Smoothing Seams and Priming the D-Sserd

Pretty much self-explanatory thanks to the voice overs:







Some still images of it at this stage here.

D-Sserd build begins

I'm getting a group L-Gaim build together over at the best modelers community online.

This is my entry: an old Bandai 1/144 D-Sserd.



Here are the first parts I've put together:



Here's a video of those same parts:



And here's a noisy video of me priming the arm with Mr. Surfacer 1000:



And here's a shot of the first three parts all primed:

ACen Kit Building with Kids

Put this off for too long ...

The model building for kids thing I did at Anime Central went really great. The kids all loved it and we had a great time together. Thanks HLJ!

Here's a few pics.





The staff at the con said my presentation had the biggest turnout of anything they'd done for the kids but even so the turnout wasn't huge, so I had about a dozen kits left and I'll be doing it again next year with the leftover kits (now safely in storage).

SD Gunner Zaku Lunamaria Hawke custom

I built this little guy last night to get ready for an intro to model building presentation I'm running with for a roomful of kids at Anime Central in Chicago next weekend.

I shot video of every part of every step of the assembly process so the kids can see first hand how it's done and then do it for themselves.

I feel like I really had a breakthrough in terms of using the camera as my eyes. I stood behind the camera with my magnifying visor on so that that little camera LCD monitor didn't seem quite so small.

It still eliminated the main cues (you know, 3D binocular vision) I use for depth perception, though, and that's always been the hardest part for me about shooting close up modeling vids. I always feel like my hands are just swimming around in space and I constantly want to peek over or around the camera to be able to see what I'm doing "with my own eyes" as it were.

I worked really hard to get the lighting decent and I think that helped alot, as did the magnifying visor. Here are two of the videos from late in the process:

Final Stage of building the BFG:

and mounting the BFG onto the Zaku:

Hyakushiki is done

ACen presentation

Check out the link here for more info about my panel at Anime Central next month.

Hyaku Shiki!

No decals/stickers yet. I put those on last night and need to make a few final adjustments. Final pictures soon.






One legged (I was detailing the other leg).

Really good article

Here is a great article I found while I was researching for background to add to my upcoming model building presentations at the Anime Central convention this coming May in Chicago.

Let me know what you think of it in the comments section.

Weighting the foot of the Type 100

Ignore the audio in the videos.

Taking the test fitted foot apart to find places to pour in the #12 lead bird shot:

One of the core foot pieces, before and after chopping and grinding out the "snap together" pins (all the before and after shots read right to left):

The other core foot piece, again before and after removal of "snap together elements."

The base plate of the heel of the foot, before and after:

The upper plate of the heel, before and after:

The toe, upper plate, before and after:

The toe bottom plate, before and after:

I also trimmed down these tabs that fit into slots on the upper plate of the toe assembly to make room for just alittle more lead shot. Before:

...and after:

Here's how the part above looks in a before and after test fit, before:

...and after:

Here's the paint dropper that I use to pour the lead shot. I clipped the tip so the opening is larger than a regular paint pipette. It's standing in a tape roll so it won't empty tiny balls of lead onto my work table.

Here's me pouring the lead shot into the prepared foot part:

Here are the two base foot parts filled with lead and with their various holes sealed up with epoxy putty:

Another view:

The core of the foot, also filled and puttied:

I love a nice bead of glue on a seam line. This will clean up nicely:

The final piece:

Too bad you can't "see" how heavy it is now :)

10 Pounds of Lead Shot Will Mash Your Packing Peanuts!

(cross-posted from "pajkossy" (another blog of mine)


I bought this bag of #12 (believe me when I say, that's the tiniest pellet size you can get) lead bird shot. This stuff is definitely not to be used in the course of hunting for food - unless you like breaking your teeth on the way to getting lead poisoning. It's like very small Christmas cookie sprinkles, only made of shiny black metal.

Why did I search for hours on the internet for this stuff?

Only love or anime could make me do something so odd. To be more precise: building injection-molded plastic mecha (robot) models.

I still haven't gotten around to watching Zeta Gundam - the show from which the model I'm currently working on came, but this Hyaku Shiki (that's "type 100" in Japanese) has some DAMN heavy feet now.

Prior to filling them with the lead shot, which settes in very nicely thanks to it's small size, each foot weighed about 1/4 ounce.

I'll update later with their new weight, as well as the weight of the rest of the kit. For now I'll venture a guess that the feet will weigh almost as much the entire remaining structure.

Pix here when I finish it.

UPDATE:
Each foot now weighs about 1.25 oz, so together they weigh 2.5 oz. This is about how much the whole body from the hips up weighs. This should make the center of gravity low enough for more dynamic poses that an unweighted model could maintain.