Hey! I’m a builder from the Bay Area and have been building for a while! (since I was 12! I’m only 19, so I guess it isn’t too long bahaha)
I primarily build Gundam, and I have been recently dabbling in my other love of aviation with some airliners!
Like most kids, I always loved Lego, and this naturally led to me being interested in models. I distinctly recall building a snap-fit A-10 & AH-64D with my dad who was actually the biggest influence in my model-making journey. Although he didn’t really build, he had some old 1980s Gundam models that we put together, and although they aren’t pretty, I fell in love with the genre. I began to save up for the models and snap-fitted them as fast as I could. However, over time, I began to become interested in the customization/modification side of building and loved drawing my own designs! I think my favorite part of the hobby overall having the creative freedom to make something unique! (and also the community of course!)
I’ve been competitively building Gundam models for around 4 years and won at a couple of local hobby shop events. I was a finalist at SCGMC 2020 and took second the following year at SCGMC 2021 in the Advanced 1/144 AU category. Most recently, I was the Under-20 US Representative at the 11th GBWC in 2023!
WOW, you are an accomplished young Gunpla builder! You represented at the GWBC? Amazing! Congratulations and welcome to the forum!
I also am an avid Gunpla builder, getting bit by the bug way back in 1983. I used to be a “scale-only” kind of guy that scoffed at anime kits. But the first Gunpla kit I built (the 1/550 Grablo) sold me and it was all downhill from there!
There are a couple of talented guys here that build anime kits, so you will fit right in! I am hoping we can grow our little group and help each other with tips and techniques. I have noticed a surge in Youtube videos where people take old anime kits and rework them to modern standards. It’s a great time to build Gunpla!
The Gkwacks thing has me a little concerned though. Those are really weird looking Mobile Suits!
Not to sound Anti-Gquuuuuux-ist, but YESSSSSSSSS a Zeta fan! Woo-hoo! Yeah if it quacks like a duck… But Gundam is not a duck.
BTW, I took a peek at your website. Boy, when you went to Japan for the GWBC you travelled around a LOT. Was that your first time there? Did the event organizers do anything to help the contestants around, or was it the “Wild, Wild, West” for foreigners? Or is that “Wild, Wild, East”? The Japanese usually go overboard in catering to visitors, so I was just wondering.
Some gal on Youtube got invited to a Pokemon event in Japan, and it seems she was left to her own devices getting around. She got lost upon arrival at the airport, had trouble finding the hotel, and overslept on the day of the event, thus missing her transportation and the majority of the event.
You figured out the trains and enjoyed the food, so now you can say with confidence that you have lived the Japan Experience! Oh yeah, and the hobby shops. Everything else is just gravy.
Wow, that’s awesome! We love to hear about teens who are interested in the hobby! It’s great that you started so early and have kept with it. Awesome job on your build, too. We look forward to seeing more models from you!
Yay! It is good meeting another UC fan. You probably saw my WIP Zeta stuff on my website haha! Do you have a favorite mobile suit?
Yeah! I hadn’t been to Japan before, but my mom spent a lot of time there in the past! The organizers were so nice and did a great job bringing us around (the US rep took us to a yummy sushi lunch!), but before and after the event was a little more difficult to find our way around. The metro took a while to get used to, but it was a great, cheap way to get around! I wish the bay had transportation like that!
It was such a great time to spend with my mom and such an awesome opportunity that I didn’t really expect (but it was worth taking my finals 2 days early ahaha)
I’m one of those old “goalkeeper” die-hard U.C. fans. For me, it’s Universal Century or nothing! That’s probably because I got into Gundam well before Cartoon Network started airing the shows in the early 2000s. By the time Wing Gundam was showing in the US, I was already set on the U.C. properties.
And being a hard-core U.C. fan, my favorite mobile suit is the Zaku. This is my first Zaku, and the second Gunpla kit I built, back in 1983. It was Char’s Zaku boxing in 1/100, but I didn’t like the orange popsicle and red bean color, so I just painted it in military greens without knowing that the standard grunt Zakus were similarly colored.
And this is the Master Grade Ramba Ral Zaku I, probably built around the time you were born!
My mother used to regularly go to Japan to visit her family, and she took me and my sister there several times. Back then, I was young and stupid, so I made no effort to learn the language. I really, really regret that now.
I came to the realization that I had squandered a valuable opportunity when I picked up a Japanese model magazine for the first time in college. That was in the mid 1980s, when the anime boom was just about to explode. My friends and I started to travel to Japan for anime/model kit junkets in the 1990s, but I had very little grasp of the language.
If I could go back in time, I’d kick the younger me and tell him to get serious and study Japanese instead of skating along to just get passing grades. I think it would have made a big difference.
The Zaku is a great choice! I think my favorites are definitely the Gouf (not the custom) and the Zeta! My first series was Unicorn!
I really love that Zaku I! The pre-shading looks amazing! It’s such a clean but detailed build! I’ve yet to learn how to use an airbrush haha
The language thing is super relatable for me in the same way it was for you with Japanese. I never learned how to speak Korean despite a couple opportunities to. I really think just learning any language opens so many more opportunities/experiences that you would otherwise not be able to have and allows for a better respect for the culture as a whole!
My favorite character from Gundam is Ramba Ral, and my favorite line from the show is “Zaku to wa chigau no da yo, Zaku to wa!” (This is no Zaku, boy, no Zaku!) I want that on a tee shirt.
