Gunpla Builders World Cup 2011 Finalists & Gunpla Expo World Tour Hong Kong 2011 Preview

UPDATED: Added pictures for Malaysia entries


The upcoming Gunpla Expo World Tour Hong Kong 2011 will take place in Discovery Park in Tsuen Wan from 15th to 27th December.

Date: 15th - 27th December 2011
Time: 11am - 8pm
Venue: Discovery Park - Shopping Centre
Free admission


The regional champions of Gunpla Builders World Cup 2011 will also gather up as finalists for the World Cup Final, of which the grand champions of the competition will be announced on 25th December (which would be a nice Christmas present from Bandai wouldn't it? ^^).

Below are the confirmed entries (open course and junior course) set to appear in Hong Kong so far for next week. Unfortunately due to the recent flooding Thailand is not able to participate in the finals. The English names of the entries are rough translations, and if anyone knows the names of the entries from other regions please do let me know!

KOREA:

PG Hybrid gundam rx-78-2 by KIM SO RI


Mk II AEUG by YOUN TAE HO

CHINA:

三国争霸图 - the hegemony map of the Three Kingdoms by GUO TIAN YOU


心灵对话 - Spritual Dialogue (Conversation by Heart) by LAO JIA HONG

HONG KONG:

冥王．剎帝利 - Hades Kshatriya by KONG YIU MAN


第四空間中的二次大戰 - The 2nd great war of 4th dimension by YUENG WONG YIP

TAIWAN:

那些年我在幽谷的日子 - Those times I spent in AEUG by LIN ZIH-CIAO


00Q by LIN TSUNG-HAN

AUSTRALIA:

Custom Built 1/100 MG Rickdom by MARK CARLISLE


Custom Built 1/100 MG Hi-Nu plus 1/100 MG Nu by DARRYL CHOW

NORTH AMERICA:

Sazabi's Final Mission by Gamera Baenrae aka CLEMENT ENG (thanks gundamjehutykai for the info!)

ITALY:

RX-78-2 Gundam - Close Combat Mobile Suit by DOMENICO FEBBO

INDONESIA:

Kshatriya by BUDI SALIM


Fishing in a wrong day by ALLEN FEBRIANTO

SINGAPORE:

The Sazabi by ONG POH THEAN


Zaku F2000 “Omen” by TEO ZHI SHENG

PHILIPPINES:

Buster Impulse by MICHAEL T. COSTA


MOSAZ by ELIEZER B. QUIRONG

MALAYSIA:

Kshatriya IV by HO YICK YIN


Frozen Hero by TEOW JIAN LIM

JAPAN:

願い - Wish by 山口達彦（TATSUHIKO YAMAGUCHI）


ザクとの戦い - Fighting against the Zaku by 畑めい（MEI-HATA）



Event exclusive items have been announced but prices will be confirmed on a later date. They are of the following:

MG 1/100 Char's Zaku II Clear Colour Ver.

MG 1/100 00 QAN[T] Clear Colour Ver.

HGUC 1/144 Z Gundam Clear Colour Ver.

HG 1/144 Gundam AGE-1 Normal Full Colour CoatingVer.

HG 1/144 Pink Beargguy

BB Senshi Ryuubi & Hakuhin Ryuuseiba Clear Colour Ver.


Notable displays will include upcoming HGUC Unicorn Gundam Banshee (Unicorn and Destroy Mode), MG 1/100 Gundam AGE-1, as well as new MG kits (e.g. Duel Gundam) from Gundam SEED.


Unlike the past 3 years the annual Gundam public event is renamed from Gundam Expo Hong Kong to Gunpla Expo World Tour Hong Kong 2011, and BAKUC (Bandai Action Kit Universal Cup) being Gunpla Builders World Cup 2011 this year. The event has also been moved back to Tsuen Wan for the first time since 2008, which was the first event I went back then.

The location is a bit far this time, but I think I will spend an afternoon there one day like previous years. We have finalist entries from a lot more places this year, so it will be great to see them in person~ Have you got any favourites in your mind? So far the winged Sinanju of the Japanese entry and the Hades Kshatriya from Hong Kong has caught the most of my attention. :o

Gunpla Builders World Cup 2011:
http://bandai-hobby.net/GBWC_JAPAN/GBWC2011.html

Gunpla Expo World Tour Hong Kong 2011:
http://www.bandai-asia.com/gunpla-expo2011/index.html

GA Graphic:
http://ga.sbcr.jp/mgundam/018895/
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Hatsune Miku Wedding Dress Figure sold for 389,000 Yen

A modified and repainted Hatsune Miku figure in wedding dress has been sold for astounding 389,000 Yen (~5000 USD or 3741 EUR) on Yahoo Auction Japan.

The figure had 96 bids from 1 Yen to the final bidding price over the course of 6 days (4th November to 10th November). Despite this being a month old the news only spread recently over the Internet.


Front


Back

The figure is actually a hybrid of two existing figures with a bit of touchup. The two figures are:


Max Factory 1/7 Hatsune Miku Tony Taka version, released in March 2011 for 8800 Yen


New Line 1/6 ToHeart2 Tamaki Kousaka -Marriage-, released in October 2010 for 9800 Yen

More pictures found from other sources:












So the idea was to use a head of a slightly smaller scale on top of a wedding dress figure (Kousaka Tamaki in this case) to create an image of an adult Miku ready to marry off to someone.

Apart from the repaint, there are minor modifications such as the head bands. According to the descriptions there are apparently also stuff that we cannot see from the pictures, such as miniskirt beneath the wedding dress (as the figure can be cast off, i.e. dress can be removed to reveal what is underneath) and decal markings for Miku.

It's... Impressive how the final bidding price for this Miku wedding dress figure ended up at 389,000 Yen, especially when it was modified from existing figures. This price utterly dwarfs that for my biggest stunt and most expensive purchase of the year. That being said, I won't comment directly whether the figure really worths that much of a price, but I am sure we all have our own opinions on this. Let's just say that some people sure have a lot of love for the characters they like ^^;


Sources:
Yahoo Auction Japan item page (page will be expired approximately after 6 months)
オレ的ゲーム速報
http://blog.livedoor.jp/insidears/archives/52510212.html
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Deux Dra-C

Got a couple of HGUC 1/144 Dra-C recently. These guys will be my latest addition of my grunt units after Jestas and Dreissens of the Gundam franchise.


Dra-C art by raybar on pixiv

Dra-C is a bit of an odd hybrid between an MS and an MA, with the upper body made out of Zaku F2 and the lower body constructed from Gattle fighter-bomber parts.

The Dra-C, which was produced after the One Year War and had mainly participated in Delaz Conflict (i.e. Gundam 0083) as well as other conflicts in smaller numbers such as Haman Karn's forces (as seen in movie version of Zeta Gundam), represents an interim solution of some sort for keeping Zeon remnant forces equipped well enough as an effective fighting force, using spare parts and salvaged from other damaged or obsolete units in order to make a new one.

I bought 2 Dra-Cs rather than 3 due to two reasons: One is the increasing prices of pretty much everything these days so I am conserving a bit of money for my other purchases this coming month (one will be mentioned below, while the other would be the figma Racing Miku 2011). The other reason is that the incompletness will also represent the ragtag nature of remnant forces whose equipment tend to be incomplete or some sort of compromise. I may think of getting a Zeon Zaku F2 to complement them though (I do have an EFSF version to go with my GM Kais).

Unfortunately I'm still waiting for my replacement parts for my GM III to come, which is taking a long time to come from Japan. Once they have arrived (hopefully this month) I can resume progress on them after months of hiatus for these guys.


On the other hand, should I be away or not active in blogging this coming month this would probably be the reason:


Gundam Extreme Vs will be out on 1st December. So if I am not shooting down planes on Assault Horizon, then I'd be blowing up some MS on this instead.


However, a scan from recent Famitsu magazine shows downloadable contents (DLCs) for Gundam Extreme Vs. In the image The-O, Gottrlatan, Freedom, and Arche Gundam are hinted to be some of the DLC units. I guess DLCs are now something that is a bit hard to avoid these days, but that's the way it is. I just hope they won't be too expensive for me to consider unlike those in Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, where the prices really put me off (480 Yen for an alternate aircraft skin and at least 720 Yen for a new playable aircraft).


Got a lot to do this December. I hope I have the time to get around them all!
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Kaiyodo Supersaurus figure

Digging out one of the older display items I have from the shelf, and it's one of the more unusual ones - a Supersaurus dinosaur figure from Kaiyodo. :o


This Kaiyodo Supersaurus miniture is a limited figure from "The Gigantic Dinosaur Expo 2006" that was held from 15th July to 10th September 2006 in Makuhari Messe. During my Tokyo trip with my family in 2006 Makuhari was one of the few places that we have visited, and while I'm not big into shopping there I noticed big posters promoting this dinosaur event. Since I was a fan of dinosaurs during childhood I thought it won't hurt to give this event a peek. The venue was huge; you can say it's like a whole museum being put on a temporary exhibition!

After going through the whole exhibition, I came upon the gift shop section near the exit. As the supersaurus was the one of the main features of the event I thought I would buy a small miniature of it. Although this is a non-scale figure I'm a fan of things in small sizes with fine details, so it fits my taste pretty well there~


View from the right


View from the left


Head and neck


Torso and base


Tail


Clear parts can been seen on the main body along with the neck and front end of the tail where the bones are painted on top of. It makes sense for it to adopt this since the figure is very small.


Viewing from front, with the focus mainly on the head itself


View from the back


Supersaurus with HGUC 1/144 Zaku F2. According to the data the Supersaurus is approximately 33m long, so the two are not in the same scale (the Zaku is about 12.5cm tall); the dinosaur would have to be bigger in order for the two to match.


A random last shot of the Supersaurus with some 1/144 scale German soldiers (I don't have civillians of similar sizes). The two are not in the same scale, but I can always treat it as some similar sauropods in this particular case. Tried to make it seem more mystifying with a quick omni lighting effecto on the Photoshop ^^;


I didn't realise that I have this figure for 5 years already, and that was before I got into bishoujo figures too. Time really flies. :o

For something that is this small with bones that are mere millimetres thick in this size, the level of details on the ribs and vertebrae are really well done, not at least to say the paintwork in order to make it seem like cast bones as seen in museums.

Although I have lost the photos that I have taken in the exhibition, at least I have this to remember the event by. It's also something I can remember my childhood love for dinosaurs back then ^^
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