|
I was thinking of getting started with gunpla but how do you actually go about buying stuff online? I was looking at HLJ from the link in the OP but it seems like the $14 HG Zaku II kit would have over $20 in shipping costs to the northwest US. Is it only economical if you're buying a bunch at once? Would I be better off just visiting a local hobby store in person if I just want to buy a single kit to give it a try?
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2023 21:04
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 14:36 |
|
|
Looks like it's a bootleg copy of this pbandai kit, with different colors for the body. Phantom model is a translation of the Chinese name 幻影模型 / "Huanying Moxing", and from a quick search Huanying has cloned at least one other pbandai kit before, original here
|
|
#
¿
Jul 13, 2023 22:00
|
|
|
dressing up dolls is a more expensive hobby than building gunpla stay safe
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2023 22:25
|
|
|
Leave a note on your work area?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 31, 2023 08:05
|
|
|
I built my first gunpla recently, the HG Schwartzette!  It was easier than I thought it'd be although some of the parts still have stress marks from nipping. Next time I'll try to use some high grit sandpaper for those spots. The back fin things have a bunch of different configurations in the instructions. I really liked the one-winged style although it seems like it has a real hard time balancing that way unless you "cheat" by using one as a support. I guess that's what action bases are for?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2023 23:32
|
|
|
The idea of p-bandai is that they can manufacture and sell small runs of things that they know (or feel) wouldn't be popular enough on store shelves to be worth mass-producing for retail. Most of these kits if they weren't on p-bandai wouldn't be made for retail at all. That whole setup makes sense when it's just like plastic recolors or small variations of existing kits, or niche weapon/parts sets. But yeah it kinda stings when they have whole-rear end unique MS in there.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2023 02:51
|
|
|
swapping the molds around in the machines probably gives it a pretty high startup cost where it's not worth it until they sell a few hundred
|
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2023 06:27
|
|
|
Since the thread was speaking of p-bandai exclusives recently, they just reran the psycho doga
|
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2023 03:42
|
|
|
good egg
|
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2023 18:00
|
|
|
You can also remove the nub by sanding/filing instead and ditch the knife entirely.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2023 20:52
|
|
|
Zedd posted:I can imagine that if it looks like a decent assembly job by you it might interest somebody that wants to go all-out on detailing and painting. They might find the runner snipping and cleanup the most boring part of a build, so they can just use yours as a base. I find it really hard to imagine someone dedicated enough to go through the huge project of painting a PG who is so completely uninterested in actually assembling it that they'd pay extra to not do it. Especially since they'll need to take it apart and put it back together as part of the painting process anyways!
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2023 19:30
|
|
|
make sure to take in a big whiff of primer before you begin, that way the paint you breathe in later won't set incorrectly.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2023 04:58
|
|
|
Blaziken386 posted:question for the thread In some cases the "panel lines" will actually be seams between two different pieces of plastic, so if you panel line the individual parts on the runner you'll have to do a second pass after at least partially building them. For paint or topcoat, doing it on the runner is a real bad idea -- after you remove it, you'll have holes in your coat of paint wherever the gates / runner connections were.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2023 22:27
|
|
|
What's the difference between all the different lines of SD gundam stuff anyway? How many different kinds are there? I notice that some of them like this barbatos have relatively smaller heads while others are totally different with huge bobblehead proportions
|
|
#
¿
Oct 13, 2023 23:41
|
|
|
mllaneza posted:Yeah, $15 for an Aerial justifies a lot of waiting I've done this year. You can get a default-colors Aerial from suruga-ya for under $11 us right now through the magic of international exchange rates. (It's 1600 yen which is actually 300 over the kit's normal MSRP in japan). Normally shipping across the ocean would obliterate the price savings but they have a free shipping campaign going on until Monday that even covers international. ...they've gotta lose money on that, right? I guess few enough foreigners take advantage of it that they don't care but it's weird that it's not restricted to shipping within Japan. RPATDO_LAMD fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Oct 14, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2023 08:48
|
|
|
In addition to new items they also do secondhand stuff, so some of the things listed there are people selling off bits of their "backlogs" that they never got around to building. (You can filter the search by new/used as well if you care.) Probably explains the amount of hard-to-find stuff.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2023 09:05
|
|
|
parabolic posted:Suruga-ya has been doing free shipping weekends on and off, at the past 2-3 week intervals - if they start they generally start at 9 PM eastern on Thursday and their inventory definitely turns over with decent speed. I wish the sorting was better as it relies on machine translation and there are often multiple entries for a single kit so some duplicate search methods generally help. That said they've beaten the ebay and mandarake price every time for me, often offering specific kits at under the US MSRP in the case of P-Bandai offerings. The pro tip is to grab the Japanese name for the MS you want off the gundam wiki. The automatic English translations are a bit inconsistent but the JP names are always accurate.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2023 22:20
|
|
|
Blaziken386 posted:
i really doubt the person in charge of CC validation cares about their boss's boss's boss's profits fwiw my order for less than 40bux went through just fine
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2023 06:21
|
|
|
How expensive are paints exactly? I thought the expensive part would just be the one-time cost of the airbrush (and space to use it or an indoor spraybooth). Then again I see they're sold in tiny 10ml bottles so I guess that's just the hobby tax at work.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2023 03:52
|
|
|
I got an email from suruga-ya that my order is now being shipped. Although I did notice that the email rendered my name in Japanese name order, as LastMiddleFirst (no spaces). If their internal system does that to all western names it might explain why some posters ITT got declined over names "not matching" their payment method.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2023 08:06
|
|
|
mega does copyright takedowns to really last forever and be immune to bandai's copyright lawyers youve gotta distribute it in torrent form
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2023 00:48
|
|
|
Blaziken386 posted:im unfamiliar with many gundam series but is that a gundam that is also a pirate G Gundam has all the goofiest robot designs. It is also the home of the tequila gundam (sadly no kit)  and the nether gundam 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2023 05:40
|
|
|
Looks like suruga-ya has the heimdall and brigandier right now if you wanna buy without preordering. Bandai kits normally come with a color guide printed in the manual showing which paints to mix in which ratios to color-match the "official" colors. It looks like these square enix kits don't have one of those though so you might have to wing it based on the painted preview photos on the box, the original game, or just whatever looks cool. Are you planning on brush painting or airbrushing? Most guides you find will probably assume you've got an airbrush but I doubt you wanna buy all that pricey equipment just for one  robot.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2023 22:03
|
|
|
They've got free shipping until monday (just like the past 3 weekends) which is why the thread loves em now. Because yeah international shipping would normally evaporate all cost savings. Just be careful with hobby lacquers or enamels. Wear PPE and don't paint indoors as they can be far more toxic than acrylic paints if you inhale them.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2023 23:05
|
|
|
Blaziken386 posted:I did not because no one ever told me that was important or necessary those ones are specifically supposed to be safe enough to use on bare plastic (unlike tamiya's popular enamel based panel liner) so that's kinda weird
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2023 10:04
|
|
|
For stuff like g-rework's third party waterslide stickers, what's the best way to order them without getting disintegrated irl by shipping costs that double or quadruple the cost of the decals? I've been spoiled by amazon prime. Or is it just a "there's no good way to get these unless you're already ordering something else online and can bundle the shipping together" kinda situation
|
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2023 22:12
|
|
|
The Pledge stuff is out of production, no longer being made. Some people are scalping old bottles on amazon for around $90/bottle.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2023 17:54
|
|
|
unicorn is old news, narrative gundam wears the psychoframe better.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 27, 2023 03:19
|
|
|
Nuebot posted:Doesn't the phenex predate it by a long rear end time? Phenex got its first hg in 2013. Looks like Narrative Gundam was an original creation for the 2018 Narrative movie -- it didn't exist in the original novel the movie was based on. So yeah phenex predates it by at least 5 years, maybe up to 12 if it showed up in any of the 2006 Unicorn novels
|
|
#
¿
Oct 27, 2023 08:23
|
|
|
Blaziken386 posted:Suruga-ya seems to have free shipping occasionally, they're doing it every weekend at this point, here's another one 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 27, 2023 23:46
|
|
|
Synthbuttrange posted:Is the Neo Zeong still the biggest kit tho? no   
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2023 05:49
|
|
|
wdarkk posted:That's the 1/12 scale kit that is generally only for store displays right? That's the 1/24 HY2M kit. There is apparently a 1/12 as well but dalong doesn't have pictures of it.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2023 06:12
|
|
|
Waffleman_ posted:I thought Kotobukiya had already announced ACIV kits, but I'm guessing something about the modularity of the 30MM line allowed Bandai to worm in, like how they were able to get onto the original Gundam because Clover was making diecast toys and not plastic models. kotobukiya has announced upcoming AC6 kits as well so it looks like they both have the license https://twitter.com/Kotobukiya_EN/status/1656104012666798080 so far they've shown nothing new afaict but they have announced reprints of at least 6 older AC3-5 kits 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2023 22:06
|
|
|
if you sand the nubs instead of cutting there's 0 risk of gouging anything
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2023 01:47
|
|
|
Is Mr. Hobby Aqueous really all that different to airbrush with than your Vallejo paints? They should both be water based acrylics right? Maybe the mr. hobby stuff has a bit more alcohol in it? The only toxic stuff you mentioned there is the Mr.Color lacquer paints and the leveling thinner (which is designed for lacquers moreso than acrylics as far as I know?). So definitely wear a mask when using either of those. The three acrylic lines should be safer to use though.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 4, 2023 08:20
|
|
|
Well alcohol itself is flammable so any alcohol-based acrylics are gonna have that warning regardless of what other ingredients are in them.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 4, 2023 09:23
|
|
|
different brands of waterslides have different formulations and are supposed to be soaked for different durations. some want 3 seconds some want like 20 seconds. the manuals in bandai kits that come with waterslides explicitly say 3. soaking for too long is probably causing your problems. RPATDO_LAMD fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Nov 4, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Nov 4, 2023 22:47
|
|
|
From some googling i found the material safety data sheet for Mr. Hobby thinners linked here on a random australian hobby shop's website, but it was linkrotted so I had to grab it from the internet archive here Aaren't these supposed to be publicly available by law? I can't find any official source for the MSDS, maybe it's only for employees who work in the factories or handle it in stores or something. Anyways it seems like it has 5 active ingredients:
Pubchem lists #3 as corrosive and #5 as acutely toxic if inhaled (and according to wikipedia causes cancer in rats, but only with very high doses). All but #1 are flammable. #4 is only listed as an irritant but it says chronic exposure can cause things like headaches, nausea, and an enlarged liver. Wear a mask! It's also specifically listed as a solvent for lacquer paints unlike the rest which just say "paint" or nothing. RPATDO_LAMD fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Nov 4, 2023 |
|
#
¿
Nov 4, 2023 23:37
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/necome_titan/status/1721509122246578258
|
|
#
¿
Nov 6, 2023 19:38
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 14:36 |
|
|
The main advantage of nub removal files is that their cutting surfaces are much finer than the average file so after you're done grinding that nub away you have a nice smooth polished surface and don't have to go over it with high grit sandpaper to smooth out any roughness. So just buying any old file won't necessarily do the same thing. Most files at the hobby store are probably rougher, making them much faster at taking away material but leaving a less polished surface behind and requiring touch-up work. In particular diamond is just gonna make it harder and sharper and won't make the teeth any more fine so you'll kinda be paying extra for nothing.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2023 19:52
|
|