Hello all, it’s been one of those years where I’ve somewhat neglected to update this blog. Sometimes life just comes at you different and I’ve grown pretty weary of social media in the last year or so, so please excuse my lack of posting lately.
So as is time for my yearly tradition, here’s a short recap of 2025.
After the shocker that was 2024, this year was all about recovery for me. I landed a new job at the start of the year and life was started somewhat back to normal again. I do feel like I could’ve been way more efficient with my time this year though, but I’m still trying to recover the lost motivation I had from 2023.
3D Printing
This year I bought myself a 3D Printer after some of my Patrons CamologyX / Foust / Gundaminthewindow were putting out some amazing stuff. I spent a good 6 months tinkering around with it and it became both a huge point of joy and suffering trying to troubleshoot all the printing issues.
Gunpla and models
This year, I only managed a total of 6 builds:
- Fern
- Yoriuchi
- Chun-li
- Fat Cat RX-78-2
- HG Infinite Justice
- Estailev
Shockingly there’s only 1 Bandai product in the list, and while I think part of this is due to my cut-down schedule and the 3D Printing, I also feel that Bandai have really over-pivoted away from Gunpla releases. Short rant incoming.
Not enough releases
In the last few years, Bandai have really decided to diversify their portfolio away from just Gunpla alone. Now there’s like 6 other categories of model kits they release (30MS, 30MM, Digimon, Pokemon etc). Yeah this is a pretty smart business decision, but it’s one that’s almost totally excluded the likes of myself in the customer base.
Simply put, Bandai has decided to chase the money, and I feel like I’m no longer in the target demographic.
Master Grade used to be the gold standard of Gunpla kits. In 2025, we got a total of 2 MG releases. Both are IBO frame kits, so only about 50% of the kit is “new” parts. There’s just nothing new to buy! As for HGs, this isn’t like the days of IBO and WFM where the HGs were all somewhat interesting and easy to build, it feels like HGs these days are sticker heavy and not engineered like they used to be.
There’s also been a real backlash to their catalog, it’s either overpriced (PG Nu Gundam), lazy HGs (SEED Freedom), something not aimed at people like myself (GQuX, Metal Builds, etc). GQuuuuuuX I feel, just doesn’t have the same pull that WFM did.
3rd party is catching up
The quality and rate of release of 3rd party kits is increasing rapidly, AND it’s cheaper than Bandai. This year alone we got releases of:
- Kshatriya
- Fat Cat 2.0 Gundam
- Fat Cat God Gundam
- Akatsuki
- Hyaku Shiki Kai
- Jesta (Jieda)
- Harute
- Masurao
- Qubeley
While yes I don’t really advocate for buying bootlegs of kits, these 3rd party aren’t just straight up copies of Bandai kits, and in cases like the Kshatriya, just totally outclass the engineering of Bandai. I’d say this is the first time that Bandai has faced this level of competition, and they’re just not putting up any kind of fight at the moment.
New PC
I got a new PC this year, and I’m somewhat embarrassed to say how much it cost me. But I decided for once just to grab top of the line stuff and have a somewhat uber-PC, even for just a little while.
Shortly thereafter, RAM / SSD / M2 drive prices skyrocketed, and while I didn’t feel so bad about the timing of my purchase anymore, I felt pretty sad that the entire PC building / home electronics market pretty much just got set back a few years because of all AI datacenters :(.
Holiday in Greece
In September I took a 3-week trip to Greece. I haven’t really travelled a whole lot since COVID hit back in 2020, so this was my first real long international trip in quite some time. I visited Naxos, Santorini, and then drove around the Peloponnese area.
Despite not really being an outdoors kind of person (and really hating the sun), I quite enjoyed the trip and sights, as it was somewhere I would normally not go. The food though, while great at first, started to get really samey after a while.
Games
This year I beat the following games:
- E33
- Death Stranding 2
- Dragon Age: Veilguard
- Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
- Metaphor Refantazio
While we had Expedition 33 and Death Stranding 2 this year, I felt that 2025 wasn’t that interesting in terms of games for me. DS2 in particular was a bit of a disappointment, the game just felt a bit too easy after all the quality of life features they put in to address the complaints about the first game.
Dragon Age completely sucked and I had to force myself to finish it.
Next year
I hope that next year continues to trend upwards in terms of my life status. I may or may not have to search for a new job yet again, which would definitely impact my model building, but I’m hoping to get at least the MG Providence and MG Justice done. But much like Bandai, I will have to diversfy my own model portfolio, so maybe there will be more 3D printed stuff next year.
As always, thanks to all my Patrons for your support, it’s been a bit of a slow year in 2025 but thanks for your patience while I get my life in order again.
Hugo Flores
Ace Pilot Gunpla
LoBakGo
AI Paintworks
JishanF
Nick Mathiasen
Brandon Joza
Raith
Jesus Mendoza
granzon2
Eric
Devin Chadwick
Side6
Nick Foust
Jmadaboss
TS Gunpla
Maleke Thomas
KapitanPrikol
Cameron Grantham
Matthew Walker
Ignacio Candelario
Lusitano12
Calvin Cheng
Dean
Gio Marco Ferrer Picones
Gary Shi
marzbee 115
Mike
Peppi
Maple Magno
Mike Evans
bkilbu
Charles Travert
Alexander Downs
Steven Gleason
Giovanni Palleschi
Al Vincent Atienza
Nathan Nguyen
Reach-74
Ricky Kwok
Nicholas Chase
c full
Dave
toonit
Antonio
Fox
Ryan Farnell
Kion Kaimi
Federico Venturi
