I just got home from the first day of Anime Festival Asia 2009 and here are the photos I’ve taken. First things first, this year’s event has been way more commercialized than the last with booths selling stuff everywhere and tons and tons more people. Cosplayers were also larger in number and dispersed randomly making it hard to take photos when you’re trying to do it among the crowds and the SLR-equipped folks. Nonetheless there are 132 images in the link below, so enjoy and please forgive me for some of the sloppy hit-and-run shots. As with my previous event coverage, click on the images for larger-resolution versions.

What I really hate about WordPress is how you have to manually insert every single photograph into an entry despite having bulk upload capability. I’m glad I churned out a little piece of code in MATLAB to help me automate this during the time it took to upload the photos muahahaha one thing from school that’s useful.

So besides the heavy commercialization and crazy crowds, I also forgot about Danny Choo’s appearance on stage. I did catch the last few minutes of his talk though. After that I was camping out at the concert venue with some of my party members to leech some music but got chased out by the organisers in the afternoon. So being dissatisfied that I forked out SGD$20 for a pretty unsatisfying day I roamed around to see if I could at least buy something from the event.

I hate to say it but you really get to see a lot of stereotyped otakus around – the kind that put people off or even in rare cases disgust them. Of course, it’s not as extreme as the OMG HUNCHED FAT SLR-EQUIPPED SCARY LOOKING FAT DUDE PHOTOSHOPPED WITH SPECIAL FORCES picture but it’s getting there. You also realise that because of the otaku lifestyle, some of these otaku have developed many interesting social behaviour patterns, one of my favourite being decreased social inhibition. I’m not saying it’s bad to be forthcoming in a largely reserved, inconsiderate and apathetic society that most Singaporeans belong to, but if a stereotypical-looking otaku went up to a complete stranger and his/her party and joined their conversation in such a “forthcoming” way, the stranger would be creeped out. No wonder otakus get such a bad name.

Later in the evening there was a line for the public audience to view the concert but it grew so long so my party gave up and had dinner instead.

I kinda gave up trying to photograph every venue that was selling stuff after I got in and took this one photo. First up is the Bandai booth.

PG 00 Raiser for those who are still keen on getting it despite the inability to rotate the GN Drives.

STAND UP TO ZA VICTOLY MG Victory Gundam, still not shown with the Katoki decal assault.

Clear armour campaign to milk more fans’ money.

HGUC Unicorn Gundam. I was a little surprised at how small the kit was. Guess I’m used to the 1/100 scale already.

HGUC Kshatriya. Looks like an out-of-box assembly with no paint work.

Super HCM-Pro Unicorn Gundam.

A nice painted MG Unicorn Gundam.

Crappy MG Unicorn Gundam Titanium Coating Version with Lightning Base (sic).

Lightning Base anyone?

Ugly Seed VS Astray kits. Overheard some guys arguing whether these things were from the SEED universe.

Awesome BAKUC contest entries displayed.

Large size Freedom Gundam.

Luminodot, one of Bandai’s many, many expensive toys.

Heisei Rider goodness. These statues are pretty detailed and have nice signature poses.

Had a few Gundam Stand Art statues on display too but I only liked the GM Sniper Custom.

1/35 GFF RX-78-2 Gundam Ver.ka.

SIC Kiwami Damashii Faiz,  Faiz Accel and Blaster forms and Auto Vajin. Can’t wait!

Current and new SH Figuarts figures. Dang didn’t know Decade and Diend looked much better in person. Should have bought them.

A mix of SICs, new and old.

Numerous Soul of Chogokin figures. Never really liked the Mazingers because Getter Robo was so much more awesome in Super Robot Wars. I watched the first episode of Shin Mazinger Z and got more lost than the last episode of Evangelion so I gave up.

Local television is currently airing Masked Rider Kabuto so there were a few Kabuto toys on display and on sale.

Heisei Riders and their belts and the first Masked Rider. Notice they placed Diend instead of Decade haha! Also quite a few of the Heisei Rider belts are the inferior reissued ones. Most noticeable are Faiz, Kabuto and Den-O belts which look so toy-like and cheap.

Legendary Cardboard Gundam.

On to Danny Choo’s booth. Didn’t take many pictures because it was insanely crowded.

Danny’s Mirai Figma and Kodomut’s bicycle. Most of the displayed stuff were old stuff, but there were a few newer releases.

Nendoroid Mio looks quite decent in person. Should I buy her?

I barely escaped from his booth, and went on to see the stuff on sale at Takashimaya’s booth.

This was on sale.

The irony. I think a “professional modeler” does more than simply assembling a model kit out of the box. Do you need extra skills to build a kit molded in clear colours? This is why I never buy “limited edition extra finish” blah blah kits. They are overpriced milkers, ugly with nub marks everywhere (*ahem* Unicorn Titanium Finish) and any modeler with some semblance of skill can simply buy some metallic spray paints and make any normal kit look like an EXTRA FINISH VERSION YAY.

This was the anime karaoke and dubbing game booth. You could hear guys singing anime theme songs performed by female singers and people trying to sound dramatic with hilarious results. Gotta credit them for having the guts to do that in front of so many people. Also there was a stall selling toy swords and tons of people were buying them.

Some card game with female characters from different animes. Looks like grown-ups playing Yugi-oh. I can understand grown-ups playing Magic: The Gathering but this kiddy-looking card game…

“Nanoha strips Tsukasa for over 9000 damage! You’ve activated my TRAP card! IT’S A TRAP!” (power gauge appears on bottom right of screen with that stupid sound effect)

More stuff on sale everywhere.

Got mobbed by photographers as these two walked by so I joined in with a shot before trying to escape. The LED lights are badass.

Managed one picture of Danny speaking.

Maid cafes – one thing I can never understand. Seriously…

Caught Danny being mobbed by people at his booth and decided to raise my hand for a shot. Sometimes it’s good being not short and stocky – you can raise your hand over everyone else’s hands because they are all shorter than you muahahaha.

Caught Masked Rider V3 but he was too fast.

Then I went to one storey below where there were cosplayers around.

CAN’T UNSEE

Some cosplayers were doing a live-action Naruto. Not my cup of tea.

Screw the exams, I’m going to AFA!

My exams are around the corner but I managed to get some time to install Photoshop and deal with these photos which were taken back in September. This model was built back in April 2007, long before I had an airbrush. Some parts were hand-painted, with panel lines done using Mr. Color Flat Black and sprayed with Mr. Super Clear Flat. I only applied the given dry transfer decals and did not use the provided stickers except for the camera at the back of the head.

Please excuse the bad modeling but I like this iteration of the RX-78-2. How can a Gundam fan not have the First Gundam – father of all Gundams? I think I’ll have a separate category apart from my more recently completed ones. Maybe someone could give me ideas on what 1/100 kit to work on when my exams finally end.

Please excuse the now shoddy modeling job by today’s standards.

The eyes were painted clear yellow with silver painted behind. This method doesn’t work well for most models especially ones with green or blue eyes as they are too dark to be seen.

The only part of the model with poor articulation is the ankles. They go side to side only up to 20 degrees.

However, the kneeling pose is one of the most impressive feats this guy can perform. Notice the horrible sanding marks on the knee joints. (*´Д`)

I don’t have a Zaku II to split in half for this scene.

Last Shooting

ま-まさかっ！

Sorry for the lack of updates. It’s been almost a month since my last post. My final exams are less than a month away and I don’t have the time to build a model now. Also, without an income I have to control my spending, so I’m holding my money for some toys that have yet to be released.

I took a few photos of my older, non-airbrushed Gundams for filler content but I don’t think I can upload them. I also haven’t got around to re-installing my old Photoshop onto my laptop as I recently upgraded to Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. I was relieved the installation was quick, smooth and too user-friendly for my taste (I couldn’t find the option to format my hard disk).

Once my final exams are over, I should have a month of vacation and hopefully I can resume posting here.

(Ngee Khiong) MG Victory Gundam Ver.ka spotted at the 49th All Japan Plamo Radicon Show. This is too awesome to not post.

More pictures at Toy World which has a collection of photos from Hobby Stock and amiblo (1), (2) (possibly overwhelmed by traffic at the time of posting)

Hiiragi Tsukasa is one of my favourite Lucky Star characters and it was nice to finally be able to obtain a figure of her. I’ve looked through several online stores and all of them are out of stock and resorted to buying from Ebay instead.

This is not the summer uniform version, but I already had winter uniform Kagamin already so OCD decreed that I must not get the summer uniform version of Tsukasa. But the summer uniform characters have the schoolmate characters’ heads…

Tsukasa comes with an extra face, a handphone (with a pair of hands holding it), 4 extra pairs of hands, the standard issue Figma stand and a ziploc bag.

Figure articulation is pretty much the same as the other uniform-clad Figma figures, but it’s a shame Tsukasa’s hair prevents her from looking up. Her skirt, uniform ribbon and collar are made of soft PVC. There is a white inner lining underneath the skirt which I guess is to reduce paint transfer from the skirt to the legs.

I-don’t-know-what’s-going-on face. Elbow joints bend slightly over 90 degrees. The hands have a wrist joint but they are limited by the uniform sleeves. To bend the palms towards the face, I usually insert the ball joint midway so that the hand has just enough clearance to bend inwards like the picture above.

Tsukasa’s with her Keron Army-approved handphon-5-5-5 STANDING BY

COMPLETE

The handphone is a detailed piece of plastic with a notch on the left side for the left hand to hold it. The sculpting on the handphone is so detailed you can see the camera bit and the charm featuring Sgt Frog below. Besides the hands used to hold the handphone, there are no extra hands for holding things.

Kung fu chop hands for the Rider #2 pose. Shoulder joints cannot be raised any higher than this because the soft PVC uniform collar is in the way. The lower body articulation has a wide range of motion, starting with a ball joint between top and skirt, and a Y-shaped ball joint for the hip.

Combat. While the legs have single joints, the backs are flattened to allow bending beyond 90 degrees.

Rider Kick. The legs rotate via a joint just below the hip.

Tsukasa and her elder sister, Kagami.

Tsukasa’s hair ribbon is in the way. It’s made of hard PVC so one may need to be a little careful with it or it could break.

This time round, could it be a 12-pack carton of coffee-flavoured CRISP CRUNCH???

No… Those people cheated me of my hard-earned wages…

What could the little cloth bag be? Now is not the time to open it up yet Maybe December would be a great time to do it.

On a slightly more serious note, I got this on Saturday, again from Ebay. I wanted to get the winter uniform of Tsukasa for a long time and finally became desperate when the summer uniform version was being released and my OCD kicked in. So, I dished out an exorbitant amount of dough for this one (USD14.50 shipping within the same country ).

I still haven’t opened up my Nendoroid Mikkumiku Kagami. Too busy staring at it to open it.

Just realised I’m several weeks late – this blog is over a year old already! I just looked at my first few entries and most of them were pretty much just news snippets of upcoming toys. So for the blog, I hope I can continue sharing reviews of toys and Gundam models, and possibly increase my skills if I ever have the time to build them. Right now I’m in the midst of mid-term tests, and having not gone through education and examinations for almost 3 years, has made this a very taxing period. I cleared 2 insanely tough tests already; one more looms this Saturday and another in mid-October.

Anyway, it’s too late for celebratory photos, but what is this box doing on my desk?

I wonder what lies inside it…

C-could it be yet another bandwagon-jumper…?

Seriously, being able to shop online is so addictive I actually spent a few hours once surfing sites like Amazon, Hobby Search and more. I had to stop myself from going on. But I still dived into Ebay and found some figures on my wishlist that were still available. Ignoring the risks of buying from Ebay, I whipped the dough and paid for the above item. Later on, I got all worried when I realised I could be getting myself a fake. I’m glad it’s not, (unless I’m terribly, terribly mistaken) and now I’m wondering if I should open it…

I’m joining the bandwagon of “live blogging”. Instead of using an iphone, I’m equipped with my E71 and free wi-fi (can’t afford hefty data charges). I don’t have any figures or anything to spice up my pictures, so no posting on figure.fm

Right now I’m hanging out at Arab Street famous for shisha. But my friends and I aren’t smoking it (yet). We’re watching soccer now (stoke city vs manu, but I’m not a soccer buff).

I’m enjoying a ‘cleopatra’, a nice mix of different fruits. The place is very dark so I don’t think you can see anything. Oops haha Nokia’s camera flash totally went off-sync with the shutter. Fail!

Posted by Wordmobi

I just came back from a trip to the dentist. He made some slight adjustments to the bridge across the roof of my mouth as I complained that one side of my tongue was pressing hard against it. The shape of the bridge is imprinted on my tongue, but it hurts a little on that side. He also clipped the rest of the brackets in my upper jaw as not all of them were completely clipped to the archwire. For the lower jaw, he added a second archwire. The pain is back.

Actually I posted this to see if my RSS feed was working. I’ve just started to use Google Reader to manage my subscriptions and it’s an awesome product by Google. It’s more convenient than bookmarking feeds in Firefox as I can see everything in one screen like a LiveJournal Friends page. So I was looking at my own RSS feed and noticed that the previous post didn’t show up. Not that I’m expecting people to subscribe to my feed, but I was curious to see what conditions resulted in a post not showing up in the feed.

I haven’t built a Gundam kit for a long time. In fact I have this crazy craving of wanting to spend on so many things. :3c (now hopping onto the bandwagon of people who love this emoticon)