEN DAYS. No matter where. I remember my MG God Gundam and EX-S took just that long to get to me… FROM CALIFORNIA! So much for all those right-turn routes that saves gas and time…pfff. Okay… FIRST CLASS mail from CA only takes 3 days to get to me! So what does this have to do with my DS? Well I got free “3-day select” shipping from Newegg for both the game and the system (they shipped from different states…). The DS shipped last friday and I received it yesterday (is that 3 days?). The game pissed me off the most… It had an “on-time scheduled delivery” the same date as the DS (yesterday) but for no apparent reason, they changed it to today. Even when the game was already in PORTLAND TUESDAY. There was no delivery attempt either.  Icalled UPS to ask WTF happened and why they rescheduled it… the operator didn’t really give a good explanation and just said “well, you picked 3-day select, SIR. Your package was actually shipped on 6/20 so it’ll still be on time on 6/25″. So she was telling me my package’s delivery date was rescheduled so it wouldn’t get here early?!… …… Lastly, when they finally do deliver, I swear they just threw the package as I heard it hit the wall before it hit the ground. Didn’t see as it was right before I opened the door… and guess what? the UPS guy was already almost in front of his truck and just shouted “It’s on the floor!” and left without looking at me… **** YOU! UPS!!!

Sorry… just need to let that out.

It was a tough battle… many casualties on both side… but the war is finally over. Peace has come at last. blah blah blah. So yes… I am pleased to announce the winner of this Gundam Fight. Congratulations to Chris and his Avalanche Exia vs Saviour Gundam Battle. Here are some of the hightlights:

I gotta hand it to him for the use of beam sabers and effect parts. The camera angles complimented the dynamic poses very well. Just fight fight fight till the very end. He covered most of what I wanted to see out of this contest.

Honorable mentions goes to Acedude and his entry, Battle 2:

Very creative here as well and there is never enough hotblood in Gundam.

Also Beamknight87 and his entry, Battle 4:

Definitely has the clearest shots out of all the entries. Crystal clear.

Let’s all give ourselves a hand for the effort we put into this contest. Don’t be let down if you didn’t win, there will be more chances ^^. As of a matter of fact, I already know what to do for the next contest! Even though you might not win the prize, I hope most of you actually gained some new ideas from seeing other people’s work. Seeing everyone’s entries gave me some new photography ideas to play around with :D. Lastly, I hope you all enjoyed this and had a little fun at the very least. Thank you all for participating!

Chris, I know what you want already but I’ll email you again just to confirm so wait a bit ^^. Again, congratulations!

Continuing on from the previous post, here is the final half of the entries!

Above contribution courtesy of Eyeshield30 ^^

Battle 8

Props: N/A

Dings: N/A

Total: N/A

Comment: I remember the contestant telling me he didn’t have accesss to this models so he just sent me his previous photo…though it still lacked a fight ^^;

Battle 9

Props: Pretty chaotic…

Dings: N/A… I can ding some here and there but no point…

Total: Seems like I missed the battle…?

Battle 10

Props: Great fight +2, nice poses +1, some good angles +1

Dings: kinda got lost in the middle -1, weak finish -1

Total: 2

Comment: It started out great… then I kinda had no idea what was going on in the middle… and it felt like it just ended ^^;

Battle 11

Props:Some good shots +1, clear +1, good action +1, strong start +1, good angle +1

Dings: Poses turned static near the end -1

Total: 4

Comment: This battle had a great start, very catchy. Love the stomp on Buster. Nice angles. It was at the end where the models poses became a bit… stiff and tightened.

Battle 12

Props: Good lighting effect (shadows) +2, some nice shots +1, good start +1

Dings: Not too much of a fight -1

Total: 3

Comment: Could’ve done it without the word bubbles ^^;. It actually ruined some of the shots that would’ve otherwise looked really badass. Seems more provoking than actual fighting.

Battle 13

Props: Creativity +5, Beamsabers + 3, Great camera angles +2, varied poses +2, good battle +2, easy to follow +1

Dings: backdrop -1, Saviour looks like a wooden dummy(stiff) -1, missing one beam saber at the crotch

Total: 13

Comment: Great fight man. Action all the way and to the point. Awesome creative use of weapons for attack and effect. THIS is what I was looking for :)

UPDATED: Added my ratings

Even though I only have 14 entries, there are over 200 photos to upload so I’ll be split the showing into two parts (with the second coming later after I wake up). Spectactors! You can also be judges as well! You can vote using this format and following the criteria :

Props:

Dings:

I’ll count your vote if you provide a constructive opinion, but I’ll ignore any overly enthusiastic “OMHARUHI battle x ROCKS/BESTEST/1337!”-style comments. I haven’t personally rated any of the battles but will fill in my two cents for the first part after I post the second part, then fill in the second part and see who has the most points (props) to be the winner. It’ll make sense when everything happens ^^;. Now let’s begin!

Battle 1

Props: Clear shots +1, beam sabers +1, backdrop +1, last shot +1

Dings: Lack of camera angles -2, stiff poses -1

Total: 1 Point

Comments: Fight looked a bit static and hard to tell where the fight is going. Couldn’t tell what was going on with the first few shots.

Battle 2

Props: Creativity +5, hotblooded + 3, Comedy +3

Dings: lighting -1

Total: 10

Comments: Is that my GFF Nobel?! XD I did say I wouldn’t ding nor prop for dialogues but this battle was almost borderline relying on them to get the humor across so I could’ve ding for that Good job ^^

Battle 3

Props: Big fight +2, chaotic +1

Dings: poses -3

Total: 0

Comments: Dinged you hard since most of the models are basically just standing there, makes the fight look rather weak. The worst pose being Strike on the action base in 6. I have all those models so I know they can do a lot better poses. Sorry ^^;

Battle 4

Props: CLEAN SHOTS! +5, backdrop +1, lighting +2, scenario +2, last shots +2

Dings: Chairs and HLJ box? -1, stiff -1

Total: 10

Comments: I can see EVERYTHING in your shots :D. Your area gives a great “battle arena” feel to it and I liked how WZC actually looks like it is flying in the last shot. Had to ding the chairs and hlj box though… kinda ruined the feel a bit ^^;. As for the “stiff” posing, I’m referring to how the models don’t look very…enthusiastic in the fight in some of the shots. Example: Shin Musha cutting the Fin Funnel with Katana… just standing there?

Battle 5

Props: lighting +1

Dings: Poses -2, Not much going on -1, unecessarily long -1, some repetitive shots -1

Total: -4

Comments: Hmm… there’s not much going on here. I think this fight could’ve been done easily in 4-5 shots and then use the remaining 15 or so for more variety. I mean… 20 shots just to slice Exia? o_0 Poses aren’t interesting either ^^;

Battle 6

Props: backdrop +1, lighting +1, some good poses +1, some good angles +1

Dings: some blurs -1,

Total: 3

Comments: While some shots were clean, some were blurry. Some shots were at great angles like Throne clashing with Akatsuki…then the following shot (19) made me o_O because I had no idea what happened to Akatsuki. It looked like he was downed. And what happened to Red Frame?

Battle 7

Props: Kinda hard to find any… ^^;

Dings: poses -2, wait, what just happened? -1

Total: -3

Comments: The photos look like it was taken with a not so good camera (phone) so I didn’t ding on blurriness but even ignoring that, the fight doesn’t seem interesting… and felt like it was ended in the middle. While Amatsu’s articulation might be limited, the Red Frame could’ve done better.

Alright. Hope no one take my ratings personally ^^;. I tried to avoid seeing who’s entry is who’s and save all the files anonymously. I know all of you put in a lot of effort and time into the entries but i can’t be going “great job!” on every one of them… that’s just not honest.

Now on to part two…

Couldn’t find a proper pic for this post ^^;. Anyway, as all of you can see… this blog now has a new layout and a new name. I can’t remember the original but this is the third time I changed names but this one will be for good. I just think “A ‘home  look’ on Gunpla and GFF” was too mouthful. “Gunpla Inochi” covers a bit more meaning; the title shows that this blog is for the Gundam model lovers… and if you read it literally, it means “Gunpla Life” so it works really well here ^^. The “Home Look” is replaced by “Real” in the title to shorten things up. I am giving a “real” look on Gunplas… as in, how the the Gunpla looks out of the box as opposed to Bandai’s studio models. Essentially, this is still “home look” ^^. Lastly, I’ve always been looking for a better shorter name to call this blog  xD. I’m not stopping with just a new theme and title though… I’ll try to update all the page layouts and “refurbish” some older reviews as well… and eventually, I’ll open up my own site.

Now on to the next subject…

FIVE + FIVE ZEROS!

Okay I’m very late on this and I haven’t been paying attention but this blog has hit its half-milestone of 500k hits ^^;. Never thought I would reach this in just a little over a year.

Don’t know how it happened but views to this blog averages 2k daily and 3k when I get reviews out ^^. It would be awesome to know if half of those numbers are unique visitors. I don’t worry about the stats anymore since people somehow just find this blog from all over the place ^^;.

Top Pages of All Time. These are the pages that have the most views. No surprises here except the MG WZC… wonder why that review is so popular…

Once again… I thank all of you, lurkers and active readers, for coming here. A great part of this blog’s success comes from you. I’ll do my best to ensure more great times to continue and make this blog worth your time and visit. I also want to greatly thank anyone and everyone for referring others here either through blogrolls or linking from forums.  No doubt it does make me feel a bit proud of my effort or at least I know I’m doing something right ^^;. Ultimately, I now know that I’m much closer to this blog’s goal…

If you want to do a link exchange, please feel free to drop a line in the comments. I’ll happily trade with you :D

Ahh… I got more to say but I gotta bounce to work xD

Now on to the Gundam Fight later tonight…