cmwolfe.net

2023

Gunpla Build - High Grade Barzam (Part 1) 2023-05-27

Early on I could tell this was going to be an unusual build, so I started taking lots of Work In Progress photos right from the very start.

However it didn’t take long before I remembered why I slowly moved away writing detailed, nitty-gritty Work In Progress build posts. No matter how many photos I take, there are always a few key shots that I forget to take, and that throws the whole effort off.

(Also, sometimes I take a bunch of photos for some specific purpose, only to forget what that purpose is later on when I sit down to write)

Sure enough, all of these happened during this build, so apologies in advance. I’ll do my best to work with the photos I have.

But first, the runners:

Gunpla Build - High Grade Barzam 2023-05-26

Almost a year ago, back in August, I bought a bunch of waterslide decal sheets. One of them was, basically, a “Zeta Gundam” sheet, filled with decals and markings to use on mobile suits from that particular show. Of course that meant that it had a whole bunch of Titans logos, which was a bit of a problem for me.

Aside from my old, Real Grade Gundam Mk II, I had no Titans model kits. And since that kit was already built, and is very old, and is already loaded up with decals, I couldn’t really go back and use waterslides on it.

That meant I that if I wanted to use these Titans decals, I needed to buy a new Zeta Gundam kit. The good news was that at the time, Bandai had gone on a bit of spree, reprinting numerous Zeta-era kits during the late summer and fall. The bad news is that I had already blown through my model kit budget. It wasn’t until October that I had any spending money, and by then most of those Zeta kits were sold out.

But as luck would have it, I found one left at the local hobby store (literally, it was the last one on the shelf). And hey, I’ll take what I can get:

This here is the High Grade Barzam, and yes, it was an impulse purchase made out of pure desperation.

Gundam Universe Sazabi Review 2023-04-30

Way back when, I wrote my first review of a Gundam Universe action figure. Suffice to say that I wasn’t super keen on it. While it definitely had some pros (good surface details, good articulation), it also had some serious cons (rubbery feeling, “action figure” plastic, and a price point that I considered too high). All in all, I didn’t think it was worth the cost.

Since then I’ve come to learn that $25 for a decent quality 6-inch action figure is actually a pretty good price. That still doesn’t feel “right” to me, especially compared to the cost of a High Grade model kit, but I’ve seen the claim so many times that I have no choice but defer to the experts (so to speak).

I bring all of this up because Mrs. Wolfe recently found another Gundam Universe figure at Target. This one was even more expensive then the last one, at a whopping $40 MSRP, but it was also on clearance for half price. That made this particular figure ever so slightly cheaper than its equivalent High Grade kit, so I figured I’d give it a shot:

Yes, it’s the Sazabi, from the 1988 film Char’s Counterattack.

Gunpla Build - SD Command Gundam (Part 2) 2023-04-23

Now that the “core” of Command Gundam is complete, it’s time to finish the job. You might think that strapping on a bunch of extra gear would be easy, but Command Gundam has an insane amount of kit. This half of the build actually ended up being more challenging than the first part.

But first, I got a new marker to help with the job:

I saw some comparison photos online that suggested that this gold Gundam Marker was pretty good at its job, so I figured it would be useful for painting over the kit’s gold pieces (which, as usual, have that cheap looking, “not quite gold” finish to them).