Mechapinoy on TV!

Mechapinoy had an (extremely short) interview with MOGTV which aired on local station TV 5 last January 29 at 11pm. The guys said they were there for half a day and so we waited for it to air. The entire segment was only about two minutes long, but what amount of screen time is screen time nonetheless XD

The blog post on their website was pretty hilarious starting with a picture of our founder Richie Ramos, followed by "Malamang eh iniisip n'yo ngayon, "WTF, sino 'yan?"". Lol. Hahaha.

More or less unimpressive, but it's a 2-minute even worth mentioning and and telling the story of over and over again. That's it for now. Zedd Arckham out.

WIP: HG Zaku Phantom Spawn Custom

This will be my entry for MechaPinoy's In-house Contest, Zakuhin Mo Mukha Mo!

The Kit. HGGS Blaze Zaku Phantom.


The original backpack. Zaku Blaze Wizard.


Noir Striker pack.


And there. Basic kitbash.


First modification. Adding a crotch slot for display base connector.




Other than the paint job, here's one of a few selling points that makes the Spawn Custom. Spikes.
Sprues, cut into shape and sanded down to point.



Cement into place.



Progress report.

Seven Sword, Finally.

Finally, Bandai decided to really make a Seven Sword unit. The HG-00 kit will come out early this year and is already available for pre-order in sites like 1999.co. Definitely one of the kits to look out for this season.

Finally a kit deserving of the XN Raiser that came with HobbyJapan Oct '09 issue. Doesn't come with a GN Sword-III though. It remains exclusive to the 00-Raiser kits.


The Seven Sword unit: GN Buster Sword, GN Sword-II long and short, GN Beam Katars and the usual GN Beam Sabers. But what's that other one?


A fourth type of GN Sword-II, perhaps?



In other news, a MechaPinoy class picture from the MP Christmas party last December.

Gunpla Tutorial #1: Gundam Marker Panel Lining

I'm starting a line of of basic tutorials for beginner Gunpla modelers out there.
Not to make this any longer, let's get to it. Gunpla Tutorial #1: Gundam Marker Panel Lining


-Your primary tool: The Gundam Marker.



-Our volunteer for the tutorial: 1/100 Astraea Gundam.



-Let's take this arm.



-Uncap your marker and run it through the panel lines (grooves, nooks, crannies...) of the parts. Sometimes one run won't make a good dark line, so you can just run it twice. On wider panel lines, I usually run the marker tilted to one side on the first run and tilted to the opposite side on the second. That way, you can cover both sides of the groove.



-Taking the pieces apart helps sometimes, but that's up to you.



-Here's the panel lined arm compared to the undone one. Notice how the details are emphasized.


-Put it back on and do a before and after. (Click to enlarge, but not so big XD)

Before:


After:


That's it! Have fun :D

Zakuhin Mo Mukha Mo!

MechaPinoy is kicking off 2010 with its 1st in-house contest for this year: Zakuhin Mo Mukha Mo!!! An all out Zaku model kit contest. GO WILD. Any mods, add-ons and paint jobs are allowed. The ultimate in individual expression of a Zaku.





That's right, people. MechaPinoy's first in-house contest of the year. And all-out war in celebration of the granddaddy of all grunt units, the Zaku. It's simple. It's a build-off using any Zaku of your choice as your base kit. All Zakus from UC to CE in all scales and grades.

Hi-Zack? Geloog? Gouf? "IT'S NOT A ZAKU, BOY! NOT A ZAKU!" -Ramba Ral

Read the rules and guidelines on MechaPinoy.
Or join the discussions in the Forums

WIP: 1/144 HG Virtue Gundam Part 5

Progress:
-Cemented and sanded parts that can be sealed before painting.
-Removed the armor seams on the second pair of arms (since, technically speaking, there are no Nadleeh arms within them, so those don't need to break open.)
-Tightening joints and polycaps with Bosny flat clear.
-Cemented and puttied the shoulder mods where the second pair of cannon cases mount to.
Since I wasn't too busy today, I took pics as I went on to continue sanding down the plastic and cement.



Flat black base coat for the gunmetal. No seams here.



Quick experiment. This is what gunmetal looks like on a pink surface if you didn't base coat or prime. Good thing I didn't learn that the hard way.




About 15% of surfaces painted and 40% sanded. 40% of visible seam lines removed and all polycaps tightened.



Na-shy.


For the final paint job.
War Machine in The Invincible Iron Man Number 19 - Machinery of War Part 2. Art by Sean Chen.




*Posted December 27, 2009 on MechaPinoy.

WIP: 1/144 HG Virtue Gundam Part 4

UPDATE!

Can't seem to find a Virtue anywhere so I got a Trans Am one. I'll paint it anyway.


Not very menacing in a calm pose.


Then, try this.


This too. Yes, he'll definitely need a display base.


He'll have four sabers, eight cannons, two bazookas, six GN field generators, eleven GN condensers.
I decided not to go for the knee hands like the Seravee's. I'll keep those mods for later.


Melee.


As both logic and physics would have their way, this guy is very backheavy. Took about an entire minute to get him to pose like this. No problems though when he holds both bazookas.


Cannon backpack rests directly on top of the arms backpack. It fit so perfectly, I didn't need to modify it. I just sanded lightly to reduce surface gloss and cemented and it's all cool.


I snipped at the bottom of the handles so I could cement the hand bits together. One of the biggest problems of this kit is that the [white] back part of the hand always falls off of the palm+fingers part.


Size comparison. (tinamad na magpose ng maayos kaya may paintbrush sa puwit.)

I'll be busy with Christmas preparation this week I couldn't wait for someone to reply to my LF, so I went ahead for a new one. Also why I got the TA version in Megamall when I could go some other day to Manila or Makati to get a white one.

Easy part's over.
Next: Seams, sand, prime, and paint.



*Posted December 22, 2009 on MechaPinoy.

WIP: 1/144 HG Virtue Gundam Part 3

UPDATE!


Initially, I wanted to put hip/waist mounted weapons on this. Say, like those from freedom but mainly, blast impulse. But I couldn't find a 1/144 FG Blast Impulse in Megamall today so I went home empty handed. But when I got home, I realized now what I really want to do with this kit. Bash it with another Virtue.



It'll sport four arms, two bazookas, and four pairs (eight barrels) of GN cannons.




Seen here is burst mode. On a regular Virtue, the chest opens and reveals a GN condenser to be able to feed power to burst mode. I got that taken care of because I'll be putting GN condensers on both shoulders on the first pair of arms. Two arms on either side will hold a bazooka to each front shoulder.



With only four arms, he'll lose to Seravee in a sword fight. But who cares, he has more guns XD



I'll be mounting another backpack behind the first one. The first backpack will hold the second pair of arms and the second backpack will house GN cannons as usual. There's a rectangular pit on the sides of the shoulder pads which I could cut out and easily insert a polycap. To that, about 1cm length of sanded down sprue to connect that polycap to the one on the bottom of the GN cannon. I'll do that on the second pair of arms.


Here's a quick (and not to mention unattractive) Photoshopped image of the end-product. It'll look better than this, I promise.




*Posted December 20, 2009 on MechaPinoy.