I have finally managed to get all three pieces built, sanded up to 800 grit, and now it has one coat of clear coat on it that has been buffed to a higher than usual (for me) sheen. I have it drying in the garage, where it can spend the next 36 hours off gassing before I hand it off. All that is left to add are the tiny rubber feet for the bottom, so as not to scuff the surface where it will reside.
I added one tiny step, by using a blow torch to add some colour, and visual texture to the central column. I am glad I did a test burn on some scrap red Oak, so that I could change my plan up a bit mid stream to work on the central column and not the cap/case topper. A darker base makes it feel more grounded, and less visually monotone. The grain pops with the Osmo finish I used, so it looks pretty sharp. I do like how the blue felt looks against the red/tan tones of the red oak. I could have gone a bit more fancy, by using dove tails or a box joint for the central column, but the butt joints are sturdy. So C’est la vie.
I will need to blow off the felt with my compressor to get rid of the dust, and add four feet, then it’s off to the future resident. Tick that one off the to-do list!
No finish, but assembled.Lid off central column with tray still inside.Lid, central column and removable tray.All three pieces with clear coat finish applied.
Needs a touch more clean up, and out the door it goes! Happy Easter weekend everybody!
Something to keep in mind when you choose to work with resin, and resin based kits. The material is brittle, doesn’t handle torque particularly well, and warps like a mother fucker. Nothing a bit of hot water, clamps and a flat surface can’t handle, but expect delays, and lots, and lots of additional work that you wouldn’t find with a Bandai quality plastic snap fit model.
Also, rule #2, for anybody keeping track, casting quality. Pay the premium for high quality casts from the original developer, don’t chince out and buy a recasting, as the quality will suffer, and add considerable time to your build. That’s IF you can over come the casting deficiencies you encounter. I can sculpt, but I don’t do hard edged mechanical stuff, so my best hope is that the outer armor has better casting quality that will hide much of the misshapen, or poorly defined details of the internal structure. Round holes are oblong, octagonal holes for nuts, are off centre and warped, details are lumpy masses, so… yeah. Don’t get suckered into buying the 1/3 priced stuff, as it’s going to cost you in the end anyway.
But, having said that I have managed, over the last five or six days, to build up roughly 80% of the internal structure for this massive (comparatively) model kit. I have the feet, legs, waist, lower torso, arms & shoulders built. I just need to figure out the upper torso and electronic wiring harness portion, and then I can wash (again – to remove all of the mould release agent) and begin to prime the internal bits. I’m ok if test fitting armor panels rubs off the primer, it will help me achieve a better fit. Plus painting won’t start for a while, beyond the priming stage. I may get this to a point where I can leave it for a good stretch, for a rainy day, or the cold weather again.
I started late because I was intimidated by all the resin (And Covid), and just how much fixing, and rejiggering I knew I was going to need to do. But now that I’m in it, and not in a rush, I am not too overwhelmed by it anymore. Funny how that works. Also for one thing the pour spouts on every single piece of armor need to be cut off, and sanded, which is several weeks worth of work. I can do that when I stop going outdoors due to the cold. I now, as the temperatures rise, want to work outside, or in my garage shop. I’ve made considerable headway on my Urn build, and I need to sand, test fit, pilot hole drill, and paint the Moose fence topper for my parents. Then figure out shipping across Canada to Campbell River BC.
So I promised some pictures, here they are in no particular order.
The feet, legs, groin, waist portion loosely assembled as a cohesive unit. With the arms and shoulders set on the table, elbows facing up.A closer look at the messy details of the resin castings on the internal frame. Yikes!A size comparison of the legs & waist to a finished MG Gundam ZZ. This thing should be between 16-18 inches tall when all is said and done. A real chonker.
I spent some time on Saturday while it was warm working through the Urn build. I used wood filler to plug the pin head nail holes. I also touched up one mitered corner on the tray, and assembled the cover that goes over the main chamber & nesting tray. I have an obscene amount of sanding to do, and then a wipe on, polish off wax finish that I hope makes it all look cohesive, and wonderful. No stain for this one, just clear coat. I am toying with the idea of using a bit of trim around the base, but we’ll see how it all turns out after sanding, and rounding over some edges with a router. Easter weekend quickly approaches. I wanted to hand it off then. So I best get cracking! Ciao Bella!
Nobody likes to chase money, when I decided to go full time (or close enough to) as a freelancer the last thing on my mind was how much time I’d wind up spending thinking about, worrying about, dreaming about; money. I far prefer to do the design & production work, than to do my books. I am very fortunate in that my clientele pay me on a reasonable basis, for which I am deeply grateful. It wasn’t always this way. Back in the early days when I made $7,000-$10,000 in a year if I had a client fail when they still owed me over a thousand bucks, that was a hard blow to take. I never did see that money. I threatened to go to collections, but the company dissolved once the property they operated out of sold, and the equipment was auctioned off for parts. It still hurt me deeply. So now I will send an invoice monthly, rather than wait for a potentially months long series of projects to come to a close. You may not see every penny, but remaining afloat will relieve a bunch of stress, and leave more brain power to focus on the quality of your work, and not developing grey hairs from stress.
Do with that information what you will. If you wait too patiently to submit an invoice the AP folks may not honour it as it’s too far out of date. You really need to know a clients payment habits, and SOP when it comes to submitting an invoice. That kind of mistreatment should sour a relationship immediately. Rush to supply them artwork, but wait 90 to 120 days for a partial payment. These types of groups should be avoided. Pure aggravation. Do not reccomend.
My personal goal is to get popular enough that I can work forty hours a week, have five weeks of vacation time to be with my kids, and make enough to save for family trips, entertainment, and to cover off various peripheral living expenses with the household. I don’t think I’d ever want to get big enough to have to take on staff, and rent premises to operate out of. That’s too much stress and worry, and requires an awful lot of capital up front. Yikes. Then I’d need HR policies, training guidelines, be looking after hiring & firing. All the management style stuff I detest. I just like the work. I like designing and solving art based problems. I’m done with people and office politics, and all that additional stress. Yuck! How are you supposed to sleep at night when you now know you are responsible for the gainful employment of others. Argh! No. No thanks. Making payroll while waiting on clients to pay! I guess at that point you’d have to institute a retainer system, and then charge over top so that you always had some funds available from every client on hand to pay for fixed costs (think rent, insurance, subscriptions, payroll, heat & hydro), and then top that up, make your profit from the big ticket invoices once those actually get paid. I can only imagine how much time and energy an agency is required to put into client retention, and growth for finding more paid work, or partnerships for tasks you’d like to outsource. Boggles the mind how intricate this sort of thing can get.
Anyway. It is early Saturday morning, and my oldest is out doing Ringette lessons, coupled with power skating. Had to have new skates and a brand new helmet in order to participate. It was offered to the youngest too, but she turned her nose up. I think she regrets that choice now, after the new helmet & skates turned up for the older one. Wait listed now, so no chance she gets in to the program now. Stouffville is big on skating, and ice pad related activities.
I took my second tentative stab at working 9n my resin project yesterday. I’m not sure how much I should count the first attempt from several years ago. I guess since I started to clip off the resin pour gates it should count for something, I suppose. Yesterday I put some time & effort into sanding, gluing, and assembly of the inner structure. After the few hours I put in to the feet, calves, and shin portions, I think this is going to take me several weeks to complete. And that may not even include priming, painting, and the final metal detail bits, nor the massive water slide decal sheets. But, I have started and made considerable progress! Yahoo!
The other thing I have come to realize is I must have bought a recasting, mainly because the box doesn’t have the hologram stickers on it, and the multi colour cast resin, is not the appropriate red, yellow, grey, and white as mentioned in the instructions, but 90% beige, and 10% grey. Plus the castings aren’t very crisp, and lots of the holes are plugged and need to be drilled out. But! He says, but… I’m only working through the internal structure right now, and I don’t intend to make the armor removable, so I think, with a high chance of certainty, that much of the blemishes and such will be covered up by the big chunky armor plates. Now if those suffer from the same quality issues, I might have a problem. But battle damage, and weathering could potentially cover that up if need be. I probably shouldn’t have been so worried about building it, as it has some quality issues that I can’t do much about, besides work around it all. Although truth be told, I am glad I did those two Macross Valkyrie VF-1’s recently, that has given me more confidence to tackle what looks to be a 16 inch tall model, possibly taller with antennas, and metal spiky bits. I’d love to use my USAF colour scheme on this item too. I really like the cool blue greys I used on my latest Macross Gerwalk model. I will need to source a high quality yellow paint, as the yellow ink doesn’t cut it. To Amazon then! Or I’ll find a very light brown that I can tint with the yellow ink. We’ll see what the budget is like after tax time.
It all started with the hips. Then putting the gigantic feet together.The calves enter the conversation.Parts break down for removal of gates, pour spouts, and some rough sanding.Dry fit parts for subsections of the build. Shoulders, forearms, elbow joints, chest, waist etc etc…The chest in its chunky glory.Upper thighs and groin (which has a tonne of flashing, and miss moulded parts).The box with all the other parts still bagged up waiting for my attention. Hours, days, weeks worth of work without any painting included.
So that’s where I am right now. I will soon get the second leg as far along as the first one, then I’ll tackle the arms and torso. Wish me luck!
It took a while to find the part I needed but I did manage to change a brake light bulb that had burned out on my wife’s car. Took all of four minutes once I had the correct bulb in hand. I spent more time looking for a part number than I did doing much of anything else, other than driving to & from Canadian Tire. For less than $8.00 I made it street legal once more. All I needed were two different types of screw driver, and about four minutes time. Glad we can avoid any sort of traffic ticket regarding the tail lights. Go team!
I always wanted to learn more about cars, but those would be the types of vehicles from the 90’s, you know the pre-computer regulates everything, type of cars & trucks. When you had more mechanical solenoids to regulate operations in your car, and not lines of code. It’s a shame you can’t just bust out a bridgeport mill & welder to fix parts any more. Not that I can do much with either at the moment, but I can learn! Now it’s all cameras and touch screens and plastic, or polycarbonate this, that, and the other. Planned obsolescence and all that greedy bullshit. Bah! Beside changing my tires, light bulbs, and adding fluids, or an oil change there isn’t much i can do to fix any of our vehicles. Wouldn’t mind learning how to do brakes, and rotors, but if you fuck that up you crash and potentially kill people.
Oh, since the weather has managed to climb just over 0° C recently I have once again been able to pick up the Urn build for brief stints. It is going to require a fair amount of TLC, for the cold weather glue ups that left residue behind. Glad I’m just clear coating and not staining this, as it would wind up being streaky AF. I have the top tray built, glued & assembled. I went with a Royal blue felt liner. Looks tasteful. I felt the green might be too “Machinists Tool Box”, so blue it is! I have to shave down the tops a bit for a suitable flush final fit. Then I need to plug pin nail head holes, add any final trim, and build the cap/lid/cover. Then sand until I’m sick to death of doing so. Then add the high polished clear coat finish.
More glue ups with clamps.Pieces of the top tray portion.Tray fits, not too snug. Needs to be planed flush.
I also have the fence topping moose for my folks to complete. It needs a good sanding, test fit with pre-drilled holes, priming, and then painting, then a clear coat. Get disassembled and flat packed to be shipped across the country to my folks in Campbell River BC. That should be done by end of April if the weather gets nicer.
Rough cut moose fence topper.
Wednesday – Hump Day – Middle of the Week Day! It’s here and cold, with lots of wind on the way. I will be glad that I cleared all of the brush yesterday morning, because more will fall out of the old trees today, believe you-me. I will end up needing to sharpen my hedge trimmer, Swede saw, secateurs and long handled loppers. Going to be a busy spring with lots of damaged limbs to prune back nicely, in an attempt to not let my trees, shrubs, and bushes become diseased or die. The ice, and wet heavy snow did a real number on all of our old growth Lilacs. I have an old Maple on the front lawn that’s been dropping branches and bark for a while now. It’ll have to come down within the next 3-5 years. Possibly sooner if the stripped bark causes additional issues. I’d love to have the main lower trunk cut into slabs for furniture builds for the house. Tables, chairs, and desks for both kids. I have plans for all that wood!!!
What’cha gonna do when they come for you… there, have that ear worm rattling around your brain for a bit now. Misery loves company, and my parents taught me how to share. My gift to you. You’re welcome.
Saturday we are in you! Suns up, snow has settled, wind has died down, and the kids are up & fighting. Hard to believe that March Break is here already. Still feels like we should be closing out January, and not be nearing the middle of the month of March. Time is moving along at a great clip. Too fast some days for my liking. But that may just be because I have been busier than usual since January.
Yesterday I broke out my airbrush to prime & get some gradient paint layers on some board game minis I have. It’s the Nemesis expansion pack with Voidseeders. They were primed black. Base coated purple and then over sprayed with magenta. I dry brushed the bases with gun metal, and that’s as far as I got before I had any work related emails to content with. I want to do some edge highlighting around their squid like faces, and then pack them back up into their box. Prior to Christmas I painted the original Alien figures a pale blue grey, with blood splatter accents. It was fairly bare bones. I just wanted some colour, and not a *box art* look. I don’t believe i could achieve that anyway, given how sloppy of a painter i am. My bust sculpts prove that point. My latest Macross build will second that sentiment.
Voidseeders prior to highlighting and dry brushing, and washes.Macross builds.Macross VF-1 S Valkyrie. Ogre Rogue painted by me. Skin tones gone awry.Ogre Royal Guard. A pretty pink/purple gradient for skin tones.Warrior bust. Elf Rogue hybrid.Stroke victim Hellboy.
I like to paint, I’m just not that good at it, as of yet. I certainly improved over the course of my two Macross build ups. So that is good to see. My masking was a bit better with the thinner low tack tape. Though, I will say this, it still pulled some paint off ruining hours of layered painting. Which I was not happy about. But I got it all sorted out. More of a time suck, than a project ruiner. Glad I wasn’t doing gradients, as that would require an entire repaint of the whole part. I have fun painting, namely because it isn’t my job, and I don’t really need to stress about it. I try to do a good job, but it’s not a big deal – to anyone else – if I cock it up. That’s on me. I have a box of more than 100+ minis coming my way in the next year or so, that I ordered off of Kickstarter. So I’m trying to figure out an easy way to achieve decent results without having to devote an hour or more to each individual figure. Base coat black primer, and zenithal grey highlight, with a white dry brush does much of the heavy lifting for me at this point. So that might be as good as it gets for a while. I don’t see myself dropping other hobbies just to be painting miniatures as well as their box art. I like to see others doing so. But not for me, thanks. Good on the table from 2 or 3ft away is my objective.
My oldest would like to start painting minis with me some time soonish. So I’ll need to figure out a good way to show her the process I follow to prepare each item for the real paint job. I’m not sure if she will want to be a part of the priming, zenithal high lighting, and white dry brushing process. Or if she wants to slap colours on, and do edge high lights and detail work. Maybe I’ll wind up doing the prep and she will excel at the colour/detail portion. Tag team duo! Tackling monsters, space aliens and soldiers alike! Deftly and with aplomb. A dad can dream. Ciao Bella!
Well now, that’s a deeply circumstantial – and awfully personal question. And the answer is, it depends. Am I home, away, early in the am, very late at night, inebriated, hung over, under gastrointestinal distress? Everything factors in to the answer. No way would I let fabric touch a public men’s room floor. Nu-uh! No way. Never. But if fighting for my life on the seat, may strip down entirely (when at home). Who needs clothes on when it feels as though your entire life is draining into the porcelain. Unwanted firehose spray back is a powerful deterrent. Like I said, that is deeply personal, and I thank you for respecting my privacy at this time.
Tuesday – forgot it was recycling day today. Saw the neighbours gear out front and twigged to it, luckily before the green trucks came through. I didn’t even register it was going to be Tuesday while prepping for gymnastics last night. Usually I pull the bins out of the guard box on Sunday or Monday to load them up, and be ready to spring into action anytime after 7:00am should I hear the grumble of the green trucks on our street. But I completely blanked on it. How odd. I have been fairly busy straight through since January 2nd this year, which is – really, really rare for me. No major breaks as of yet. Oh I know they’re coming. Highly unlikely I’ll be this busy all year long.
I had to put the Urn build on hold due to the cold, and volume of work I had on tap. Glue doesn’t set properly in deeply cold weather. And as mentioned before, no major heat source out there right now. I have it partially insulated, but I have a long way to go before the temperature would stabilize enough to work comfortably between December and Mid March. The base is done, the exterior chamber is done. I have the pieces for the interior cut and ready to glue in place. I have the top of the cover ready, and can build the tray and cover fairly quickly. Then it’ll just be a matter of scraping, sanding and then a highly polished finish to make it shine! I’m ok if they decide to not want it. I’ll put it in my office closet up out of the way, and can hold on to it for myself.
Started a Richard Morgan book I’ve had in my possession since 2007. I remember how much I loved the Altered Carbon book series. This is in that universe, but not directly related. I have a fantasy novel he wrote from 2008 in my to read pile too. I usually tend to buy more books than I can read in a year, so I’m happy to oblige historical me, by actually getting around to reading books that have sat on a shelf for ten-fifteen years or so. I know I have a Mo Hayder book I haven’t read yet too. I’m usually not into horror / murder books, but she writes great, creepy, gripping stuff. The current Richard Morgan book I’m reading is “Black Man”. Longest book I’ve read in quite some years. Over sized paper back with tiny type. So I feel like it would be a much longer trade paperback than the page count it currently has. I’m two fifths of the way in. Lots of action, lots of science fictiony hand waving tech jabber, and lots of mystery/suspense. For some reason I thought I had read this when I kept seeing it on the shelf, but it’s not ringing any bells no matter how far I get into it. Which is great. I hate when I forget I’ve read something before. Invest all that time to read it, and then PING! oh! I know how this ends, oh I’ve read this before! Damn it! On to the next book.
I haven’t put any time into sculpting yet this year. I know I will at some point. Just not right this minute. I haven’t put much thought into finishing up the illustrations for my childrens book either, come to think of it. I really should get that stuff squared away. Not that my writing career will ever go much beyond this space, and self publishing. Sometimes I just gotta get a story out of my head. Doesn’t have to mean anything more than that. I share it, if anyone besides me reads it, or enjoys it, all the better. Hope I made you smile, or wince, or chuckle, or cringe. Better than straight up apathy. You know what I think? I think that many of you out there have a story you want to tell. I think you should put pen to paper and get it out. Just let it fall out of you. Don’t worry about style, voice, the hook, or any of that. That’s for the editing stage. Right now, go jot down some points, and just plop it out on the page. The good, the bad & and the ugly. You’ll feel better when you do. Way easier to tweak and refine what you have in your hands than wish you wrote the perfect thing in one go. But what do I know. I’m just some dude talking on the internet to the three folks that read me off and on. Hey guys! Hope you are well. Ciao Bella!
What on earth is going on with the writers of all these cartoons? Why is absurdist nonsense the soup of the day right now? Did they all grow up on Spongebob and think “Hold my acid tabs”? What a bunch of odd, weirdly all over the place, rapidly paced, fast cut, gibberish. One or two shows of this nature makes sense, you know, corner that market, but now it seems like everything is talking cupcakes, wishing upon farts, dopey unicorns, leprechauns, and manic squirrels, or inanimate objects come to life, like a stick with a leaf for a pal, and a talking strawberry. There’s far more weirdness out there than I could recount, but so much of it is “just” weirdness. Don’t get me wrong, I was a huge fan of Ren & Stimpy, and Spongebob too, but this just seems like excess. As though they put words into a salad bowl, pulled out several and then thought this is good enough.
Not a fan of the current animation style either. But that’s more of an aesthetic taste, than anything to do about quality. I’m sure they are all ridiculously time consuming to produce, and reuse portions to cut down on costs. Run cycles, and character transformation breaks (think Sailor Moon transformation sequence) draw it once and reuse it in every subsequent episode. Looks like a lot of the shows use a similar animation program from 2d drawings. They have a sameness to them, in line work, line weights, colour palettes, and fluidity of motion. I think the days of flipping through frames over a light board are long gone. Do they still do inbetweens and key frames with the current software? Or is it filled in by the software? No idea. I’ll have to ask the animators I know from Sheridan College. I’m sure they’ll love that line of questioning.
Not that any of this matters mind you, just an observation. Perhaps it all stems from the television channels that we frequently watch. If we were more adventurous maybe we’d find new, more linear shows with alternative animation styles. I think that because I grew up in the 80’s with G I Joe, He-Man, Transformers, Thundercats and then TMNT, and other classics along those lines, that that is the animation style that I respond positively to. Or, those early 2000’s CGI movies that went hard in the paint for texture and movement. Not that feature film animation bugs me, we’re talking some of the made for tv stuff. Then I think back to the 90’s with X-Men and get all nostalgic again. But that could be due to how they drew Rogue, and how often Jean Grey moaned on that show. Ha.
Funny how the posts that garner the most views and/or attention tend towards being combative, or having a harsher tone. Not sure what that says about myself, or casual readers. Not that my rant about being a better parent to our over zealous little ones deserves as much traffic as it got. Could have been the use of the term *shitty kids*, or perhaps my going on about being an active parent and dealing healthily with said children, by engaging with them, steering that energy into something fun elsewhere, or taking ownership of your kids habits and working within them with love and affection to create a pathway towards self regulation that doesn’t feel like a punishment. Not going to lie, I was angry. Not about the kids, they’re kids. I was mad at the parents whom abdicated their responsibility and just let whatever shit was happening go down unchecked. That is what set me off. Not really the child’s fault when they aren’t even five yet. If your folks check out, and you can run about freely, shouting and carrying on, that tells me, mum & dad just sat down, pulled out their phones and have lost interest in you entirely. Which sucks. Sorry to see it. I’m guilty of it too. It wasn’t until I put the phone away at practice that I noticed just how much time my child spends looking over at me when working through the move sets, kicks and punches.
Welcome to Saturday morning. Another blisteringly cold morning late in February. Almost March, can you believe it. Two months down, as we slow march towards springtime, and the last few months of the school year. Time marches on. Ha. Enjoy your down time, while it lasts.
But at least I am responsible for having written two books of collected short stories by my own hands. Nearly 200,000 words of interconnected amateur hour sci-fi nonsense that I am proud to have put pen to paper to create. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work. I can strike it from my bucket list. No short cuts taken. No AI to do the lengthy leg work in my stead. Brain fog, fugue states after writing 3,500/day for a couple days in a row. I did that. Me. I don’t care if it comes across as dog shit, glib, or derivative. I did it myself. And sold a copy, not to myself. So nyah! Eat it.
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