Women Who Build Gundam Dioramas

[gmat]

From The Daily Yomiuri:

Plastic fantastic: Women take to model kits with gusto
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110301007125.htm

The seeds planted with Anime geared for both girls and boys may finally be coming to fruit for the Modeling Industry.

Best wishes,
Grant

[Martijn Meerts]

First women who buy trains for their husband/boyfriend.

Then women who send train related articles to their husband/boyfriend.

Now women who like building Gundam kits .....

Maybe I should start actively planning a trip to Japan ;)

[bikkuri bahn]

This week at the bookstore (Sapporo), I found a book on building Gundam kits (Ganpura) authored by a professional woman model maker.  Actually, several years ago, I had a female student (high school) who was into building Gundam plastic kits.  It's not so unusual anymore.

[keitaro]

not in japan anyway.

i think if japan ever dig themselves out of their recession hole it would pick up alot more. on both sides...

[Martijn Meerts]

Hmm... New pickup line for when you're at a bar in Japan... "Hi, I've got unbuilt Gundam models, wanna come check them out?" ;)

[Shashinka]

I'd be all like, "Hey baby. I got this new Zaku II needing a paint job. You think you could paint it red for me." But I suppose I need the Char glasses from Zeta to make that line work.

[bikkuri bahn]

*(With apologies to the more sensitive souls here)
For the railfan lady in your sights:

"wanna check out my string of (blue)wamus- it's really looo...ong"

*may work on those female fans into JR freight

[linkey]

There are a few women around the world that do build and paint gunpla (the terminology for Gundam builders) as well other types of mechs. Like myself, I build and paint Gunpla and a member of the Gundam Australia group. i also have Macross mechs and use the same paints I would use for any model train section painting.

It gives me the interest of both modeling 1/144 (usually High Grade to Real Grade Mecha) to match up to the N scale train layouts. i also work on 1/100 (Master Grade mecha) just to gain a bigger collection of Gundams especially the ZakuII-F or J mechs as they are part of the Zeon forces.

[Martijn Meerts]

I really live in the wrong country, or at least wrong town.. All the gunpla people live far away (be they male or female ;))

[Shashinka]

My current gf just schooled me yesterday watching Unicorn on the finer points of Gundam model designations. It was rather embarrassing. 

[Toni Babelony]

I really live in the wrong country, or at least wrong town.. All the gunpla people live far away (be they male or female ;))

Just found this event in Utrecht and I immediately thought of this topic and your post! http://www.anigenda.mangakissa.nl/item.php?id=&c=CLDR_ITEM&e=197 keep your eye on this website: http://www.japansepopcultuurclubutrecht.nl/ Next to that, here is another Dutchman doing Gunpla: http://gunpla-building.blogspot.com/

[Martijn Meerts]

Hmm.. Utrecht is still about 1.5 hour away from here.. Not a problem to go there once in a while, but definitely not a regular thing to do. Especially not considering I work in Maastricht, and I really don't feel like going to Utrecht from there :) The JPCU does seem to have some interesting things going on now and then though... Weren't you moving back to Utrecht at some point in the future? :)

That gunpla blog seems to be somewhat dead. He does mention he's on a break though, and to be honest, I haven't done much on my various Gundam models myself either. Hopefully that'll change after I move though, because I'll be able to have all the tools/paints/airbrush/etc. in 1 room. Right now I do some things on the attic, the airbrush is in the basement, the actual building/modding/preparing I do on my room.. It just gets too annoying having to move stuff around all the time :)

[Toni Babelony]

Weren't you moving back to Utrecht at some point in the future? :)

Yep. I'm moving back in about a week from now. However, I'm not sure if I want anything to do with that group... I'd rather hang out with mah homies and join the local model train club. Someone over there seems also occupied with Japanese trains as well and is making a Japanese style module as well for the club layout. http://www.railclubutrecht.nl/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29:horyuji-japan&catid=15:modules&Itemid=7

[Martijn Meerts]

Nice to see a club that allows non-standard modules :)

Over in Venlo there are 2 clubs.. There used to be 1, but they split because they wanted to go in different directions with the club layout(s). Of course, now that there's 2 clubs, they're both doing pretty much the same thing, go figure :)

[linkey]

Members of the Gundam Australia Forums were at the Model Expo 2011 that was held on June 11th-13th and we had a stall there to show our modelling skills to other modellers that were there (mostly military modellers)and it was great fun, talking to a few of the exhibitors and seeing them buying some High Grade kits.
But I am planning to create a Gunpla battlefield diorama which will have a shinkansen being attacked. At the moment it is only in a planning stage and I have to get the right Gunpla to do this battle scene right.

[Martijn Meerts]

I've been planning something similar for a while, just haven't been able to get around to it yet.

Gundam SEED Destiny is what really got me into the Gundam thing. I'd heard of it before of course, but I just really liked SEED Destiny. Based on that I wanted to do a module where Force Impulse and Gaia are in hand to hand combat, possibly over some (elevated shinkansen) tracks. Abyss and Chaos will be around as well. I did buy all the kits for the scene, and I did buy all the necessary paint etc. as well, but that's about as far as I got.

I'm experimenting now with a HG Zaku. The idea is to get rid of all the seams, make some minor adjustments, add an LED instead of just a crappy pink sticker for the "eye", and completely paint the thing. I've gotten as far as getting a pink 3mm LED in it's head, which looks pretty good. A little too bright, but I can fix that :)

[cteno4]

In all the professional model shops of various types that i have seen there are always women doing model work, definitely not a male dominated business!

jeff