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Yeah, have fun!

Say hi to the professor and family for us!

Protip- check the clearance sections of grocery stores for older candy toy kits. I got most of the dinos from last year's show for under 100 yen each, because they wanted to clear shelf space.
If you see any Honehonezaurus stuff, let me know so I can send you $$$.

Will you be heading to Mandarake?

Yeah, Mandarake is absolutely on my to-do list. So is the Volks shop in Osu. I intend to grab another of those V-Locker robots. I'm just not sure if I should get the blue knight or the red one. We'll see in a couple days. I'm not sure how many grocery stores I'll be going to, but I'll let you know if I find anything of interest. I will try and grab a few more Ultra Bones though.

Well, I've arrived in Japan. Strangely enough, I wound up doing a tv interview when I met my brother at the airport. No nerd goods for me yet, though I did get my Barzam. I'm probably going to crash momentarily. Shopping to commence tomorrow.

Well, I got home yesterday and slept my jet lag off today. I figued I'd share some pictures of some of my swag.

So, this is [/i]most[/i] of the stuff I picked up while I was in Nagoya.


There's a couple items not pictured due to leaving them at my parents' house. I couldn't get it all in the car along with everything else I had to bring back. Also not pictured is the pile of accessories and stands that much of this stuff came with. I'm going to go over most of the stuff on my Blogspot blog since a lot of it is toys and not models or hobby related, but I'll cover a few of the hobby items on here.
And yes, that is a Barzam pictured there in the middle.

First of my projects to get worked on was this thing

This is the player's fighter from the old Namco shooter Galaga. A plastic kit was put out within the last year or so by Wave. The ship was redesigned by acclaimed mecha designer Kow Yokoyama. His name may not sound familiar, but if you've heard of SF3D/MachinenKrieger, you've seen his stuff before. He has a unique, junky yet organic WWII looking aesthetic to his stuff. I actually built this thing this afternoon. Assembly was pretty easy, but the hull was pretty much all one big part. It could've easily been broken down a bit more. I'll get along on this one later. For now, it's absolutely going onto the back burner.

My next project is this.

The Kampfer Amazing from Mobile Suit Gundam Gunpla Builders. His box is pretty big. I always liked the Kampfer, and this version is no exception. If you haven't watched Gunpla Builders, check it out because it's all about guys who build and customize models, then use them in battles.

After that is this beast.

I know the box says Batsh, but it should be Vatshu. I've always seen in Romanized as Vatshu, so that's what I'm going to call him. This is actually a 1/144 scale all plastic model kit put out by garage kit maker Volks. This is the first of a new 1/144 line and was very recently released. They've got a 1/100 line already and it looks absolutely amazing in person. These kits are detailed as hell and incredibly intricate. The 1/100 series all have full internal skeletons, for instance. {rant} Volks is a garage kit company, so they're pretty niche. Probably moreso than GW, yet their 1/100 plastic kits are bigger, more complex, more intricate, fully poseable, and pre-colored, yet they're still cheaper than GW's recent mecha kits. So you can't tell me that GW's prices are justified in any way. {/rant} This guy is going to require a bit of paint and patience to complete, but it should be completely worth it. Oh yeah, most of you probably have no clue what Vatshu is actually from. Vatshu The Black Knight comes from Mamoru Nagano's decades long comic seres, The Five Star Stories. The series takes a few of the concepts and designs from Nagano's earlier work, Heavy Metal L-Gaim, and expanded upon them significantly. Vatshu here is supposed to be a pretty important machine in the series and is the very first mech seen. He's also pretty damn cool looking. I hope by the next time I get to go, Volks will have put the Bang Doll (I hate that name) into the smaller scaled line. That thing is easily one of the most impressive mechs Nagano has ever designed.

Looks like a nice haul! Looking forward to seeing your continued progress. May even have to check out the toys.

My kids spotted your Ultraman swag and want to play with it now. Which Ultra Egg is that? Narse?

I would assume that large Barzam in the middle is the new HGUC kit? Looks rather large.

All the little Gundams- damashii stuff?

Saddened by the lack of Danball there.

Yeah, that's the Narse egg. I had a hard time finding the eggs, actually. I only found them at the airport. Sadly, the Godzilla ones didn't surface either. I'd love to get the Mecha Godzilla one.

The Barzam is actually the Robot Damashii. He's huge. The four little Gundam figures are from the Assault Kingdom line. The bases for that assortment let you display the Nu with its funnels deployed. The next assortment looks like it'll have the bases form a Samson trailer. I need to get that one.

There is Danball. I just had to leave it at the parents' house. I'll be picking him up with the rest of my stuff. You're going to be jealous of the one I got, I think.

I'm surprised you didn't spot the 1/144 scale Zoid.

I spotted the Zoid, just not super excited about them. Built more than enough regular Zoids in my time.

Which Danball did you get? Not the one in my avatar, did you?

If you want me to keep an eye out for egss when I go this summer, let me know. There pretty easy to find out in our neck of the woods, and I've seen them pretty heavily discounted at the toy stores. Worst case, I can order from Amazon JP and get them shipped to our place.


That Barzam really is big, but knowing those other figures are all Assault Kingdom ones makes more sense. How much are those? Like 4 or 500? Do you get to build them, or are they good to go in the box?

The LBX I got is the Di Ezeldi. He's black, gold, and clear orange and looks like an Orbital Frame from Zone of the Enders. And he's got a bunch of floaty weapons that surround him. I was planning to take pics of him, but due to a rather annoying bout of insomnia/jet lag, I got absolutely zero sleep last night, so you'll have to wait until Thursday night, I guess.

The Assault Kingdom figures I think were around 400-500 yen or so. No real assembly required other than putting together their stands and plugging in hands/weapons. Aside from that, they're good to go right out of the box. On a negative note though, my Zugok was slightly misassembled in that they put one of his ankle joints in backwards, which results in his ankles having very different ranges of movement. On the positive side, the Zugok has a movable mono-eye.

Yes, please keep an eye out for some of those eggs while you're there. For some reason I really like the stupid things. Keep an eye out for the Godzilla ones. There's a 70s Mecha Godzilla and a Gigan in that assortment.

In the wee hours of the morning, while cursing my inability to get to sleep, I figured I'd kill some time by taking some photos of my finally finished Bauhaus Hussar test figure for Mutant Chronicles. I think this is the scheme I want to go with.

I'd really like to thank Grimdork for opening my eyes to those clear acrylic bases. They work really well here.
I figured I'd also take a shot comparing him to similarly armored space European soldier mans.

I think they fit in pretty well with both Infinity and the Eisenkern.

I like the green on the Mutant Chronicles guy. Looks very soldiery. Quite appropriate, especially since I can't remember what the studio color schemes were.

And yeah, you're right. I am jealous of the LBX you got. Couldn't remember that name, but it was one that was definitely on my list of purchases. Oh well. Maybe I can find him marked down by the time I'm there.

*blush* Clear acrylics are awesome And that model looks really nice too, the thin limbs and pose makes him look fairly lean and lethal compared to the eisenkern trooper. He looks pretty tall too, he has a really wide stance and half as much base and he's still tied for height.

Nice use of the deadzone terrain in the background. I'm rushing to get some finished because it makes models hanging around in front of it look even cooler

So over on the Infinity news/rumors thread you asked which to get next, Geckos or Neoterra.

If you want to play the game, Neoterra. With the Fusileers you already have, you'll have a great force to start with.

However I see you're much more about the painting. In that case, the Nomads you do have a really great scheme. Seeing that on a TAG would be really, really cool.

Also I see that you have a fair number of smaller mech figures from various anime. I'm testing an iNfinity ruleset for mass TAG combat. If you do play here and there, you might be equipped to give the ruleset a whirl. Let me know if you're down for that.

Looking forward to seeing whatever you choose to paint up!

I absolutely love Japan - and when I went there back in 2000 I picked up so many Kaiju toys that, well, I got a lot of them!

Savnock wrote:So over on the Infinity news/rumors thread you asked which to get next, Geckos or Neoterra.

If you want to play the game, Neoterra. With the Fusileers you already have, you'll have a great force to start with.

However I see you're much more about the painting. In that case, the Nomads you do have a really great scheme. Seeing that on a TAG would be really, really cool.

Also I see that you have a fair number of smaller mech figures from various anime. I'm testing an iNfinity ruleset for mass TAG combat. If you do play here and there, you might be equipped to give the ruleset a whirl. Let me know if you're down for that.

Looking forward to seeing whatever you choose to paint up!

Actually, the Fusiliers I did for my cousin. So, the only PanO I have are an Order Sergeant and a Knight. I think the true deciding factor is going to be price. However, I would definitely like to get both boxes. Speaking of, I just got the Wu Ming set for under $30.

I still have yet to actually get in even a basic game. Someday I'll actually play it. I'd be curious to see the rules for mass TAG combat. At the very least, I'll be able to put my upcoming Rangers Project mech to use.

Alpharius wrote:I absolutely love Japan - and when I went there back in 2000 I picked up so many Kaiju toys that, well, I got a lot of them!

I think that was the same year I made my first pilgrimage to Japan. I'm a big Japanophile. I love the place and have ever since I was a kid. Every time I go, I wind up spending a ton of money.

I do believe I mentioned I would post photos of my Di Ezeldi tonight and I plan to deliver.

The Di Ezeldi comes from LBX Danball Senki (which, if Toyfair is to be believed, will finally be getting its US release, where Bandai will likely promptly give up on it after only a couple releases). The line unfortunately probably won't last long enough in the US to see the Di Ezeldi actually get released here though since he was a pretty recent release and the series, as far as I know has ended. In his basic configuration, he's not terribly remarkable.


What initially drove me towards this guy is the fact that he looks like something out of Zone of the Enders. Plus all the clear orange bits look neat. This figure is actually a remold of another floaty guy that has huge bat wings and an energy spear. This guy gets an entirely different set of accessories though, and they really set him apart.

THESE are his accessories

He is very impressive once he has his sword bits deployed. Plus, he gets a considerable wingspan with them. The swords are mounted on a clear armature that is articulated, so you can put him in all kinds of cool looking poses with his flying swords.

He also has another set of bits...

Basically, they're just the sword bits in a standby mode and in a shield mode. They're neat, but not as cool as the active swords. Plus, they only include one shield and one set of deactive bits.

Another of my projects from Japan is this guy, the Decepticon Overlord!

Yep, this is a model kit. He's a very faithful reproduction of the Japan and EU exclusive Overlord from Transformers Masterforce. While the original was huge, this one actually manages to replicate pretty much all of the features of the original, even the Powermaster gimmick.

The Powermasters Mega and Giga can most certainly be removed and transformed.

As you can see, they're pretty frakking tiny. I'm amazed that I haven't lost or broken them yet. The Powermaster figures can be slotted into Overlord's chest in robot mode or into his alternate modes.
Speaking of alternate modes, Overlord has three. The robot splits into two vehicles and a base mode.

Jet mode.

the Powermaster can slot into the back of the jet or can be placed in the cockpit.

Tank mode.

Again, the Powermaster can be slotted into the tank, or placed in the cockpit.

Base mode.

There's a little car that plugs into the bottom of the jet or the back of the robot. The Powermasters can slot into it as well. The base is pretty much what you see. The turntable in the center has a little gear that can rotate it and there's an articulated maintenance arm on the right side.

It's a model of a rare and insanely expensive Transformer that can replicate basically everything the original did. What more can you say?

I'm slowly working on more Mutant Chronicles figures and this weekend I'll start working on my Kampfer Amazing.

We built those mojibakeru you gave us today. They're quiet large compared to the regular cheap ones. I'll see if I can pry them out of the kids' hands long enough to snap some photos. Maybe I can post a pic with some of the egular sized figures as well.

Maybe I'll finally cave and pick up some of those Transformer kits. I've grabbed some for you in the past, haven't I? Looks like fun.

Did you come across any of the new sentai choo choo train kits, or are they not out yet?

I'm curious about those Infinity TAG battles. I would totally field an army of SD Gundams! You may finally sucker me into Infinity yet!

If you get any of the Transformer kits, make sure you get the DX ones. The regular ones have an odd, soft, waxy feeling plastic that's really cheap. The DX ones are nice, solid hard plastic.

You do need to take pics of the Mojibakeru. I want to see just how big they are.

I only saw a few of the toys for Tokyuuger. None of the candy kits. The rare few sentai ones I found were of Kyoryuger's big Brachiosaur looking thing.

Did you only go to volks, mandarake? you can find awesome stuff at recycle shops, hardoff, bookoff and game sokou's

There's a Hobby Off about ten minutes from the local station near my inlaws, but I stopped going there as the clientele that frequent it scare me even. It's become something of a tourist nerd mecca in the area.

I have gotten some pretty ridiculous deals there in the past, but they've got consignment cases now that are full of ridiculously marked up scalper fodder since the nerd tourists keep coming.

Then again, since the family lives pretty much out in the sticks, it's easy to find deals on older stuff that's been sitting on the shelves for a bit.

One of the local stores we go to often still has Kamen Raider 555 stuff on the shelf from when the show aired. There's a layer of dust on them! It's kind of sad yet reassuring every year we go visit, and every year those orphenochs are still sitting on the shelves, unbought and unloved.

Jeez, I don't remember it being that bad when I went there.

For the most part, I did my shopping at Mandarake, Joshin, and Volks since theirs were some of the better prices and selections. I went to other shops as well, but either they didn't have good selections or they just didn't have good prices. As far as I know, there's no Hobby Offs near my brother's place, but I did hit Book Off as well. That's where I got my Macross Ultimate Frontier from.

Well, I have a few more Mutant Chronicles figures painted up. These are a couple more test schemes. These were pretty rushed and rough, mostly just done to get an idea of what I want the rest of the figures to look like.

Cybertronic Chasseur


Capitol Heavy Infantry


I'm mostly happy with these schemes, so I'll probably clean these two up a bit before too long. As they currently are, they at least look decent from a distance.

Grimdork, you mentioned the height of that Hussar. I decided to do a little size comparison and yeah, the Mutant Chronicles figures are on the large side.



Slightly taller than Infinity figures and they tower over 40k stuff.

Lastly, I actually managed to paint up a Deadzone Reb!


Someday I'll paint some more of them.

Tonight I started putting together my Yu Jing Celestial Guard hacker and a Warmahordes Retribution Ghost Sniper. They should be fun to paint. Tomorrow I'll begin work on the Kampfer Amazing.

I like that Capitol guy.

Heavy infantry looks... heavy...

Gives me a Siege on the Citadel vibe with that paint scheme you gave him.

Everything looks good imo, those dudes *are* tall then. Maybe even 32mm scale huh. Neat models though. Intrigued to see this "Amazing", love me some giant robots.

I've been kind of under the weather this week. I actually finished the Kampfer on Sunday, but I'm only just now able to get photos of it. These aren't really the best photos, but they'll do.

So, the Kampfer Amazing comes from Gundam Build Fighters. It's based on the Kampfer from Gundam 0080 and is used in the show by the PPSE Corporation's top fighter/modeler. In the show, all of the mecha are actually model kits that are used in a videogame-like combat simulator. So, this is a model of a model. This thing is pretty much meant to be the rival mech of the main characters and the pilot is the show's Char Aznable. Really, he's more of a Quattro Bagiina though since he's just wearing sunglasses.

It's a pretty sweet looking update to the Kampfer.


Those big gun looking things on his back are actually weapon cases. Whereas the original Kampfer had a huge arsenal of shotguns and bazookas, this one only has a few weapons included. The containers can store the main weapons and he's got a pair of knives that store on either side of his torso.


The main weapon though is a modular gun. The base weapon is a pistol called the Amazing Pistol.



The articulation is nice and he can actually grasp his pistol with both hands. The pistol then has a rifle body that fits over it and then has two different barrel attachments.
The first, and main attachment is for a standard Beam Rifle.



The second is a Long Beam Rifle attachment, which is utilized like a sniper rifle.

I don't really care for this attachment. It's really just the regular beam rile with a foregrip and a longer barrel. Nothing exciting and unfortunately, the Kampfer cannot replicate the sniping stance he took in the show when he used it to snipe a 1/48 Zaku.

My biggest complaint of this kit though is that it's missing one of its most used weapons. In the show, the Kampfer is almost always depicted with his weapons configured into an SMG. The SMG has a completely different look from the beam rifles, so it would've required a different body attachment. Unfortunately, Bandai didn't include this. Without the barrel attachments, the gun sort of looks like the SMG from the show, but it's totally different. I really wish they'd included the parts for it.



This picture makes me realize I need to make some more Deadzone buildings.

You might need some additional height if you want to use them to backdrop for giant robots, yes. That kit is..well... amazing . Very cool robot with what looks like lots of posability. Neat!

I haven't been keeping this updated, but that doesn't mean I haven't been working on stuff.

Over the weekend, I started work on Vatshu The Black Knight. He's got a lot of small bits and pieces and has wound up being quite slow going. The hard part is yet to come though. That's going to be the skirt armor and his shoulder armor. Currently, I'm unsure if I want to keep those piston pieces in the groin. They're mostly just for show and they kind of restrict movement. Chances are though, once I add the skirt, the movement will be restricted anyway. I'm just not sure yet. I may just trim them down a bit so that they end up just being completely cosmetic.

I wish I had an Eldar Wraith Knight to compare it to.

How about some ugly work table photos?

This guy I've been slowly working on and just can't get happy with.

He was missing his right arm, so I had to improvise one. I wound up using a Dark Eldar one (trimmed off the pinky so it has the right number of fingers). It works well enough, I think. I just hope this looks better when I wash it.

Blech, bad photo.

These are my final two Kaplans. Once I'm done with them, I'll have finally finished an Infinity boxed set!

Helfather is looking surprisingly good.

He's nearly done. I have to say, as my first metal Mantic figure, he's really nice. I've seen a few pieces in person and plenty of pictures and they usually wind up looking really rough. He was very clean though. Only a few strands of flash that needed cutting here and there. Hell, I could actually put him together without using glue. He's also really heavy. Overall, I'm glad I got this guy.

Today and yesterday I started putting together some of my Afterlife figures. I figured I'd start with the Unity Council Marines. Actually handling them in person, I think I can safely say these are some of the best resin figures I've worked with.

The details are all crisp and super sharp. No mold lines, no bubbles, no misalignments, no miscasts. Everything looks just as good as the in the promotional shots. I am very glad I backed that KS.
Just look at how crisp these details are. They certainly put my Mutant Chronicles to shame.


Speaking of Mutant Chronicles, I've finished two of my Martian Banshees.

Got a bit more work done. I finished assembling the rest of my Unity Council Marines last night.


I finally finished my Kaplan Tactical Services team as well. They'll be on their way to get dipped tonight.

Once I have them dipped and dull coated, I'll have to get a picture of all of my Haqqislam forces. I wonder if I can make a legal team?

Lastly, I made a sniper for my small, yet slowly growing Retribution of Scyrah army.

I love the looks of these guys. They're like a high tech WWI or something. I'll paint his eyes and other small details line lenses after I've dipped him.

I'm finding myself wanting to make a counts-as team for Deadzone. I still don't even have the rules down yet, but it's one of those things where you just get hit by inspiration. I want to make a Nexus Psi Police army. I figure I could probably use the Rebs' rules and proxy some other models. I can't deicde if I want to just modify some Corporation Marines, or try using a different line's figures. I'm leaning toward Urban Mammoth's Urban War Viridians and VASA. I ordered myself a set of cheap Viridians last night to see how they size up with the Mantic stuff. They have pretty cool designs though. I'm surprised more people don't use them to proxy IG units.

Well, your nexus psi police force can fight my proxy marauder force made out of Trollbloods and trolkins.

Of course, I think I've actually got more viable Marauders painted up than ranged Trollkin at the moment- I need to get started on those Sluggers and get a few extra scattergunners.

I figure I can count some of the warlocks as the ripper suits, maybe the pyre troll as the flamethrower...

Ahh deadzone and counts-as, such a lovely combination. The kaplans look great so far, and the elf sniper isn't half bad either. Keep up the good work

Well, lucky me, I just managed to win another Charontid on Ebay today for all of $7. I guess I'll get to make that Megaman Charontid after all.

Oooh nice. Was that with shipping too? So far I haven't found eBay to be a good source for Infinity stuff price wise, been sticking to Miniature Market so far.