Ok, so the title would have worked better with the Nu, but the joke’s there. Happy new year all! I’ve finally gotten off my ass and away from that bloody Gundam Battle Operation. Been stuck in a vortex of that game for a while and finally quelling the addiction with something else just as addictive, but much more productive as I actually have a tangible end result. And it has been a while since I posted anything. Again, blaming the GBO addition. But on to the purpose of this post, that new Ver. Ka Sazabi. The original design for this suit was penned by Yukata Izubuchi, the same guy also designed the Dogas, Nu, Hygogg, etc. Most of my favorite mecha designs were originally done by him. I favor a more simplistic design in comparison to most of Katoki’s style; but I do appreciate the application of Katoki themes to the original Izubuchi designs. There are several resin variants for the Nu and Saz that just go way beyond anything I enjoy with levels of panel lines, greeblies, tubes and wiring. I can appreciate it, but my personal taste leans towards a more simplicity. There’s a balance between the two extremes and I fall somewhere slightly short of the middle – so, I’m not a complete fence sitter.
I’ve built the original MG Saz, a kit that even Izubuchi didn’t admit to liking very much. I’ve rebuilt that same kit twice over, the final version a Core-Works conversion. That said, I’m fairly familiar with the kit’s design. So I picked up this kit from the local distributor a couple of days prior to the official release. Friends with benefits I guess. I’m never in a rush, but the novelty of having this before the majority of the world was kinda cool, granted I wasn’t allowed to post up pictures – but as part of the TGG gang, we actually got real hands on look at the entire kit a full week before it’s release at our monthly build gathering. So the novelty of actually snapping pictures of my own kit when I got it was gone.
This past weekend was the first build gathering of the year. I started with finishing up the basic build and sanding of the resin Kampfer I had been working on last build gathering, and with all the parks soaking in purple power, I had nothing else on my plate. Angel had already started on his Ka Saz, so I grabbed the gigantic box out of my workshop and started on page one, clipping, sanding, and snapping the sucker together.
There’s a bit of departure from the original design, implementing the ideals of a “psycho-frame”, fall out from the Unicorn design and last year’s Nu. I didn’t care for it on the Nu, but certain elements on the Saz appealed to me. Most of the shifting will be glued down, but there will be a few areas where I’ll glue down the “opened” option – namely the back of the forearm areas that expose newly added verniers. At the end of the gathering, I got about as far as the upper torso sans shoulders.
Here’s a size comparison shot with the Xbones 2 that Mike was working on at the gathering. Fun juxtaposition of probably one of the smallest 1/100 scale MGs against one of the larger.
The following day, I started sometime after getting up and sitting myself in front of the TV with the NFL divisional playoffs on, followed by several different movies, I got about as far as step 8-2 which got me close to completing the left leg. A quick look at the clock showed it was a bit past midnight encroaching closer to 1 than away from actual midnight, so I had to call it. The damn kit is quite partsy, and I’m being a little more focused in getting all the nubs sanded down, as well as some of the surface imperfections.
Yesterday evening, after work, I brought the kit back into the workshop. Working without visual distractions seem to be best as I’m more focused and work much faster. I do however turn on the radio so that I have music. That seems to be the best environment. The wife comes in and hangs out with me for a while and it’s nice. Now if I can sucker her into working on her own creative projects (Legos, a BearGuy San kit I picked up for her, and god forbid her cross-stitching hobby); the workshop will be nice and warm with all the dogs hanging out instead of just Hugo guarding the room from various imagined intruders.
A break for dinner and catching a couple of episodes of Family Guy on TBS that I’ve never seen, saw me back to work at 10 PM. Again, I only finish the backpack just before the midnight bell tolls. Sanding the damn funnel pieces consumed a decent amount of time.
I snapped a few shots of the kit in this completed form. I have yet to build the weapons or shield. I’m still in debate on how I want those pieces displayed if at all. I’m actually quite interested in scratch building/kit bashing a new or existing weapon for the Saz either based off one of the two rifles that came with the kit.
For size comparison, good ole Keroro G3 comes out. The afro head adds considerable size that it effectively distorts the realistic size comparisons, so swapping out to the G3 head; we get a more accurate comparison. BTW, I have no idea where the damn V-fin went, but it doesn’t matter, we get a nice size comparison.
With the base kit done, I can now look at areas I want to adjust and modify. Most will be slight cosmetic mods here and there; but I’m basically looking to scale up what I did with the HGUC Saz. And I’m toying with the idea of lighting the entire kit up as well. There is so much space within the confines which allows for a bit more flexibility with wire placement and such. This should be a fun little project. Stay tuned for more updates. I’ve been regularly working on the thing and I’m pretty motivated, so this bodes well for more regular blog updates while I progress with the build.
