Gunpla ADD, shelved the Zaku/Guntank, cracked open the 1/100 Gusion

Model building ADD strikes again. I sorta hit a wall with the Zaku/Guntank diorama. I’ll eventually return to it like most projects. But this sucker came in a sometime last month and I’ve been itching to build it. I recently finished the 1/144 version, so I was curious to what I could do with the 1/100. The first thought was to just Out of Box the damn thing. But as I snapped and built this week and during our bi-weekly live broadcast, ideas started swirling and the past two days has seen a bit cutting fiddling. The following picture won’t last too long…

I cracked open the box this Monday and started the snapping, actually sanding the stupid inner frame, for which is COMPLETELY hidden, with very few exceptions. I got the sucker snapped together by the end of this week’s live broadcast on Tuesday. Going back to Monday for a bit, I started work to mold the Gusion Head’s yellow part (its eyes). I made the second part of the mold on Tuesday.

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Continue ReadingGunpla ADD, shelved the Zaku/Guntank, cracked open the 1/100 Gusion

Wiring the 1/144 Heat Hawk

A few days ago, I posted about making clear resin heat hawk by making a mold of the existing heat hawk, then throwing in a string of LEDs in the mold when I poured the clear resin. The resin has had some time to cure and I’ve had some time to ponder the next great question. “How the hell am I going to power this damn thing up?” One of the TGG folks not so innocently asked the question. For which I honestly answered that I had no idea and that I would solve that problem eventually. I already had a few ideas, I could replace the upper handle of the axe and run some wires through there and then through the hands, through the body, and have the battery and switch assembly somewhere on the base of the project. That seemed a little too much work. Laziness is the mother of invention. I decided to completely self contain the power source as well as the switching assembly. Here’s a video of that through process and how it all works out:

After the jump, I go through the pictorial and more wordy version of what I did in the shot 6 minute long video.

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Continue ReadingWiring the 1/144 Heat Hawk

Gunpla posing and photography

Going back to school

It’s been a few weeks since I finished the Sucker Punch diorama; so I’ve had some time for the thing to marinate. I asked my friend Jason, who’s an artist by profession and went to school for such what he thought about the diorama. We started building gunpla together when we were young, so there is familiarity with the material. I had gotten a few comments, some rather long and intense about the posing in the diorama. And having recently finished it; I wasn’t really in a position to defend or analyse it at that time. And I also believe that pride has a great deal to do with this as well. It is very difficult to take criticism on a piece of work one makes. We tend to go on the defensive more often than open up our minds to view things from other perspectives. This is all fine and well if you’re building for yourself and no one ever sees your work. But once you post it up publically, or enter competitions; then things change. You’re putting your work out there to be judged – regardless of if you asked for it or not. And when I first posted the work online, I completely dismissed the comments that criticized the work.

Now that a decent amount of time has passed, I believe I am ready and can objectively revisit the work. So the question I asked Jason is what he thought about the pose – Zogok punching Cold Climate GM. On a personal level, it didn’t really sit well with me either; but I was having trouble formulating what was wrong. I tried a few things suggested online but nothing clicked. I needed to go back to school. I didn’t know what was bothering me about the kit the more I looked at it.

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Continue ReadingGunpla posing and photography

Back to the Grimoire

It has been a few months since I started up on this project and I’ve been getting a little work on it only at the monthly build gatherings. With Sena recently completed, I decided against starting up another figure project to focus on this one and just get the damn thing done. Prior to the Sena videos, I actually started using my cameras to capture the Grimoire build. I was still working out the set up that I think I’ve nailed down towards the end of the Sena series.

Here’s what the kit looks like currently.

Here’s the video for the head modifications as well as adding an LED to the head and wiring everything together.

More details about the current progression as well as the other video after the jump.

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Continue ReadingBack to the Grimoire