Space Pirates are Cool · 1:32pm January 12th
My avatar, at the time of writing, Is Applejack wearing the Crossbone Gundam X2 head as a helmet, as drawn by Hitsuji. To explain to you how much I like the Crossbone Gundam and the manga series that accompany it, while back in the US, I had no less than four of the master grade kits (X1, X1FC, X2, X3), the RG X1, an HG X1FC, and an HG X0. For a bonus, I also had the HG Phantom (F99) which is the main suit and later iteration of the same Gundam line, the Formula series. And that was in the US.
Since moving to Japan, I have bought almost every single one of those kits again (save the MG X1FC), two more rare kits that you wouldn't find in the US (MG X0 and X1 Patchwork), the HG versions of all the MGs and an F91, which is a previous iteration of the Crossbone (which is actually an F97). I painted all the HGs like the Apple Family while experimenting with metallic and florescent paints. To add to this, save the MGX2 which is next in line, I have painted every single one of these kits. The X0 was first because, in the manga, this thing is a totally reflective silver that makes it hard to see in combat and in space. The pilot of the thing is also blind and gigachad, a war veteran of two other conflicts before this. I've always wanted to get that mirror silver on one of these things and still haven't found a way to do it without ruining the paint when adding a protective clear coat. The closest I got was the HG variant of the X0 I did, which looks much nicer than the big version, simply because I learned how to paint better over time.
I'd had an obsession with gundam for a long time before this, but I hadn't fixated on one particular suit (this is partially a lie, I owned most every variant of the Zeta gundam ever produced, all of them if we're strictly talking the actual Zeta gundam and not a modded suit lore wise.)
At this point, I've built so many of these things that I can actually sit down, cut the pieces out, and have it put together without even peaking at the instructions in under four hours. If you've ever built a gunpla model kit, you'll know what a mess that can be. The Crossbone MG isn't exactly a shining achievement in Bandai's engineering either, so I've learned many things about painting little details and what to do before putting certain pieces on and so on.
Some of you probably know that I wrote Star Overhead as an answer to Cartoon Network's BAD FLCL sequels. Naturally, when I did that, I wrote that Equestria had been building a city on the moon to establish dominance over the planet in a military and distribution sense, ending the story by having Celestia use that as her way to break free of a doomed earth and save the loves of her life. What happened next was an idea to set a new story in the far future of Star Overhead, turning it into my own Gundam inspired series, i.e. Bionic Titan.
To say Gundam and FLCL are not far apart form each other in my mind would be an understatement given my most recent finished paint project, MG X1: The Pirate King. The guitars are extra parts from another line by another company, but when I saw them I just couldn't resist. I really love how this came out, even though I botched the hell out of the florescent orange paintjob I did for the inner frame. (I lost a finger too and had to steal another one form the X2...)
Still, where I'm going with this is that I think my BT series has been lacking something. It's something I like of course, but it's just not interesting and it requires too much familiarity with the concept to even start, let alone appeal to a general audience if the ponies were removed. I was recently recommended a book by my cousin called White Sun War: The Campaign for Taiwan by Brian Kerg, and I had the same problems with it that I do my own series, but to a much sharper degree. Where my story requires too much imagination and I don't do a great job describing things in an interesting way, this one gets the same too heavy into the details problem and is bogged down further by a lack of real main characters. We have about four, three US personnel and one Chinese Marine commander, and the only one who gets development or a through line during the story is the Chinese commander and the only character I remembered the name of.
Still, I felt like the ideas in this story were pretty well thought out even if there are some finer points I didn't care for. I still have a BT story that's mostly finished that I want to publish, but I think I might try to retool the whole universe to make it more approachable. Just like UC gundam itself, I already feel like I have a big mess of stories that are only partially connected and tonally inconsistent. (this is including two drafts in addition to the two posted to FIM) I suppose, I just work better when I can have one thing happening after the other so I don't get too caught up in the mess. Taking the FLCL angle and going for something more cool than militaristic would be the better route. I'm thinking maybe a black comedy featuring space pirates set in the BT world, just maybe even further in the future than the original story is set.
I'm just not sure, and I'm so, so very close to finishing my draft of SOV6 that I want to finish that before I commit more time to this project that doesn't feel like it's coming together in my head right. It's definitely not for lack of trying, but it feels like I need to put it on hold for a while. In the coming weeks, I'll update about SOV6 and BT: Flash Point. Provided I sit down and work on it, Flash Point will come out whenever I devote time to it next, and V6 is going to need a week or two before the draft is done. The first and second round edit need to happen after that, and then I need to record the audio book when the second pass is finished. So long as things go smoothly, I could say it'll be out by March. And if it's not, then it won't be coming out until May because I'm moving to another city in Japan after the school year closes around March 15th.
Anyways, that's all from me.
Until Next Time~
-KCZ
