Joshua Tree and a Return to the Unicorn Gundam

 commissions, Life, Model Building  No Responses »
Jan 302012
 
joshua_tree_1_28_2012 003_jpg

The memorable points of this weekend was an evening back in Joshua Tree and a few hours of work on the giant Unicorn Gundam statue. So the recent addiction is trying out astrophotography, well as much as that’s even possible with my current setup. The weekend before this past one, Yuki and I drove up to Joshua Tree as a scouting mission to see about snapping some pictures of the dark sky. Funny thing is that the last time I was out in this area, I was riding along with MarkW as we ventured out to Jame Zee Doyle’s (aka JED from old model building RAAM/CoM sites) house to pick up some kits that he was no longer going to build. MarkW’s Sazabi original owner was JED.

While there was no moon to saturate the night sky with lighting, there was however lots of clouds that worked to reflect the lights from Palm Springs effectively. The goal to snap pictures of the night sky turned into just snapping pictures of the land, clouds, and my car in the calm desert night. The good thing is that I did get some more practice with nighttime photography. This weekend we were a little more successful.

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 Posted by GameraBaenre at 1:55 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

SOPA/PIPA

 The Site  No Responses »
Jan 182012
 

For those of you that visit my site from within the United States, please take a moment to read through some of the information about the two bills that are going before congress. Wikipedia has gone dark for 24 hours to help spread awareness. XKCD, a webcomic I frequent has also posted a page with a good amount of information. Google also has a information page in regards to SOPA and PIPA. TheOatmeal.com also has a message, this is some serious shit.

Inch by inch, day by day, our freedoms to say what we want, what we feel have slowly eroded away. Please contact your representatives and have your voices heard.

-Clement
Gamera Baenre

 Posted by GameraBaenre at 10:48 am  Tagged with: ,

 Permalink  Build Gatherings, Life  No Responses »
Jan 172012
 
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This past weekend was the first build gathering of the year, and it marks the 54th build gathering since we started. The gathering was the usual size with a few new members to the group. I was late in snapping pictures as there were also two good football games, well technically 1 good football game and the other was just a sad slaughtering of horses; and also a Lakers game that didn’t go well for the Lakers either.

In other news, we got Yuki an annual pass to Disneyland, so the past week has been spent sprinkled with little visits to the happiest place on earth.

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 Posted by GameraBaenre at 1:22 pm

Christmas in Hong Kong

 Events, Gundam Models, Life  8 Responses »
Jan 042012
 
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December 22, Nicky and Angel come by and pick up Yuki and I and take us to LAX, we have a midnight flight out to Hong Kong. I had won the spot North American representative spot for the Gunpla Builders World Cup finals to be held on Christmas day in Hong Kong. As usual, my normal small baggage loaded inside my larger, mostly empty baggage. The larger baggage is carrying goods that I’m bringing for Yuki’s parents and my god parents. In my small backpack is also a little white gold ring emblazoned with four small diamonds and a larger diamond that’s about .7 ct in size. If anything, this should be a fairly memorable trip.

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 Posted by GameraBaenre at 6:54 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,

December’s Model Build Gathering

 Build Gatherings  1 Response »
Dec 142011
 
mbg53 002_jpg

This past weekend was the December Model Build Gathering. We didn’t hold a gathering last month since we had the SCGMC contest. And I believe that combined with a few people that learned of our build gatherings from the SCGMC event, the December gathering was fairly large. We also had our annual white elephant exchange which is always a fun time. When we first started the white elephant exchange, I think we had a total of 8 participants and the exchange was still fun. This year we had 27 participants, and wow, such a difference in the game, but more about this and the actual build gathering after the jump.

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 Posted by GameraBaenre at 12:12 pm

Sazabi Part Deux

 Gundam Models, Model Building  1 Response »
Dec 032011
 
hguc_sazabi_part_deux 006_jpg

Yesterday, I woke up and just felt horrible. I’ve had a slight cough over the past few weeks and overnight, it just got bad. So I went to the doctor and got some nice meds. Then headed off to work to pick up my work computer so that I could finish my projects that had deadlines. I took some of the meds and started in on my office work and finished around 2:30pm or so. I was planning on just crashing after getting my work done, because while working, that’s all I could think of, crashing out. But after work was done, I took some cough medicine, a small amount so that I don’t get completely destroyed mentally. Went out and picked up some ingredients for porridge. The pizza I ate for lunch caused me to pee out of my butt, not the greatest feeling in the world, so I needed to get something less greasy. The porridge was cooking and wouldn’t be done for another 4 hours or so.

Some semblance of energy returned and while looking at my unfinished base, I decided that there were only a few more steps and I’d be done. So the last part of my sick day was spent working on gunpla. Guess that drive to finally finish the project I technically started back in January of last year kicked into gear. Below is the start of the base and the completed base.

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 Posted by GameraBaenre at 10:52 am  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

All your base are belong to us

 Model Building, Progress Pages  No Responses »
Nov 302011
 
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Since the last update, the past several days has been spent focused on the base as the Jegan is completed. The process is fairly time consuming as each step takes about a day to fully dry and cure up, if I’m lucky. Depending on the humidity, temperature and thickness of the stuff applied to the surface; the celluclay (Papier-mâché) may take anywhere from one to 5 days to completely dry. Last night, I applied the celluclay to the base and here’s a comparison of the base from the start of the build to now. The light at the end of the tunnel is much brighter now, and this is the last component of the build. Once the celluclay dries, all that is left is the painting and weathering for the base which are some very quick steps in the overall scope of the project.

Aside from the added electronics and surface details, the basic build technique I use for dioramas or bases:

  • Styrene sheets, rods, strips are used for structural details
  • A basic surface of styrofoam, wood blocks, or in this case, a resin asteroid base is used for the main surface dynamics, the basic landscape for the base
  • Plaster cloth is used to encompass everything as well as give a solid surface for the next layer
  • Celluclay is used as the final texture or covering surface over the dried plaster cloth
  • The final steps are paint, weathering, and any sort of ground works such as grass, sand, dirt, rocks, etc.

On to the build progression for this project’s base.

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 Posted by GameraBaenre at 1:48 pm  Tagged with: , , , , ,
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