there's a "Y" in "ZOGOK". the tale of how I found MEANING in a plastic junkheap.

I sell homes. I build them, then i sell them. In my line of work, there is one very effective sale closing technique and it uses only one word and one punctuation mark.

"why?"

Ask a client "why do you want to buy this home?" then sit back, relax and watch your buyer pitch the sale to himself.

It sounds easy because it is that easy.

When I first started this build a year ago (yep, it took me a year), I never thought to ask myself why.
By that I don't mean ask myself why this kit? why this concept? why this color? why blahblahblah.

When I started this build, I should have asked myself: "Why am I doing this?"

Why am I devoting time and effort and resources into building this thing? Why go through all of this for nothing?

But I know most of you who love what we do (calling it a hobby seems like a disservice if you ask me) do it for one reason or another.

I had a few,

When I started this project I just wanted to build an awesome grunt unit. I initially did this in preparation and practice for doing my own rendition of the MG Z'gok. I played around with it, looked for spare parts, snapped things together, lalalalala and then here we are today, talking about it.

I wish it was that uneventful, I wish it were that easy. To my surprise though, this build, through its ups and downs, its roller coaster ride, gathered dust, plastic particles, and MEANING along the way.

Today when I look at this build I see a lot of things. I see the time when I was so stressed from work that I just zoned in on hacking the living shit out of this plastic robo-zombie. When I look at it now, I remember the day that I got horrible news from my doctor about the decline of my health (but I'm better now!). I look at this build and I see the friends I've made and lost along the way. It brings back memories of when everything just looked too damn forced and I couldn't even look at it. It's so funny how a crude arrangement of plastic, metal and paint could dig up so much emotion and meaning.

I'm happy with what I did. I'm happy that I got a chance to do my art and show it to the world. I'm overwhelmed with the well wishes and virtual pats on the back for the upcoming GBWC where I'll be entering this build. I hope it delivers, but trophy or not, this "thing" or this "entry" or this "ung pula na malaki na may seam lines tas madungis" is PRECIOUS to me; it MEANS SOMETHING to me, and for that alone I'd display it in my home proudly, beside my other expensive (but not so valuable..mind the difference) robots.

and that my friends is the undefinable WHY. I guess I don't really have any exact reason for my art work, or for doing what I do, but I can tell you this for certain though, SOME THINGS JUST HAVE TO BE DONE.

It may not be without reason or thought, but if along the way, you find MEANING in what you do, I assure you, you will find it rewarding...prize or no prize. :)

WISH ME LUCK! and See you at GBWC 2014!



"HEY!" to my BROTHERS in the hobby!
Mokel Crisostomo (Pax Eternae), the Gboyss : Chops-Volt-Jobeth-Mike-Bryan-Christian Hilario etcetcetc

HUGE THANKS to
Atan Abenir (Singlemedia), Kalel Antazo (sidorb), Don Suratos (DC23), Kenny Lim (Toymaker), David Ceremonia (VerCerc)

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Blessing in disguise...

Last Sunday, I had a spare to do some grocery after going to church. Whenever I go to the supermarket, I usually end up having six to eight bags of grocery items. But this time it was unusual, no more signs of grocery bags in the supermarket, all I can see are either brown bags for dry goods, then some eco bags for wet goods. It seemed like, the city had an ordinance regarding on banning the use of plastics in the supermarket. And if you are having a large number grocery bags, you will end up putting them all in a carton box. I had a total of three carton boxes; after I finished placing all the goods, I flattened them all and decided to tie them up.

But something in my told me that it seems like I can use these boxes. So I immediately untied them all and I handpicked one of the boxes. So here it is

As you can see, there are tiny holes between it and I think that I can use them… Here’s the picture.

I can use this for painting purposes, and I believe that this is more durable than the styrofoam that we usually use. I never thought that I can use these carton boxes that were given to me as a substitute for the plastic bags, hihi. At first, I thought of them as big trashes, since I do not prefer using carton boxes for storage. At least from now on, I can use it for my hobby. And this will be what I’m gonna use for meantime instead of the usual Styrofoam.

I still need to cut the other boxes in order to fill in the inner part of my BASE box so that I can put more sticks from time to time... Till my next post!

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Testing oh testing :D

        I present to all of you my recently finished kit. Which is the Freedom Gundam in the MG1/100 scale. I wanted to try something different for my kit. so I test myself how to paint in metallic finish so I ordered paints online, and tried out Gaia notes for the first time so yeah. it was a bit hard to mix since I have no experience with lacquer paints, and the smell was really awful  x.x

Well anyway without further ado here it is :) from W.I.P to completion

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Amir's Sinanju Stein WIP I

Hello Folks! It's been a long time since my last post here at Mecha Crazy, really sorry bout that but I got slapped in the face and now I'm writing this blog post hehe :)

Anyway here's my current WIP, a Sinanju Stein with my custom Inner Frame which gives better proportion and a slight boost in articulation. I've been at this project since I got my MG sinanju stein back in early 2013 and so far this is where it stands. Let's start with an OOTB (for those of you who don't know OOTB is Out Of The Box) picture of the Stein from Dalong.net (which EVERY and I mean EVERY Gunpla modeller should know).

My Opinion on the Stein? It's very plain - which to some modellers, is an advantage.

A few months working on and off, trying different things, and this is how it looks at the moment. As I said earlier I'm using my custom Sinanju Inner frame thus the very unique/different torso design. To cope with the huge torso I've had to extend the upper arm and the ankles and right now for me the proportions couldn't get any better

Now let's do this from top to bottom.

Close up on Torso - I also chose to use the Original Sinanju's Fin.

Shoulders - Nothing Special I just added panel lines here and there to break the monotonous look of the armor. For now I also use the shoulder pads from the original Sinanju. It's been having some conflicts when the shield is attached so I may revert back to the Stein's shoulder pads but I'm keeping these for now.

Arms - One of my favorite parts of my build. I've added so many parts to give it an armored gauntlet feel. To make it look like it can block a blow from another sword using only the arm guards. I also chose to keep the Nu ver. ka style hands. Later on it got tricky for me since I had to add a connection for the Armed armor DE. Luckily was able to find a very ingenious way of making that attachment :) No panel lines yet as I haven't finalized a pattern.

Rear view 

Front View

Front Skirt - Added a random part to bulk up the "crotch", did some armor separation on the front skirt and topped it off with a few more panel lines. I have an idea at the back of my head to change the side skirt but it is still on the drawing board. Soon as I see it is feasible and when I gather all the parts (requires 3 shoulder armors for one side, total of 6) I should try and post an update.

Back Skirt - I was looking for parts from my scrap to kit bash onto the back skirt of the stein and stumbled upon the MG Unicorn's backskirt. Upon test fit I notice how similar both back skirts are and decided this looks good for my theme. Finally add a dash of panel lining to the side of the back skirt and the opening flap on the Unicorn's back skirt. May return to this later for more panel lines.

Legs - Well the Legs, I think bandai makes it a point that the legs are one of the best features of all their designs. After all this is where the "shifting armor" started. This is actually the part I've spent most of my time working on. So again let's start with an OOTB picture (again from Dalong) of the stein's legs

Annnnnnnnnd here's mine....Following the theme of my kit (which for now is secret) I thought that "Evo-ing" the legs (or the whole kit) would be a nice move. So I made the gaps between the thigh armor bigger, Separated the side leg armor into three parts (compare from OOTB picture) (third part is not installed yet), replaced the back of the leg thruster with the Unicorn's and finally add a dash of panel line. Actually there's alot, but I used 0.15 to panel line so it's not that obvious on the picture. I will "widen" the panel lines later on. There's a panel line on the back leg thruster, (I used 0.4) on that one so it's visible on cam.

Oh and I also use the sinanju's toes instead of the Stein's. 

Backpack - Last but definitely not the least. Well for now It may look simple, but I've got big plans for the wings I'm gonna attach to the backpack. Again it's still on the drawing board so I haven't finalize any. Thanks to my friend and co-author here at MechaCrazy Gian Siopao who was willing to trade some parts with me, and was able to get another Stein Backpack. What you see below is two Stein Backpack joined together by the same attachment the MG Unicorn has for it's backpack (Sinanju ver.ka, Unicorn MG, and S. Stein have the same connection points). Simple? Well for now. Once in painting stage I'm ditching the OOTB thrusters for Metal Parts *bling* *bling*

I also have a "spine" for this guy which I am still trying to improve. (You can notice it does not appear on the above photo). I'm trying to make the spine stand out when in "rear view", I really want the spine to be my "trade mark" modification. :P Once I've made further improvement will re-install to give my build some "Back Bone" (lame joke)

Weapons - Finally, this is the latest part of my WIP. I've just managed to complete my "Divine Rapier", I thought a BFS (Big F*cking Shield) would go great for this guy hence an Armed Armor DE from the Unicorn line. I'm still having second thoughts on the spear. I am having seriously hard time RESTRAINING myself from scribing panel lines on the Armed Armor DE, it so plain the possibilities/patterns are endless!!!

Note though for others who wish to purchase the BFS (Big F*cking Shield) aka Armed armor DE. IT IS EFFING HEAVY for your model kit. You will have MG Qan*T issues with it because the unit you put it on will tilt to one side.  It is so heavy I had to install this flexible tube from Hobby Base (think zaku cables that are very very stiff, they are the clear plastic that goes from one shoulder to the other) between the shoulders of my kit for support, amazed that it solved the problem. I hate weight issues.

So to wrap up my update - I leave you with this rather old picture (taken around march I think). A size comparison between an MG 1/100 Sinanju ver. ka, my Unit 01 Sinanju and my Unit 02 Stein. Note that the Sinanju Ver.Ka is one of the tallest MG's that we have.

Please stay tuned for the next updates as well post of our other authors! Thank you so very much for taking the time to read my uber long blog post I sincerely hope it didn't bore you.

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First Encounter

I’ve had this kit already for almost a year and a half. It was a present from my best friend last December 2011. Although I don’t have any plans to build it, since I only prefer to build Master Grade (MG) kits or any 1/100 kits. However, since the announcement of RX-78 MG 3.0, I got curious on people talking about that this will be the start of Real Grade kits in 1:100 scale. Sounds very interesting, preferred scale, preferred to build. Anyway, let’s try to build this kit.

No wonder that it was embodied with excitement. The articulation is the best and the color separation of parts is what I’ve really like so far. The ABS rubberish frame is unique as well. But I have a quick question that flicked into my mind. If this will be the trend of the upcoming MG kits or for newer version of the old produced kits, is there anything else that I can do with it or just paint it out of the box (OOTB).

Do not get me wrong with these guys. As a modeler, a scale modeler, or whatever you wanted to call it, my eye-opener on this hobby was when I saw a bad-ass MG Infinite Justice that was still in work-in-progress on the internet. In which at first, I never thought that I can do it as well. But I guess learning is an everyday routine in our lives. To cut this short, maybe I can say that I prefer the old kits, wherein I can integrate my own concept, modification and detail add-ons to them.

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Deathschythe hell custom diorama

Hello guys!! This is another project from me...

This is one of my very first models I had,and I decided to make a diorama for this and redone the whole kit.paint job and led mods

Here is the youtube video:   

Here they are some photos from the led modifications to the beam scythe and deathschythe...

The LEDs I used are the 1206 smds and I hide all the resistors in the chest where the pilot is...

I also use LEDs for the lava...to make it glow to the place it supposed to be more hot...

Here I install the LEDs for the lava glow

After fill the space between LEDs,I add mixed sand with glue to make the lava flow

Here i did some highlight to the edges

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HG Shaldoll Echo WIP

At long last, I found the time to post pics of one of my latest projects, my HG Shaldoll Echo custom!

Fully primed and modded. The shield isn't done yet, though.

Please tell me what you think!

 Link to original post in my blog: http://meistersleek.blogspot.com/2013/04/hg-shaldoll-echo.html

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