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.

May Update

Yes, I know, its been ages right? Well, if you have been following me on my facebook or on youtube you will know I have actually been pretty busy of late, working on the Kagustuchi Kou frame arms model for the mecha lounge's CHAOS group build. In a nut shell, I am around 40% done, and with a fast approaching deadline It's looking tight but doable.

So, here's how its all going so far:

Part 1

part 2

part 3, uploaded today.. 

More progress coming next week, as well as (hopfully, if i can think of something..) a response to mokanamans awesome 2000 subscriber vid where he has asked people of the mecha universe to vid response a tutorial of some kind.

There is also some news I would like to share in regards to the awesome first ever English translated mecha-building guide from Monoeye press. An unfortunate setback in regards to images has meant the book has been slightly delayed, but fear not, its on it's way and having seen a same of the said publication I can honestly say its looking rather marvellous.. and I am looking forward very much to reading it. My thoughts on it shall be shared of course.

More later!

End of March update

An incredibly unproductive weekend due to numerous unforeseen circumstances. Unfortunately Mrs.GundamUK has done something funny to her knee, and as a result I am having to take up the reigns of her usual tasks such as shopping, cooking and taking master GundamUK to nursery. Gunpla time has suffered - and aside from that I am experiencing a bad shortage of acrylic thinner so no work can currently progress on the F91.

On the plsu side however I have managed to dedicate a little time to planning out my mecha lounge chaos GB entry, the Kagustuchi Kou.

I am going to try out something a little more daring than my usual builds - I will be scratch-building some additional weaponry, and trying out some new damage and weathering effects. My original idea was to have a dio, but with my time limited and a June deadline I may reduce this to a simple plinth.

I have begun sanding and cleaning parts - the model itself is actually quite simple and the number of parts lies somewhere between a HG and MG, at a large HG scale. Assembly should be a breeze, and I already do not forsee any requirement for seam line removal. Some pix below along with some koto parts I will be using for the additional weaponry. I have also taken the liberty of purchasing a stack load of styrene rods and such from a good 'ol Chinese ebay-er. Delivery time will be somewhat lengthy but by golly gosh I have saved some bunts. Seriously, from a UK seller, 5x .2mm rods for nearly 9 quid including shipping? Fuck off. How about 48 from a Chinese seller for only a tenner? Hell yes. No wonder model shops are a dieing breed here in the UK. There all greedy bastards. lol.

Oh yeah.. pictures.. here you go:

Gundam F91 - WIP#1

I started this one around 3 months ago, assembled, cleaned and de-nubbed but have only now got around to painting it.. partly because I wanted to do a good job of it :)

Started out with the inner-frame parts of the legs, the intention being to have it mainly in metallic blue, and some parts in gold/silver for a little detail. So far I have done all the main painting, and all that remains now is to gloss coat and panel line.

Here are a few pics of the work so far:

F91, preassembly, 3 months back.

There is also quite a long vid for you to gander at here:

More soon!

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.

1/100 MG Zeta 2.0

Done! at last.. phew. My entry for the Gundam Eclipse summer war compo.

Zeta is done, plus some other things.

Hello! Yes, I finally completed the Zeta 2.0! Well, not entirely. Truthfully, I did not get around to doing everything I wanted to, and that was to paint the base up nice and add a little plastic man guiding the Zeta out from the footplate. As time would have it, I did not get it done. I shall make another post soon with some pics to peruse.

This means, luckily, I have met the deadline for the gundam eclipse summer war competition. Fingers crossed.. I entered the OOB intermediate category but I don'y hold out much for success, the other entries are marvellous.

Anyway, here is an update from the you tube, with a little look at my Gundam display cabinet:

Next up: Frame arms Ryu Rai Kai!

Zeta MG WIP Part 5

A little progress, painted up the weapons now and have added a little detail into them. I must admit to being a little disappointed with this build.. I just wish I did not rush it as much as I have. However, I must persevere and continue onwards. Once these parts are complete, I'll be painting and weathering the base. I will then be assembling the parts was chunks (arms, legs,  backpack, torso, head, weapons, shield  and giving them all a top coat, then 2-3 layers of gloss before doing (and in some cases re-doing) the panel lining. Then its onto the decals.

Heres a pic of what I have done today:

A few tiny hand-painted details if you can see.. :)

On another note, Have today done a little update on you tube, just to show my new work area set-up really, and my new portable spray booth which is awesome :)

Later!

Gunpla Update, in video form

Yep, I have finally shown my face on camera and am talking, despite being in the throws of one of the most shittiest colds I have experienced for a while.. listen to me jabber on about gunpla here:

More soon.

Zeta MG WIP Part 4

A little bit of progression in regards tot he Zeta MG 2.0: Painted the backpack now black / red / white / gunmetal. Not really gone into too much detail wise just undercoating really. Base coated the black parts with a navy blue, although the finish I am not entirely happy with as you can see below.. I am hoping the gloss overcoat will disguise the awful sputtering caused by what I can only assume is the compressor. I have 2 moisture filters fitted now, and an entirely new (and quality I might add) airbrush - so the only thing left that can cause a spattering issue is the compressor.. I shall have to save a little to afford a new one!

Anyway, here are some pix:

Ready for re-assembly in around 24 hours time. 

Dodgy finish.. 

Completion soon I hope, gotta meet the deadline :)

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 :)

Zeta MG WIP Part 3

Quick one this, not to dissimilar to what occurred last time :) Completed the legs, added 2 coats of gloss in preparation for panel lining and detailing. Painted the body, waist and head now, just need to assemble and gloss coat that. More soon :)

Zeta MG WIP Part 2

Moving onto the legs now, have primed and base coated. Have also buffed up the glossy coating on the arms to prepare for the decals to be applied. Not terribly exciting at the moment but slow and steady :)

I have also decided to re-panel line the arms - mixed the enamel too weak resulting in a bit of a faded grey panel line in the shoulder vents. Not good. I'll probably finish up base coating the entire model, apply a gloss coating, then do the panel lining for the whole model to keep it consistent. I'll also be hand-painting some detail here and there. Got a nice plan for the lower leg too - Will probably do this next.

S'all for now.

Zeta MG WIP Part 1

So, here we go with the Zeta v2.0 Master Grade 1/100 for this years Summer War competition from the Gundam Eclipse forum!

Trying something a little different this time. I have fully built the kit (which looks awesome) and am taking one part at a time to paint. This weekend, after spending each weekday this week snap-fitting I have been working on the arms. Used my usual aqua colour base coat - and realised for the first time it is actually white! lols. The last 2 models I have used this paint on, the finish has come up a kind of murky clear - turns out I was not stirring it properly.. oh well.. still looked ok.

Spent all day today priming and adding the base coats for the arms. Using the same tamiya acrylics to make sure the colour is nice and consistent. Here is how far I have gotten so far:

Some parts base coated, some primed needing a base coat.

Snap-fitted bits, separated by how they will be built.. 

Admittedly, I am a little dubious about building this MG in this way.. but we will see how it turns out. I will be trying out a new gloss coat too to enable easier panel lining. I also have some super decals from Samuel Decal to apply, so gotta make sure its shiny enough.

More on this soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Later.

End of June update

As you can see from the below, have been mostly working on the Marasai devastator custom, which is turning out ok and has been a good learning experience, especially in terms of detailing and masking.

Have also been slowly snapping off parts, cleaning and sanding from the Zeta 2.0 MG kit I have decided to enter into the summer war competition being hosted by the gundam eclipse forums.

2 more runners to go and were ready to build.. err...baby.

A couple of purchases from the HLJ sale, a Geara Zulu HG and a Rick Dias MG. Both suits I am a big fan of, especially the Dias as it is simply so different from other MS'.

Looks like a fucking nazi death machine! I will not however be adding swastikas. That would make me a racist.  

Quattro Vajeena's AKA 4 Fannies Rick Dias. I have a cartoon man crush on him. 

In other news: Nothing much really! I am about 30 eps into Victory Gundam, which is turning out to be better than I thought it would be to be honest.. would be good to see more anime set around the UC 120 ish period. Although the BESPA MS' do look a little weird with their huge bug eyes.

On another note: I have has some difficulty of late with a very popular supplier of after-market decals. I received the complete wrong one's I ordered... To be nice, I decided to keep the ones sent, as I can use them for other projects as this supplier had only charged me for these particulars. The supplier, who I might add is on the other side of the planet to me, requested me to ship them back, and payup the difference for the ones I had actually ordered (which would work out about the same as the ones I incorrectly got int he first place!). I think that's out of order.. you don't ask your customers to pay up for your mistake right? I took the piss a little, but then (quite kindly I think) shook it off in good humour, and requested he send me a new invoice for the decals I wanted. That was 3 days ago without response.....I'll give it 3 more days at the most...

More soon.

Marasai Custom

I was perusing my collection of odd crap left over from old kits and chanced across some nifty little bits to create something unique - this will be the 1/144 Marasai Devastator custom!

I may actually attempt.. although its been many, many years to do some sketches of my ideas and share these with you. If I remember. WIPs for the Zeta 2.0 starting soon for the summer war contest.

Later.

Gundam Eclipse Summer of War

Gosh I like that title, its the second year running for the Gundam Eclipse modelling competition, and the first I will be entering. Will probably be looking at entering the intermediate OOB (out of box) category, with 4 months to complete I think I should be able to knock out something relatively suitable.

The question is, with the kits I have yet to build I am undecided as to which kit to build.... It will probably be best to enter a master grade this time so it narrows the choices down to three: The Fazz, Zeta Gundam 2.0 or the F91. I am leaning towards the F91 as I was going to put a ton of work into this one anyway. May chance me mind.

More info on the compo here:

And if you want to read the rules and find out more about prizes etc.. take a look at the Gundam eclipse forum here:

http://gundam-eclipse.net

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.. 

1/100 MG Full Armour Unicorn

Finally, completed. I say completed, I omitted various dry-rub transfers from the final kit due to the fact they were infinitely irritating to apply. For this kit I used mostly Gun metal and white Tamiya acrylics - a little Alclad II for the thruster parts - mixed a little flat base clear with red to create the "ceramic" looking inner-thrusters in the base jabbers massive boosters. Several hours of decal marking.. a couple of topcoats to make it look more sparkly, some decidedly dodgy panel lining (yep, still need some work on building this skill, the main element being patience - rushing it really will yield crap results) and et viola. Pix below.