Of Scales and Digits...

 --- On Fri, 7/23/10, MBR wrote:

From: MBR
Subject: Articulated Hands
Date: Friday, July 23, 2010, 4:53 AM

Hello there!

I was browsing the net searching for ways to improve my skill as a customizer, i was into scratchbuilding aswell but mine is transformers. I saw your tutorials on your site about articulated hands, i just like to know if it is for 1/60 gundam? i want to scratchbuild also coz' those people whom i was ordering before the hand suddenly cannot be contacted  so i finally decided to make my own. i've also attach the latest project i've made using gundam hands so you could figure out what i am saying...hehehe

Thank you so much and really appreciate your response...

Regards from your fellow kabayan from UAE,

 

MBR

Graphic Designer

I built those articulated hands for my 1/144 Customized Palace Athene (The Ice Queen), but the size of the digits is usable for a 1/60.

A New Brighter Sun has Finally Risen...

"Necessity is the Mother of Invention, but in the Heart of Chaos is Creation."

We all look for our place under the sun, whether it be online or off.  I have foreseen a Paradigm shift slowly building up, like pressure and tension between the Earth's tectonic plates.  It has been a year or so of struggle with our own Chaos that the inevitable has finally birthed a new Sun.

And we give you the Mech Arts Community Forums.

Misconceptions about Paints...

I was posting very frequently in several forums a while back and the most common question I get when it comes to painting is "What paint do you use?"  My usual response was "I use Bosny and/or RJ London paints, and they are basically Acrylic Epoxy Lacquer Paints.  In the modeling arena, people only know either Lacquer, Enamel, or Acrylic paints, and seeing a paint type like Acrylic Epoxy Lacquer was a bit of a stretch.  In one such forum, one even told me to make up my mind if I was using either Lacquer or Acrylic because that person couldn't quite accept having both in the same paint (even after showing the label), and another one even said that "Epoxies" are two part glues that can't be added in spray can paints. One thought that it might just be regional naming conventions because I was living in the Philippines.  To quote him verbatim:

"Maybe It has to do with your country's use of english, As the definition of lacquer is a mixture of natural resin and pigment ( modern day we use chemicals). Comes from the Portuguese word lac, and they used it long ago as an alternative to tempera.  And I have never seen the term epoxy used like that.
 

Again I am not trying to tell you your wrong, as it seems like our countries must use the words differently."

The thing is, Bosny and RJ London are European formulas manufactured in Thailand.

Definitions-wise:

"1673, from Fr. lacre "a kind of sealing wax," from Port. lacre, unexplained variant of lacca "resinous substance," from Arabic lakk, from Pers. lak (see lac). The verb meaning "to cover or coat with laqueur" is from 1688."

From Dictionary.com:

–noun

1.

a protective coating consisting of a resin, cellulose ester, or both, dissolved in a volatile solvent, sometimes with pigment added.

2.

any of various resinous varnishes, esp. a resinous varnish obtained from a Japanese tree, Rhus verniciflua, used to produce a highly polished, lustrous surface on wood or the like.

It's a common misconception that the term "lacquer" corresponds directly to paint (or a paint type). Lacquer is actually a type of varnish (the other type is polyurethane, like Future, and even some acrylic varnishes) that is mixed with paints or pigments (mostly with automotive spray paints) that give finishes their lovely shine. 

Epoxy, on the other hand, is mixed with paint (or pigment) to increase its bond, its quick-drying property and overall strength. Epoxy paints are more resistant to light scratches. Hence, these types of paints actually don't need to be top coated unless you want extra protection (or that uber shine).  Epoxy is a term often associated with glue, but in itself is a resin-based "hardener."  That's why we call those two part glues as "epoxy" glues; one is the binder/glue, the other is the hardener/epoxy.  Also, epoxy can't cure sealed under pressure, and only when it get exposed to air or a certain temperature range does it start to harden.

Acrylic, in turn, is a base for pigments, much like how some paints have enamel and latex bases.  Acrylic and latex paints are water soluble and therefore can be thinned with plain  water.  Enamels are not, and require enamel thinners.

So, a Lacquer Acrylic Epoxy paint has 3 components; an acrylic-based pigment, epoxy to harden it, and lacquer to give it shine.  

"Quick" Fixes...

Of Flaws and Fixes.  No kit is perfect.  Not even the so-called Perfect Grades.  Perfect Grades actually suffer design, stability and structural flaws more than their smaller-scale counterparts mainly because of the amount of parts that come with the kit.  I have two PGs so far, an RF Astray and a 00.  Both are overall good enough PGs design-wise and I am actually impressed by how they are built.

I'm not sure about other PGs, but these two actually share the same basic flaw of the removability of the armor.  Some of the armor parts easily come off even with normal handling.  What's funny is, when the PG 00 came out, it was advised that one should purchase a second kit if one wanted to assemble it with the clear parts.  That's nothing more but a sales ploy because armor parts do come off easily, and this was the reason why I had to do this fix to begin with.

The problem lies within the connective sections of the parts, some of which are either too short or too thin.  Both the NG and PG Astray have this flaw, specifically at the V-fin's base and thus making the connection flimsy.  The V-Fin comes off rather easily in both cases (I am yet to get an MG RFA), and my PG Astray's forehead base broke off because the base is too darned thin.

This was a fairly easy fix.  Click here for the step by step process.

The 00's Chest Armor.  Maybe it's me or maybe it's the flaw in the armor's rather thin connective "lip," but this particular chest part (the right one), broke when I was simply handling the kit (it broke about a couple of months ago, and I only got to repair this a couple of nights ago while taking a break from the Angelus build).  Using the other chest part to align the fix, I cut the remaining part clear off the base, and cemented a set of small plaplate strips and reinforced it further with a 3mm triangular beam.  After waiting for 24 hours for the fix to cure, the OTHER one broke as well while I was test-fitting it to the chest assembly to see if I aligned the part correctly.

This time, I decided not to cut the remainder off the base, but cut it laterally and left those small supports.  I cemented an appropriate-sized piece of plaplate in between the supports, imitating the original structure of the lip.  I progressively saturated the entire fix with extra thin cement to reinforce the part and waited another 24 hours before test-fitting it again.

And viola!  As good as new and (almost) fits like a glove.

Angelus Rising Part V: Wing Mechanism Improvements

A swiveling Move.  Even the original Impaler Wings had a progressive spread (one wing "feather" over or under the next one) which is in nature how a bird's wings spread out.  The lighter v2 Wings is an over/under design where the middle section is actually the dominant one, which is just okay, but, being me, I couldn't resist the urge to make the wings progressive regardless.

I have had the idea for more than a week, but, I didn't want to needlessly do the modification and damage an already working v2 prototype since I've already wasted time and material on previous ones ), so I let the idea percolate and "ripen" in my mind.

The solution was fairly simple:  I just needed to cut a section from the middle wing near the base of the gear box, and used that as padding for the inner wing.  I then cut the inner wing just midway the cut section, and cemented that to the padding.  I cut extra pieces of plaplates to "mend" the now shorter inner wing to make it flush on itself and to lock the middle wing as well on the other side when the wings are spread.

I then bore holes appropriately on the outer and middle wings and added a swivel limiter on each of the the triads so that they won't spread as much when opened.  You can see the cut section on the middle wing, and how the modified inner wing "locks" the middle wing when spread out.  This hopefully will prevent the inner wing from bending down when the wings are spread.

That's it for now...

The Angelus Binary Blade

The Angelus won't be complete without its own custom built weapon, so I made one for it from scratch (well, not entirely from scratch, since I modified one of the beam saber hilts as THE hilt for the custom scratch built blade).  I was going to build a scythe cum spear for the original Impaler X, but decided on a sword for the Angelus.

I did an online search for reference blades and swords, and here are a few of the interesting ones:

From Wolf Demon Valenor's Photobucket album:

The fifth one looked appropriate enough with the feathery trimmings and all, but this was the one that caught my eye:

which I got from Hans Rodger's Photobucket album.  This image have appeared on several websites, so I'm simply crediting where I got this from.

I decided to reference the Angelus Blade from the dual blade.  Of course, by referencing, I'd still be making one of my own design.

I cut the basic blade shapes from sandwiched 1.0mm plaplates (for sturdiness) and modified the beam saber hilt to fit an attachment for the sword guard (which was later re-modified since the first mod failed miserably and broke easily).  I made the blades from recycled pieces of plaplates that I initially cut for the wings (I had a few trials and errors).

QnA: Of Spray Cans and Plaplate Scratchbuilding...

--- On Sun, 7/18/10, Peter PUN  wrote:

From: Peter PUN
Subject: questions haha
Date: Sunday, July 18, 2010, 12:16 AM

hello man this is probaly quiet random but like i want to ask you how you paint your models? Do you hand brush them or spray paint it or airbrush :S ?

And one more haha!  i've been inspired by your scratch builds and i want to try it myself, i know nothing about it unfortunately :(

but but but i really want to know like.. i dont understand how you cant the pieces off a pla plate, i dont know how to glue them together and stuff could you give me a brief outlien on this when you have the time, that would be awesomely lovely :D.

well thanks in advance for reading my email :],

from a stranger who enjoys your scratch builds!

I use spray cans exclusively, and from time to time, use the dry brush method to paint frames.

As for scratch building, I'm not sure what you want to know specifically.  I almost exclusively use cement for scratch building, and use cutter knives, art knives, scissors and side cutters in combination depending on the shape I am trying to achieve.

Most of my posts and tutorials are rather already descriptive and pictorial, so you can just reference them for now.