Post #201: The Making of Post #200

Making the stop motion version of The World God Only Knows opening is no easy task, but ever since I saw the first episode, I was touched. It's such a great episode and the rest of the show were great too! So I really wanted to do something for it.

The first task was making a replica of the first picture of this post. Getting all of the figma I had wasn't really enough. I tried not to put the same character variation in this picture, but Saber was different enough to be placed twice :P There were even a few figma I haven't even opened yet and opened for the first time. A total of 23 figma were used in this picture. The figma's weren't enough though, so I used a couple of Revoltech Fraulein from Queen's Blade to fill in the empty spots.

This is the print-out I used to put the figmas and Revoltech in the right poses. I had to put the sticky notes to make sure I remember which figure goes in which position ^^;

So then the next part was deciding who would be Elsie. The first choice was a figma with a broom. So that would be Reimu or Marisa, and I have neither. I was going to get a Reimu from Mandarake, but was sold out when I got the order in. So who? Who can I use for Elsie?? And then I realized I have a Yoko Revoltech Fraulein... But why Yoko?

Well, let Yakuri's drawing show you why! And no, I didn't force her to draw this against her will....... Umm... Yeah, I did request this drawing with Elsie and Yoko to show their similarities, but really, I didn't force it on her ^^;; Ok, maybe a little... But anyway, the result looks great! Elsie looks uber cute! And Yoko got her big oppai XD Hehe and Yaku got them pointing at their skull hair accessories! Not only that, but they both have ponytails and each have pink thigh highs. Thank you very much Yaku!

Unfortunately Yoko doesn't have a broom... But she's got big guns! Umm... I mean, a big rifle. Y'know, her big rifle that she uses? Ah never mind, you see it in the picture anyway.

One of the hardest thing to do for me with stop motion would be the spinning part... Thankfully the newly bought Lightning Base I got is able to rotate Yoko in place for the camera!

Speaking of the Lightning Base, I used it as the central piece of the multiple figma picture. The original picture was similar to this, so I bought one. Plus I like blue!

As for Ayumi, Mio, Kanon and Shiori, I used these 4... Haruhi is Ayumi, Kagami is Mio, Cute is Kanon and uhh... Mio is Shiori. Yeah, well, the Mio figma doesn't have twin tails to be the actual Mio, ok? I had to use Cute because she is actually designed by Watanabe Akio, who is also the designer for The World God Only Knows.

Miku is mami'd... Mostly just because I need her hand for the 4 girls' hands. The other ones were Ritsu, waitress Mikuru and Sun Seto.

The next part was to do a rotation of the PSP... This was a challenge because I've put the original KamiNomi opening in the PSP for a reference, especially to see how the PSP rotates in the opening. So I took a few angles of the PSP and compiled it in Photoshop and hopefully I can cheat the rotation and spinning of the original PFP ^^; The end product didn't look too bad, I thought.

I've picked Kyon to replace Keima because... well, he's one of the only male figma I have. He also has similar hairstyles and at least he's wearing a uniform. Oh and this scene I added the Revoltech and figma logo as well. If you've seen the original, this part would say three-dimension and two-dimension in the street signs. I wanted to have that kind of similarities on mine. But for some reason I couldn't center the logos properly ^^;

When I redo this video, I'll replace Kyon with someone else ;)

Other backgrounds in the video includes this really nice front yard of a house in my neighbourhood. I wouldn't have noticed this house if I wasn't looking around to find backgrounds for this project.

This is a park near my house. Not all the trees have their leaves yet since it's still early March and still pretty cold outside.

This is one of my favourite anime/manga stores in Vancouver, SakuraMedia. There was that one part in the opening where a manga/book store was a background, so I asked the manager (whom I knew quite well) if I can take a picture. It's a very generic shot, but I just wanted the bookshelves, so he lets me ^^

Here are some stats for the record:

• About 24 hours of photo editing, if I did it all without stopping, distractions, sleep, work...
• About 2-3 hours of video editing... Easier than I thought.
• 247 individual frames
• The first 35 seconds were from the original opening
• The title at the end is from Windows Live Movie Maker
• Total of 29 figmas, 3 Fraulein Revoltechs, 1 Bandai Lightning Base and 1 PSP were used

And yes, I did mention that I will redo this with different variations. Hopefully an actual stop motion in the beginning instead of using the original clip and improved animation for some of them. Below are the original video and my video if you'd like to see a comparison. Thank you for reading/watching/viewing my 200th & 201st post! A special thank you to Yaku for that Elsie & Yoko art!

Oh, and I apologize for the cryptic 200th post ^^; I was posting the lyrics to the full version of the opening song. The bold text was something I felt when I was making this project.

Mirai Gundam

Gundam of the Future aka Mirai Gundam is finally done! 5 days worth of work and countless hours... Countless because I didn't keep track of how long it took me to make it. There were some extra unaccountable work that I did not foresee. But here is my blog's first anniversary project finally done. In case you don't know, mirai means future in English.

Beware, there are a LOT of pictures! XD

So what started all this? Why, it's Mirai Suenaga of course, the mascot to DannyChoo.com. I knew I wanted to make another Gundam kitbash after the Saber Gundam, but I couldn't figure out what. Then I thought a Mirai Gundam would be feasible with the use of Nadleeh! Oh and if you saw my first post about this Gundam project, I've added a red herring... which is the GN Archer. I didn't use any parts of it on Mirai Gundam :P I have another plan for that one.

Now a word of warning: I am not that good of a modeller... I only have something in mind but I cannot execute it well. So please don't mind the crappy paint job and overall of it, lol. I may take some advice and wouldn't mind having a suggestion for which paint I can use instead of markers for future references if I have time to fix it.

Here's a quick tour of the Mirai Gundam... In the front you'll notice the "d" on the chest. That was a printed out decal from my computer and stuck on with glue. It's not well done and some of the paint stuck on the front of it before. I had to fix it real quick with white paint. Hopefully it's not too bad. Forgot to mention... instead of the ribbon on the chest, I opted to colour in the core in the blue ribbon colour.

The neck piece that is used for the Kyrios torso tilts forwards and backwards, so it has a bit of an effect on the hair at the front.

Angled side view shows the "d" logo on the side of the arm that's supposed to be a part of the uniform for Mirai. And I gotta say... this is the first time I've seen a Gundam with "socks"! I laughed and laughed at this fact. It just looks so strange XD


Here's the back side... the hair had to be repainted just before I took these photos. Some of the paint peeled off because the hair is actually a flexible piece instead of other materials. In the future I may have to repaint it again.


Another side view shows the hair tie on the side of Mirai's head. It was hard to paint it because I was all shaky and couldn't paint in a straight line. I can see visibly how the paint is rubbing off here... I'll fix that soon.

Here's the Mirai printout I used for colour reference. You can see that I was trying to compare my Gundam markers to the original art.


Mirai Gundam with GN Rifle! What do you like best? Mirai with a gun...

Or with a beam saber?

Or perhaps with dual beam sabers?

I'm trying to do all the poses that Mirai does, but unfortunately Danny's mascot page is offline at the moment... Either that or I can't find it at the moment. If I remember other poses that I haven't done, I'll post it here or make another post.


Mirai Gundam with hanky? Do Gundams cry GN particles?

This is the Mirai Figma pose that was shown at Tokyo Figure Show... though the arms are a bit too long here ^^;


The pantsu exposing pose... And YES, I painted the bottom part white for this reason! :P Cannot unsee?

Here's a pose where Mirai is supposed to be in a maid uniform... but I don't have one, so go with this one ok?

I visited Chun on Thursday to show her this Mirai Gundam. She suggested I do outdoor photos. It was a nice day outside, but it was kinda windy. As for the people watching me, I didn't even notice. I was focused on the Gundam not falling from the wind and trying to get the right focus for the camera.

So here she is outside... Had to prop her up on the box I was carrying her in because there weren't any stable surface outside.


Mirai... it's not nice to read over someone's shoulder... or their wrist for that matter. A bronze statue that sat on the bench at the mall I went to.

The mall had an indoor garden with perhaps fake plants... I thought it was a nice setting for this. Just as I finished taking these pictures, my brother called and I tried to quickly grab the Gundam as I was talking... Unfortunately I dropped her on the pot of dirt right beside this bridge... Thankfully it wasn't so dirty. I also noticed a security guard passing by, but she didn't say anything to me.

There's a waterfall in the background.

This is what it'll look lilke IF Danny uses Mirai Gundam as part of the DannyChoo.com banner XD

Here's that kneeling picture again. This time she's holding a smaller version of her Gundam ^^

I really liked this dual wield beam saber pose! So much so that maybe we can use it for a Figure.fm header?



And finally, I had to do a parody of that Hidamari Sketch scene... Gundams are a bit hard to handle unfortunately ^^;


I think I'll have more things I'll do with Mirai Gundam in the future, she is after all, Gundam of the future!

Secret Gundam Project II: Days 2-5

So this time my Gundam project took about 4 days to finish and I have no idea how many hours it took. Before I post the final Gundam I'll show you the progress it took to get there. Some of you may know what this Gundam is just by looking at the first picture.

The pictures above and below are the results of day 1 and 2. Colours are set and I've decided which piece needs that colour.


I saw the back of the torso and looking at the colours, I immediately thought of Kinder Surprise XD


On the third day I was cooped up in my room, so I decided to colour using the markers which doesn't give too much fumes. The knees and the legs get their colours along with the feet. I originally got a gray marker to colour the legs... but it was way too dark. So the next day I coloured it silver.


On day 4 was my last day of work, so I was able to stay up and worked a lot more on the kit. I've finally tried out the first actual paint I'm using on a kit instead of markers. I'm very surprised how well the colours match properly to the original.


And here's that ballcap joints that I was trying to make for the arms so that it could connect to the shoulders. I had an annoying time filing down the original ball on the left to what it looks like to the right. Filing, sanding... it was a pain in the ass I tells ya! One of them I actually used the plastic cutter to chop it down to size. The latter worked better... I'm in the process of acquiring actual ball caps. Hopefully they'll fit.


And here's the Gundam leg that gave me a good laugh. I believe this is the first time I've seen a Gundam with socks XD


On Wednesday, the fift day, I managed to get the labels/decals on the pieces I need them. I originally wanted to use the markers to make it, but it was futile. I printed them out on paper instead and cut them out, but they're so fricking tiny! I couldn't find a glue stick... So I went with this super glue thing called Mr. One Push Button. The thing I wanted to glue on is so small that some of the glue came on my fingers. My index finger and thumb was stuck for a second. It hurts like hell for a while after I pulled them apart >_<

The Gundam's all done now and I took pictures of it outdoors for the very first time (on Chun's urging). All will be revealed on Friday.

Secret Gundam Project II: Day 1

The first day I'm starting this project I encountered a problem right away... The arm that I want to use goes into a peg into the torso...

However... the arm for this torso requires a ball joint to connect. This threw my plan up in the air. I don't wanna mess around with my original plan. So somehow I need to fit in this stupid arm in that torso, perhaps even make a ball joint for that arm.

Thankfully I remembered that I had this cheap First Grade Strike Dagger from my last Gundam Project. It's a good thing I'm a ratpack, so I keep this sort of thing even though it was useless after I finished Saber Gundam.

Basically I'll be cutting off that blue peg from the torso and use the ballcap on the left and somehow fit it into the arm. Hopefully it works. I haven't tried it yet, but I know the ball cap on it should fit into the torso. Here goes nothin'...

As for the rest of the day... I stopped counting how long I was doing it because I kept going back and forth while waiting for stuff to dry. I messed up badly because my main colour didn't turn out well at all. So I went out shopping to find an alternative colour. Turned out it's almost the same. I'd show more photos of what I done, but it's mostly just painting and those colours would give it away. I'll add them in once I finish the whole Gundam.