Tested Builds: Perfect Grade Gundam, Part 1
Welcome to another week of builds! We’re tackling a new type of kit this week: gunpla! And for our first Gundam build, we’re going big with a Perfect Grade Zeta Gundam at 1/60 scale. Norm is joined by Sean Charlesworth, Frank Ippolito, and special guest Danica Johnson to work together and build this mecha! (This first video is available for everyone–watch the rest of the build by signing up with the Tested Premium member community!)
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You all were talking about the details that will never be seen on the inside of parts. That’s not just the Gundam models but pretty much all of Bandai’s models. I just finished a 1/48th scale Star Wars Snow speeder and I would build one part that was really detailed only to cover it up with another in a couple of steps.
Just bought my first Gundam because of you guys. Thanks for the idea. I went for master grade as a start.
About damn time, I’m glad to see your really stretching my 40$ so for my next command I want you to scratch build a functioning 1/1 nut rocker:http://compositorium.com/dr_tak/wf2010w/RIMG1444.JPG while jumping on one leg.
Please don’t, it would be insanely cruel I realize. But do have a look at Ma.K.
Apparently, according to Wikipedia, “Dikes” is short for Diagonal Cutters.
Oops, double-post.
Could tested be the first board and comment section that has a regret button?
Not an undo or delete post or even an edit button but a regret button.
Yes, at last the Gundam build! 🙂 Been waiting for this for ages, great stuff guys!
So Gundam has a new story pretty much each season of the show (bringing new designs and thus models).
There is a couple of seasons where the story is kids building gunpla then piloting them in VR battles against each other, there amount of work you put into your model effects it in combat.
Jetfire was the one TM’d out of the blue transformer I ever got as a kid and it did indeed break within minutes.
Whooop built my first Gundam just before Christmas after visiting Hong Kong and bringing a whole load of kits back! once you pop you just can’t stop!! just completed my 4th pg kit need MORE!!! 😀 One day i hope to have the balls to do a custom paint job on some of the finished models!!
£393.16 + £2.80 postage from Amazon UK …. but way cool.
Hey guys, where do you source your models I wonder? I’d love to have a crack at some of those.
japan-cool & amazon
Norm said Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00030EVDO/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=
Looks like a really fun option to the usual model kits and it is great they take on something out of the normal realm. Definitely need to add one to build list.
I recently built one of these and it was not anywhere as difficult as one would think. It might make for an interesting Tested Build Week.
http://imcth.co.jp/english/product/own/mustang/
Still looking for Sci fi well known space ship build , built and aged by Adam, if he could free up time it would be cool to see Adam tackle the build as a week long build with the incite like the cosmonaut and maze build ( I repeat view these builds the most )
Perfect grade Zeta for £154 http://www.gunpla.co.uk/nu_shop/index.php?route=product/product&filter_name=zeta&product_id=68 still expensive not Amazon expensive.
FYI, the “multiplication symbol with dots around it” is used similarly to an asterisk. It’s called gomujirushi, or literally “rice mark”.
I love they are getting to building a gundam kit after so long ago they teased one with the Real Grade RX 78 in a mailbag, more so cool they’re doing a Perfect Grade ZETA!!
Gundam Zeta is my fave Gundam series for story and mech designs!
Here is a link to my newbie buyers guide with links to buy from many diffrent websites, some are japanese sellers others are US or UK. It is on the forum of Tested’s old sister site Gaintbomb.com check it out and hope you learn somthing and can take the plunge as the instructions ARE NOT A BARRIER! You could be someone who could cannot read two words and can put a kit together, their is no language barrier and with the skill level being wholly attainable by anyone for the two more popular Grades of kits you can easily find somthing you think looks cool and want to build.
I build only 1/44scale kits (as they have the most variety and they just hit me right) these are about the size of your average action figure.JUST WAY MORE ARTICULATED.
I have been building for a year and half with 12 kits built, 1 almost finished and 2 unbuilt.
If your are at all gamers and enjoy Dynasty Warriors kind of gameplay there is Gundam Breakers 1 and 2 for PS3 (Japanese import but like the kits themselves can have fun without much translation.) where you fight hundreds of enemies in your own custom made mech with parts stolen from your enemy. The most recent one Gundam Breaker 3 for PS4 (it also has an english subversion if bought from Mainland Asian countries ) has gone realy insane with customisation.
Anyways as you can see I am deep into my love for Gunpla and realy love sharing it with everyone!
this will probably be of help to Norm and the crew: instruction sheet symbols explained
http://www.gunpla101.com/gunpla-symbols-explained/
SQUEEEEEEEEEEE
Have been waiting for a gunpla build for AGES, and now I have just gone to a happy place for the rest of this week.
/runs around in circles like a puppy in a tennis ball factory
Speaking of Evangelion and intricate models, I just unpacked this guy. Crazy articulation and many of the armor pieces are metal. Even has the entry plug.
And speaking of instructions in Japanese, this Masterpiece Transformer took me an hour to figure out the first time.
cool project, guys! and extra yay for danica being on board for it. the dynamic with the four of you is looking like it works out nice.
however, the perennial complaint remains: i’d like to watch the rest of this, and i’d like to give you money, but you’ll have to accept paypal.
Now I want to know bout impossible weeks of build.
Argh
Yes – a “set of wire dykes” (with a “y”) is a pair of side cutters or angle cutters (or diagonal cutters – AKA wire cutters). The there are bull nose cutters which are also called…..well I won’t feed the immature here but I am sure you can guess it. Dike with an “i” is a term for an igneous intrusion, a channel, a levy, a man-made peninsula and even certain types of piers.
This lesson was brought to you by the letter “Y”
Why paypal?
Not trolling, just curious. I was wondering when they would take bitcoin.
Wikipedia spelled it with an “i” presumably from the word “diagonal”. I think in this case it doesn’t matter, as it’s unofficial jargon.
Norm you need to come to Wonderfest USA! It is THE BEST sci-Fi model show to attend in the US.
mostly because i figure paypal is very ubiquitous when it comes to international money transfer. i doubt many ‘normal folks’ dabble in bitcoin, and i don’t even know that many techy people who do. and credit cards are not much more than an outmoded curiosity here in central europe. right now, they are in a feedback loop of not really being used for anything, and thus not a common service at most banks, so they make you pay a premium for getting one. which, in turn, makes them less common.
Well, I wasn’t trying to correct you or be a “smarty” so I hope it didn’t come off that way. It’s actually a question I once had many …..well…..a long time ago. And it’s a bit dear to me because relates to me be handed knowledge in a shop many years ago. Isn’t it odd what we connect to?
I could certainly be wrong about the spelling, but it’s not “unofficial” jargon anymore than spanner or crescent wrench are “unofficial” jargon (professional jargon maybe). You will see it in manuals and such (which is why I associate it with the “y” spelling because that is how I have seen it) – even U.S.A.F manuals (can you get more official than that? Government documents and all). Its a common name for the tool any American mechanic or electrician uses at least since the 70’s and likely much earlier (like before the term became derogatory). So, maybe a colloquialism? My father still uses it and my grandfather did, so it must be older than the 70’s. And that is what I still call them – though I get a giggle from time to time from the younger lab folks I work with (I just want to say “Seriously? Can we move past kindergarten?”)
A “dike” is an old word for “cut” or cutting something off (which is what cutters do) – not sure Wikipedia is right on it’s reason for the term and you will note there is no cite for it. I have also heard them called dags (which would make more sense in Wiki’s logic).
And now I must contemplate the fact I wrote so much about the use of a single word.
lol
Plastic+Model = Puramo;
Puramo + Gundam = Gun Pura;
FINALLY! I’ve been waiting for you guys to do this. Frank is actually the reason I got into building gunpla.
I’m Gundam expert Q & A + I build tons of Gundam model so you guy could ask me about history of Gundam, story, Gundam model, Gundam game….etc.
Danica’s shirt is siiiick!
Because bit coin is volatile, regular money is tied to virtually every other currency on the planet either directly or by proxy of the monies they associate with that’s why your dollar for example only fell 40-50% in value post 2001 and recovered it by nearly 40% ’till today. 40$ in bitcoin could be anything by the time you get it into a bank account and they do need to pay their bills.
Don’t they take paypal though?
Gunpla has invaded Tested!?
from their FAQ:
What Type of Payments Do You Accept?
We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB and Diner’s Club
( <— sadface because it makes tested much less friendly to join from outside the 'murrica.
That’s virtually every card payment system on earth, sucks if your russian though.
Hmm….
Interesting. I would have thought just the opposite.
My bitcoin comment was because tested is a perfect place to take it (in addition to other forms of payment). Not because it’s popular or anything, although it is becoming more popular among my circle.
sucks well enough for europe as well. if you get a credit card for free with your bank account, because they are a common payment system, it’s a fine enough solution. but that isn’t the case. credit cards cost extra, here, and have practically no use except cater to the odd US seller who insists on accepting nothing but credit cards.
i agree, topic wise, bitcoin would certainly be a good fit with tested. anyway, the more methods of getting money to the folks, the better, right?
Norm and Will had a very bad experiance with a Bitcoin years ago, Look up Tested: We Buy a Bitcoin video and read their follow up “Where We Went Wrong Buying a Bitcoin from an ATM”….Norm especially would be unhappy with Bitcoin.
😛 as he is the only one getting paid by tested I’d think so, any + income from tested would be a net win if you don’t work there anymore.
For the love of all that is good and right and awesome, pretty please either mute/lower the volume the mic or move the bags more away from the mic?
Evangelion for the win! 😀
I should do a re watch of that, it’s been a while 🙂
Very much looking forward to watching all of this – but one note for next time: can you perhaps take the sprues out of the plastic bags before filming? Plastic wrap noises directly into the lav mics = sad, sad eardrums…
PS. Danica’s shirt is awesome.
Norm, I’m concerned, as it appears that you haven’t washed the paint from your hands in the two weeks since the nuke splatter-painting.
Man you guys apologize way to much, if you offend, you offend, who cares. People really need to stop thinking that everyone is out to offend them with some sort of malicious intent. Its getting ridiculous, more building less