Astray: Arms 3 Legs 1

Changed the upper arms a little and made the elbow the off of the original concept of the cylinder-in-a-block style while trying to retain the Strike's joint rotation appearance in the rear section. Started on the upper leg armor as well but ended up cleaning my house a little instead (had the whole day off, YAY). Don't know why they removed some of the detail and added other stuff. To save a buck? Laziness?

Astray: Arms 2

Still messing around on the arms. Wanted to keep with Bee-crafts original PG design which keeps more of the strike look on the upper arms but leaving a little of what the PG has at the very top. Kind of giving the Astray some big old pop-eye arms there by doing that, but still thinking on whether I'll keep the look or return to the actual PG Astray design. As far as detail, it's a mix up. There seem to be some off points, like the disk-design in the forearm being too small and not raised enough, elbow joints don't look like the original PG version, etc. Could go on for quite a while on that.

Astray: Arms 1

So apparently I didn't get a good look at the Astray instruction manual but it appears that Bee-Craft changed direction somewhat on the way the PG Astray would look, as illustrated below. The version present in the PG strike manual on the left and the newer PG Astray on the right. Just why it was done this way is beyond me. I suppose most will be satisfied with this, but I feel rather cheated that the original interpretation was lost, as was most of the great detail he had. I wish I had noticed earlier. Just the same, I started on the upper arms favoring the original version over the newer.

Sinanju: Rocket Bazooka 2

Basically the rocket bazooka is there, barring some extra fiddling to get some of the smaller portions correct. The upper 2 images are the bazooka on its own while the lower two are connected to the Sinanju's beam rifle. The weapon is further interchangeable with the shield(along with the Unicorn's beam Gatling attachments no less) which I should have put together but I'm too lazy to get back to parenting them all together at the moment.

Sinanju: Rocket Bazooka 1

One of my co-workers left me a couple of books on volume 8 of Gundam Unicorn ... with the Sinanju Rocket Bazooka parts! Lovely! Started work on 3ding them but I got home from work late tonight so this is about as far as I've gotten.

Astray: Body 3

Working on the rear parts of the body as well as some of the innards. Love the stuff they put in this thing. At the behest of Knolly, I added a little bit of body where the V-fin meets the helmet, but that's the extent that I will alter it.

Astray: Body 2

Took some time. I went back to the head and redid a few parts, especially the rear mounted "whateverthoseare" that look like vents. Bee-Crafts image seems to differ from the model kit so I went with the image over the kit. The frame in the body is still being detailed but the light armor is about right. Again the kit differs from Bee-Crafts concept image and even lacks some of the detail that exists on the HG/100 versions of the kit. So after espousing some of those extra nooks and crannys into the body I moved on to the waist... (though some legacy mesh exists in the body that has to be removed -- visible from the rear shot). ..which is again different from the concept image. I again went with Bee-Crafts idea on the waist over the kit idea. I wonder if the kit guys missed this on purpose or if an MG with much better concept-realization will be thrown at us. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't do too bad on the waist frame from the Strike so I really just took the armor off and added the Astray armor right on top. Started on the frame of the legs and the arms at the same time but haven't really gone far enough to see anything yet.

Astray Red Frame: Body 1

Full to the brim with crap and it's not even close to being finished. The back end is so different from the strike it's not funny. I hope the harder parts are done. In the case of these two MS's, I of course used the Strike as the basis for sizing up the astray and built the astray armor around the strike frame mesh-- which is also being upgraded at the same time...

Astray Red Frame: Head 3

Unnervingly, Bee-Crafts illustration of the Astray's head and the actual plastic model differ in some places... enough to make me wonder exactly why some of the changes were made. I didn't notice until after the below render was done that parts of the rear of the head exhaust were changed as well as the length of the head itself along with the mini fins under the cheek armor and the width of the v-fin. Some of it I corrected, but the back I have to get to later.

Astray Red Frame: Head 2

Haven't gotten much father as of late. Legs and arms are killing me today after some training. Feel like an old man again. So I sat down and went with the Astray head a little today. Tried to diverge from what the plastic model did because it doesn't seem to match BEE-CRAFTS illustration in a few places.

Astray Red Frame: GO!

Still building the actual plastic kit, but I thought I'd give the head a whirl -- or the start of a whirl. So much detail in the real thing that it's startling. Wonder if I'll ever even want to build the extras. The clear plastic armor isn't as interesting as I thought it would be. Of course the red parts in the above illustration are what should be parts of the suit compatible or otherwise identical to the X100 frame. So one would think that transition from the strike to the astray would be gold. But since the Evolve Strike was mostly guesswork or based off of various images on the net or provided by email, the mesh isn't as faithful to the original PG model as I would have liked, so I'll be replacing parts of the X100 frame that didn't turn out by making them on the PG astray and then throwing them back on the strike. But anyway, the beginnings of the ol astray head.

GP04 Gerbera: Head 1

Taking the old Zepheranthes head and redoing it so that it looks more GP04-ish. It's a little more difficult than I thought it would be but it should still be doable. More to it than I had imagined though. Still working on the Astray.