This is quite meta but also quite awesome. AZM Ally deepfreeze sent along photos of a Gundam made entirely out of gunpla sprus, those runner things that are left over once you snip out all the parts to your gundam. The 1.8 meter tall Gundam constructed by modeler Hirotyun was revealed at this year’s Chara Hobby 2010 convention.

It’s just so massively beautiful! They should have sent a poet!

There are some really impressive build-up photos over at Hirotyun’s site and more from the festival from Ngee Khiong.

Source: Ngee Khiong and Hirotyun

The 1/1 Gundam loves us and keeps giving and giving. According to news sent along from Angry Zen Minion Megan Rohm
and AZM Ally deepfreeze, spare parts from the life-scale Gundam were auctioned off from August 16-23 to benefit the Japan Committee “Vaccines for the World’s Children.” The initial auction raised ¥4,001,000 (about $46,900 USD). A second sets of parts will go to auction on September 13.

Honestly, I’m not so sure I’d want a piece of 1/1 Gundam Groin. I mean, I realize that without Gundam Groin, Gundam no walky. But I’d much rather go for a fin from the helmet or an vulcan cannon or a piece of thumb or something. Still, I think it’s pretty cool that the 1/1 Gundam loves us enough to save Shinjuku from colony drops and raise money to save the children of the world.

Source: Anime News Network

Today we have an awesome treat for Gundam Wednesday! Angry Zen Minion Elliot Fox got his hands on the new Master Grade 1/100 PMX-003 THE-O and sent along some unboxing photos! Photo dump attack, GO!

I absolutely love this splash image on the box. Bandai is really uping is box art game.

The box is so big, it needs its own handle.

Parts? We got parts! Two freaking boxes of them!

Runners runners everywhere.

Those are some biiiig feet! You know what they about mobile suits with big feet, don’t ya?

I believe those brown/red circle thingies make up those sectional pipes you see on The-O’s waist and forearms.

Holy wow! Thanks Elliot! I can’t wait to see you put this bad boy together. There’s so much fun surface area on those armor parts that are just waiting for some awesome custom paint jobs. If these photos temp you to get your own O, you can grab one from HobbyLink Japan.

Puppy Cow is a crazy, adorable yet slightly gross creature that I created at ConnectiCon. I’ve created many characters and creatures over the years, but none has ever gotten the instant response that Puppy Cow has. Sometimes opportunity kicks you in the head so I went out and got some quotes for plush toys and vinyl toys. Turns out both are doable, they just require some moneys. So I’m starting a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to produce Puppy Cow plushies. If it’s successful, it means that it’s more than just my friends who want to get their hands on this crazy thing. I’m looking to raise $4000 by September 1. For your contributions, I’m giving away some pretty nifty art incentives. Check out the Puppy Cow Kickstarter for more details.

So if you’d like to take home your very own adorably horrifying Puppy Cow plush, please consider contributing. And please share with all your friends.

Source: Kickstarter

It may be easy for Jake Su Lee to “see” the Navi, but robots have a tough time seeing the world the way we do. A lab in Frankfurt is teaching robots to see and recognize objects around them. Now this video sent along by Angry Zen Minion Max Kelley is a year old so I can only imagine the things that Asimo can see and recognize by now. I love that he calls the little toy robot grandpa.

Asimo is so damn cute, you just want to hug him. Which is how Skynet will get us in the end. It won’t send an army of Hunter Killers or Terminators or killer robot squids. No. Skynet will send cute robots that can recognize chairs to defeat us.

The Wylie Agency, which represents numerous famous authors, has decided to try its hand at digital publishing by setting up their own e-publishing house, Odyssey Editions. Odyssey Editions will bypass traditional publishing houses like Random House and release the backlist of all of their authors of works published before digital books existed as e-books exclusively on the Kindle platform.

This is fucking huge.

Wylie is essentially saying that author’s no longer need traditional publishing houses. Why deal with a traditional publisher like Random House that will pay you a %25 royalty on digital editions of your work when your agent through Odyssey will pay you %50. Of course, Random House and others won’t take this lying down. I’m sure we’ll be hearing about lawsuits and heated arguments in the near future. But the idea has been planted and the damage will already be done by the time any legal action is taken. Digital publishing is the way of the future and those publisher who don’t adapt will get left behind. It’s taken the publishing world a while to get to this point, but it kind of feels like the late 90s all over again with the e-book as this generation’s mp3.

So what do you all think? Is the digital publishing world about to kick the shit out of traditional publishing houses? Are any of your out there e-reader converts?

Source: NPR

HobbyLink Japan’s master builder, Syd, has been posting video walkthroughs/tutorials on how to build Gunpla models over at HobbyLink.tv. The episodes are great for those who are interested in getting into building scale Gundam model kits. Thus far, Syd’s been focusing on an HGUC ZZ Gundam. Now he’s moving on to a Master Grade Guncannon. But first, he goes through all the runners to explain each part and what their for in Episode 5. It’s an awesome introduction to the Master Grade series and seriously makes me want to grab a kit and start building. Check it out!

Source: HobbyLink.tv

God, I love Taiwanese news. I could watch this shit all day.

Consumer Reports just declared that the iPhone 4 is the best smartphone out there yet did not recommend that you buy one. So confused. The gadget press has also been giving Apple hell over the reception issues. Apple even held a press conference last week to respond to all the problems and is now offering free bumpers and refunds to all iPhone 4 users.

And yet, the damn thing is flying off shelves.

I don’t really buy the argument that it’s just Apple fan boys buying the thing. I’ve got a lot of friends who are not Apple zealots who absolutely love their iPhone 4s because the shit is cool. Also, Apple’s released duds that not even the Apple faithful could buy enough to make them successful. The Cube and Apple TV just never really caught on with anyone.

I suspect that call reception is not the biggest concern to those in the market for a smart phone. I rarely see any of my friends actually talking on their phones. They’re texting or surfing or gaming or snapping photos. Calling seems to be the least of their mobile activities.

Do people really give less of a shit about call reception than the gadget press? Does Apple implant a reality distortion field generator within each of their products? Are you an Android user anyway and could care less about iWhatever?

When it was first announced, I dismissed the iPad as a serious art production device. The lack of pressure sensitivity removes a key feature to all desktop digital painting programs. Since then, there have been a number of videos of artists overcoming this lack of feature to produce some truly stunning work. Still, I have resisted. And then Angry Zen Minion devlin45 sent me this tech demonstration by Ten One Design:

Looks like there are fewer excuses for me to consider the iPad. God, I’d love to do comics on this thing on the go.

Ten One plans to release the software library that enables pressure sensitivity to app developers for free. Yes. Please. I will be very surprised/upset/enraged if Apple rejects it. Perhaps someday soon, the iPad may find its way into my digital workflow.

Source: Ten One Design

Some of you may not be old enough to remember the cool toys Disney put out for the original Tron. They were molded in clear blue and red plastic. Now this may not seem like such a big deal today with our sophisticated injection molding that can spit out the tiniest part of a toy in any custom clear, chrome, glow-in-the-dark, or regular color imaginable, but in the 80′s clear plastic was fucking epic. It seems that Disney is once again intent on blowing little kids’ minds with their latest batch of Tron toys. Just check out this crazy video screen face shit that AZM Ally deepfreeze sent over.

Okay, so the quotes from the movie sound like stupid shit, especially when we haven’t seen the film for context. But that’s a fucking video face! VIDEO! FACE!

This second video is even more crazy.

The Lightcycle. Drives. Up. Walls.

*nerdgasm*

Yes, it’s not quite proportional. In fact, it kind of looks like a boxy slug. But it drives up walls! That’s fucking cool!

So if the movie sucks, at least the toys will be fucking awesome.