Gunpla and Me

My journey with gunpla is pretty normal. Young kid stumbles across Gundam Wing, thinks its totally bad ass and doesn't understand the difference between a model and an action figure. Got a model kit for my birthday the following year and it was the HGUC GP01:

Long story short, it was a mess built with my bare hands, nub and all. No stickers, no lining, nothing. Since then, years go on, I lose touch with Gundam, catching a series here or there (Seed was the first series I watched since Wing) and seeing a model kit in stores. I was always think "Oh, wow! That's a HUGE box (pretty sure it was the MG EX-S or a perfect grade)," look at the price tag and just walked away. 

Fast forward to about a year and a half ago, I stumbled across this picture of the MG Red Frame Kai:

A little digging and I was sold. Giant sword? Check. TWO katanas? Score. Sweet looking paintjob? No idea it would be a pretty difficult task to get it looking like that. At the time, I had no idea where/how to buy these things and ended up at GundamPlanet. $45-50 bucks, plus tools? That's a bigger commitment than I'm ready to jump into at this point. Decided to commence on a massive research project. Finally settled on the HG 00 Gundam (no 0 Raiser) and the Blue Frame 2nd Revise. It was intended as the trial run of painting a MG before I tackled the Red Frame. But first, like all the good people of /r/gunpla suggested, I started with the HG to get a feel. 

I was blown away by how far model kits have come since the GP01. Articulation was amazing, color separation was great (I had no idea what standards were....), simply amazed. I'll save my impressions on that kit for a later post as I am currently working on the HG 00 Raiser Gundam. (A nice way to see how far I have come and how much further I can go). 

Since that moment, I've continued to research more on techniques (most of which I haven't gotten the courage to try), the best HGs, MGs, most enjoyable builds, builds to stay away from (looking at you RG Zeta). Next thing you know, as of 3/31/2016, I have about 90 kits in my backlog. I do a lot of reminiscing and I realized how much gunpla has done for me as a person and how it's changed my life. A bit dramatic, I know, but bear with me on this. 

Not sure if this is considered a long post or not, because I finally worked up the courage and self-acceptance to start my first blog ever. But I hope this is a good intro post and I'm looking forward to hearing how any of you who read this (doubt there will be more than one or two) either got into building and how it's affected you. 

***SHAMELESS PLUG***

You can keep up with my random building and projects on Instagram: @goufingaround

It's probably the only place I constantly update. I tell myself, "It's for the followers!" when in reality, I barely have any. 

Gunpla should be fun, so make sure you keep Goufin' around!

Until next time!