The Million Likes Syndrome

(Previously titled "A Long Rant about Plastics and Modeling")

This rant was actually brought on after “reconnecting” with Kenny Lim when I read one of his posts on FB. Kenny is one of the Master Modelers I know, having met him personally when he and the Poison Monkeys visited the Philippines a few years back, since I started doing nasty stuff to Gunpla. I regard Kenny as one of my “teachers,” having followed his builds over the years. His post was about something else entirely, but, still rather connected since it was also about Gunpla, and “modelers” as it were. Kenny is a VERY NICE GUY. Compared to my acerbic (ascorbic, acidic) personality, he’s a kitten. But, as we all know, even kittens have claws. It’s very rare for him to post reactively, and when he does, you can be sure it’s warranted. He and I had a short chat yesterday, and this long entry, something I have been putting off, is the result of that.

As I continue to labor over my musings over the things that need to be done in the projects I'm currently working on, I set aside a few minutes to ponder the nature and realities of what has been my go-to activity to de-stress myself from real-life work and concerns, whether I have the time for it or otherwise. I've been at it for several years now; tinkering with plastics, building and destroying and building again, inhaling plastic dust and paint fumes.

It was on and off, years earlier, "collecting" and snap building, and giving up when small versions of me mistook my 1/144 Wing series Gunpla for dolls and toy soldiers. I’ve actually never considered getting into it again; I like watching anime, but, collecting was never really my thing. I’ve had trading cards and comics before, and once I’ve lost interest, it seldom does recur.

But, I've restarted collecting Gunpla in 2007, I believe, when I got a regular gig that paid quite nicely (not my desired salary, but, close), and I was making enough and then some (I still have freelance gigs) to afford getting the real stuff (I was already aware of bootlegs circulating, having made trips to the magical place called Divisoria where everything is relatively cheap[er], but, even then, I was a stickler for quality). But, what really sparked my come back was after watching the Gundam 00 series, given to me by one of my co-designers at work.

I ignored the darned thing for several months, but when I did start watching it, the Exia gave me that chill I thought I lost after my 1/144 Wing Fab Five got swept away in a major flood, back when I was still a merman in the outskirts of Malabon. A week later, I found myself browsing the kits at GreatToysOnline, back then when they had a branch at Goldcrest, which is now the New Glorietta at Makati. I saw the NG 1/100 Exia and I was immediately enamored with it. I built it just under 2 hours as soon as I got home and got enough food in me, using nothing but an old basic Tamiya side-cutter which I have had since my 4WD racing days.

The kit was simple enough, hence why I built it quite quickly, not minding the nubs, seams and other taboos which plague everyone in the Gunplaverse. The week later, even with the next payday a few days away, I bought the Dynames. The week after that, the Kyrios. It took me a couple or so weeks before I realized I'm hooked, and bought the Virtue. My first MG as it were, was the Zeta Plus A1, followed by the Wing verKa. As soon as it was out, I got the NG 00, which was disappointing, to say at least, compared to its predecessor the Exia.

Then, I quit that job (which gave me nice abs and lean figure since I had to walk a couple of kilometers or so everyday) and went back to freelancing, and with no steady income stream, I had to hold back on purchasing any new kits, since honestly, it's quite impractical (and why some people say they buy bootlegs). I NEVER found bootlegs as practical; to me, it's nothing but a waste of my hard-earned money, to which, was exacerbated since I was not getting regular projects at the time.

Until now, I'm still basically doing freelance work, and, my teaching and resource-speaking gigs, as well as some photography work allows me some leeway to get the kits I want (even MBs and PGs). I’m not so much into gadgets, I recently got an iPhone to replace my 10 year old SE W810i, only because I needed it for actual work, so I can basically divert funds as needed. Nowadays, when I get a kit, I don't build them right away, except if it were something rather impressive-looking, like the Nu and Sazabi verKa. It takes me longer to build them now, sometimes even days at a time, since I can only devote a few hours of tinkering with a new kit, regardless of complexity.

When I got the PG Unicorn, which is, I can say, a MONSTER build, I really thought I would be able to finish it in a couple of days. I was able to build the head, torso and waist in 2 days, but have stopped there. That was a year ago. So, what's wrong, you ask? It's something I ask myself, only to realize that there's really nothing wrong at all. My "passion" comes in stages and waves, similar to how it is when I write songs. There are times, when I can write a song in a day, and times when years have gone, and the song still hasn't so much of any lyrics, that I hum gibberish just to remember the melody. The PG Unicorn will be finished, and will become the PG Chimera 2.0.

(Update-01 September 2017: I’ve finished the PG Unicorn a few months ago, and it’s missing its left front side skirt. I’ve stopped looking for since then. I’m planning to just scratch-build a custom pair of skirts for it).

As of the moment, the Hellraiser takes precedence, and after that, the Goliath. But, this is really nothing more but a long prelude to what I really want to say, especially to you new people in the hobby. Whereas I'll say it's just a hobby, something we pass time with, the skills we develop (or in my case, discover) is nothing to sneeze at. But, that is if we use those skills to GROW. If we keep doing the same things over and over, without any variations, without experimentation, our skills will stagnate. Whether it's snap-building and de-nubbing (the two BASIC skillsets), painting, modifying or scratch-building, (the two BASIC skillsets), painting, modifying or scratch-building, the learning NEVER stops. Just because something you've built earned you several thousand <likes> doesn't mean you've actually built a masterpiece.

Nowadays, posting a horrendously-painted and and nub-infested™©® snap-build can earn as many likes as your masterpiece, so using those likes as a reference for achievement is really nothing to be proud of. In fact, a lot of new "builders" don't even know how to denub and sand properly, and panic too much when a part breaks or worse gets lost in the wilderness. Building and modeling has stages. I understand that most people just want to snap-build and display kits, but, again, snap-building is a BASIC skill, everyone knows how to do it (or in some case, should know how to do it), and is not so much an accomplishment to be proud of. I’ve seen a lot of people even include their girlfriends (?) or girls in their posts to earn likes, but ultimately, snap-build can earn as many likes as your masterpiece, so using those likes as a reference for achievement is really nothing to be proud of.

In fact, a lot of new "builders" don't even know how to denub and sand properly, and panic too much when a part breaks or worse gets lost in the wilderness. Building and modeling has stages. I understand that most people just want to snap-build and display kits, but, again, snap-building is a BASIC skill, everyone knows how to do it (or in some case, should know how to do it), and is not so much an accomplishment to be proud of. I’ve seen a lot of people even include their girlfriends (?) or girls in their posts to earn likes, but ultimately, no one learns anything by getting a million likes.

Moreso, one is only as good as one’s “pièce de résistance.” Expounding on that, one can really only have ONE masterpiece, with a new one overthrowing the previous, or not at all, as the case may be.

Pride. That's something I've been working on to take out of my vocabulary. I've successfully stopped using <hate> in that context, mentioning it simply as a word I have to mention as an emotion I no longer have, replacing it with dislike, or unlikable, but pride is something else. Whereas people post stuff online to show, to get reactions, to get attention, I've actually been posting my work mostly to teach. There's still a little bit of "pride" in that effort, but, it's not the same pride as, say, being proud that PacMan is a Pinoy boxer. It’s more like, being able to do the things no one else can, or no one else will, and when other people start doing the same thing, I just do something else that hasn’t been done before.

Incidentally, when I started doing modifications, it was because of an Exia. , but pride is something else. Whereas people post stuff online to show, to get reactions, to get attention, I've actually been posting my work mostly to teach. There's still a little bit of "pride" in that effort, but, it's not the same pride as, say, being proud that PacMan is a Pinoy boxer. It’s more like, being able to do the things no one else can, or no one else will, and when other people start doing the same thing, I just do something else that hasn’t been done before.

Incidentally, when I started doing modifications, it was because of an Exia. Erix93, one of the very few I consider a master modeler, inspired me to do modifications when I saw his modified NG Exia. I was already "painting" back then, which was more fumbling with Bosny spray cans (something I picked up from (something I picked up from DC23/Don Suratos), but didn't dare cut my precious kits with anything else but a side cutter. Looking at Erix93's WIP, something in my head lit up and screamed "I can do that shit too!"

As such, I realized that my years of destroying stuff when I was a kid, dissecting them to see how they work, were all leading to building stuff later on (else, why would have I taken Engineering, right?). My very first attempt was a custom, using the NG 00 as a base. I planned to do something radical, something entirely different, a Gundam like nothing else. I bought tools, putty, masking tape, pla-plates and a few other things I thought I would need, and thus began my adventure in mangling plastic.

And mangle it I did. It was a failure. I can't seem to get the putty to work for me the way I want it to (and I’ve tested several), so I abandoned the project altogether, and left the 00 parts in limbo. That failure didn't deter me, though. I took it as something to learn from, what to do and not do in terms of knowing what plastic is in general. It might sound like overthinking, and it is, but, whereas Erix93 used putty and was good at it, I found the material's incompatibility with plastic an issue I don't want to deal with. I know I can use putty well enough, but, it being messy and incompatible was a prospect not worth pursuing.

So, I decided to do mods with my favorite go-to material: Polystyrene Sheets (or, for those unfamiliar, Tamiya Pla-plates, and in my case, WHIPS). It was an almost unimaginable concept. At that time (or probably even now), I haven't seen anyone using PS sheets exclusively, even on curved/spherical parts, so, it might be something I can exploit. With PS sheets and cement, I was able to build parts that normally can only be built with putty. Forming PS sheets is not a picnic, and is a very resistant material without heat. But, I was determined to push it to its limit and literally, bend it to my will.

And so I have. I've bent PS sheets and formed it to something else, something I didn't realize myself could be done until I was actually doing it. But, it can only bend so much, and without heat, can only curve so much. So, what do I do now? Much like how putty is formed over parts, then sand-sculpted, PS sheets can be cemented, or "sandwiched" together and sculpted into a fine piece of p-art (pun-intended), to the point that it actually looks it was molded or cast. PS Sheets were like “putty in my hands,” as one of my followers dropped in a comment (or was it someone else who mentioned it in a long gone chat session).

The versatility of PS sheets is a such, it can be heat-formed as well, but, I haven't gotten to that point yet. Maybe with the Goliath (which is a 1/60 Strike Freedom Conversion to a 1/144 Destroy Gundam for Gary Berba).

Now, having said all this, what does it have to do with you? Well, I have a few things for you to consider:

1) Do research, and learn how to do research. Facebook groups do have helpful members, but use the internet to its full potential. Look for builds other than Gunpla, like scale modeling, or even documentaries on industrial processes. Facebook is NOT the only source of information. Veteran modelers do veteran builds because they learn not just from a single source, but multiple sources of varied genres. Also, as I do this quite frequently when the query warrants it, “google it” is a valid answer.

2) Before asking questions, READ the entire entry. NO matter how long it is. If something is unclear to you, ask COMPLETE, SPECIFIC, CONCISE and ARTICULATED questions. Asking “how did you do that?” is rather an open-ended question, and if the source was a tutorial, the answer is most likely IN the tutorial. People nowadays tend to lean towards spoonfeeding, that they no longer bother to read, let alone, let alone comprehend what’s already been said or shown.

3) Learn from the Good and the Bad. I’m talking generally about good builds and bad ones, good people and bad people, hecklers and trolls, Master Modelers and (ugh) Wannabes (those, of whom I mentioned earlier, who are more after likes than actual learning, I’m sure you’re not one of those, but, who knows? Denial is not a river). Find what is useful and ponder on what is not; you might be able to turn it around and make it useful.

4) Learn to LOOK rather than just see. This is sometimes because of detail blindness, which everyone experience from time to time (even myself), but, there are times when people just don’t bother LOOKING deeper into what they see (this is the visual equivalent of comprehension).

5) “Gunpla is freedom” does not mean what you think it means.

6) Snapbuilding is not a skill to be proud of. It’s a BASIC skill. So is removing nub marks (and NOT numb marks, which seem to be a common mistake by Filipinos).

7) A topcoated kit IS NOT a “painted” kit. In fact, I personally avoid topcoating altogether since modern kits especially do not need extra protection. They have one built-in. That shiny surface gloss isn’t there just for show, it’s actually a surface coating that protects plastic. So as long as you keep your kits away from direct sunlight, heat, and extreme humidity, it will be fine. Also, certain topcoats may turn your kits yellow, or worse, make it brittle over time.

8) A kit-bash IS NOT the same as a scratch-build. Kit-bashing is a type of modification. Scratch-building (as the term implies) is something else altogether. Whereas kit-bashing uses the parts as is (with minor modifications), scratch-building can also be using an existing part for its connectivity, and building OVER it to create something new or different.

9) “I can’t do that,” “I don’t have that skill,” “I’m just a snap builder” is something you should acknowledge, but NEVER use as a defense.

10) “Spray can paints are too thick.” If you’ve done enough research, you’ll find out that some spray-can-painted kits have been mistaken for airbrushed ones (and vise-versa). Knowing how to use a tool is more important than having a better tool.

11) “I need expensive tools.” Yes, and no. Learn which tools have alternatives (do research). There are tools that can do what its expensive counterpart can, and sometimes, even better, without having the hefty price tag, but even more durable to boot. Having a godhand cutter doesn’t give you a “god hand.”

12) Learn from the Wisdom of those before you. Give credit where credit is due.

13) Failure is nature’s way of telling you to try again. If it fails again, try something else.

14) Experiment. Sometimes, testing materials or techniques yourself is quicker and more beneficial than asking what works. You’ll learn something in the process as well as maybe discovering a new technique in the process.

Update 18 May 2020: This article is now translated into Spanish, courtesy of Emmanuelle Acevedo of of Gundam & Models Columbia - Fanpage. Seems like my words have gone international and tri-lingual.

Update 11 March 2021: Reformatted for the MXGS blog.