Advertisements :

 

 

Australian Gunpla Builders World Cup 2013 :

On the 10th of August, the 4th Australian Gunpla Builders World Cup was held as a part of the SMASH! Anime Convention at the Sydney Convention Center on Darling Harbour in Sydney, Australia.

I once again, drove 11 odd hours to Sydney to participate with my build disassembled and packed away carefully inside boxes to protect it from damage. This year it was pulled apart and carefully wrapped in cotton fabric and then packed inside a Master Grade box. This went on the bottom of a larger box which was sandwiched with polystyrene which the base of the diorama was put on top. This was then also sandwiched with some more polystyrene foam to stop it from moving around inside the box. Transporting to the venue once I arrive was going to be an issue as well due to the size of the box, so I ended up getting a small fold up trolley which was much easier than trying to carry a 50x50x50cm box, 20 minutes walk down the road.

Set up took a while. I got there and had to wait a little as they were only letting 3 in at a time due to the venue still being setup and lots of Fork Lifts and people running around. So due to safety issues, we had to wear a vest and pass to drop our stuff off. I unwrapped my kit and thankfully, everything arrived in one piece so I went ahead and put it together. Last issue I had was that there wasn't a spot tall enough for my entry to stand inside the cabinets, so I got a hold of a screwdriver and then adjusted the shelving to allow it to fit (with permission of course).

Later that evening I recieved the great news that at my 4th attempt at the GBWC, I finally cracked it and won first place in the Open Class for my Sazabi diorama!

Next morning, I was in line around 7am at the SMASH Convention waiting patiently to get access to the venue to get photos and video before the real day began for us. I didn't manage to get decent photos as per previous years due to how popular the display was. This year, the display had changed considerably with the wobbly old shelves gone for a much more professional and sleek looking cabinets with not only the entries, but a ton of new and not yet released kits from Bandai themselves. The new display is by far the best yet and proved to be with the amount of people massing around it all day.

11am came around, and I had been asked if I would like to volunteer at the new Advanced Gunpla Workshops. I jumped at the chance and spent the best part of 4 hours helping out a few new Gunpla Modellers and one young fellow around 10 or 11 years old who was determined to build a MG Banshee. He was that good, he managed to build the head, torso and both arms within the 4 hours. Pretty awesome for someone so young!

3pm arrived and I had to head up to the Main Stage to accept my award with Angus, the young bloke you won the Junior Category. Called up on stage, I accepted my award and was put on the spot a little by the presenter who asked me a couple of questions, and me being me, made a few short sharp answers.

After a few photo moments, I went back down to the display area and spoke with more people before the final presentations happened around 5pm. After this, everyone packed up and went seperate ways once again, ready for next years event.

Whilst I was there, I took some video of the event and models on show. Below is the video I have uploaded to YouTube :

I also took tons of pictures of the event and all can be found in the Gallery which can be accessed by clicking the link at the bottom of the page.

If anyone sees their model in the Gallery and would like the original photo, please drop me a line via the Contact page and I'll be more than happy to email them to you.

Once again, a big thanks goes out to Rhyan and the guys from Hobbyco and SMASH! for putting this event on. Congrats guys and keep it up - the community appreciates it!

For more information and coverage on this event please visit the following pages :