Setting Up a Gundam

Last Otaku Expo 2011, the Bandai Gundam Model Kit Caravan booth gave the opportunity to all attendees to setup a Gundam for free! I passed by it and a personnel invited me to join. Honestly, I didn’t plan to join at first because I have foreseen that it would take more than an hour to complete one Gundam. The details on the mini robot were overwhelming that I felt that way. It was already late in the afternoon and I didn’t want to go home late. But being an otaku through and through, I wasn’t able to resist the call of my geeky side. I accepted the Bandai personnel’s invitation and he then led me to my seat. He also gave me the Gundam assembly kit, nippers, and a coloring pen.

What? Why is this in Japanese? I thought to myself as I opened the kit and checked out the instruction manual. How did the others do this? I am familiar with Hiragana and Katakana but that didn’t help. Fortunately, after contemplating on the manual, I was able to follow the simple graphical instructions. I also compared the drawing with the real parts by vision to be sure.

I didn’t know what part 1 was all about. All I did was setup without asking what part of Gundam I was working on. It yielded the chest once it was done.

Then everything else fell into place.

Part 2: Head. For this one, I used the black colored pen to add the details. It was difficult for me to do so because I don’t have steady hands.

Part 3: Arms

  

Part 4: putting together parts 1,2, and 3

Yay! The upper extremity of my Gundam is done!

Part 5: legs

  

Part 6: feet

  

Part 7: putting together parts 4, 5, and 6

  

Part 8: adding the finishing touches to my Gundam. We were given the option to choose either sword or gun. I chose the sword to complement the shield.

  

Voila! It was all done! (^_^) I immediately submitted my Gundam for the contest as it was almost 6 PM. Thankfully, the staff still accepted my entry.

My Gundam was contestant number 75:

The judge looking for the most beautiful Gundams:

  

Congratulations to the winners!

I have a strong feeling that this marks my journey of being a Gundam Collector! Setting up one is tedious, but it gave me a fulfilling reward to share with others.