Robot Damashii (Side MS) Crossbone Gundam X-1 - Box Art

Box art image of the soon to be release Robot Damashii (Side MS) Crossbone Gundam X-1

Release Date: Late June '09
Price: 3,150 Yen

Image from Toy World Forum

Gunpla Worklog: 1/100 Gundam Astraea FA Kai - Update 1

Now that I've finished pre-building the 1/100 Gundam Astraea Type-F. I checked for any gaps that needs to be fix with putty & sanding. But to my suprise, most of the gaps that needed to be puttied were hidden. Bandai really did a great job with this design, and this actually would save me some time. Again I don't think I will do much modding for this kit, since I pretty much like how it look as is. I will just be making little mods here and there...

SHOULDERS
So right off the bat, I think the shoulders are too small for my taste, I like the shoulders to be a little bit broader.


So I am going to applied some milliput epxoy putty (the yellow-grey stuff) on part of the shoulder where I want more body. Usually it will take around 3 hours for it to completely dry. But since I am going back home to my parents house to eat tonight, I will leave it alone until probably tommorrow, before I start to doing any sculpting / filing / sanding.

I also just applied a little bit more epoxy putty than needed, so that I can always have a buffer for errors during sculpting/filing. More update on this part later.

TORSO

Next item on the list is the articulation of the kit. Now I must admit the quality of the kit is quite nice, but I cannot say the same for the kit's articulation. Generally though, non-grade 1/100 kits usually are pretty stiff and has limited torso & arm movements.

As you can see below, the way the torso is design. it only allows the torso to turn and thats it. It does not allow any leaning backward nor forward. So I want to fix that.

Trying to be resourceful (cuz I was too impatient to order any kotobukiya parts to do this). I will be using the same part seen here to do the simple mod that that would allow the torso to be able to lean back and forth. (this image below is before modding)

So on this side, I modded the torso joint so that it allows forward/backward movement.

And then on the other side, I will add a plastic nub so that when the torso leans, the movement will feel more solid when the moving joint make contact with this nub. This is to prevent the upper torso from becoming wiggly.

And after I've completed this simple mod, you can see that the torso is now able to lean forward & backward. Very satisfied.

SHOULDER JOINT / ARMS CONNECTOR

The Inner shoulder joint (which the arm will attach to) is very very limited in movement. I can probably move it back/forth by a couple of centimeters max. LOL This need to be modded as well, because I like my arms to be able to do some nice poses.

To accomplish this, I will need to make a new joint that allows more movement. So I cut out two pieces of pla-plates (from a hobby plastic retangular tube). One piece for each joint.

I use a hobby drill and make a hole as a joint connector.

Test fitted them onto both the should joint pieces. Looking good.

Attached the new joints to the upper torso.

And after the mods, the shoulder joints now allows much wider movement for the arms. The arms are now much more articulate than before.

Here I am trying out some poses to see the fruit of my mods.

With the arms being able to close into the chest area, poses are more natural.

Here is a pose that utilized the full potential of my mods. More updates soon....I hope.

PS3 - Mobile Suit Gundam Senki U.C. 0081 (Update 1)

To suppliment my previous update about the game's Zeon units & game elements, here are some more additional info & better images:

Zeon's game characters: INVINCIBLE KNIGHTS

Erik Blanke: Commander of the Invincible Knights. Voiced by Uchida Yuuya.

Airos Bade: Erik’s childhood friend. He gives Erik advice in a calm and collected manner. Voiced by Hamada Kenji.

Fritz Bauer: Another of Erik’s childhood friends. He’s brave and sentimental, yet doesn’t get them into dangerous situations. Voiced by Toriumi Kousuke.

(From left) Fritz Bauer, Erik Blanke & Airos Bade

Story is played out with cutscenes & character communication.
(I can't shake the sense that the globe in the background is recycled from the Gundam Crossfire game.....hmm)

Zeon Mission 1:

Assault on the Federal Forces in order to acquire ammo & supplies.

Zeon Mission 2

Reports of a battle with the Feddies along a valley, the Invisible Knights will aid in the attack using the topography of the battle location to their advangtage with a pincer attack.

Zeon Mission 3

Recapture of the newly developed MS-08TX Efreet Custom mobile suit at the Federation Odessa military base, and eliminate all opposing forces. (This mission is relevant to the novel Gundam Blue Destiny of the Efreet being capture by the Federal Force after the One Year War.)

Invisible Knight Unit - MS-08TX Efreet Custom

Some historical notes about this unit (From the Blue Destiny Series):

As the One Year War continued in UC 0079, the idea of Newtypes became widespread. Some feared Newtypes, including Zeon scientist Chlust Morses, who believed that Newtypes would eventually dominate Oldtypes. He put all of his hatred of Newtypes into the EXAM combat system, along with the soul of Newtype Marion Welch. The EXAM system allowed for incredible performance, but it was extremely unstable. Since it was controlled by the tormented soul of Marion, it would sometimes go out of control and attack allies, or refuse to move. After developing the EXAM system for use in the MS-08TX(EXAM) Efreet Custom, Morses defected to the Federation and gave them the EXAM system.

The Efreet Custom was based on the MS-08TX Efreet Custom, but with a few changes in armament. While the standard Efreet featured several handheld weapons, the Efreet Custom was armed with several weapons on its main body, including arm grenade launchers and leg missile pods. After the defection of Morses, the Efreet Custom was used by ace pilot Nimbus Schterzen. Nimbus would use the Efreet Custom in several battles against Federation Forces pilot Yu Kajima. They would later face each other in December UC 0079 when the Federation Forces attacked the California base to reclaim it. Both the Efreet Custom and Yu's EXAM-equipped RX-79BD-1 Blue Destiny Unit 1 were destroyed in battle.

Mission Breifing

Detail instruction about the upcoming mission. However with limited understanding of japanese, the story element might not be as enjoyable as intended. But as with most Gundam games, mission tends to be the typical destroy everything/defend at all cost flavor.

Team Organization

Customize your MS team (3 units) to meet mission requirements. Depending on mission type & strategy to deploy, player will make decision such as weapons loadout, and choosing of melee, close range, or long range type mobile suits.

Pilot Customization

After each mission, each pilot will be granted experience points depending on the results. Player can use these EX point to develop the different attributes of the pilots, such as weather to increase defense shield for the support, or increasing fire accuracy, and much more. (Yes! My dream came true for having these RPG elements!)

Mobile Suit Customization

Player will be able to change parts and strengthen the various parts of the MS. Each mobile suit has a limited amount of capacity points, so within the allowed point range, different parts may be used to increase performance of the mobile suit.

Obtaining Addition Parts

After the completion of each mission, new parts will be awarded to players.

Command Your Team

Various commands may be issued to your team before mission & during combat. There are said to be 10 different commands total, but here I only see 8 of them.

Combat Commands (seen below):

- Breakthru: attack at all cost

- All units to attack a certain unit

- Attack

- Do not attack

Formation Commands (seen below):

- A formation

- V formation

- D formation

- Re-supply

V Formation

A Formation

Be on top of combat situation by employing various commands, for example if surrounded by enemies, use the breakthru command w/ V formation to regain tactical advantage.

Have your team attack the same enemy mobile suit for maximum damage.

When ammo is low, order your team to resupply at a supply point.

Hope to have more updates later as we get near the release date.

Images from famitsu.com (w/ additional info from MAHQ)