This blog is moving!

My time here has alas, come to an end, and the blog is now moving over to my own hosting :)

You can now catch up with my ramblings right here:

http://www.gundamuk.com/blog/

Thank you :)

An update for September

The contest has kicked off pretty well, I have 5 very promising entries so far and really looking forward to seeing what these guys can do. If you would like to be acquainted with the post containing information on how you can enter my "level-up!" contest can be found by clicking right here. Said promised video will be making an appearance very soon.

Some may have seen I also completed the superb real grade GP-01fb, which now takes pride of place right here next to my monitor and will be subject to a paint job at a later date. A vid of this here:

Special thanks again to Japan:Cool for introducing me to this amazing range of Bandai models, and for the great success of their recent give-away on the Mecha Lounge where they generously gave away a very cool MG Jesta, and 2 £25 vouchers to two random lucky bastards winners.

I also received my second-place prize from the Justinius Builds competition which was a Real Grade Zaku 2, with a few unexpected extra bits I and the nipper were very pleased to receive - a video of the un-boxing along with my farty sidekick JK coming shortly.

Fresh in the mail this morning from E2406.com I received my first ever resin kit the form of a 1/6 scale figure of my favourite Zeta Gundam character Quattro Bajeena in all his 1980's glory:

Handsome I think you will agree. Man crush I have. Yoda style writing I do not know why I am writing.

Still in progress is the mighty FAZZ Master Grade, nearing completion of the main gun and adding some details this weekend. I may (may) start a little HG project in between, undecided at the mo. 

Thanks for reading, more soon :) 

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! :)

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!

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 2

With a rudimentary thought of colour scheme now figured out, the work on painting and slightly modifying has begun. I decided to make the grey parts a light blue, with a shading of royal blue. On top of this, with some masked off parts will be a JA grey. I also scribed in some additional lines in the leg armour - to better the separation on the masked parts and to serve as additional detail. Further colours are yet to be decided but I am leaning towards a beige, along with some stripy motif of some kind.

Took me forever it seems just to prime the gray parts. Once it was all primed (after several airbrush clogs and cleans) I had already lost half the day, and doing the masking and first undercoat of royal blue took up the rest. Lessons learned here - if your brush is consistently clogging, your not thinning it enough. Although I trusted the primer to be adequately thinned for my needs, it was a false presumption. I knew I bought a bottle of thinner from plamo UK for a reason.. Next time it will run smoother I hope.

Once the royal blue was completed, it left a bobbly, dirty residue, in which after some deliberation I decided to stick with as a "texture detail", some of course would grin with a sceptical comment about laziness, they would probably in all fairness be half right :)

Anyway, a video of the preceding described WIP below. Turned out quite nice in the end, and with the discovery of the additional Gatling cannon hidden in my spare parts bin, this Ryurai-Kai I have decided to title:

"Model 38 Ryurai-Kai: Suppression vanguard"

Now I need to hunt for some suitable decals :)

Thanks for watching and reading, more soon!

Frame Arms: Ryurai Kai first impressions

Throughout the week I have been doing the usual cutting/sanding, getting the most laborious task out of the way in preparation for assembly this weekend. 

Now it is complete, I can summarise it as a pretty enjoyable build, with a few flaws and some cool extras. Lets start with the problems. The frame itself. Its loose and flimsy. It may be just my copy, but I had to unfortunately glue it in some places otherwise the legs would be coming off by a gentle breeze. Some parts were a little tough to fit, while other parts snapped on a little weirdly and sat at odd angles (the plates of additional armour on the front of the legs a prime example). 

Model 38 Type 1 Ryurai Kai Frame Arms

Now for the good stuff. It looks amazing. To my surprise it came with some alternative armour parts I was not expecting. This way, you can wither make it the mean-looking, heavily armoured artillery type or the more streamlined, infantry type. The benefit to this of course is that I can paint all the parts, and effectively get two models out of it! 

Will I get another one? Well, maybe. On looks alone it's totally up my street. On build, I enjoinder it but when parts started to drop off with no effort at all I could not help feeling disappointed  In balance though, it gets a thumbs up for sure. Coming up next time, let' see how well it paints :) 

Here's a vid of the assembly: