Heads-up for all Gunpla modellers: Bandai Japan is trying to stop Japanese retailers to sell most, if not all, their plastic kits lines (so not just Gundam-related).
AmiAmi and Hobbysearch have removed those products from their sites, but HLJ is continuing sales.
Saw this mentioned on Twitter the other day
Wonder if this is the start of a bigger thing & international retailers like Gundam Mad will be targeted too
I've never really been into the kits myself but sucks for those who do like them
My take is Bandai is either going to start their own online store and want exclusivity over international sales (very, very ****ty move) or are going to expand their network of local certified retailers/importers and don't want competition from outside. Apparently only affects wholesalers, so maybe AmiAmi and Hobbysearch are overreacting.
Who knows, manuals Master Grade kits are in both English and Japanese, so they are very well aware of the fandom outside Japan.
After quite the amount of time, I have finally completed printing a Timberwolf from MechWarrior Online.
There's some cleaning left to do before painting, but overall I'm very happy how it turned out. I think I've used around 2 whole liters of resin to print the model between tests, failed prints, and final pieces. A few pieces (like the torso and the legs) took around 12 hours to print, so I was only able to print one tray per weekend.
The base model comes from Printables, but it was thought for filament printers, so I had to rearrange supports and the like. It was also designed to be miniature size (or slightly larger than that), so I modified some pieces extensively. Luckily the original author distributed the 3ds Max source files with the STLs for printing, so the work began.
I increased the poly count in various places, like knees and muzzles on the arms. I kept the shoulder missile launchers the same overall size but increased the missiles, adding detail while at it (originally it was just a hole).
The torso required a lot of rework, almost a complete remodelling: originally it was a series of polygons attached together, which made hollowing almost impossible. First I drastically increased the poly count on the "nose" (3 point of meshsmooth, if you want to go technical), then added together all frontal and side accessories.
For the rear, separated the exhausts you see on the underside to be their own parts, and this the same with the details on the back; this left a nice flat surface where I could put all the support points I wanted, could then be easily sanded and then covered by the parts I removed beforehand.
It can be posed to a degree. Hopefully I can keep it mobile and not glue joints together for a pose.
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