Stuff From AndyC

2009-03-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

Long time no posting!

Life has caught up with me, I have 2 of my favourite women either in hospital or going there, firstly as I love and miss her more than any one my American fiancée is having to go in for an op tomorrow morning and I cant even be there when she gets out to make her feel any better, if any one out there ever thinks about having a long distance relationship please email me and I will advise you against it strongly, and if you so ask give you the for and against reasons, not many people who are lightly to read this know but I was married before and that was after a long distance relationship its not easy and there are problems with how well you get to know some one talking to them every day and only seeing them once in a while...

Any way the other person who is ill is my polish grandma. She was unlucky and fell while at home and cut her self up and bruised her self pretty well, then while in hospital being treated for vertigo she fell, because she needed to get up and didn't call a nurse. I love my grandma more than words can say but she would never put any one out and in this case her kindness of not wanting to disturb a nurse cost her a broken hip, and a very worried family most of which took the next day off to go see her (bare in mind that for some people that is a 100mile journey). I am glad that my family are showing they care in this way and I think there was some surprise by all that every one came to see her (no one told each other that they were going).

A few other things have happened like a change in visa's for my fiancée which may mean her moving here is delayed by a few weeks. This didn't make either of us happy, and worse if the British government so want then the relationship will be strained as we will have to find another way to be together. :S

Sadly there has been no real movement on the kits or any of my other projects instead I've been working my butt off and trying to seed my lawn with any time I have. I have however found the most amazing craft shop in Warwick on the same road that I work on. There web address is http://picturesque-warwick.co.uk/home.php and although Sarah doesn't like the site and says its not as good as she would like, but as an artist of any type you always have the need to get supplies and ideally have people to talk to about new ideas or products that will help, and it would be nice if these people were human. Well Picturesque has a family like enviroment, if your an artist your welcome and there conversation is always full of useful information and new ideas, and the only problem you may have is pulling your self away so that they can run a business. While researching this I was looking for there website and found it impossible to find using goggle, I think they could use some help with this. So if your in the Midlands and get the chance there well worth a look.

The other project that's non GK related is that I am building a 15 disk RAID array using 15 removable disks 2 PSU's and a mini ITX motherboard. One of my customers at work had problems with a server and lost it permanently. This left a large case and some rather nice, if not a little old hardware. So out of the wreckage I pulled one, five drive removable bay, which was set up for 80 pin SCA, SCSI drives which I can convert to SATA, one dual PSU CPU with both PSU's, a 2100s adaptec raid card (will go to my cousin) this will give me one of the PSU's and save me £100 on the removable drive bay. I was also given a compact flash card which I can use for my firewall project which I am also working on.

Once this new PC is built its going to be painted up with images of the character its getting its name from Code Gease's C.C. I'll post pictures of this when its done.

For now that's me done I hope every one out there is happy and well.

Andy

Old projects come first.

2009-03-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

Well after some thought I think its time for me to finish one or two of the projects I had already started, namely:

Gwen - partly painted.

Fire Mage

Ice/Lightening Mage

Let me explain, in the past I started my 1/5 Gwendolyn and then packed it up prior to a visit ware the house needed to be tidy and she never got restarted. Then I starter both my Ori dark magicians, one in a blue and white and one in yellow and red.

Fire Mage

The red and yellow Mage got quite far then had a nasty accident when I sprayed one of her legs white when it should have been sprayed with lacquer which totally teaches me to read the can and not just pick up the can that I last used...

These pictures were taken prior to me ruining it by spraying her right leg white, and I am not going to most the pictures of what I did to her because seeing them again will stop me wanting to work on her to repair the damage I did.

The concept behind her was a little different to how it was executed I saw the edges of her armour tinted in a transparent red almost glassy looking with the details of her armour under it. This was sort of achieved and in honesty the parts that were sprayed transparent yellow then red (forearms) work better in my opinion than the areas that were left silver and then the red and yellow being overlapped in the middle (legs and breast plate).

Her cape was sprayed silver then sprayed with darker shades of silver to create the lightening bolts and edges then the raised sections were masked off and the cape was sprayed red then brought right the way to yellow in some sections to give the look of a mat and soft material. the same colours and highlighting were then used on the material of her collar and shoulder's.

The photos here are not very good and are only at the stage ware i was about to start painting in detail by hand, some of this was done but not much, sadly when I went to seal her right leg I made my fatal mistake. Because her legs are so close I now have to re-spray both of them and match her skin tone for any skin areas. This will take some time to achieve as any change of tone will be seen, and the armour colours have to match that of the rest of her, Plus of cause I have to strip the paint off her and make sure that no detail is lost.

So I will start by stripping the paint and try and get some pictures up of it clean they I think I will show how this method is achieved. its worth noting that I am using or have used Halfords "Citroen quartz" to undercoat this figure the reason being that spraying MR Color paints on top create the effect you see. This means that there is little work in creating the original effect and that most people who can mask well can achieve it.

Ice\Lightening Mage

The other kit has had some mods done, I've changed her hair completely, and given her a breast reduction as her over sized chest is the complaint of most of the girls who build GK's I know. and because of this she is disliked by the majority of female GK builders. E2046 do need to start listening to there regular posters on these issues, I would like to see more casters with a good selection of pose armour and race and also something less skimpy. Yes being a guy in an ideal world I'd love all the girls to walk around in not much more than a bathing suit, but the fact is that sometimes there is a need for something elegant instead and that means no thongs! (and no E staff that doesn't mean start making nudes lol).

So anyway the Ice/Lightening Mage is quite different from the original sculpt because of these changes, I've also made small changes to her armour too in the hope that she will look less like a clone of her sister and maybe add some of the things that E should have done to begin with. At the moment because I have a strong idea of how I want her armour to look I am not posting pictures of her but they will come as she comes closer to completion.

Well for now that's me done, its been a long day and I need my rest.

Best wishes to everyone!

Andy

Video worth watching! Plamo Tsukurou from Kotobukiya scratch build.

2009-03-08T14:40:00.000-07:00

My friend Al (thebarber) post this on the GKCorner forum this week, Its a bit more advanced that all the things I've tried to cover as I know that a lot of people out there want to build GK's but don't know ware to start, at the same time those of us who have been building kits for a few years will want to move to the next level especially when we cant get figures of characters we want because no one else has ever made the kit before. and this is ware the Garage kit market started from. They are all in Japanese but then if you have any experience with kits you will understand what they are talking about.

This is the first part of 9 showing you not only how to build a GK and paint it but also how to create one from scratch using sketches and artwork to be able to create your very own sculpt or if you wanted, kit to pass on to others like See-knack, Vispo and others are. This video set will be interesting to any one who is interested in this hobby as I said it doesn't just cover making a kit from scratch it covers Masking and spraying and prepping and building the kit including painting the eyes which people often find is the hardest thing. The video is also done by one of the artists Plamo Tsukurou at Kotobukiya. Here are the rest:

I hope you find these interesting, the kit he designs and builds is available as a recast at e2046, and yes is another one I have, its a good kit mine needed a few hours prep work and other wise it was 100% fine and very much so recommended. also you will notice that at the beginning Plamo uses a generic bold to produce the torso head and legs, these are sometimes available from craft shops at the moment we are looking for a source for these molds in 1/6, 1/7 and 1/5 so that people can make kits for them selves using this method. And as for the medium he is working in, in England its available as easy sand car body filler as used in the automotive industry and available under the UPOL brand in Halfords.

West wishes to every one!

Andy

New Project 1/4 Volks Kanu

2009-03-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

Well I've had a hard week I've been working hard trying to keep my customers at work happy and of cause my bosses, I think I've been doing okay but I've put in some awfully long hours. Friday was my Mums birthday and I didn't get home until 10pm which means no time to go up the road and see her as she is sensible and goes to bed at that time as she is up at 5:30am nearly every morning. So one bunch of flowers on Saturday and I think she forgave the lack of seeing me.

New Developments:

I've been pretty stressed out about lots of things and am now trying to talk to my friends more see the people i can and inject something fun in to my life, and seeing as its a long time since I did a GK I am starting on my 1/4 Volks Kanu from Ikkitousen Great Guardians. No before you all think I have more money than sense its not an original it still wasn't cheep but was from my friends at E2046. It got to me okay and the casting is pretty good only about an hour needed to prep her for the little modifications I am going to make to her as there are a few things I don't like about the sculpt, but with that said her hair was too tightly backed and broke off most of the small strands that stick out. That's never useful as its more prep work to repair and then blend any faults in with sand paper.

In case you haven't seen this sculpt this is what it looks like:

She was sculpted by Volks in the latter part of last year and hit the market at 44,100 Yen.

Thankfully she was picked up by E2046 and with in 1 month she was already with people as a recast costing $143.99 +shipping at $35.27 which is a considerable saving. The reviews they are getting aren't the best a lot of broken parts and thin parts that suffer with cracking, thankfully none of mine qualify as thin and as I said the only part damaged was down to bad packing with is the exception rather than the rule with E2046.

I've spent the time to use a 1/3 round hand chisel to clean up the casing around the edges of her armour. I also ran the chisel up to the overlapping armour to remove the material that builds up there because its a recast, this will make the armour look more realistic and would not have been a problem with an original, had I have been wealthy enough.

The thing that a lot of people don't realise is that her hair isn't just hair, its hard to see on the pictures available on the web but her hair has in it either flame or the tale of a dragon. I would have said that the Dragon made more sense but on closer inspection of the cast there are no scales its more like flame over and in her hair. If this is the case and flame can be made from it I have an idea of how to make that look quite impressive but I will have to spend some time testing the method as its going to take a lot of work but should be totally worth it.

Well next time I will take some pictures of the project and see if I can get some pics of the kit prept and the tools I used to prep it to help those of you out there just starting, and give you an idea of what tools you will need and what there used for.

Last thing :D

I recently found out that one of my favorite pieces of artwork in this field was done by some one I know and have a lot of respect for, I didn't realise the level of his talent's but will give him credit ware it is due. This is his Picture:
As you can see its an amazing piece of work, so good in fact that Vispo used it as his backdrop at the Hobby Complex GK01 show in March 09. I am sure many of you over time will see this work and maybe not even realise that it was done by "one of us" and not a company for promotional purposes. The image you see to the left of this text was created by Pavel (Bubel on e2046's forum and GK Corner). He has done a lot of work like this and has his own site here: http://www.pavel-lagutin.com/ I personally own 2 copy's of this kit, as I loved the kit's design as it was being worked on by Vispo but Pavel's vision for it sold me on getting them and I hope he realises how many of us out here really love his work.

Well I hope this entry finds eveyone well, more to come from me later.

Andy

GK Equipment and Supplies for the UK.

2009-03-01T11:21:00.000-08:00

In the UK there are a few problems, mainly that all the guides on what to buy are writ en for the states or Asia, so when you want to go and get a Mr Color paint good luck, even Tamiya acrylics can be hard to find. So an alternate set of products need to be sourced. This is the list I use, and have passed to others with luck if you have an interest in building GK's this is the list to read through and see what you have close to you and cant get access to.

Hand brush

Paint

Primer (white spray) - halfords - £3-£6
Filler primer - halfords - £3-£6
Laquer - halfords - £3-£6
satin acrylic varnish - hardwar store
Citadel paints - games workshop - £2 each
Citadel purity seal (satin spray laquer) - Games Workshop - 6£6
Brushes - white tips for white use only and a normal set - Booksale or WHSmiths

Masking (fine lines and protection)

Tamya masking tape both sizes -E2046 $2.50

Pinning ( prep work)

Paperclips - Wilkinson - 40p
Garden wire - B&Q - £4 for 25m
Pliers with cutter - any ware - £4
Pin vice - games workshop - £6
Set of small drill bits biggest 1.2mm

Shaping (prep work)

3M wet and dry 400 grit - B&Q
3M wet and dry 800 grit - B&Q
3M wet and dry 1000 grit - B&Q
Citadel side cutter (only use on plastic) - games workshop - £6
Razor saw - E2046 tamya - £4
Set of files - halfords (rolson brand) - £12
Set of rifeling files - hardware store - £6

Filling (prep work and sculpting)

Milliput (super fine) - hardware store - £4
Filler primer - halfords - £4-£8
Mr putty - E2046 - $4
Glues Araldite- any ware - £3
superglue - any ware - £1-£2

General

Small snap off knife - any ware - 60p - £6

The following are needed if you want to airbrush:

Airbrush setup

Iwata Revolution airbrush - ebay - $80
Compressor - £70-£600 - remember if your not bothered about noise use a

Masking (for airbrush)

copydex - any ware - £3 (use this as a paint on masking agent on those hard bits)
Duck brand masking tape 1" - B&Q (for large areas)

Paints for airbrush

Paint car paints - halfords - £14 for 500ml (best quality but toxic - compatible with Mr Color)
Citadel paints - games workshop - £2 each (use water to be able to spray)

Prep work - this will make your life easyer

Dremel multi tool, with flexy head - mains type - look for offers (40-100 pounds)
Dremel sanding disks - £4 for 25
Dremel cutting disks
Dremel engraving set (all the 0.8mm bits plus anything that looks useful)
Dremel chuck (save you a fortune and easy to use)
Dust masks (resin is not good for you)

General - for better detail

scalpel handle - ebay - £2.50
no 11 blades (25 off) - ebay - £2.50
no 12d blades (25 off) - ebay - £2.50
no 6 blades (25 off) - ebay - £2.50
no 14 blades (25 off) - ebay - £2.50
no 9 blades (25 off) - ebay - £2.50
magnifier clamp - hardware store/ebay - £5

Glues

Fiberglass resin - halfords - £7.50 - can be used as a filler
Filling Fiberglass resin - halfords - £7.50
Fiberglass filler fine/easy sand (car) - Halfords - £14

This must seem like a huge amount of kit, and it is but the core of it should not bee too bad, and you don't have to pay a lot over time. When you start buying an airbrush and dremel things start getting expensive, my setup of these 2 items cost me about 90% of my total cost for the whole setup! Paints are the next most expensive thing, using halfords paints and mixing them your self saves a lot of money but you can only really spray them and you have to know how to mix well. Citadel are very versatile, they don't smell and then are able to be used as a spray or with a brush.

Well another long post, I hope that those of you out there looking to do GK's in the future aren't put off by all this, you can as I said build up on the things you need as you build your first kit and the best news is that when you come to do your second kit all the tools and supplies you have invested in are there for you when you start it.

And remember that there is advice for those of you starting in this hobby at forum.E2046.com and thanks to Misato at GK Corner there is an area dedicated to peoples first kits at http://gkcorner.devil.it/index.php both forums are free and full of helpful people.

The First Post

2009-03-01T06:57:00.000-08:00

Well we all have to start some ware, there will be a lot of people reading who know nothing about me, and I'm sure after all this will probably be glad that they didn't, then there are my friends in the GK, IT and car worlds who would tell me off for being mean to my self as usual.

Well I will tell you a bit about me first then explain more about why this blog is here and what I hope to do with it.

I guess like most people I am pretty well divided into different parts of my life, Work, hobby's, social and family, and all the stuff you don't want to do (we can call this the house for now ;)). each one comes with its own bunch of problems, sadly the hobby's are lack of time and money, the house is lack of interest and money, family and friends tends to be time and distance and then work sucks all the time it can out of my life and then just pays me enough to have the things I need! But these are the same as usual don't you think, and after 4 months of not working at least now I have a job, and that does make a difference and means that my fiancee and parents aren't paying my mortgage and bills and of cause all my food too.

So what do I do for a living? Well I have been very lucky in some ways with my life I am Dyslexic but this has meant that I have very strong ability's in a few areas and limits in others (i am sure some ware in this even after spellchecking there are mistakes all over the place). My strengths I know:

IT - I have a natural born empathy with hardware, I can tell ware a fault is with out really trying and 99% of the time I'm right, for the software I go on my 20 years experience of playing with computers, some training and of cause like every IT person (whether they admit it or not) from time to time Google :P
Building things - This is generally a guy thing, when we are little we are always taking things apart and then either lying about it, or getting help from a dad, brother, uncle or grandfather to put them back together. a lot of guys and a few girls have the ability to also visualise things, form large spaces to detailed technical parts and exploded diagrams. I have to admit that i didn't know any girls that could do this until i met my fiancee she can do it just as well as me, and its much easier to explain an ability when some one else has it.
Drawing, Painting and creating things from scratch - this may be a mix of natural talent and a Grandfather who was a painter in his spare time. Seeing as he had natural talent and enjoyed this hobby and then taught me when i was very young, sometimes in not so easy ways but the lessons were learnt and it is an amazing outlet when I need it. Because the best thing about painting and drawing is... Its nothing like IT :D

So for a living it was pretty obvious that I should go into IT and at the time I was thinking "What do I want to do with my life" Hardware skills were worth money and it was one of the things I love, its was a lot like tuning a car, with the best parts you could have a crazy PC and with some tuning skills with dos and some time you could make your 386 fly until your dad was willing to shell out for that 486 you really wanted :P. So after a very boring trip to college for 2 years ware I knew more than the tutors my parents decided that my hart was not in it and told me to get a job... 9 months as a fishmonger later and the worst boss I ever had and I managed to get a temp job for AT&T there I got to get some IT practical experience. 10 years later and I'm now working for a national support company in the Midlands/England. I have the best boss I have ever had who knows his stuff and the team around me are hardworking and caring. The first few weeks I dealt with some issues that weren't even properly documented by Microsoft and managed to sort them and now I'm settling into more of the 2nd/3rd line support that I'm use to. Because its a relatively small company I am putting a lot of hours in at the moment to help the company grow and become more successful, with the directors being good people and customer focused I am more than happy to do this, and its nice to work for people you respect all the way up the line for once, that is pretty unusual in the IT industry.

So to balance the IT in my life and the long hours I have 2 things, one is my wonderful fiancee who I talk to as often as I can and Garage Kits (or GK's) that I build and paint when ever I get the chance, and remembering that I haven't finished one since my 1/7 Belldandy last January that has to say it all! I do however have an amazing set of paints an awesome compressor and a good airbrush to help me when I start looking at Making GK's again, which is soon because that's one of the things I will be showing here.

Well for now that's me done, I need to go and write a technical proposal for one of my clients at work (time I could have been spending building a garage kit I know but that's dedication for you).

Sorry this post wasn't so interesting over time I will try and post more on things people will like things like GK's in the UK as we have some interesting problems getting good supplies, what forums are any good, and some more stuff about me the house and the general crazy things that go on in my life, probably the best reason not to subscribe to this blog and instead get on facebook or twitter and follow the much more interesting antics of one of my favorite celebrity's, BBC Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles who is about to go up the worlds biggest free standing mountain Kilimanjaro in Africa, the man wants to do it, has put the effort in so if your a listener to his show and haven't donated to the red nose day event yet then get your butt over to Radio 1's website and sponsor him. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/rednoseday/2009/

Oh and finaly a big HI to all my friends on the E2046 forum and the GK Corner Forum, especialy Misato, Kumama, thebarber69 and A-me with out you while I was unemployed I would have gone crazy!