AB - “A gundam is an ultra high performance mobile suit. And a mobile suit is a colossal mecha. And a mecha is any robotic suit of power armor with a humanoid pilot - Anything from Power Loader from Aliens to Megazord from Power Rangers to Iron Man”
“Gunpla is the official name of the hobby according to Bandai. But the overall name of the hobby is Plamo or Plastic Model Building. “
“I build Gundams because I needed a hobby other than drawing. I broke my hand sometime ago and I love to draw, I draw everyday but drawing can become extremely painful and I never want it to feel like a chore, so I had to find something else to do with my hands that would use other muscles.”
“I have just in the last year I have built maybe around 50 or 60 or more, and I still have probably around 30 kits that I have in my backlog that Im currently still working on. So lets just say ball park 100”
“They’re not something I want to play with. It’s something I want to build and look at and take pictures of as just another form of sculpture.”
“Really its just a template for expressing my creative abilities with the goal of building the best possible puzzle sculpture I can.“
“I shouldn’t say this on record but 2020 was not the worst year for me, honestly largely because of my hobby. It kept me active, it kept me enjoying life. I started doing it in March of 2020 for “March of Robots” and then I just kept on doing it. My goal was to do one everyday in March and finish one, which is pretty ambitious. And I didn’t do one everyday in March but I got close and after that I was sort of addicted and I just kept pumping them out and here we are today”
“I think that Gundams are interesting because they sort of seem to have some kind of soul despite the fact that it’s just a machine. And I think that is a very unique idea.”
“All these things like they stimulate the imagination in a unique kind of way and if you study how they work, how they function, how they’re put together, it just builds your knowledge of what could be.”
“Sometimes I dream I’m building them. Sometimes I dream of a specific design that I want to build even if I can’t afford it, I have to make that happen.”
“I want to inspire other people and Gundams inspire me. It’s amazing how woking on something that is 3d and trying to make it look as good as you can, it really makes your brain work better.”
“It sort of makes it so that when you’re working on a drawing or a painting or a sculpture, with traditional media, you have this attention to detail that is vastly accelerated. It sets a certain standard for shape language and precision of form. “
“Some people say “Buy a man a Gundam and feed him for a day. Teach a man to build Gundams, and he’ll always be broke. (laughs) It’s an old saying it goes way back.”
“So once I finish all the Gundams that Im currently working on I want to start making my own designs and printing them on my 3d printer and once I figure that out and start having good results, Id like to start selling those designs as “resin garage kits” so that other people can build things that Ive created.”
“To inspire and to be inspired, that is the mission.“