Series: Kidou Senshi GUNDAM UC (Unicorn) (Novel Series)
Mobile Suits Illustrated in the Image: Sinanju (left), Unicorn Destroy Mode (right), GMIII (x3 destroyed in the BG)

As is illustrated in the Journal, the Sinanju (which I used to write as Shinanju) and Unicorn are some of the snazzier looking mobile suits from the Unicorn Gundam series, with mechanical designs by Hajime Katoki. As one might guess, the MS's in the image are based off the plastic model versions -- which I wholly recommend purchasing if possible. Though I did have some caveats that I totally expected. Katoki's builds tend to have great gimmicky value but at the expense of mobility. This was especially true with the Unicorn, which can transform from it's horned, GM like appearance to the pink frame, much taller standing Unicorn-Destroy, at the price of mobility and pose-ability. The Sinanju which debuted 1 year later as a plastic model is a vast improvement over Katoki's older projects but still suffers a lack of mobility in the torso. For both MS's, the solution was basically to divide the torso sections into separate-but movable pieces. Hence the Unicorn can bend forward at the stomach and chest and the Sinanju can rotate in the same areas. Of course, the glaring error here in Sinanju's case is the hose base at the bottom of the cockpit which is probably supposed to be attached --is... well... not. In the spirit of fun, the Sinanju is slightly changed in the rear boosters which have detail that very passively resembles a resin kit version of the machine.

I tried this out at the end of the Sinanju's texturing stage for my wife, who recently started her new job (in the midst of this economic mess no less). I luv ya, babe!

This was a shot at a long requested "fight scene", but I'm still not happy with the turn-out, thus I consider this a WIP of sorts. A couple of things that didn't turn out and thus forced me to use Photoshop:

• Those damned sparkles from the Unicorns pink psycho-frame


• Thruster flames for all of the thrusters


• 4 beam sabers (had to photoshop 1 and the other is in-freaking visible)


• The Sinanju's Mono-eye... no idea what happened to that little punk

If tl-dr, sorry.


Software: Lightwave (modeling, rendering), Photoshop (UV/planar texturing, throwing everything together)


Gundam is (c) Bandai, Sunrise, Sotsu Agency


Buy the Gundam Unicorn Novels at Amazon