The looooooooooooooooooooooong wait is over! it's time!

The looooooooooooooooooooooong wait is over! it's time!

Bandai Model Kit World Cup 2010 in the Philippines will be starting tomorrow! November 5 will be the first submission date of the event. I and most of our MAC forum members will be submitting our entries on November 6 ( Saturday ), thus I will be covering the event on the second submission date already. I think there is nothing much to see on the 1st day anyways. hihi

I have a lousy camera though, but I will try my best to take photos of the event come Saturday. I would just like to say Goodluck to all the MAC member participants in this event! The only Bandai - Bankee sponsored event in the country and simply the biggest Gunpla annual contest in the world.

Best of wishes to all our ZeroGunz Filipino members, GMAC members at Facebook and Pinoy Gundam members as well! See you in the event guys! :D

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MG Sazabi WIP summary

 As Matt Mrozek told me at FichtenFoo forums, I kinda had an iffy start with this build. All I know is that I wanted this to be the fattest kit that I could make out of a MG Sazabi. I also have Z Luca's masterpiece as inspiration, thus I came up with the boob part, the huge crotch, huge rear skirts, huge front skirts and the Quebley shoulders.

Now let us see some really old photos of the early stages of this build... I constructed the boob part using the backpack of a 1/100 Gunner Zaku ( Gundam Seed ). I then scratch built a crotch and a huge plain front skirt using 2mm and 1mm pla plates...

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The Sazabi backpack and diorama...

... and yet I still have updates... hihi... I just finished painting the base color of the backpack earlier today and I also finished painting 8 1/72 figures for the diorama. I have glued the figures permanently already and have also weathered the dio further.

The photo on top shows my vain attempt to follow Kriz / Rmahza's suggestions to put some oil spills and rust effects on the main hangar floor. The surrounding snow are also dirtied up as I think melted snow ( water ) around the edges of the piles of snow will mix with the rust and dirt of the floor. The hangar is still in gloss coat though, but I will be putting the final semi-gloss / semi- matte topcoat once the Sazabi is in place.

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MSN-04 Sazabi ver DC23

I have been working with this kit since around June but I only worked on it for roughly 3 months since then. Too much distractions since July thus I was only able to focused on working on this build for the last couple of months ( September & October ).

I have two inspirations for this build... the first one is Schnabelgun III by Zluca which has outstanding out of this world weathering. I am not capable of such topnotch weathering though, but I hope to reach that level one of these years.

My second inspiration is my own AC White Glint which was my first international ( client from the US ) commission work. I was really surprised to have pulled that build off coz it was my first time to do a good job on weathering a white mech.

As I've said before, the AC White Glint is the most impressive looking kit out of the box that I have built. The overall look of the mech with the Vanguard Overed Boost was outstanding. Thus, my MG Sazabi is simply a vain attempt to replicate the look of the White Glint.

This is going to be my entry in the up and coming Bandai World Cup 2010 for the Expert category. Although it will have a backpack and a diorama during the event. I obviously do not want the main kit to be revealed in not so good coverage photos come Saturday. Unless you have a really nice SLR, lighting in the event is just too lousy for the usual point and shoot camera ( like mine ). So, I present to you my standalone MG Sazabi ver DC23 ahead of time...

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my MG Sazabi is done!!! THANK YOU! :D

I have finished putting decals and weathering of my MG Sazabi today! save some soot effects in a few areas the kit itself is done and ready for November 6! Unfortunately it rained a bit today, thus I was not able to paint the backpack. I will paint both backpack and 1/72 figures tomorrow definitely and try to finish a few days before the event.

Sorry though coz I won't be posting any more photos of my MG Sazabi. Hopefully even though I shared so much in the WIP of this build, There will still be an element of surprise once you guys have seen the whole mech. I will present my " the Gilgamesh project " very soon! thank you as always for the support!

On a side note, my deepest thanks to the 3 ( so far 2 are posted ) young modelers who joined our first SD competition. I will have to feature these guys within the week and decide after Bandai World Cup the ultimate winner who has the funniest and best SD kit. Goodluck guys!

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1 week to go!

Exactly 1 week to go before Bandai World Cup! As I've said to Kriz / Rmahza... I have yet to paint the backpack of my MG Sazabi, add details to the diorama, paint ten 1/72 figures, and weather the whole kit. And I have to cram all those work in 1 week.

I started this project around June, but eventually ended up cramming ( not rushing ) to make it to Bandai World Cup, oh well... I have to take a break from blogging at home starting today, though I could still blog in the office until submission date ( November 6 ).

Goodluck to all the participants, I am pretty much sure a huge percentage of you guys are also cramming to make it to the deadline. hihi... So, until November 6 this blog is in semi stealth mode. Til' next post guys! :)

On a side note: Our first ever MAC SD competition will end tomorrow... so I hope at least 3 people joined and will post their work in the forums. If you are one of those 3, please post photos of your funny SD in here - 1st MAC SD contest entries

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A glimpse of my MG Sazabi before weathering...

This post shows some of the parts assembled together and is ready for detail painting and weathering. Yes, I will do the decal work last, after the detail painting and weathering I will seal this with a nice gloss coat of future and then decal it.

I won't detail paint this kit much though, just a few hints of red and some koto parts painting. I do not want it to look like a huge white Christmas tree with small glittery detail painting of greens, blues and reds. I mean, too much detail painting with so much colors is not my type.

Lastly, I just want to keep a few archive photos of this build before weathering... because after weathering this kit might look worse and not as good as how it looks right now. Actually, I could always  just add decals and photoshop the photos and deemed it as finished, but I really want this one weathered.

I also decided against the camo pattern thingee, as I really like how my subtle shading turned out. I am afraid I do not have enough skills to add shading on the camo pattern and it might just ruin the shading of the white areas. Anyways here are a few photos of the build before weathering...

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Snow Hangar diorama WIP summary

This hangar diorama has so much multiple posts scattered in this blog, I decided to put up a simple summarized version of the build. The build looks simpler and easier in this post and it is a lot more fun to see the progress in a single entry.

Now lets get through the build swifly with some old photos and descriptions of the build...

First, I constructed a hill with some styropor glued together, got a yellow plastic crate as the base, used some pla plates for the walls and floor and used some extra plastic materials like balloon sticks, M&M canisters and some pvc pipes.

My kids helped me apply some paper mache over the styropor hill... 

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BANDAI Model Kit World Cup 2010 - Philippine Finals

edit: This is a re-post and this post was originally posted last September 9, 2010

Alas!!! The official news form Bankee ( Official Bandai distributor in the Philippines ) has released the flyers and rules for the BANDAI Model Kit World Cup ( BAKWC ) 2010 here in the Philippines. Practically the rules are the same with the previous BAKUCs but with minor alterations here and there.

Unfortunately I have neglected Gunpla for weeks now and I have been into Facebook games as of late. hehe... I would not be surprise if I won't make it this year. I do hope I get my Gunpla mojo back in time for this annual big stage competition.

I will be joining the Expert category for the first time this year, thus I am not that enthused at all at joining. I do wish that our Filipino modelers that are eligible to join the Junior and Open Category do well in the competition and I sincerely hope that the Philippines will again be represented well at Hong Kong Finals this year.

Afterall, our Junior category representative Eduardo Quirong is last year's BAKUC finals World Champion 2009!

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MG Sazabi WIP - airbrushed!

I primed the parts yesterday with Bosny grey primer as usual and let it cure overnight. I immediately painted the exo and vernier parts after waking up early today. I was also able to do dome post shading on the armor parts. However, I ran out of White paint!

I always hate it whenever I ran out of supplies in the middle of work... I painted the white parts with tan, then post shade with black, then I mist coat with flat white. The parts looks a bit grayish still, but I will get paints today and give this a lighter gray coat soon.

I also have to get a secondary color for the camo pattern. I think I will be done painting this by this week and I will be weathering this and putting decals by weekend. One more weekend before Bandai World Cup and I think I will finish on time. Anyways, here are a few photos of the white armor parts with subtle post shading...

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MG Sazabi almost ready for priming!

Decided to post a few photos of my MG Sazabi build today, I will add small pla plating strips and a few more details and this will definitely be good for priming by tomorrow. One more weekend to go before Bandai World Cup here in the Philippines and this is the first time during this build that I think I could make it to the deadline.

I want this weathered heavily as I've said before, even though I think judges like clean builds a little more ( personal opinion ). But I just want to please my self this time and not the judges... so if time permits, I will weather this mech much like my AC White Glint.

I also decided against painting this kit totally white because my diorama is soooo white already, so I bought a few jars of Tamiya paints yesterday. The color scheme will be a surprise until Bandai World Cup in the Philippines ( November 5 ).

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Snow Hangar diorama painted - almost done!

 I managed to paint the diorama with spray cans yesterday. The only boo boo is that the base ( yellow plastic ) cannot be painted. I mean the paint won't adhere ( even the primer ) to the very glossy surface of the plastic. I will rough sand it soon and try to paint it flat black again.

After masking the trees and the snowy cliff, I sprayed the rest of the dio Bosny dark grey and the back of the mountain in flat black. I then applied more snow ( Talcum + future ) around some areas of the dio to blend it with the mountain.

Notice that most of the snow on the dio fell from the cliff and a tractor is kinda cleaning it up. I also applied some white panel lines and white dry brushing all over the place to give the whole hangar a more snowy look to it.

The rest of the photos was taken indoors in my work bench thus there is too much contrast. I will take better photos soon once I have added some posters, warning signs and maybe some hangar markings. Anyways, here are some photos of the almost complete snow hangar diorama...

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Snow Hangar diorama primed

I just got home from the mall and got myself some paints and other supplies for this project. As you can see I ran out of grey primer earlier today when I was priming the dio ( I hate it whenever that happens ). Anyways, this is pretty much how the dio looks like minus 1 crane that I have yet to permanently glue and prime.

Next update is how the MG Sazabi looks like before priming. Anyways,  here are some photos of the snow hangar diorama in various angles...

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MG Sazabi a$$/ rear skirt update

Just a quick post before I go to work today. I have managed to worked on the rear skirt of my MG Saz for a couple of days now. I think I need to do more sanding and clean up before I could continue to detail this part further with MSG parts and pla plates.

However I am pretty happy with the results so far, considering I am not comfortable in scratch building. Adding the Quebley parts was a last minute decision and I thought of it coz my MG Quebley is obviously good for my stash without it's shoulders. Plus I really needed to give the scratch built rear skirt some round curves to match the front skirts and the Quebley shoulders.

I have here old photos of the scratch built rear skirt and some new progress pics of how it looks so far. I will add more details after cleaning up the edges of this part.

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BANDAI Model Kit World Cup 2010 - 3 weekends away!

3 weekends away and I think I am only 65% done. I feel the pressure now coz after checking my email I realized that Bankee ( official sponsor in the Philippines ) emailed me the rules and mechanics on joining the contest a couple of weeks ago.

I still have not registered though, will do some time this week. I also have to confirm with them if I am no longer eligible to join the Open category and should settle for joining the Expert cat starting this year. Anyways, the rules and mechanics of joining this annual biggie competition is on my sidebar in case you want  a quick review.

Goodluck to our MAC & GMAC members and just enjoy the hobby guys! wink wink! :D

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MG Sazabi VOB - wanabee backpack primed

Just sharing photos of my Sazabi VOB - wanabee backpack. I just primed it basically to check for errors and to see how it looks like so far. As expected, I was not able to remove the seam lines on the Zeta properly and there are a few glue marks to sand off as well.

However, I really like how it looks like right now, It looks a ton better primed than looking at it with all those assorted colors glued together. It looks more serious and looks a ton less funny and scrappy than when it was unprimed. Anyways, here are a few pics of the VOB - wanabee backpack...

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MG Sazabi WIP update 100410 - backpack and some detailing

Good morning guys, we are off to my daughter's awarding ceremony at her school so I am blogging early today. As I've said in my previous post, here is a couple of days work done on the MG Sazabi ( while watching Glee ). hihi

I have made a simple attachment for the backpack, basically gluing it to the inverted original MG Sazabi backpack. I also managed to detail the Quebley binders ( highly inspired by Toymaker's Quebley ) and some simple mods on the torso and head parts. 

I will have to work and add a bit more to the torso area before moving on the the arms, legs, foot and the rear skirt. Anyways, here are some quick snapshots of my progress so far...

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Snow hangar diorama - 90 % complete!

Ello guys! just taking a break and updating you with my Bandai World Cup entry. My back is aching a bit, my eyes twitching and my hands a bit sore but I am pretty happy with my progress so far. I also do not visit Facebook and play with the games as much and I think I have the momentum to finish this dio today.

However, I will work with the MG Sazabi now and might revisit this diorama around 3rd week of October to see what improvements I could add to it. I ran out of 1mm square and round pla rods so I cut some strips from 3mm pla plates to finish the beams underneath the cat walks.

I will have to buy some supplies soon but for the mean time I think my diorama is 80% to 90 % done. Here are some pics...

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snow hangar diorama - small update

I have here a few lousy snapshots of my snow hangar dio. Basically I added more railings and vertical beam supports to the cat walks and ( as Rmahza / Kriz ) suggested some more support on the carved out hillside to make it look more structurally possible in real life.

I still have to add a few more railings and beams in some areas to make it look busier and more convincing. I hope to paint this by weekend or at least move on to work with the MG Sazabi again by then. I think I will make it to the deadline, though I really need to cut my Facebook visits this October. Anyways, here are some pics...

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Detailing the Snow hangar dio...

I have been detailing and working with my MG Sazabi diorama since yesterday and I added cat walks as well which was not primarily in the plan. I realized due to long weeks without doing much Gunpla that I have slowed down considerably, and add the fact that I keep on taking breaks to play with dang Facebook games.

I managed a considerable amount of work on this dio yesterday and earlier today though. The cat walks in particular is a vain attempt to balance out the composition coz the hill with pine trees looks too heavy. Their is still a lot of amount of work to finish this as it is half the size of my last year's entry but I do not want it to have half the details. Anyways,  here are more photos of the progress so far...

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