Commander Newbie

I did finish something this month. 

INfrequency

A very late Christmas gift

Been noticing how infrequent I've been with updating this blog.

(about 1-2 entries per month now)

HGUC Victory Gundam Review

Time for a different kind of review.

From Clean to Dusted up

One Last Shot.

I figured I'd snap some pics of this guy before sending him off.

It's a Gundam!

6 weeks to get to this stage. Gonna need one more to finish the weapons. The decals ended in disaster so I'm just keeping the markings as they are so far (though there's a slight chance of getting a replacement I'm not counting on it) anyway, the important ones have already been applied (lol)

I had 50 pesos and was curious.

Ran across this cheap, china made "kit" of a T-98 tank at a store in Shoppesville Greenhills. It costs around 49php so I said "why not?" and went and bought it. The box is pretty small. I forgot to put a battery or something to show its size but it's about a tad smaller than a thin paperback novella. The packaging is amusing to say the least. What does 4D mean in this context? Does the model utilize spacetime in some aspect? Is that why it's called a 'Battle Tankr'? Another amusing note pointed out by a friend is that it pirated the World of Tanks logo on the upper right of the box. For this post let's take a brief look at the contents of this cheap box kit. 

Gunpla, among other things.

I can finally stop working on the build. It's done (well I still have to mod the shield, but the body is done at least.), and I can't wait to see it in color.
Some minor tweaks were done at the last minute, with me using the Alex face and just extended the chin, and adjusted the placement of the chest vents.

I enjoyed this second attempt honestly. I think I'm 90%  closer to what I wanted to build than the first time and that's good.  Now, on to the other projects, a few shown below:

Leo time!

I forgot that I hadn't shared this here yet. Anyway, a Japanese friend of mine who helps me get kits abroad spent some time crafting parts of a Leo conversion for the old 1/144 scaled Tallgeese model kit. He also made resin casts of the parts,( to make multiples for a small squad I assume ).

Daryl's Spray Test #2: Metallic Navy Blue

Oh man, another paint review after a bit of a delay. Adjusting to a new job AND working on my weekend masteral classes leaves me a bit pressed for time these days. Which is why I decided to tackle future articles like this one in brief, from this point onward.

Another note, I won't be using the nobel for further tests because I did some modifications for it that for a few reasons I can't reveal here, but it will be painted completely in DS paints. So we'll be resorting to scraps, but with how economical the paint is in terms of usage, I'm not worried about running out any time soon.

With that out of the way, let's proceed, shall we?

Daryl's Sprays Test #1: Sinanju Red

So I found a good test subject for the trial runs of the Daryl's Sprays line of airbrush hobby paints.

This is gonna be a colorful week.

Before anything else, ignore the non-ROYGBIV placement of the bottles.

I've been handed a sample set of model paints and thinner hand-mixed by a friend and IPMS veteran, Sir Daryl who owns "Daryl's Sprays" (DS) a relatively new and local producer of hobby grade model paints.

At a turtle's pace.

Starting work on this tonight, might take me a day or two before finishing it, even longer maybe because I now have a day job. But that's actually a good thing since now I have a salary that's substantial enough to feed my plastic crack addiction and still have money in the bank.

Let's Paint!- mini 1/144 scaled figure

Hello! Since a friend of mine requested help with this aspect of painting and since I also don't have anywhere to go thanks to the weather, I decided to make this little follow-along on how I paint very tiny 1/144 scaled figures. Our test subject is this 1/144 Sayla Mass from the Bandai Builder Parts series.

backlog reduction.

Completed the snapfit of this kit today, pretty impressed by how solid the design is, and yet how easy it was to put together. If I had to recommend a kit to a beginner, I'd definitely suggest the Ez8.

Anyway, not really sure I'll start the paintwork on it right away as it looks pretty cool OOTB, but I imagine painting it would be very enjoyable as well. Hmm, we'll see. 

Zaku time!

Spent the earlier part of the week cleaning and priming the build and started test painting it last night. I got the mix of greens I want written down now (primary green= CG24 70%, Gaia 001 30% with splitter= CG24 70%, Gaia 002 30%, secondary green= CG23 80%, Gaia 001 20%, with splitter= CG23 60%, Gaia 002 40%), and the internals and black parts done in arms grey lightened with white, and phantom grey respectively. 

monoeyes.

I feel like painting a Zeon suit this week. so far I have a few of them built, like this Zaku II Kai,  snapbuilt and/or with the seams removed. 

Right now it's a choice between this or the Gelgoog, and I'm leaning towards the Zaku because I might do some mods on the Gelgoog still. Then there's another Zaku (the F2) which I haven't completed yet. 

And now, the grunts.

Moving on to the next build immediately after the Ver.Ka Gundam,  This time trying to make a GM. I consider it as a companion piece (although really that title belongs to the Zaku F2 once I start to remodel it a bit) to the Gundam in that it shares a few of the initial modifications that the gundam received, though it's less... dedicated to the Katoki design (essentially because the GM kai base model is already the Ver. Ka  GM, sans the boosters from the GM command kit). 

Sunday entry.

Done! it's rough but I learned some more with this project.

(Gallery)

I finished a thing!

And I didn't get sick this time!

Will post a full pictorial after topcoating this guy soon. 

I hate Mondays

My basic' compressor died today, after 5 years of on and off use, sadly she died in the middle of me working on my Ver. Ka project,and boy that pisses me off mightily since I was planning to finally finish it this week. It's the universe telling me to take a break from gunpla for a while, methinks. 

I'm gonna see about maintenance for this unit but I'm also considering finally upgrading to a more powerful but compact hobby compressor. let's see if I can do a couple of visits to some stores this week.


But maaaaaaan....  this really bummed me out for the week :C

BABY PICS: http://micromatsing.blogspot.com/2010/06/squeeeeeeeee.html

Clickety Click

Friday night therapy.

Godammit Blogger

Switched back to a static design on the blog since Blogger is being testicles about the Dynamic Views template. Oh well, at least I'm able to finally replace my old Sad Keanu banner with something recent.

Testing!

I've been thinking about shifting my background for my gunpla pics from the blue I've been using to this tan/brownish paper I got today. mainly because it's often too dark on my old pics for the models to really "stand out" the way i'd like. Chalk it up to bad photography habits and a really high ISO, but I'm wondering how much of a change the new BG would make. 

Decals are here!

almost done

Just needs some decals and it's good to go! 

I wish I had some sort of Gundam based coin

These things are tricky, but fun to do. I might get that set of MS figures scaled at 1/144 for more practice.

Yeah I'm never gonna get through all these before the year ends

 23 years old today! Not much to show for it except wanton spending!


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Project log: NG Victory Gundam

Yes I'm using fancy titles from now on :-p

anyway mildly chilly weather is keeping me from doing anything other than priming so I decided to just document what I've done so far.

the kit has received very minor modding other than seams and sink marks being filled, and maybe raising the head by point-something millimeters, but I was lucky enough to find in my old scraps some alternate hands from a V-gundam custom set I bought long ago, in a distant land.

These include trigger hands, and open hands and one clenched fist, I still need to find the right-hand fist but that's for another day.

I also did some major gap filling--

But decided to keep it simple enough, again, for purpose of having a fair comparison with the upcoming HG

Stuff is coming along swimmingly, save for the painting front. Hopefully we'll get a little bit of sun next week so I can start painting.

V-day

I've decided to revive one of my unfinished builds from way WAAAAAY back (2009 I think?). I was discouraged at the time because I didn't think I had the skill competency to pull off a clean straight build, but now, I kinda feel like I can reach the finish I want for this model kit, which isn't actually anything spectacular, and quite basic. Another reason why I dug this little dude up is because today we recieved a little bit of news from the Gundam Build-Fighter site. 



sweet mother of God my prayers are answered.  We're FINALLY getting an HG Victory Gundam this November-December, with the V2 and F91 slated for release by next year. This makes me loads of happy since I always enjoyed the Victory designs and wanted an option other than the really old 90's kits that were made.

So what exactly am I expecting here? I know it won't be so tall, in fact I think it might be the same size if not slightly taller than the old kit I have out. And if that's the case this might even feature some newer, smaller polycaps (or i might be completely wrong and it will have NONE lol), more option parts to fill up the standard HG box--though it is doubtful since the estimated price adds up only to 560-700php.

From the pics alone though It looks to be very stocky and solid-looking. I look forward to taking comparison pics between the old kit and the HG. 

As simple and tiny as the old kit is, it has charm. So I look forward to completing this just in time for the arrival of its HG counterpart. I have very simple adjustments that need to be done, mostly involving filling in hollow space/gaps on the kit, because I want to maintain the majority of its vintageness (is that even a word?) so yes, absolutely minimal modification if ever. Why even attempt to give myself a headache when my dream kit is on the way, right?

prime on, sand off

*two nights ago*

So, last night I willed myself into working on polishing up the Ver.Ka--sanding, seam-filling,re-priming, sanding(again) and many other tiny, tedious tasks--I've come to that point where it's almost ready for painting. 

I've refilled my thinner meter so I have at least enough for one project, but I probably won't finish painting this dude right away. I kinda want to try starting the titans version this week as well, and I've yet to find a spare HGUC RX-78 head to use lol. I really wish I could have it recast or something.

I plan on doing 3 variants (including this one) the second one was already mentioned and the third is a G3 version that has a bit of the Sentinel version look to it.
I want G3 to have a look that's bulkier than the RX-78-2, something I can achieve by varying the parts to be kitbashed on the unit, So I'm expecting parts from a GM Quel, Powered GM, and maybe even GM Command. I find it kind of fun how these different kits can be blended together almost seamlessly by virtue of the designer. Really makes me wonder when we'll get a dedicated Ver.Ka HG line.

Inb4 hurrr HGUC are Ver.Ka by default! Technically they are but generally they're more watered down.

also!

It's GBWC time!

Not sure if I'll be able to join in because the base kits I need are very specific, haha.
But it never hurts to at least try to scout for stuff.

Work in Progress: HGUC Ver. Ka

Since I'm almost done applying the main modifications (before primer coating and refining), I figure I'd put up this post for posterity. This is my current gunpla project that I've been working on for around 2 weeks now, which initially started off as a straight kitbash but I needed to tweak a few things as the days went on and I got an MG Ver. ka as a reference point.  So I began minor tweaking with plaplate, putty and some evergreen styrene strips:

Modified the detailing on the GM Type-C shield.

Added some detailing on the G30th rifle.

As for the body itself, here's where I paid a lot of attention to the MG

Well, mostly, some stuff is just left to the best of my ability rather than 100% accuracy.

The thighs and waist got a 3mm extension (which put it off-scale by 5mm, but I had to do something about the proportions anyway), and then the torso got a new scratchbuilt central chest piece and protruding chest vents care of builder parts.

The side skirt got extra details thanks to styrene strips and builder parts (I had to use MS Sight lens parts for Verniers)

And then some detail on the knees with styrene and parts from an HGUC gundam , and MS sight lens parts for the side verniers (again lol)

The head itself is an HGUC gundam head, with the front parts slightly angled, and added in some simple vents with putty.

I also removed the faceplate for ease of painting.

I also included a hand that came from the GM Quel.

It's pretty annoying how it's the wrong friggin' hand but there aren't many saber-grasping left hands out there.

standing next to daddy.

I really should do posts like this more often, for every future project, It might be fun for me to look back on this 2-3 years later and see how much I improved at the preparation stages.