This weekend was damn busy. I hung out with friends on Friday. I had a lunch date Saturday afternoon, followed later by an evening at the Hollywood Bowl for the annual John Williams concert. Then Sunday was spent on another date at the Huntington Library which then branched out to watching the sun set in Laguna Beach then back to my house for a small dinner and movie. So yeah, post about my personal life, if you’re interested in gunpla, go ahead and skip this post, and wait for next weekend when post about the Labor Day build gathering.

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Information update for the BAKUC United States preliminary competition. The first two preliminary competitions were held at Anime Expo in July, Otakon in August, and the next and final preliminary competition will be at New York Anime Fest/Comic Con.

Instructions for NYCC/NYAF World Cup

• 1. Review the Rules and Contest Details located here
• 2. Fill out and email a completed ENTRY FORM to customerservice@bluefincorp.com by SEPT 30, 2010.
• 3. On the entry form, please provide a brief description of any modifications or building methods used for each entry
• 4. Between Oct 8 and Oct 9, please bring your entries to the Bluefin booth (1536) in the Exhibition Hall.
• 5. Entries must be submitted before 3:30pm Oct 9.
• 6. Pick up your entry before the Exhibit Hall closes on Oct 9.

Send all questions and inquiries about the Model Contest to customerservice@bluefincorp.com

IMPORTANT DATES AND TIMES

SEPT 30, 2010-TURN IN COMPLETED ENTRY FORM

Deadling to Bring Models to NYCC/NYAF -Oct 9 3:30pm
Judging and Award times-October 9, 2010 4:30pm
Reclaim your models-October 9, 2010 Exhibit Hall Closing
Please keep checking www.bluefincorp.com for updated information and times.
Download Entry form here: World Cup Entry Form NYCC

The above information was taken from here: Bluefincorp.com

This past weekend was spent with VERY little sleep, miles of walking, gambling, and copious amounts of alcohol. This was all in the name of Dave’s bachelor party. Angel, Nicky, and I also hit up the Shark Reef exhibit at the Mandalay Bay and Red Rock Canyon just 10 or so miles north of Las Vegas. It was a damn good trip. I slept for about 11 hours last night just to recover from the weekend.

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So after finishing my Gouf in the morning, the afternoon was spent doing a little prep work for the rest of the night. An evening at the Hollywood Bowl with Harry Connick Jr.. We got there around 6, parked in the stacked lot and walked up to the bowl. There was considerably more people here than the last concert. I believe Sergio pulled in about 10k people, and Harry’s Saturday concert pulled in over 17k. The even was sold out. Leaving the bowl will be an interesting experience. The music was good, I knew almost all the songs, although I’m used to hearing it from other singers, but Harry’s personality and little quips with the audience through out the evening just made the show. I have a few snippets and one full song that I captured at the show. Note to self, bring another memory card, one full song was almost 500mb.

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Ok, final bits for the progress on the kit and now she’s done. As stated in my previous post, I sprayed the final gloss clear over the parts that morning so that when I got off work, I can get down to applying the panel lines. So I did just that when I got home. The panel lines are done with tamiya enamel black thinned with rosonol lighter fluid. The whole job looks rather messy, but the wash solution is left on the surface to dry for a couple of hours. Angel and I had our little mandate and hit up the local stop for the Kogi Truck that night, then headed off to see The Expendables It was decent as an action movie, cheesy lines, a few finny ones, and decent action; not much to write home about.

A few hours later, the wash solution has dried enough that it’s very simple to wipe away the excess ink using a q-tip and paper towels moistened with lighter fluid.

After wiping everything down, the parts are sprayed with the final flat clear coat and then let to dry and cure over night. Waking up this morning, I got down to the final gluing and assembly of all the parts.

Gator needs his GAT!

And on to the final assembly. Now a little trick I use to avoid the pesky problems of paint scratching while assembling, posing, and positioning the kit is to slide some note card paper into the areas that are prone to rubbing together. This way, I can continue to move and reposition the kit until I find the one I like, without having any paint scratching problems. Once I find the pose and position I like, the note card papers come out, and the surface of the parts are unscathed.

Completed pictures after the jump…

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As stated in the previous post; when it gets down to the final stretch of things, the build progress slows down to a snails pace. The reason for this is that each of the final steps, although very quick and not in the least bit labor intensive just takes time and patience. Visibly, the work isn’t significant as these are minor details added to the kit. The reason for the slowness for the drawn out process is due to the cure times for the clear coats applied between the final layers.

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This was a fairly busy weekend. The August build gathering was originally scheduled for the 21st, but since I’ll be in Vegas along with a few other guys from the build gathering, I moved it. Unfortunately, the date change affected a good number of folks that they couldn’t make it. I received email/messages from about 10 folks. We had about 15 folks at the gathering, so we would have had a fairly large gathering if those 10 showed. A nice low key gathering is always relaxing, especially since I can focus on the damn Gouf. In the middle of the gathering, I also had to run off to attend a wedding reception that I had forgotten was on my schedule; but more on that later. First up the Gouf.

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