SD CC, Gouf Custom, and OC Fair

This past weekend was San Diego Comic Con. I had never gone to Comic Con and didn’t plan on attending, but one of vendors I know said they could give me a pass to check out the event. Having finished the Musha MkII for the vendor and being off on Friday, I decided to drive down there, deliver the kit and check out the show. I started up on a Gouf 2.0 Gouf Custom conversion kit on Saturday, and later that evening, a group of friends and I went out to the Orange County Fair.

Starting off with Comic Con. After arriving, getting into the convention, and delivering the Musha; I was already annoyed at the crowds and just wanted to leave. Granted I didn’t really have anyone to hang out with, so that probably help lower my fun factor. I talked to a few vendors, wandered the large exhibit hall, checked out the artist alley, the art show, and wandered the halls where the panels were. Most of what I observed was organizational, along the lines of how the con is run. As I wasn’t prepared to come to the event, I didn’t check out any panels. If I was better prepared, I would have checked out a good number of panels.

The vendor boots were very impressive. The displays from the major media companies and a good number of major toy companies. Very cool to wander around and just take pictures of the booth set ups. But wandering through the throngs of people was annoying.

The cosplayers are more along the lines of star wars, star trek, superheros and other main stream sci fi themes. There were a good number of video game cosplayers as well as a select group of anime cosplayers. Seeing a train of princess leia cosplayers is pretty cool.

I spent a total of about 4 and a half hours at the show – realistically about 4 hours actually at the convention. I saw a few celebrities and snapped a few pictures. Will Wheaton, Molly Shannon, and Randy Couter were a few I snapped. I’m sure there were plenty of other celebs but I wasn’t paying that much attention nor cared much. I just snapped pictures when there was a focused group of cameras going off in the vicinity of where I was located.

And the last thing I snapped a picture of was the tauntaun sleeping bag. I thought about it, but I don’t think I wanted to spend $100 for the novelty. Granted, it’d go great with my Han Solo frozen in carbonite coffee table.

More pictures I took at Comic Con are here: http://gamerabaenre.com/sdcc_2010.htm

I left the around 3, got home around 5, then passed out around 7 pm that night and didn’t get out of bed until 6:30 the next morning. Nothing like a good nights sleep. Which brings us to the newest gunpla project I started and will hopefully finish.

Gouf 2.0 Gouf Custom Conversion

Going back about two weeks ago, Manny asked me about this kit, and I hadn’t heard anything about it, so I looked it up. And after looking at the kit for a little while, I placed an order for one and then put a challenge on Manny for a build off on the kit; As he had already ordered a recast version of the same kit. I picked up an “original” from the NeoGrade folks, but the quality is similar to many recasts I’ve worked with in the past. Resin quality anyhow. The casting quality is pretty good. Some pretty crisp details and some interesting locations for flash and gates. Being inspired from AX and looking at the kit, I need to keep steam going so I can actually finish something.

Starting with the body, the conversion kit replaces most of the exterior armor pieces while keeping the frame. The only exterior pieces used are for the tube chain that wrap around the head and the lower torso piece that sits right above the waist assembly. While looking at the backpack I felt that it was a bit too plain looking.

For the top vent areas of the backpack, I cut out some mesh to add a little bit of detailing to that area.

Late Saturday night, I finished off building the feet. With the little free time I had on Sunday, I managed to finish up the legs and waist unit before calling it a night. Sometime this week I should get the arms and weapons done, then it’s off to fixing the bubbles that I found, then a soak in purple power and the real work on the kit begins.

And now for a small blurb about the OC Fair. Yes, we actually went and picked up some chocolate covered bacon, ate a very large bbq sausage, a bag of kettle corn, deep fried oreos, and a deep fried klondike bar. Yeah, gonna need the next two weeks to work off the damages done in those 4 hours. And finally, a picture that ties the OC Fair picture at the beginning of the post up nicely – Chocolate covered bacon…