My Comments to MG Figure-rise "Super Saiyan Goku"

I didn't really think much of it when we heard Bandai's plan to develop a series of Dragon Ball figures, because I thought it would be just another warm-over collection of old action figure. Yet until I caught a glimpse of some pictures leaked on Internet, and we realized it will be developed at "Master Grade" level, and they include a figure of "Super Saiyan Goku". And my passion was suddenly fueled and can't wait to get my hands on one!

So how exactly will Bandai demostrate this MG level "Super Saiyan Goku" figure? Will they be loyal to the original cartoon? While retaining the quality and the style of the MG series as usual? Well, I was full of curious questions and anticipation.

And then it finally arrived which turned out Bandai did an excellent job on it! They extracted the exact taste of the cartoon for the figure. From the facial features to the hair style, and the scale of body, even the small cloth wrinkles and the wound textures, they stretched their efforts to the last detail, and there was a pure gold from the scene depicts Goku powered up and became Super Saiyan for the first time when fighting Frienza.

The most appealing design is Bandai’s expression of plastic tight fitting based on precise calculation. Very lifelike demonstration of the fine curve of Goku’s biceps-muscular arms, quite a marvelous job there!

The facial expression is another outstanding masterpiece, especially the shouting expression face, you can actually tell how serious the company was trying to make this one stands out by delicately putting teeth, tongue, and inner part of mouth together. Besides all that, the choice of material for crafting the joints and the joint design are both solid and sound. Those would give collectors more freedom for posture. Also the painting arrangement of the body part is helpful for further coloring.

To help making the model stand, the soft plastic design of the soles provide stronger grip on ground.

After finish assembling all pieces, easily it can be noticed from every detail, that how much work the manufacturer has devoted to this model. The scaling is distinctive, plus the most surprising work they have done with this whole “MG Super Saiyan Goku” and made it snatched the original flavor of the cartoon, either the quality and design are equal to hand-craft models.

Even better than hand-craft model, with one you can pose many classic postures in the comic or cartoon, and because of its heavily-loaded lower body, therefore it has an excellent balance due to lower center of gravity. With proper adjustment of the lower body part, many action postures such as energy wave attack, heavy strike, and combat ready can be easily made. With the enclosed bracket, collectors can also make in air combat postures, which adds a lot fun.

The only small complaint about this model is the fist part falls out quite easy, which leaves room for improvement. Overall personally I think it’s an appealing model with careful crafting and well-done design, easy-to-use joints plus the soul of the cartoon. It’s totally a must-have with all the reasons stated!

Lastly, thanks to iShop2go.com. They gave me a chance from having assembling this new model. ;}

Tutor 1- Model Painting Techniques Guide 　　This time we will talk about how to manually apply paint to models with brush. Behind going into the actual painting, we need to familiarize ourselves with the tools and basic knowledge we will be using. Types of Model Paint There are four different types of model color paint. We will go over each of them in the following. TAMIYA COLORS Tamiya Enamel Paint Tamiya Acrylic Paint Tamiya Thinner X-20A 　　Tamiya (Generally known as the double star) color water-soluble acrylic paint and Tamiya oil-based polycarbonate enamel paint. The traits of these two are described as, water-soluble paint is rather easy to use; and it all agrees with the Tamiya TS color paint chart, therefore also easy to match. As for oil-based enamel paint, it produces fine grain and form an adhesive tight coat with the painting surface; besides that, it is not soluble or mixes with any other model paint, which makes it an ideal choice for the final process. Gunze Sangyo Hobby Color 　　Aqueous Hobby Color water-soluble acrylic safe paint and MR COLOR oil-based hobby paint. The features of these are: the water-soluble acrylic paint is a bit difficult to apply, but after dilution can be used as water color. And it offers a wide range of selection, over 300 colors. The oil-based paint is cheap base color paint. Gunze Oil Based Paint Gunze water-soluble Paint Gunze Thinner Gunze Retarder Mild 　　Generally speaking, water-soluble paints are safe nontoxic products. But for the matter of quality, Gunze's oil-based paints are highly recommended for base color painting. Other brands of paint can be found in the market, such as Modeller and so on. Yet we will primarily focus on the abovementioned four. 　　Tamiya water-soluble paint, please apply the X-20A thinner to dilute; Gunze water-soluble paint may use the same thinner; although water is one of the options either, but it would make the paint harder to dry and small-bubbled. Another alternative is medical grade alcohol. For Tamiya enamel paint, it uses X-20, and Gunze oil-based paint uses Mr. Thinner. Incorrect application ends up the whole bottle paint goes to waste. (Have you ever seen model paint becomes bubble gum?) Thus we must give our full attention to the dilution step, especially Tamiya X-20A and X-20, their model numbers and bottles look a lot like each other. Brushes Paint Brush 　　You need to use the specialized model paint brushes. Because the regular writing brushes or other paintbrushes, the hairs would drop off when using on solvent chemicals since those brushes are designed to resist the strong adhesiveness of model paint. Please wash and clean thoroughly after each use. To paint fine lines, Tamiya has a "High Finish Pointed Brush", which comes with ultra fine point; skilled painter can produce complicated detailed effects like the military camouflage color. Other Accessories Paint Tray 　 　Paint tray. It is must-have for holding the working paints, mixing colors. You can purchase dozen of it with couple dollars. Or you can just use paper cups if you want. Painting over the top of different types of paints Basic chart: 　　This chart indicates when using a specific paint as the base coat, whether painting over it with other paints would dissolve the base coat or not. According to the chart, one of proper approaches is to use Gunze oil paint as the base coat, then use Tamiya water paint to paint over it for additional effects, for instance panel lines, washing and weathering. Painting Guide 　　First, predefine the paint order of colors. It should always start with light and gradually to dark color. When painting, keep the motion direction of strokes identical, to prevent making uneven texture. Pay attention to the paint concentration all the time based on your own control preference. Oil-based paint with high concentration causes the fast dry, and leaves visible stroke marks, in this case apply slow dry agents can help eliminate these marks, but the downside is it makes the work hard to dry. 　　One known shortcoming of manual paint is the thick paint. So please try to divide one painting to many small works, even first time attempt doesn't give satisfying result, don't try to repaint before previous paint is completely dry. Sometimes it's better to undo everything with paint solvent than to create mess by painting over and over again. So in the occasion of painting a large flat surface, the flat brush will come in handy; and for modifying or coloring delicate details, the fine pointed brush is to be used. Here is a tip for painting technique: cross painting, first sweep from one direction and wait for it's almost dry, and then paint over that coat from a slightly changed direction. Do this again for the second coat and then a couple more times. Then you will have a considerably even surface. 　　To learn how to paint a model appropriately is not easy, there are some who can gorgeously paint everything with a single brush while others try everything but still no acceptable results. 　　 You will find lot skills and techniques to master to be a great painter, but remember only practice makes perfect. See you guys next time!

My comment to the HGUC "Kshatriya"

As an enthusiastic Bandai MG and PG modellers, we wonder how Bandai can make "Kshatriya" in HG mode. It is a heavy duty, lots of propellers, hidden arms and many floating guns admission authorities. Will that good enough to make it as HG model. You know HG series is small size models and I worry how it can present the sense of momentum about this heavy duty MS?

But all that have been gone after finished assembly. Bandai has been considered this together with machinery, tooling and has reach a consensus with the model development. Although it presents with the top-heavy appearance. The design has overcome this. The finished model can maintain the good postures and faithfully present the original design of "Kshatriya" in the anime. It would not tilt, loosen and with the details of ministries.

"Kshatriya", as a whole, gives me a very real and firm sense. The joint structure would not lose, even though I made great degree of joint movements. A remarkable momentum when placing on the stage. You can imagine how it fight with "Unicorn Gundam" in the Anime. My comment to this model is "Great" and valuable to collect.

You can check more details by visiting the following link