Introduction Scale 1/20 Sculptor N/A Maker Bandai Completed 11/3/01 Parts 1+2 Retail N/A With the classic Gundam formula we have the archrivals, this time Shiro Amada of the Feds and Norris Packard of Zeon. I'm not a big fan of 08MS team, since the story wanders a lot and there isn't enough exposition to explain why people do or say something they do. But the Shuddering Mountain episodes are still very well-done, especially the Gouf combat scenes. Norris was depicted as a classic loyal Samurai and I thing he was the most freshed out character in the show. Shiro on the other hand... The Shiro figure comes with the MG Ez8 and Norris Gouf Custom. I've been wanting to make these figures but the material they're cast in is very hard to work with to the point that I wanted to cast them in resin, but now I've found some way to at least work with it a little bit. I don't hate Bandai too much for this crappy material though, since you need to use a low density plastic to capture the details at low cost. Now that almost all 08MS mechas are released as MG, will they release an Aina figure? If you like the work I've done and have spare MG figures that you don't care about, can I take them from you? My Email is on top of this page. I'm looking for: Chang Wufei from 1/100 Nataku, and Uraki Kou. I'd also love to get another Shiro Amada so that I can bash it into a Kou!   Kit Review Seam lines: 3/5   Pinholes: 5/5   Casting: 2/5   Fit: 4/5   Part Break: 4/5   Help Shiro is one piece figure and Norris is two pieces, the main body and the back of the cape. To remove the seam lines on these kits I use a very sharp knife to carefully trim away the seam line, and use a 220 grit sand paper to smooth out the cut. If there are depressions super glue is used to fill them. Super glue is also used to create volume if my trimming wasn't very successful and levelled some relief. Then I prime them with several heavy coats of primer, taking care not to obscure details. Mr. Surfacer 1000 is pretty good for such purpose. The rest is just more sanding and you get a pretty reasonable figure to paint.   Building After priming I airbrushed skin on the figures and possibly uniforms if it's not too difficult to mask. But mostly they were hand painted since I don't like to mask. Then I use artist oil to shade the skin, do the details and drybrush. Shiro is more like a target practice :) I carved out an arch for his trademark funky antenna hair on top of his head. I wasn't doing very well, so it wasn't as sharp as I'd like. I have his eyes staring upper left, otherwise it'll just kill the figure with tht stand-straight, stare-straight pose. How can Bandai keep on making these static figures? Looks like they're doing better though, the MG God Gundam has a very dynamic figure. Shiro also get a darker skintone than the anime to contrast with Norris, and so that he looks a bit tanned. I also have this idea that Amada is a hispanic lastname :) For Norris, you can easily decapitate him since his head and uniform are separated in a horizontal plane. So I took it off and changed the pose so that Norris is looking side ways, and by adding a cold stare he looks pretty formidable! His character is clearly modeled after some WWWII German soldier with that heavily trimmed haircut and angular face. One can't help but say "Frankenstein!" when he sees the sample buildup - the skin was dead and the stare was... ewwww! The lack of hair doesn't help either. To fix these, I use Gunze's skin color - it's pretty dead which is why I don't do other figures with it, but for Norris it's perfect. Yet it still looks like skin - just a very pale one. I also blend the shadows more subtly so that his facial features are not too protruded, yet still distinguishable. Finally I painted him more stray hair to extend the coverage, so now I think he looks at least human.