Miku Miku!

Picked this up sometime last year; this was a special release by Max Factory to commemorate Good Smile Racing's first win at Sepang! :)

Quite a cool RQ fig. :) Apparently there'll be another for this year!

 This is the upcoming 2012 version!

MSN-04 Sazabi

Now THIS is a beauty! Always been wanting a decent Sazabi figure; the MG kit from Bandai is so-so only although i built it, as the proportions are off, and the detailing is very basic.

However, this is a RESIN kit, so they details will of course be better than that of a polystyrene kit! Check out that detail!

"After Char Aznable, the legendary Zeon ace, reappears in the early UC 0090s and establishes the second Neo Zeon movement, Char commissioned Anaheim Electronics to produce a custom-designed mobile suit specifically for his Newtype abilities and superb piloting skills. Painted in his trademark red color scheme and insignia. The Sazabi was used by Char to personally lead the Neo Zeon forces in battle against the Earth Federation's Londo Bell Task Force and especially against his old archrival Amuro Ray and his RX-93 Nu Gundam, which was also equipped with a psycoframe system."

I guess it'll be quite a PITA to get the whole thing assembled; apparently you'd still need to get a MG kit for the core of the kit for the joints.

Well, it's been ages since i last did any scale-modelling. :) Would be cool if i had the time or space to do so! :p

Iron Man MK IV

Got around to opening the MK IV from the Gantry suit-up set, nothing really new about this suit as it's been released before (except the chest plate is supposed to be magnetic which the previous version wasn't, so that it could attach to the robotic arm).

Decided to put this on display, cos have been spending the afternoon packing stuff for storage, so made so more space available! :)

Well, the MK VII is on the way.... which looks like the previous versions, but i guess it'd be cool to have a 'hall of armor' type of display!

AH-64 Apache Longbow

Picked up a 1:48 scale AH-64D Apache Longbow from Franklin Mint, was contemplating a 1:72 one to be in scale with my other planes, but unfortunately there are no decent manufacturers from 1:72 apaches yet! You have Forces of Valor, but the details are icky and the paint jobs weird.

Strangely, for such a popular attack chopper, not many people make decent versions of this; i sure hope Witty or HM does make one though!

Opened the packaging to take a peek, thing is heavy! Packaging is real secure too. Details are nice, i guess there's enough room on a 1:48 chopper for all the teeny bits!

Well, actually i saw the Megafactories Documentary on the Apache, which kinda spurred me on to get this hehe! :p

Some stats :

General characteristics

• Crew: 2 (pilot, and co-pilot/gunner)
• Length: 58.17 ft (17.73 m) (with both rotors turning)
• Rotor diameter: 48 ft 0 in (14.63 m)
• Height: 12.7 ft (3.87 m)
• Disc area: 1,809.5 ft² (168.11 m²)
• Empty weight: 11,387 lb (5,165 kg)
• Loaded weight: 17,650 lb (8,000 kg)
• Max. takeoff weight: 23,000 lb (10,433 kg)
• Powerplant: 2 × General Electric T700-GE-701 and later upgraded to T700-GE-701C (1990–present) & T700-GE-701D (AH-64D block III) turboshafts, -701: 1,690 shp, -701C: 1,890 shp, -701D: 2,000 shp (-701: 1,260 kW, -701C: 1,490 kW, -701D: 1,490 kW) each
• Fuselage length: 49 ft 5 in (15.06 m)
• Rotor systems: 4 blade main rotor, 4 blade tail rotor in non-orthogonal alignment

Armament

• Guns: 1× 30 × 113 mm (1.18 × 4.45 in) M230 Chain Gun with 1,200 rounds
• Hardpoints: Four pylon stations on the stub wings. Longbows also have a station on each wingtip for an AIM-92 ATAS twin missile pack.
• Rockets: Hydra 70 70 mm, and CRV7 70 mm air-to-ground rockets
• Missiles: Typically AGM-114 Hellfire variants; AIM-92 Stinger may also be carried.

Armored Core V

Never really got into the Armored Core series of games; the customization and all is cool, but i guess the controls never really felt right to me.  I guess i prefer more 'direct' control without having to worry about a ton of options and weapons to switch between!

Still AC had some cool mech designs, but most of them seemed to be available as plastic model kits and not really as toys. Picked this up from Bandai's Super Robot Chogokin line. It's about 10com tall and weighs quite a bit. At least you can 'feel' the chogokin in this! :p

The detail is amazing for such a teeny figure, and the give 4 weapons of which 2 are attached to the shoulders.

However, the weight of the upper torso causes it to lean forward, and the hands... omg, where do i begin? I think this must the worst joint i've ever seen at the wrist, did Bandai even do QA or a design check? They give 4 hands, one for each weapon, but they pop off at the slightest touch! The should have extended the ball joint out from the wrist a bit so that it can fit tighter into the wrist... how they released this without catching on such a flaw is beyond me (money?).

Anyway, sweet figure but the joints can use some improvements. A 6/10 from me.

HT... Why?

Man, seeing this HS for the SDCC 2012 Exclusive Cap'n America's got me worried! There's been a couple of figs already where the prototype doesn't match the final production HS.... is this actually misleading the consumer? Purchases are all based on the preproduction stuff, so are they actually cheating us?

I think HT should slow down and focus on quality; otherwise they'll just cause another crash of the 1/6 market again with shoddy products! Safest i think, is to stick with the iron man suits. :P

Back to the figure, from certain angles it looks like those classic 12" GIJOE figs haha.

The Dark Knight Rises

Just got back from a late screening of the latest Batman movie, and gotta say, even if you're not a Batman fan, the film is still definately worth catching! Christian Bale reprises his role and Batman, Anne Hathaway stars as Catwoman (Mroawrrr!), Gary Oldman comes back as Commisoner Gordon and God stars as Lucius Fox... oh wait, that's Morgan Freeman! Did i mention Qui Gon Jinn makes a cameo?

Well, the main baddie this time round is BANE.. the one who broke the bat's back. When i first saw the pics of Bane from the web, i was kinda dissapointed it was not the gaint raging behemoth pumped full of Venom, who looked like he could rip you in half with his bare hands! But after watching the movie, this iteration of Bane kinda stands out on his own. He's a more calculative, cold and thinking kind of killer.. and strong too, Batman didn't really stand a chance facing him one on one.

There's more vehicles on display too... seeing the batpod in action really makes me feel like getting the HT one! Also, the milspec Tumblers and "THE BAT" are all cool in their own way.

Pacing of the movie is pretty good, even though the movie was over 2 hrs long (coming to 3), there wasn't any really slow part which made you think 'c'mon let's get this show going!', it's all a slow build up to a rather satisfying finale which involved tons of extras pretending to fight each other! :p

This is definately a satisfying conclusion the this Trilogy. Personally i feel part 2 was superior (Thanks to the late Heath Ledger), but in no way was this part bad or a letdown... like maybe Return of the Jedi? :p

Now Hot Toys, quick release the Catwoman fig! :p