Happy Saz Year!

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.

ka_saz_prog 007

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Today’s Activities and Pictures from Santiago Chile in October

Kind of a mix bag of stuff today. While uploading pictures taken today – LA Auto Show 2013 and evening pictures at Disneyland; I realized that I had never uploaded the pictures I took while in Santiago about a month ago. So, with that said, just a short little post about today and my most recent trip south of the equator.

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The Southern California Gundam Model Competition Year Three!

This past weekend was the 3rd annual Southern California Gundam Model Competition, held in Fullerton California. We drew a total of 171 attendees, of which 42 entered the competition with 76 models entered. Our attendance is up by at least 60 people, so we saw a decent jump in growth. Asking around, I believe that word about our event is starting to spread and folks are seeing the hard work we put into placing flyers all over Southern California. We’ve hammered down a good number of issues as lessons learned from the previous two years and from what I’ve heard and read so far from various sites, we did a fantastic job. Thanks to all the hard work and dedication from our loyal TGG Staff. We still have a few kinks that could use oiling and straightening out, but we’re definitely on the right track. There were some really amazing builds on the tables. Just below there is a 13 year old Shenlong, a completely revamped Taurus kit, a full scratch build for a 1/100 Xamel, and beautifully painted Patchwork Sazabi.

More after the jump!

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Southern California Gundam Model Competition: T minus 30 hours or so…

It feels damn good be be so organized and prepared for this year’s SCGMC event. We spent a little more money than we did last year, but it is definitely money well spent on items that will see future use at many more SCGMC events to come. We’ve been generating some good publicity through the TGG Facebook page; posting up some last minute progress pictures of kits we’ve been working on, posting up pictures of an early collection of raffle prizes, and within the past several hours, posting up pictures of our trophies we have for this year.

Time to post up some of those pictures here too, check it out after the jump!

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