First post of 2013! (well, the content is 2013) some new stuff, and some old stuff!

Well, I'm considering this my first post of 2013, because the last post was supposed to go up a few days before, but with my accident and all that, it obviously didn't happen. Anyway, on to some developments. I need to learn to format this blog better, I guess that includes making jumps, as well as using tags and getting everything more organized. I'm not sure which of these will be implimented when, but I plan on doing it all ASAP. Tags will begin immediately. not that my blog has a ton of posts right now anyway, so it's relatively easy to find most of my content with little to no trouble. But who's to say that won't become more complicated in the future. I think as far as actual maintenance is concerned, that's that.

on to my actual post...

I started my Zeta Gundam last week, hype as ever. when disaster struck...

now this is where I'm going to express my sadness and I guess disappointment for this kit. The legs were awesome, a really strong and fun build. lots of neat little moving parts.. but as you can see in some of the earlier images. The tops of the legs aren't pegs or ball joints, they're on that flat little piece, and most of the other joints are held on in similar manners. well, as i was putting decals on the back of the kit, i noticed one of the plates on the back wasn't sitting just right, and took it off to fix it, in the process of doing that, the part that held the torso to the hips came disassembled. so i fixed what i was trying to fix, and went to reassemble. and that's when disaster struck. i got a bit of resistance, and suddenly a snap. the whole 'spine' of the kit snaps in half, and now i'm sitting with two halves of a zeta.. in my frustration i drop the kit on my desk and take a deep breath trying to figure out what happened, and how i can fix it. but I think the only way is an extreme amount of patience with glue, or to just order the two pieces that snapped in half, and I really don't want to wait or spend any money on replacements.

so here's the current state of where things are. I've decided to scrap the project. I don't have any interest in completing it. I bought the kit on a whim, and rather than trashing the kit. I'm going to send it to a friend, and I'm sure he'll give it a good home. I just want to put a word of warning out there to anyone considering buying this kit. It looks like a great kit once it's done, but you have to be extremely careful when building it, because things like this can happen. but I blame bandai mostly on putting more focus on a no-swap transformation instead of worrying about having a stable kit that is a solid build. that's not me saying this kit is bad. this is just the impression it left on me.

SO THAT'S THE BAD NEWS.

On to some good stuff...

 My new current project, despite all of my setbacks lately is going to be my gift from the gunpla gift exchange. (THANK YOU AGAIN CHERRYCAT!) gonna be test-fitting the whole kit, looking for what needs to be modded and changed up, and airbrushing. I'm most excited to test out my new alclad II metallics on this bad boy for the frame. I'm going to do be doing the armor in a custom color as well, so stay tuned for that.

first up, the plates!
 (in order)

not the heftiest of kits. but that's because there's no inner frame for the arms, and I'm sure other liberties were taken. either way, I'm very excited to start throwing down on this. I've got tonight off, so I'm gonna try to finish the torso and arms at least. we'll see what my time allows. after i unboxed and photographed everything, I laid out the parts for the head and snapped that all together!

 
and that's all I've got for this blog post! Sorry about my projects jumping around so much. I'm going to sit down and try to focus on one kit at a time for a while, until i can get into a comfortable work routine. i'll see you guys next time! enjoy!

MG Shin Musha Complete! Photos and a 2012 wrap-up Video!

Well, this post was supposed to be made sometime last week, but man, I had a crazy week with christmas, and work, and I had an accident and wound up totaling my car. But I've finally gotten past that and I've managed to actually finish something I've been working on. I also shot (oddly enough the night of my accident) a 2012 wrap up video. so enough blabbering on here, if you want any of that you can just watch the video :P

You'll have to excuse my face! D:

aaaaand that's all i've got for the shin musha. I'm still fighting with the white paint so I can put the wing gundam under wraps, Dan gave me some great tips so I'm gonna try those out, and If that still doesn't work, I guess I'll just use my tamiya paints.

and here's the remnants of my car ;-;

anyway, for the most part 2012 was a strong year for me, I'm glad I have been able to get involved with the gunpla community, and meet all of you, and I'm really glad I can have a tangible hobby that I enjoy, and can share with others. I'm really excited to see what this new year brings, and I hope to see more posts from everyone else on /r/Gunpla, as well as some new faces. But that's all I've got this time. stay tuned for that wing gundam, I'm gonna try to knock it out this week if it kills me.

an update with some actual content!

Sorry my posts have been a little lacking lately. But I think the worst is over. Finally starting to get motivated again, and I'm finally starting to be a little happy for myself I think. SO this week has been crazy busy with work as usual, but as I just said, I have been pushing myself to get some work done. I've basically finished my guntank build (I still have one tread to put together, but that's kid stuff), I've primed and painted all the yellows to my Wing Gundam EW, and most of my SD RX-78-2 pieces have been primed (I just primed them with what was in the airbrush after I hit the yellows from the Wing Gundam and got pretty close to priming them all)

And with the guntank finished and everything else on sticks I've been left a little bored, so I started a new straight build (I really need to finish some of these kits before jumping into another, I'm gonna kill myself with all of this, haha) which you will see what it is in the following pictures! Another thing I did was put a little weathering on the Guntank, and by a little, I think I went overboard a little. but you live and learn. In retrospect, I think I should have maybe done a normal kit up with battle damage before moving on to something not so normal. But it's been a learning experience none-the-less. well I think that's enough words, now some pictures for you guys!

Oh! one more thing, I sent my Gunpla gift exchange package out the other day :) so I hope the reciever is satisfied with what I sent them!

weathering this guy was a lot of fun, and a pretty good stress reliever. still not sure how i'm going to paint the treads on it yet though. gonna be a challenge... ugh

snapped the torso together to see how it came out. I'm very pleased with my choice in colors. I hope the white comes out as well as the rest did, also painting silver under the chest jewel was the best idea I ever had.

another thing I did was order a bunch of metallic paint, I don't feel as though I can have enough...and I think it'll be invaluable for my guntank project, as well as my RX-79 [G], I'm pretty excited to test these bad boys out.

aaaaaaand my straight build (with some minor detail painting) is my Shin Musha with Display stand and weapons and chrome and all that jazz.

LOVE the colors on this kit, although, I wish they had used some undergates for the gold pieces to protect the chrome paint, because there are nub marks all over the place on some pieces. others hide them pretty well.

aaaand because I'm dumb, I forgot to take pictures of the completed arm and head, so You'll have to wait until my next blog post for those, or check out my Instagram (JustiniusBuilds)

anyway, that's all I've got for now. not going to start anymore kits until I finish what I've started. the Wing Gundam should hopefully be finished this week, but who knows with christmas coming up and all of that. but that's what I'm shooting for. and the Shin Musha wasn't as difficult as I was expecting, so I should be able to knock that out pretty quickly too. and I should be recieving my RG Zeta soon so.......

I hope you guys enjoyed! I'll see you guys next time!

(small) update on the wing gundam, mini-side project!

Alright, my job has kicked back in full force, for now at least, so I didn't have nearly as much time as I would have liked this past week to work on really anything, although I did get inspired enough to buy an SD kit (thanks to Wildo, check out his blog here! ) and kind of use that as a little quick build. since the entire kit came on 3 runners and a thing of poly caps, I snapped the kit together in like 5-10 minutes, then took everything apart and started to remove some seam lines (and wrecked another finger in the process of that, no funny beard fingers this time, sorry ;P)

anyway, back to the wing gundam. after all the paint on the greys dried, I started to assemble the pieces of the frame i could, that didn't need any colored pieces to fit together. I think for the first time since i've started painting I'm not going to detail the inner frame, as I really like the design of the suit, and have no plans removing the armor once it's on, despite the frame looking really good as well.

anyway pictures!

The frame has some beautiful leg sculpts, some of my favorites out of all my builds so far. and it stands on it's own with little trouble despite pegs being on the underside of the feet.

but once you put the shoes on, it stands a little better. there's going to be no shortage of posability here i'm sure. I'm still in love with the Plamo UK bright red. such a smooth and pretty red.

Same goes with the Azure blue. I almost went with the royal blue instead, but in the end, I'm glad I wound up going with this one.

and here's a youtube video for those who would rather hear me talk about this instead of reading blocks of text :P

of course, the standard gundam. 

not a lot in the ways of runners, and parts, but it is an SD kit. 

after test-fitting everything

another kit i got in the mail (it's a christmas present so i can't build it until then ;-;) but i cannot wait!

Well, that's all I've got for now. Hopefully I won't sleep through my days off and I'll be able to paint up the yellow pieces to my wing gundam, as well as at least prime the SD kit, still have a little work to do on the Guntank before the test fit is complete for that. but those are all underway :D

see you all next time!