Bandai MG 1/100 Hyaku Shiki HD version English Manual & Color Guide

Char Aznable's venerable MSN-0100 Hyaku Shiki rendered as a Master Grade HD version by Bandai. Based from my understanding of this version, this was a limited release only so I guess you shouldn't expect to see a lot of shops carrying this. According to the product page at Hobby Link Japan, the HD stands for "High Definition" decals that was a special feature of this kit.

Bandai HG 1/144 Mr. Bushido's Ahead English Manual and Color Guide

Mr. Bushido/Graham Aker's Custom Ahead, the GNX-704T/AC. This was his first mobile suit in the Gundam 00 Second Season when he was part of A-Laws. Judging from its armament it seems be more of a melee specialist with no long range weapons in its arsenal.

Bandai HG 1/144 GN Archer English Manual & Color Guide

Soma Peries' GN Archer from the Gundam 00 Second Season anime series. This is a support unit for the Gundam Arios and is able to dock with it. Without a GN Drive of its own, the GN Archer has to rely on the Gundam Arios to resupply its GN Condenser with power.

Bandai MG 1/100 F91 Gundam F91 English Manual and Color Guide

Seabook Arno's F91 Gundam F91 from the Gundam F91 movie that came out in 1991. Included in this kit is a base stand modelled after the lafressia and perched inside that is a figure of "Iron Mask". Haven't really watched the anime of this yet, same with Gundam Wing. If I have time I'd like to delve deeper into the Gundam F91 universe because its storyline is situated in Tomino's Universal Century Timeline.

Bandai MG 1/100 MS-06R-1A Zaku II Shin Matsunaga ver 2 English Manual & Color Guide

The beautiful MG MS-06R-1A Zaku II of Shin Matsunaga from the Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 Universe. I've already wrote about my thoughts on the Shin Matsunaga Zaku II at this old post, kindly read about it there.

Bandai MG 1/100 Shin Musha Gundam English Manual & Color Guide

The Master Grade Shin Musha Mk II is coming out soon, in the mean time here's an English translation of the original Shin Musha Gundam

Bandai MG 1/100 RX-75 Gun Tank English Manual & Color Guide

Ryu Jose and Hayato Kobayashi's RX-75 Gun Tank from the original Mobile Suit Gundam Anime series.

1st HDH Invitational Starcraft 2 Tournament

Looking forward to watching the first ever HDStarcraft and HuskyStarcraft Invitational tournament. This tournament is by invite only and will have top starcraft2 players right now battling for about $2450 worth of prize money.

Bandai MG 1/100 Strike Noir Gundam English Manual & Color Guide

Sven Cal Bayan's GAT-X105E Strike Noir Gundam from the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED C.E. 73: Stargazer short. Sven flew the Strike Noir as a member of the super secret Phantom Pain unit of the Earth Forces.

Bandai HG 1/144 ReZEL Commander ver English Manual and Color Guide

RGZ-95C ReZEL commander type from the Gundam Unicorn OVA whose first episode was shown early this year. It differs from the regular RGZ-95 ReZEL by having a different backpack and by being equipped with a Mega Beam Launcher. All this adds about 2.3 tons more to the ReZEL's frame.

Bandai 1/72 VF-25 Messiah Super Parts English Manual & Color Guide

The Messiah Valkyrie Super Parts for the 1/72 Messiah Valkyrie line of model kits made by Bandai for their Macross Frontier series. This was sold as separate kit so that you could have the chance to equip your bare VF-25 Messiah Valkyrie with this. There are four VF-25 models available, these are the VF-25F of Alto Saotome, VF-25S of Ozma Lee, RVF-25 of Luca Angeloni and VF-25G of Michael Braun.

Bandai HG 1/144 Ahead Smultron English Manual and Color Guide

Soma Peries' Ahead Smultron from the Gundam 00 Season 2 anime series. More like a second generation GN drive powered mobile suit that is way superior in performance compared to the standard GN-X's. The Ahead was usually assigned to pilots of high rank or of exceptional skill. Case in point are Soma Peries and Mr. Bushido, who each got their own custom Ahead units.

HobbyLink Japan Redesigns Site

Was surprised when I visited HobbyLink Japan's site today because I was greeted with an all new design. According to one of their tweets at their twitter page, their site has been virtually unchanged from the time that they had started.

Bandai HG 1/144 Arche Gundam English Manual and Color Guide

Ali Al Saachez's GNW-20000 Arche Gundam from Gundam 00 Second Season. The Arche Gundam bears a very striking resemblance and has a lot of similarities to the Gundam Throne Zwei, but hey! I'm not going to spoil that for you... hehehe

Bandai HG 1/144 Gundam Throne Eins English Manual and Color Guide

Johann Trinity's Gundam Throne Eins from the Gundam 00 Season 1 anime. The Gundam Throne Eins doubles as a long range bombardment unit for the Thrones. The Eins has a GN Mega Launcher that offers an even longer range-high powered attack but has to rely on the power supplied by another Gundam Throne in order to accomplish this. The Gundam Thrones differ from the main Gundams of Celestial Being because they are powered up by Pseudo GN drives.

Bandai HG 1/144 Gundam Throne Zwei English Manual and Color Guide

Michael Trinity's Gundam Throne Zwei that appeared in season 1 of Gundam 00. The Zwei is part of the Gundam Thrones that consist of the Eins, Zwei and Drei. Together with his sister, Nena Trinity, they are the two Trinity siblings who are considered psychotic and unstable in personality.

Bandai HG 1/144 Gundam Throne Drei English Manual and Color Guide

Nena Trinity's Gundam Throne Drei from Season 1 of the Gundam 00 Anime series. Kinda sad that Bandai never decided to make a 1/100 kit of the Gundam Thrones. Would have wanted that in my collection.

Bandai HG 1/144 RGZ-95 ReZEL English Manual & Color Guide

Earth Forces' RGZ-95 ReZEL from the Gundam Unicorn OVA that recently had its first episode shown. I can write a lot about the ReZEL being based on the Zeta Gundam Frame and how it looks boring to me and doesn't really stand out because of its color scheme and the mask, but hey! I have work to finish... hehehe. So here's the manual I translated of the 1/144 HGUC RGZ-95 ReZEL model kit...enjoy!

Perspective

A few weeks back I had subscribed to the RSS feed of NASA's photojournal. Above is a photo of the Rosetta Nebula taken by the Herschel Space Observatory.

Bandai HG 1/144 D-50C Loto Twin Set English Manual and Color Guide

The D-50C Loto from the Gundam Unicorn OVA that is being released right now. This MS is basically a tank that transforms into an upright mobile suit. One key feature of this mobile suit is that it can carry a platoon of soldiers in it. It was seen in episode 1 of Gundam Unicorn disgorging a load of soldiers to storm an enemy fortification house.

Bandai 1/72 VF-25F Super Messiah Valkyrie Alto Custom Color Guide & Paint Conversion Chart

The 1/72 VF-25F Super Messiah Valkyrie of Alto Saotome from the Macross Frontier Anime. This is the Variable Fighter (VF) that defines the Macross Frontier series. Of course, in the mold of all protagonists in the Macross Universe that was popularized by Hikaru Ichijo in Macross DYRL, it has to sport a red and black motif. I only realized now the Shin Kudo of Macross Zero was the only one who didn't carry this trademark color scheme.

Changed My Respirator Mask's Filter

After about 3 months of using my particle respirator mask I could already start to smell the paint already in the mask. Which is the correct signal for me to buy a new filter because you shouldn't be smelling those paint fumes. Now I realize that it was indeed a good idea to buy the respirator mask locally. Because it will be easy to look for spare filter cartridges.

Bandai 1/72 RVF-25 Messiah Valkyrie Luca Angeloni Custom English Manual & Color Guide

Luca Angeloni's RVF-25 Messiah Valkyrie from the Macross Frontier movie series. The RVF-25 is the reconnaissance version of the VF-25 Messiah that is used by the SMS Skull Squadron. The purpose of the RVF-25 is as a communications and electronic warfare platform.

Bandai MG 1/100 Sword Impulse Gundam English Manual, Color Guide & Paint Conversion Chart

Shinn Asuka's ZGMF-X56S/β Sword Impulse Gundam from the Gundam Seed Destiny Anime series. Its basically the Impulse Gundam mated with the Sword Silhouette pack. Easily seen and which makes this configuration identifiable is the presence of the two anti-ship swords that hang on the back of the Impulse Gundam. With the Sword Silhouette pack, the Impulse Gundam's phase shift armor also changes color to a dominant red.

Bandai MG 1/100 RX-93 Nu Gundam Metallic Coating Version English Manual and Color Guide

Amuro Ray's RX-93 Nu Gundam from the Char's Counterattack anime. It was made into a Master Grade kit by Bandai then a Metallic Coating version was released by Bandai. The Nu Gundam is said to be an uncompleted version of the Hi Nu Gundam that was seen in Beltorchika's Children novel. Personally though I prefer the Hi Nu Gundam over the Nu Gundam because of the design of the placement of the Fin Funnel system and the color scheme. I mean there has be something said about the importance of symmetry in design.

Bandai MG 1/100 MSN-04S Sazabi Metallic Coating Ver English Manual and Color Guide

Master Grade MSN-04S Sazabi Metallic Coating Version released by Bandai of the popular mobile suit flown by Char Aznable in the Char's Counterattack anime. Notable features of this mobile suit (aside from being big and towering over most mobile suits) is that it has the Funnel system of beam laser equipped drones that a NewType like Char can telepathically control and use to overwhelm an enemy from all sides of the compass.

Bandai MG 1/100 Launcher/Sword Strike Gundam English Manual and Color Guide

Master Grade version of Kira Yamato's GAT-105 Strike Gundam with Launcher Strike and Sword Strike packs from the Gundam Seed anime series. At first glance of the box my first thoughts were, Whoa! 2 Gundams in 1 kit. Then of course reality set in and I realized that its just the Strike Gundam included in the kit with two striker packs included.

Master Grade Musha Gundam Mk-2

Update: Translated English Construction Manual for the Musha Gundam Mk-2 found here.

Just saw this today at Amiami, its a Master Grade version of the Musha Gundam Mk 2 available for pre-order already. This is scheduled to be released by May of this year. To be honest, I have no idea whatsoever about the Shin Musha line of Gundams. Except of course that they look cool and that they really showcase the nationalistic trait of the Japanese people. What with the Bushido warrior look and all. And hey, it looks like it carries almost the same color scheme as the Gundam Mk II Titans version. Dig the gold plated horns, added melee weapon for the Musha Gundam Mk II.

Bandai HG 1/144 RGM-89S Stark Jegan English Manual & Color Guide

The RGM-89S Stark Jegan of Londo Bell that was seen in the opening sequence of Gundam Unicorn OVA. Based from my understanding of the literature found on the Stark Jegan, its supposed to act as a midrange support unit. Meaning that its not really supposed to mix it up but more on to provide fire support for an attacking force.

Bandai MG 1/100 RB-79 Ball “Shark Mouth” English Manual & Color Guide

The RB-79 Ball from MS IGLOO CGI anime. Just recently finished watching all MS IGLOO episodes. I have to say that that was really a very entertaining anime to watch. Each episode of MS IGLOO basically revolves around a prototype mobile suit or unit taking the protagonist role.

Bandai 1/100 GNY-001F Gundam Astraea Type F English Manual & Color Guide

The 1/100 non grade Gundam Astraea Type F of Fon Spaak from the Gundam 00 side stories. Like the Gundam Astraea of Ruido Resonance, The Type F also serves as a test bed for Celestial Being to try out new technologies that they are developing for their frontline Gundams.

Bandai 1/100 Gundam Astraea English Manual & Color Guide

The GNY-001 Astraea from the Gundam 00 side stories that was piloted by Ruido Resonance. The Astraea serves as a test platform for Celestial Being in Gundam 00 anime series wherein they test technology and weapons that will eventually find their way in the main Gundam's when they start doing their armed intervention. The story of the Astraea happens a few years before season 1 of Gundam 00. Ptolemaios operator, Grace Feldt, in Gundam 00 Season 1 and 2 is actually the daughter of Ruido Resonance.

Bandai 1/400 Gundam Collection Ptolemaios English Manual

Beautiful 1/400 "painted" rendition of Celestial Being's mother-ship, the Ptolemaios. This ship appeared in the Gundam 00 Anime series and was subsequently replaced with the Ptolemaios II in Gundam 00 second season. Between this and the II, I'd prefer the II, Of course "gimmick"-wise, the rotating containers does make the ship look cooler.

Starcraft2 Game Commentary

Been watching the Starcraft2 Beta test competition going on via two guys who've been giving excellent in-game commentary: HDStarCraft and HuskyStarCraft

Amiami Extends 50% Off International Shipping till end of April

Amiami announced again that they are extending their 50% Off on International Shipping Campaign till the end of April. This initially was offered in February then extended. This offer basically charges only 50% the cost when you have your order shipped by either registered SAL or EMS.

Hobby Search Paypal Service Reinstated and has Sale to Celebrate

Only caught this now, Hobby Search announced that they will start Paypal service again. In line with that they have also announced a Paypal commemorative sale that will last till April 30, 2010. More details on their Paypal service can be found in this faq.

Bandai PG 1/60 Gundam Astray Red Frame English Manual & Color Guide

I've never built a Perfect Grade (PG) Gundam kit before, if I did have the chance to build one I guess the 1/60 Perfect Grade Gundam Astray Red Frame would be my ideal choice to be my first PG kit. I've always loved the design of the Gundam Astray's of Gundam Seed Destiny so that's probably the reason why. I already built a 1/100 Gundam Astray Blue Frame and am wanting to build already the 1/100 Gundam Astray Red Frame that I already have in my model pile after writing this post up.