Off to Japan, some updates and looking back at 2013

Off to Japan in a while, so thought I would round up the year with a final post looking back at 2013, which has been a all-round good one for me, as well as give a little update as to what I have been up to. 

Setting aside personal things like (finally) getting myself in employment I actually like, watching my first born growing up past the toddler stage and into boyhood, and of course welcoming our second child into the world, my Mecha building world has grown substantially. Whereas I did not get as many models completed as I would have liked to, I have definitely improved a bit and learned a hell of a lot from my peers. I have also made some great friends and interesting characters this year through the hobby. The mecha lounge has continued to grow, with the success of the CHAOS group build setting a new standard in forum-based competition. Hats off to all the chaps on the mecha lounge for a year of fantastic work. 

Gunpla Fixations google hangouts have been a tremendous success this year, bringing together for the first time many you tube and Mecha modelling community members and continues to gain popularity, I have been lucky enough to be chosen by Jim to be a co-host of this awesome fortnightly event that you can catch up on by clicking here. New events currently in planning for the new year, and we always welcome new faces so if you are interested, do drop Jim, Justinius or myself a message through G+ :)

Updates wise, the Level Up Competition now has an amazing total of 20 entrants! I am admittedly shocked by the amount of entries and am very pleased everyone has entered into the spirit of the competition, and are genuinely upping their games. Prizes will be announced in the new year, so keep an eye on the gundamuk facebook page for updates. 

The Victory Gundam is nearing completion, I have been doing a little filming here and there so should cobble together a final WIP and reveal video in the new year. Made some slight errors on masking the red circle parts and they ended up looking a little wonky.. still I am hoping some retouching and panel lining should fix this. Just a few parts and weapons to paint now, then I can move onto assembling.  

So, after a 2 year wait I am finally going back to Japan, I'll be staying for a number of weeks and (hopefully) regularly updating the sights and sounds of all things Gunpla related on my travels in Japan. I will be (of course) visiting Gundam front and praying to the almighty 1/1 scale to provide me with another year of smooth air brushing application and non-splitting parts. I have an extensive list of items I plan to purchase, and a pretty ingenious way to get them back here to the UK with the aid of a set of clippers, and some plastic containers. Some things on my list are all the thunderbolt kits (as many as are released during my stay), and MG Nu Ver.Ka, and a HG Gerbera Tetra. I will also be picking up some exclusives that are actually worth buying and are not just recolours. No doubt there will also be large amounts of ridiculous tat that are Gundam related. The first thing I am going to eat when I arrive? A McDonalds Teriyaki Burger. If you have not had one of these, these are things that if you ate more than 2, you will have a heart attack. They are simply, stunningly tasty. We already spent considerable time planning our eating plans.. :) 

A couple of bits of news to share: Monoeye press' fantastic beginners Mecha building guide has topped the "arts and crafts" section over on Amazon. If you are new to Gunpla or need some handy and comprehensive instruction on basic technique - then this is for you. I was lucky enough to get an advance copy and I can personally say, its excellent - covering everything from the history of Mecha in Japanese culture through to panel lining, assembly and modification techniques. Pick it up now! 

Anyway, that's enough rambling for now. Thank you all for a fantastic 2013 and I wish you all a great holiday and New Year! 

A quick vid saying more thanks :)

Mid June Update

Hello folks. Just a quick update really, finally managed to get started with the painting of the Jesta HG, which if all goes to plan with most certainly the most psychedelic model I have ever created.

Here is a quick update vid:

If you are interested, the great GundamUK sale is still ongoing over on my facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/gundamUK

1 week remains before it all goes on eBay!

I also have a few gashapon items for sale over on my ebay, one such listing is here:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/130929946162?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

All the best! :)

Gundam F91 - WIP#2

Having completed the inner frame parts of the legs (well, mostly bar some additional things I would like to do once the whole inner frame is completed) I worked on the inner frame parts for the torso and head.

This complete, I thought I should start working on the armour parts for the legs. Unfortunately they did not turn out as expected, but none the less are mostly done.

Having applied the primer a little thick on some parts (and regrettably not sanding them smooth as you are supposed to), adding the first base coat of white created a bit of a mottled finish, so I added another layer of white to smooth it out a little. Worked to a degree - then I decided to do a little pre shading - a technique I am new to. This to, resulted in a bit of a mottled finish but much smoother. All that remains now it to add a top layer of white to smooth it all out, hopefully this will fix it because right now it looks terrible..

Sorry for the lack of video this week.. I did film some but today's and yesterdays work took a ridiculous amount of time.. so much in fact I did not have time to cut a video, so next weeks will (hopefully) be a kind of "double" WIP.

Anyway, a pic below of the pre shaded parts :)

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.

Ryurai Kai - WIP 3

Quite a productive weekend this for a change, well, that and I had a lovely day off work on Wednesday and spent it all painting. All airbrushing now completed.

Managed to do a lovely Norwegian flag on one of the shoulder armour parts - take a look in the video below which is mostly me unmasking things.. :)

With a little luck, should have this completed by next weekend. Got to give it a gloss coat, do some decal work and some panel lining, then we're done :)

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 :)

Palace Athene HG WIP 3

Completed! Yay! And I must say I really enjoyed this build, it is one of my very favourite MS designs for its pure assaultyness, and I think the colour choices turned out fabulous. A little ropey in some places when it came to the panel lining, but overall I am happy with the result. Here is the final WIP video from youtube:

A few pictures of the completed, now titled "Palace Athene Anaheim Refit" (on account of the anaheim shiny logos all over it).

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!

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.

Random update

Hello, me again, well.. who else would it be, unless it is a proxy of me and I have died, and the proxy is utterly convinced it is me. Next, I am working on the Zeta 2.0 (which I am also entering into the Summer War competition on the gundam eclipse forum), love this MS design. The epitome of 80's gundam goodness in my opinion. It will be a straight-up OOB paint with a little difference - I am going to add a nice masked paint effect on the legs, not sure quite what yet. I will be doing this one nice and glossy this time too. So far, I have cut the runners and sanded down. I will be assembling first, and base coating. More on this on the first WIP coming up soon.

In other news, I have added a new light to my workspace. An awesome little low-power strip light. Only 10 squids off ebay, total bargain. Have done a little rearrangement too to create more space on my PC desk.

I am also planning to spray-paint a large board previously used underneath my spray booth for a spacey backdrop. Will update when I do that too, although it will not be all that interesting.. the eventual plan is to make a bit of a diorama. Thought will be going into this over the coming weeks

More later.

Marasai Devastator 1/144 HG WIP Part 5

So, It's finally completed! 5 weekends of work done. Added another clearcoat, but as the model was still in a porous state paint wise, I decided to weather it to take advantage of the texture. Went relatively well, but made a crucial mistake by not remembering to add decals first! Decided it would probably be best to just leave them off in this case.. otherwise it would mean a ton of work adding a glossy coat to allow the decals to set.

So, all in all I am pretty pleased with the final result, another vid below showing off the final parts. a few pics too to show in more detail. Super thanks to everyone who has been supporting my endeavours as always, you are all individually awesome. More soon.

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 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 3

Just a quick one to let you know my WIP for the devastator Marasai, gotta dash.. :)