The GundamUK Contest: Level Up!

With my hands tied for a while by parental duty, I thought now would be a good time to launch a contest!

The concept is really quite simple, I want every contestant no matter how few or many, to UP YOUR GAME and LEVEL UP!

What do I mean by this? Well, the idea is you must build yourself a mecha model, within certain constraints listed below where you improve upon your own modelling ability in some way.

Some of you are already pretty shit-hot when it comes to mecha modelling, but everyone, no matter what your skill level is has something they have not yet tried, or have reached a plateau in which they have been stuck in over time.

This contest however is not locked into the idea of improvement on your technical ability - it can also or be inclusive of an improvement in your creative skill. Perhaps you have had an idea swimming around your head for some time, but have not yet found the drive to put it into action. Or maybe you are tired of doing the same old model in different colour schemes, or for once you feel like adding a few extra barrels to that gun.

With all this in mind, I want to set some ground rules.

The Model:

• Must be modelled. By this, I mean no plain snap-fits. Anyone can snap-fit and make an ornament. Modellers make it a model. 
• A single model. No dioramas. Scratch building/modification fine. Weathering is fine. Any scale fine. 
• Must be Mecha/sci-fi based. No real-world stuff. Sorry Gary. 
• Not limited by manufacturer. 
• Must be made purely for this compo. If I see it elsewhere, sorry your disqualified. Re-entries defeat the whole premise of the contest. 

The entry requirements:

• I need legible quality photo of your kit or parts, with the entry graphic in frame (below). This can be done with a mobile phone or on a monitor in the background. Adding it in with software won't count. You can enter any time up until the closing date. Details on how to submit are below. 
• A link to a WIP somewhere. A good place to do this is on the Mecha Lounge. Judgement will be on the final model, but it always helps to see how the model was built and painted.
• Preferably a link to your previous work. Helps to see how far you have come so far. 
• A little info on what you intend to do.
• Any skill level accepted. Don't be put off by others skill levels, it's about you, not them.  
• *EDIT* 31/08/13: One entry for contestant only please! 
• *EDIT* 31/08/13: You can enter a model you have started, but it'll be on a case-by-case

Time

I will start accepting entries from today, the 31st of August and will close on February the 1st 2014. This gives you 4.6 months to complete your entry. 

The Winners

Will be chosen by me, with perhaps a little advisement from my non-participating friends and non-mecha modellers -  and will win prizes. What these prizes will be will be announced later but your motivation should be improvement and enjoying the competition and not material gain. I do understand however making models costs money, so the winner will be suitably rewarded :). I have chosen to do this to sort out the chaff from the real people who want to improve and/or compete in something they really love doing. I will also announce later on how many places will be given. 

There will also (depending on how many entries) be one winner chosen by my 3-year old son JK. 

Ok, got it and have read everything above. How do I enter?

Easy. You need to give me a "like" on my GundamUK facebook page. 

http://www.facebook.com/gundamUK

Click on "message", and attach a legible picture for your submission. I will then add your picture to an entries folder, and add your name or alias underneath with your proposed model. Once you see it here, consider that your entrance acceptance. 

Rightio, now then, once I am done?

I don't really need to tell you that they need to be a good enough quality for me to see your model in good detail, with good lighting and absolutely no photoshop trickery. Please submit 5-10 good quality pictures to:

chokaiuk+levelup@gmail.com

Please include a link to somewhere I can see your work in progress - this can be YT vids or a link to a flikr account, blog post, facebook photo set, forum thread - anywhere I can easily access. Please check links work!

Anything else?

Of course! I would also request that all entrants accept me using any material posted in WIPs, YT videos and so on in my own social media channels, so I can talk about them. These will be progress reports, nothing more and will not be showing favour to any particular participant. Depending on how many entries I get will depend on how much is featured, and of course how much spare time I have :)

I will hopefully be featuring entries (if any) on my youtube channel, youtube.com/gundamUK.

I also advise that, as the time frame is relatively short - have a good think about the scale of what you want to make and think ahead about how long it is going to take you and the stock of material you have.

If you have any questions, you can either post them on my facebook wall or message me directly. I am frequently online as I am a social hermit who scowls at sunlight.  There is probably something I have not covered here that I will later kick myself for not adding.

Please enjoy this contest, and take that extra step towards a greater potential. If your reading this, you have the interest. Now up your game. I greatly look forward to seeing what you can do.

Entry Graphic:

Real Grades

So, I was sent recently a lovely gift from the nice fellows at Japan:Cool which happens to also be my number 2 favourite Gundam of all time, the GP-01fb - in real grade format.

Since the RG line came about I never really paid it much attention. Just kind of saw them as scaled down master grades, which they essentially are. Since I have started cutting and sanding however I have come to realise just how amazing the engineering is on these things, and the scale to detail ratio is astounding!

What first struck me (which probably does not come as a surprise to most avid builders and collectors of gunpla by now) was the intricate moving parts already attached to the sprue - I found myself bending the leg joints to and from just to admire the double-joints moving along with the connecting parts that will (assuming) allow the armour parts to separate in a more "master grade" fashion. Although I think the HG line as extensive as it is still has a few years left of releases, the RG line certainly is a worthy successor in the years to come.

Bandai get's its fair share of criticism and nerd-like over analysis from it's fans. Justifiably so with its shiny special editions, updated boxes with a little extra part to its predecessor and unashamedly corporately branded re-issues of old kits taking full advantage of the unenviable buying habits of its most avid collectors (including myself, on occassion.. I can be forgiven right?), but you can say for sure regardless of its blatant profit-making, it is most importantly innovating. Bravo chaps.

Still working on it by the way. There are considerably more parts than I anticipated, and with a curious 3-year-old around I am being extra careful not to lose tiny parts in the carpet. I video of its assembly as promised will be delivered when I get around to it..  I hate this carpet in here.. I will take it up one day..

Quick vid here of me and JK opening the box.

I am also still, yes still working out the details of my forthcoming contest which has been somewhat overshadowed by the recent announcement of the HLJ compo (to which I will be participating, if I ever get the time for it...). Stay tuned here for an announcement.

Getting back into the swing

I did not actually realise it had been over a month since I wrote on this blog.. well, quite a lot has happened over the past month as you can imagine.. followers of gundamUK will know of course I have recently had a new addition to my family, a little baby boy named Ibuki who is both awesome and amazing simultaneously. Now at 4 weeks of age he is rapidly gaining weight, crying a lot and making burble noises as babies too. The good news is he gets on with his brother, and most importantly is not stressing out mum too much.

Anyway, enough about life and babies, let's talk about more important things like mecha modelling!

Currently modelling...

I have been steadily working on the master grade FAZZ (Full Armour Double Zeta) and completed the de-nubbing and initial assembly. I have now got as far as disassembling the main cannon (which is flipping hooj), priming it up, and today completed painting the metallic elements. Video wise, I may perhaps make a couple of longer vids rather than a series of short vids.. this way I can edit it all down better to make for better viewing. That and I have plans for a couple of other vids over the next couple of weeks, but you can always keep up to date with my progress on the FAZZ on the gundamUK facebook.

Mecha lounge Giveaway number flipping 2, is association with the brilliant gundammad.co.uk.

In other news, myself, the Mecha Lounge community and gundammad.co.uk have collaborated on a prize-give-away. A simple compo in which all you need to is post "shut up and give me gunpla" on the thread of the same name on the Mecha Lounge. A winner is shortly to be announced (tomorrow in fact) at random who shall receive a smashing 1/100 non-grade virtue/nadleeh combination, which is a much sought after model for me in fact and one which I shall be begrudgingly shipping to our random winner. The response to this has been pretty phenomenal, and although it did encourage the 1-post-and-fuck-off-never-to-be-seen-again types it is my hope we have encouraged some new memberships to our ever-growing and awesomely super community of Mecha Modellers. Stay tuned for yet more give-away's. Damn we're generous folks.

Short vid here on that:

The CHAOS group build draws to a successful close

Yep, the winners have been announced right here, and I must say I was thoroughly impressed by the level of entries we had. Made it incredibly difficult to judge as you can imagine, but it was a lot of fun. Here is yet another vid featuring my gawking face telling you all about it:

And lastly... Justinius Builds Music-themed contest. Holy shit I placed second!

Yeah! I know! I could not believe it either! This bit of news has most certainly brightened an otherwise dingy weekend. I was so genuinely impressed by the whole concept of this compo, and upon seeing the other entrants I was sure there was no chance I would even place in this, but I came second with my brightly coloured Boards of Canada jesta, which Justin mused about making him want to drink a can of sprite.. I can see the logic in this.. lol. Special thanks to the Justinius Builds channel for running such a superb compo that I thoroughly enjoyed participating in. I can't wait to get my prize :)

That's enough rambling for now.. more bloggy-type nonsense coming back soon.