Topic: JDeck's machines, models, monsters and miscellaneous.

[Tamer]

Ran out of time for comments here yesterday, but did get that Y-Wing Hangar on the fp. You rocked that one JDeck!

[JDeck]

Ran out of time for comments here yesterday, but did get that Y-Wing Hangar on the fp. You rocked that one JDeck!

I noticed you put it on the FP. Many thanks again for the exposure and your kind comments!

  I built this Bandai Sandtrooper over the weekend, its pretty good, and I'm really picky when it comes to Stormtroopers. I haven't built the Bandai stormtrooper yet so this is new to me. The range of motion and overall aesthetics of the figure is far superior to Hasbro's 6" rendition. But it is definitely not a toy, I dropped it a couple of times and parts just flew everywhere. I actually like the clean look, I'll keep it this way unless I build a dio for him. I may not build dios for a while, until I re furnish my work space, with new display shelves and work station.

  You gotta have more than one Sandtrooper so I built another one the commander. Now I just need a few black pauldron troops and I'll have myself a nice squad. Like I said I like them just straight out the box, really great looking figures. Ironically the Hasbro Sandtroopers are more expensive than the superior Bandai Sandtroopers, that's cool with me!

[Tamer]

You ought to put this review in the Imperial Review Section.

[JDeck]

You ought to put this review in the Imperial Review Section.

   Yeah, originally I was going to do a full review of all the Bandai Star Wars kits, but there isn't much interest for them especially among toy collectors. That's why The Black Series Darth Vader costs $50 and the far more accurate Bandai Vader can be bought for 15 bucks. You either love models kits or you don't, to each their own, I guess. I figure I'd just do a simple review when I build them, then customize them in the same feed. It just amazed me how great this sandy looks. I thought the Black Series was top notch, this just makes it look like a POTF figure or something. You know. There is a guy on YouTube that does full reviews of these on "The FWOOSH" channel. He does a great job of just explaining things. Of course videos are much better than any article. I may do a review on the next Sandtrooper I build in the review section. That way I can photograph the parts that may need explaining.

[JDeck]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yVHI7nKMqlE
   I thought this was cool. I saw it on Forbes.com, its an inside look of the Bandai Gundam factory, very similar to the Star Wars model kit factory. This is another reason why I like Bandai, the kits are built in ethical factories by master craftsmen. This video just shows a glimpse of the technology involved in making these products. The video is about 5 minutes long but its pretty cool. Its like that show how its made but without the commentator.

[JDeck]

  I built a Bandai stormtrooper today, I haven't put the decals on yet because I'm waiting for my microset to come in. I'll get into that later. Just look at the comparison between it and the Black Series Stormtrooper, its just amazing. The proportions of the bandai stormy is spot on as for the Black series he looks sickly. Also I like the smokey green lenses and the shiny white poly-styrene armor. The Black Series is dull with that painted vinyl plastic.  Like I said I'm REALLY picky when it comes to Stormtroopers. They have to be right, and this Bandai kit is right.

 Like I said I'm waiting for my microset to come in to do the decals. Microset is a solvent you add before placing the decal. It removes any oils and dissolves the decal so only the paint is left. Because many of these helmet decals are placed over details. Two things happen you lose detail and the decal doesn't stay. I found that out on the Sandtrooper. For those interested I'll run a step by step. I'll get into this later but the decals that come with the kit correspond with the ANH Stormtrooper, but I would like an ESB version. Specifically the mouthpiece or "frown" as some would say, in ANH its grey and ESB and ROTJ its black. So something to think about.

[Tamer]

Nice. I like the looks of him.

[JDeck]

Nice. I like the looks of him.

  Many thanks again for the FP feature.
  I've been looking at the SH figuarts figures, Man those look good! This may be the end of Hasbro for me. You snooze you lose. Bandai is taking Star wars figures and ships to all new heights.

[hemble]

Love Y-Wing dio mate great details and weathering and the X-Wing turned out great.

The Sandtrooper looks awesome I now have 7 and can't wait to make them and with the alternate back packs to give them some difference it makes them even better. Also did you know you can alter the black brow section so that you can have a small amount of the white between the eyes? It makes it look even better.

Ron

[JDeck]

Love Y-Wing dio mate great details and weathering and the X-Wing turned out great.

The Sandtrooper looks awesome I now have 7 and can't wait to make them and with the alternate back packs to give them some difference it makes them even better. Also did you know you can alter the black brow section so that you can have a small amount of the white between the eyes? It makes it look even better.

Ron

   Thanks Ron! Yeah these Bandai Sandies are awesome! I noticed the two brow types, I wasn't sure what to make of it. Its a cool feature in order to have subtle variations between troops. I'm sure you can make many more than three variations of the backpacks too. I think I'll kitbash sandy parts on some stormy figures too, to give them more subtle differences. I can't get enough of these things.

[JDeck]

   I'm sure your all on the edge of your seats wondering what sort of genius project I'm working on. Well not really but I'll show you anyway. No its not a robot phallus I'm attempting to build a 1/12 E-web cannon for my stormtrooper squad. I wanted to start with the tripod first, but I changed my design and had to order different sized tubes. So I started with the cannon first. Still has a ways to go like the firing mech, the scope stuff like that. As soon as the parts arrive I can build the tripod, I spent a week or two developing the design, so I hope it ends up the way I envisioned.
    I changed some things to the canon I made that parabolic shaped thing bigger changed up the middle part of the canon as well. Also the back of the canon was changed. So I'm back where I was but it will look better than the version 1.0 once its painted.

[Tamer]

Interesting, looking forward to the finale on this.

[Clonehead]

Looks good so far. This gun is gonna pack a punch

[JDeck]

Looks good so far. This gun is gonna pack a punch

   I'm having trouble getting the moving parts to work right. I pretty much got the tripod done then the glue ran and jammed the whole thing up. So I'm still working out the kinks.

[JDeck]

I started painting the 1/144 TFA Falcon. First I gave it a pre-shadow using German grey, instead of giving it a dark wash later. Then I shot it with flat white spray, and gave it an off white wash. Then I shot it with flat clear. Soon I'll add the decals there's about 117 of them but some I won't need, as I'll paint it instead.