Kagutsuchi-kou, final WIP

So, I have pretty much completed the Kagusuchi-Kou frame arms now after a weekends worth of panel lining, decalling and matt coating.

The final WIP video is here (and thanks blogger for forcing me to embed this..):

and here are a couple of test shots before the final pictures are uploaded!

Final pics probably coming during the week after some editing-out of crappy backgrounds.. I really must get myself a decent backdrop and lighting set up... 

Late November Gunpla Update

Hello Gunplanatics! It's been an action packed weekend of blowing up balloons, wrapping presents and putting up decorations in celebration of my sons 3rd birthday, so not much Gunpla wise has actually happened. Despite that, I did receive some new things from HLJ, and purchased some amazingly awesome things in the recent sales, even though I can't really afford it.

Anyways, here is a short video of me rambling in your face about stuff:

Ryurai kai continues this coming weekend with some detailing, panel lining and decalling. Should have it all wrapped up pretty soon.

1/144 HG Age-1 Spallow: Halloween "jack 'o lantern" custom

Thanks hummingbird for the alternative name suggestion :) Yep, its done, its not perfect but its done. It was kind of an experiment in colour really as there (although it does not look like it) are 4 different shades of green on this one. The orange was just to make it "pop" and it kind of inadvertently turned into a hallowe'en thing when my wife commented on its colour combination.

Anyway, enough waffle, here's some ruddy pictures for you to look at for your own allotted time of viewing. I hope you find them acceptable to your brains.

Age-1 Spallow WIP

Treating this as a bit of an experiment, as well as some much-needed practice when it comes to airbrushing, and slight modification. I added just 2 extra panel lines to this kit, along the shoulders, and also added a koto round bit to the rear of the shoulders. Looks a little "stuck on", perhaps I should have sunk it a little by drilling a hole.. still, what's done is done. 

Have completed all the base coating, looking mighty colourful. "Inner frame" is the usual gunmetal, the blue pats are now all the awesome looking Tamiya park green, white is now orange, a few yellow bits and a little bit of light green.

I will be masking off some of the park green parts, and adding some Khaki in. Shall also be masking off some of the gunmetal parts, and adding in silver. Its going to look like a psychedelic hippy death ninja by the time its done. In fact.. that'll be its custom name I think.

Age-1 Spallow: Psychedelic death ninja custom.

Yeah. Like that.

Frame parts, in the usual gunmetal. 

The blue parts, now park green.

Look at the colours, taste the toxic rainbow.

The September 8th Update

Time for an update! yes. With the completion of the Palace Athene (that I was very proud of) I am feeling a little more motivated and have decided that my next build will be my favourite ever Gundam, the F91. Its been sitting on my shelf for some time now as I kept putting it off until  felt I had the necessary skill to make it look as good as I want it to. I am certainly more confident now in what I do, but I will however be taking my time as the last thing I want to do is mess it up. I will not be adding any extra detail or panel lining as yet - I'll probably save that for the 1/144 Geara Zulu. I bought a whole stack of detailing parts from Kotobukiya so I will be making use of these to make the Geara Zulu look even meaner. I am also thinking of either a shiny metallic fire burst paint scheme.. more on this later. WIP vids will be up soon. Oh, and before I forget, I must mention my new airbrush. I got a lovely mid-range Iwata neo and gosh what a difference it has made to my airbrushing.. 100% recommend this if your like me, looking to take that next step up in airbrushing. Love it.

Iwata Neo

Kotobukiya detailing stuff

My new toolbox! I outgrew the last one..

Some other news, my good buddy gunplabuilders has been busy on the youtube of late telling us about the exciting GNN news he intends to do in the future. I think this idea is great as I have certainly found there is no "community" type news item channel on youtube for gunpla at all to my knowledge. There are lots of great modellers and people out there actively contributing to the community and supporting its growth who would happily contribute. Fingers crossed this idea takes off, its got my support for sure :)

I have also launched recently a facebook page, here I will be posting picture of my completed work and generally commenting on what I am doing. I would really appreciate it if you can give me a like, if I can get at least 50 I will be chuffed, I think I am at 8 now which is a good start :)

I have been using the fantastic IFTTT to link all of my social media to make things more easily update-able and interconnected. I am also in the process of migrating the content of this blog to a fully-fledged website. It's been in planning for ages but I have never had the time to actually do it. For those of you who don't know I am a web designer by trade although you would not think it looking at my blog :) The idea is it will be more or less the same content as it is now, but I may add a gunpla shop depending on how well I can negotiate with a supplier.

Anyways, thank you for reading and that. More soon, and your support much appreciated :)

I got Gundam Socks!

My awesome inlaws have been very kind to me and purchased some fetching Gundam socks! Featuring the Age-1 Spallow, these 100% cotton badboys may be ill-fitting but hell I am going to wear then with pride! 

Gundam AGE socks muthafukaaa!

Oh yeah, they also actually got me, much to my surprise the HG Age-1 Spallow kit! Awesomeness. I shall paint it in their honour. Thanks inlaws, you are awesome.

Age-1 Spallow, probably actually the only Gundam i fancy throughout the whole of age. Not sexually. You perv. 

Also to a little Gashapon keychain with a beam magnum on it, sadly I cant take a picture of it right now because its on my car keys.. and the wife has the car. Maybe later ill get a pic. Its surprisingly detailed and a nice little bit 'o die casting. 

My finger is pointing at the one I have on the leaflet. 

Palace Athene HG WIP 2

Took a break for a week on this one due to the sweltering heat we experienced, not to mention adjusting to the hours of my new employment :)

On with the work in progress and man, I have been busy this weekend doing a ton of painting and shading, as you can see in the following motion picture show hosted on the you tube. Hope you enjoy, and completion is imminent this weekend with luck on my side.

I couple of minor hiccups on the way, couple of scratched here and there remedied with some light sandng and re-coating here and there. Fingers crossed for the assembly, gloss coating and detailing to follow. Oh, some decals too!

Marasai Devastator 1/144 HG WIP Part 4

I can't believe I have spent 4 weeks building this.. although to be fair I did lose yesterday to tiredness and last Saturday I was doing other stuff, so realistically its been 5 straight days or so..

Continuing the video thing here you go:

Looking to complete this next week. All that remains is some final detailing, panel lining and top coating. Can't wait.

Marasai Devastator 1/144 HG WIP Part 2

All parts sanded down, putty sealed and sanded, seem lines removed (mostly). I finally decided on a heavy flame-thrower as one of the devastators weapons. Modified from a couple of end-barrels from the FA unicorn, and some smaller parts to plug in the ends (that fitted perfectly I might add) from the Regen Duel Gundam. I also drilled a tiny hole in one of the barrels to add a fuel line, which leads of to a huge (in comparison to the Marasai) fuel tank, made from an old asthma inhaler canister. All propellant removed of course.

Added a base coat to most of the parts, a reveller aqua clear (used in my previous model) to act as a surfacer. Worked lovely. I have decided now on a colour scheme - and its going to look awesome. Something very unique, in fact something I don't think I have ever seen on a gunpla model. Should be fun, and I hope I can pull it off..

The paint scheme requires a white base coat. I was sure I had 3 jars of this but discovered to my dismay that they were all mostly empty.. so I only managed to get one base coat done before I had to call it a day for those parts. I then went on to do the metallics. A little vid below for your visual entertainment if you are bored. :)

End of April Random Update

Have been steadily working through the 1/100 NG Duel Gundam regen - All parts sanded down, did a little seem line removal. Decided to try out a new base coat on the white parts - the Tamiya acrylic "flat base" - did not work.. did not even dry in fact, so had to wash it all off.. mish! Have now done 2 coats of a 1:4 ratio blue/white, and will spray over in white using the blue undercoating as shading. Fingers crossed this turns out as planned. Have not been posting an official WIP for this one as I am currently filming the whole thing - a vid of the whole thing will be up on my youtube channel once completed.

In other news.. myself and Mrs Gundam UK have been busy re-organising our work area. As I have decided to put my music to rest for 2 years, I have packed away all of my music gear to make way for more room for Gunpla, and for Mrs Gundam UK's projects. Pic below of our new workspace!

Revels are on special at Sainsburys. 

Oh, and before I forget.. You can now get to this blog by simply navigating to http://www.gundamuk.com or http://www.gundam.me.uk. I am also working on developing a resource website for all things Gunpla-based in the UK. Nice. News on this later.. 

The unicorn has arrived!

Wohoo! At last.. the box is incredibly weighty and I am somewhat daunted by the sheer volume of runners in this kit.. its going to be a heck of a long build but I cant wait. WIP coming soon as I start this.

Coming up in 2012

Happy new year to one and all, hope you had a nice xmas and stuff and did not gain too many pounds. After a fantatic period of being away from work, the dull mist of everyday life begins to loom its ugly head. With this in mind, in order to cheer myself up I thought I would share some of my goals in Gunpla for the coming year.

This year will see my first ever competition entry, the Mecha 2012 contest organised by the awesome people at MAC forums. My entry will be the aformentioned Jagd Doga, entering into the OOB (out Of Box) painted category. I was going to give the diorama a shot but upon measuring my current skill level, this could have resulted in an abomination worthy of great ridicule within the gunpla community :)

I am giving the HLJ (hobby link Japan) contest a miss.. purely because of time constraint. Perhaps next time.

Overall, I am hoping to build more Master Grades. Going to also have a bash at a real grade as and when the funds become available. I will also continue to learn new tricks and tips and share them right here on the bloggy. I have a few idea's about some future custom builds requiring some additional materials.

I will also be investing in an airbrush, the applications and effects as such will be far in advance of my current technique using spray cans. This will tkae some time to master.. :)

Hers to 2012 all, have a good one :)

Throne Eins 1/144 HG

Quick one this, and one I have made a little video of on the youtube channel. This is the Throne Eins from Gundam 00, quite an unusual and somewhat feminine looking thing. Varied the colour a little by adding some dark yellow, metallic red and aluminium instead of its default light grey. Pleased with how this one turned out too. Vid of the whole thing at the bottom of this post :)

Blueframe Astray Revise 1/100 MG

After.. 8 weeks of working/tormenting on the Gundam Astry Blueframe Revise 1/100 Master grade, it is finally done. For my first MG, I don't think it turned out that bad, and impressed myself on how well the decalling went considering I have never done it before.

A few things went wrong.. if you have been reading my previous posts you will remember the tiny plastic clasps that held the fingers and thumb in place on each hand had disintegrated, hence now Blueframe has no ability to hold any weapons hence the constant flight mode.

The panel lining for this was a little all over the place. I have been experimenting with various washes for a while and though I got to grips with it when panel-lining the head part, turned out a little "dirty" looking as the panel lines did not suck through the paint too well, and turned out a little lighter than I wished for.  I will persevere on getting that golden thinner-to-paint radio correct. The rest of the models panel lines were done with a gundam marker.

Some decals peeled off a little and went dry, replaced these on the worst instances with thin stickers provided with the Blueframe in box.

Gave it all a nice glossy coat for a change, normally I prefer the matt finish but because the experimental panel lining did not go to plan, a matt finish would really show up the dirty bits unless you were standing a good 10 feet away from it..  

That's about it really.. not 8 weeks of solid work as most of that was spent waiting for my old supplier to send me the paints I had bought. Anyways, down to what it looks like. A real labour of love this :) A little vid at the bottom too.

Bring on the full armour unicorn!