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My model building came to an abrupt halt yesterday when my airbrush broke. You heard right. It broke…
The nozzle which forces the air/paint mix snapped off as I was trying to unscrew it for cleaning, rendering it unusable.
I’ve already bought another one but it’ll take a few days to arrive so looks like I’m back to twiddling my thumbs and playing metal gear online till it gets here.
At least I can take the opportunity to upgrade my airbrush. My, now dead, old faithful was a sparmax DH-125. A gravity fed double action airbrush which I bought in a set with a sparmax compressor when I was last in Hong Kong. Pic below. RIP…
Not being well versed in the names of manufacturers of such tools, I had no idea who sparmax were. But a quick google search shows that they are a Taiwan based company which specializes in budget tools. You can check out their website and have a look. For those interested, my compressor is the TC-501
THe DH-125 is a really cheap airbrush (if you can find it) but it served me well for 2 years. The airbrush/compressor combo set me back just over £100 and you can probably find this airbrush online for around £20 or so. You can do quite a lot with it but we’ll see how it compares to my new one when it arrives.
Here’s a pic of the complete set
For those who have never used one, I guess I should explain some of the terms I used above.
Starting with the airbrush, A gravity fed airbrush is one where the paint is stored above the main body, hence the name as gravity is used to force the paint into the main chamber as opposed to suction feed airbrushes which store the paint in bottles underneath and allow the pressure difference when air is sprayed out to suck the paint into the chamber. My DH-125 had parts which allowed for both but I stuck with gravity fed as it’s easier to clean.
Double action refers to the lever (or trigger depending on the airbrush type) which controls the air flow. For my airbrush, you pushed the lever down to start the airflow and then pulled it back to mix in the paint. Hence, double action. The double action airbrushes allow for greater control over the amount of paint which goes through.
And, of course, there’s the compressor. After speaking to a couple of would be modelers who were considering buying an airbrush, I was amazed to find that they were looking at the actual airbrushed but completely forgetting about the source of the main component of what makes them work, i.e. the AIR!!!
Compressors are somewhat large, heavy and noisy devices which provides the airflow to carry the paint. I wouldn’t recommend ppl to get one unless they plan to paint a fair few kits in their time due to their costs as well as the points mentioned above. My compressor has helped me get through 10 kits so far with a lot more waiting in the wings so, for me, it was a wise investment, but it won’t suit everybody. An alternative is to buy compressed air cans from model shops but they tend to run out very fast so are only good for one model, possibly less.
My current sparmax still works luckily, so I can use it for my new airbrush when it arrives.
And what is my new airbrush? An Iwata Eclipse CS. It was recommended by Cody Kwok on his site and given that he is a fantastic painter, I reckon he knows what he’s talking about. I bought it off ebay for £63, which is quite a bit considering what I spent on my set initially, but contrast that to the retail price from some websites (£115) I think I got a pretty good deal out of it, even if it is second hand. There are some real pant-staining priced airbrushes out there as well. One really has to wonder if there is a need for a £230 airbrush (remember that you will need a separate compressor on top of that).
In any case, my new Iwata airbrush should arrive by the end of the week and I can pick up where I left off after a little test run. If any of you have any questions about the topic of airbrushes, feel free to ask and I will try to answer with my limited knowledge and experience.
I believe that a fair few visitors to this blog actually came from Figure.fm so you probably already know the news.
Danny Choo has decided to pull the plug on the figure.fm page and move the community over to his main page.
While I must admit that I disagree with the decision, I do understand the reasoning behind it.
I joined figure.fm a little over a year ago and it was always nifty seeing everyone elses purchases and it provided me with a good place to post my completed works and get opinions from people who had similar tastes to myself. In that respect, nothing will change with the move, but I will definitely miss the layout and general interface. It was slow to post but having large(ish) pics in the main page before going for the full sized ones. The new thumbnails are a bit too small to get a good idea of the figure.
Guess all this stuff is something to get used to. Is is true that the blogs and figures will get more exposure on the main page so I hope that the new visitors find something they like on my blog but I will always look back on my figure.fm days with fondness.
Farewell Figure.fm. You departed far too soon…
Yay! She’s finished!! Another one to add to my completed list. I present Yoko, 21 years old!!!
This post may be a bit on the long side as the final part of the building section will also be included. For those interested, earlier posts can be reached here:
I’m sure that the world is pretty well aquainted with the fact that Europe is pretty much considered the toilet of the video game world. We usually get things much later than everyone else, we get charged more than any other region and ports were, until recently, pretty damn shoddy.
You would have thought that things would change eventually, with the big companies admitting that Europe is becoming more and more important in terms of global sales. But then there came the announcement for Rock Band.
For those of you who don’t know, in the UK, the game is still yet to be released even though the game has been released in the US for ages. Not only that, the game will initially be a 360 exclusive with wii and PS3 versions being released “later in the summer,” code for “September, if you’re lucky!” Coupled with this is the RRP. £50 for the game on it’s own and £130 for the instrument set, with no bundle for the 2 together!!! So thats £180 for the whole thing while over in the US, the full set costs around £85.
Luckily, even the retailers realise that this is a really dumb idea and have created their own bundles and lowered the prices themselves. I mean, Who the hell would want to buy a game which costs more than a freaking console? But the main kicker for me was the “summer” release date for the PS3 version. Having seen the 360 version fail numerous times at the play.com live event last month, I was not willing to risk purchasing gear which could mess up anytime in the middle of a song. Add to that, the RRP and I decided to import a PS3 version as a big F*** you to EA europe and Harmonix for thinking they could get away with that kind of pricing. 3 extra songs don’t come even close to compensation.
And I got it yesterday!!!
Yes it’s awesome. And yes, I didn’t save much in terms of overall costs when compared to some UK deals (in fact I paid a bit more at £160. mostly on shipping) but it was the principle of the whole thing!!
I spent a little more and got (arguably) the superior version, or at least, the most reliable one, several months before release and EA Europe won’t see a single penny from me!! It’s chump Change I know, but I wish that other buyers would rise up and kick them where it hurts them most, their wallets and send out the message that they took things WAAAY too far this time!
They claim that the price is fair due to VAT (17.5%), and manufacturing and delivery costs. If that’s true, then give us a break down and let us decide if it’s fair. As it stands, it looks to the consumer that they’re taking rip-off to a whole new level.
For now, I have rock band, the whole set faster and cheaper than the UK RRP and can buy DLC from the US site. I’d say that’s pretty damn good. so I’ll say this one more time just to make myself feel better…
F**K YOU EA!!!
*rant over*
Man, has it really been 2 months since I got this figure? Looks like her re-release has come and gone as well…
In any case, here is the first Shuraki Figure, Mishiro Akatsuki (and despite the name, I’m pretty sure that she can’t reflect beam attacks off her skin)
I’ll keep the review pretty short as pretty much everyone has Mishiro by now and there are already good reviews available.
One thing I will note, however, is that, despite being a second run of this figure, all the faults and imperfections which were noted in earlier reviews are still present in this one. You would think that Goodsmile would try and resolve some of these issues…
Bit of a mixed couple of days. As noted on several blogs already, it seems that the last 6 minutes of the next installment of Code Geass was leaked to the public.
According to bandai, it was an error which occurred while they were testing out a part of their bandai channel streaming system. Luckily, for all the Geass fans, it doesn’t seem that it has affected the broadcast schedule so ep 3 will still air this weekend, with only a few minor things spoiled. For example, Rollos Geass is time freeze.
Aside from being a pretty big hax, I expected something like that since watching Ep2. Afterall, a geass does not affect the actual user but allows them to influence others. A geass also doesn’t have any effect on anything mechanical so when the Vincent showed off it’s “teleport” maneuver, the first thing I thought of was “The World,” The stand of the main antagonist in Jojo’s bizarre adventure.
Afterall, it makes more sense that a geass could affect a person and cause him to stop moving temporarily as opposed to a whole knightmare frame teleporting to a safe distance.
And in other news, the next Super Robot Wars game has been announced!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!
Dubbed Super Robot Wars Z (no word if it stands for the last letter of the western alphabet or zeta yet), The game will most likely be the last game for the PS2. Rather fitting considering SRW alpha gaiden was also one of the very last PS1 games to be released.
I’m also glad that they stuck with the PS2 as I would be rather annoyed if they jumped on the wii bandwagon purely because it was the “in thing” like some other franchise (yeah I know they cited high development costs as the reason for jumping ship but then please explain to me why they would start developing a heavily online focused game like monster hunter for a console with by far the worst online system?).
Series confirmed for this outing are:
Overman King Gainer (karaoke, standby!)
The Big O (Woo!!)
The Big O Second Season
Zambot 3
Daitarn 3
Xabungle
MS Z Gundam
Char’s Counter Attack
Gundam X (YES!!!)
Turn A Gundam
MS Gundam SEED Destiny
Mazinger Z
Great Mazinger
Getter Robo G
UFO Robo Grendizer
GOD Sigma
Sousei no Aquarion
Eureka Seven
Orgus
Baldios
Gravion
Gravion Zwei
I’m probably in the minority here, but I’m looking forward to beating Shinn to hell and back. I don’t have any love for Kira Yamato but damn I hated Shinn…
And, unless realize comes back as the theme for the seed units, the King Gainer theme is going to be played on a loop while I play!! I mean, come on!!! It’s one of the greatest OPs ever!! It did the “dancing anime characters” bit long before it was considered “cool” in shows like Haruhi and lucky star.
More screens can be found
And now we return to what the blog was initially started for, MODEL KITS!!! It’s been several weeks since my last update on the progress of Yoko so if I didn’t have something to show for it, it would be safe to start worrying…
So she’s starting to take shape now. The jacket is giving me a little difficulty as I can’t quite get the colour right. But I think I’ll be able to nail that soon.
Finally got round to watching Code Geass R2 episode 1 last night and I must admit that I was severely underwhelmed. Everything was there, the animation quality was acceptable and safe but it really didn’t grab me as I watched it.
One of the reasons was possibly because it was pretty much a rehash of the first episode of season 1, right down to the dead bodies at the end and Lelouche commanding the soldiers to kill themselves!
I was also annoyed by the fact that the series wasn’t really connected to the end of the first season. The show ended with a mountain of questions and we didn’t get a single answer or hint from the first ep of R2. It was almost stand alone. In fact, all it did was raise even more questions!!!! All I can say is, there had better be answers and damn soon!!! I mean, how can Lelouche conveniently forget that he is zero and lose his geass powers? How can Karen now accept Lelouche as Zero so readily when, at the end of the first season, she was on the verge of a breakdown when she found out?! And how the heck can Suzaku say to the emperor that he will kill zero when he couldn’t do it when he had a gun pointed at point blank range???!!!!
Still, there were some consolations…
I have no doubt that geass will pick up later but I wish the writers did a better job at linking things together instead of leaving so many loose ends all the time! But the sooner they change the OP and ED the better as they were awful!! Even the second OP from season 1 was better than this crap! Orange Road should be ashamed!
(EDIT: After watching ep 2, we actually DO get to find out what happened in the cave at the end of season 1!! and it lasts all of a few minutes!!! Seriously, couldn’t this have been put into the first ep? They also threw in a few more questions but at least they gave some answers this time. Though I still don’t understand how Karen can so readily accept Lelouche as zero given her actions and reactions in the cave. And the OP and ED still suck!)
As for Frontier…
True to their word, Gonzo have released the first episode of their 2 shows, the tower of Druaga:The Aegis of Uruk and Blassreitter on several streaming video sites with english Subtitles. And Decent subs at that!!!
Having watched both, from first ep impressions Druaga would seem to be the better show. I was laughing all the way thru the show with it’s parodies of all the generic set pieces such as the prelude to death sections and the tentacle monster!
However, I’m doubtful that they will be able to maintain that sort of structure for the whole show so we’ll have a better picture of what the show will be like within the coming weeks.
In that sense, Blassreitter was a much more standard fare with the first ep giving you a basic idea of the world the show is set in and what to expect in later eps. It was a little disappointing (Gonzo over reliance on CG was evident here) but it seems interesting enough to keep up for another few weeks. So the streamed release with english subs were a success, Shame the same can’t be said for the downloading process.
Crunchyroll are providing avi files for download for those who want it with a “name your price” system similar to what radiohead did with their last album “in rainbows.” A good idea, afterall, no matter how convenient the streaming is, the quality will always be pretty damn poor. With the chance to download the file, viewers get the chance to watch the show in decent quality and keep a copy for themselves!!
At least that’s what supposed to happen!!! I tried to download the first ep of Blassreitter and it’s been a nightmare. Problems with paypal donations meant that I had to use my own card, which I would have preferred not to and after jumping through hoops, I got a download link to get the file, which DIDN’T WORK!!!
So at present, I have no file to watch!! I’m donating to thank gonzo for the show but if it was to donate soley for crunchyroll then I don’t think I’d even go to the site again, let alone donate! More testing should have been done to make sure that problems like this shouldn’t happen. I makes their site look really bad and it also reflects poorly on gonzo, even though they have nothing to do with the issue.
Gonzo, if you’re reading this (not stinking likely, but hey) next time you have a good idea like this one, make sure you partner up with people who can do this thing properly!!!!
For readers who want to donate and download the eps, DON’T!!! Wait it out until the problems are all fixed, if ever.
Shame really, if it went off without a hitch, this could have been a big step in the right direction for western anime distribution.
Yay! I finally have internet again!! Actually, I had it at the later half of last week, but I needed time to prepare new posts and, as luck would have it, the winter season just finished so here are my personal rankings for last season and what I will most likely be watching for the next. I normally write this a few weeks after the new season so I get a feel for the shows but I thought I’d make a change. Just this once.
Best Show: Shigofumi
OK, lets get this out of the way first, The winter season was a sea of mediocrity. the quality of shows varied but by the end of them all, there was not a single one which truly stood out or were particularly memorable.
Shigofumi is no exception. However, due to it’s, frankly, incredible first few eps and interesting talking points, it stands above the rest. In fact, it was the closest to giving me the “must watch the next ep” feel out of all the shows (excluding Gundam 00 which wins outright on the basis of having mecha) .
Shigofumi was a really strange show which had some of the worst elements of storytelling (independent episodes) and made them work. In fact, the stand alone eps were often better than the ones which pushed the main storyline along! The rather cynical “look at the dark side of humanity” idea is nothing new (Hell Girl comes to mind) but i felt that Shigofumi did a better job than the other shows using the same angle. I felt a little personal affinity for the characters in ep6 (the bullying ep) and the first 2 eps really were quite an incredible bit of storytelling.
Yet the eps which explained Fumikas past didn’t grab me like some of the other eps, which is why the show started sliding into mediocrity. How could it sustain itself if the main story felt weaker than the rest?
Nevertheless, there were some real gems in the 13 ep series which is why I call it the show of the season. It gave me the first “WTF!!??” moment I have had in a very long time, and that was in the first episode. I can honestly say that I did not see the end of ep1 coming. And that says a lot!!! Heck, I was able to predict most of the last 1/3rd of Mai HiME but that had me stumped! In a good way mind you, not the Mai Otome ” actually this girl is the missing princess. We pointed you towards this other character for most of the season but there was this major piece of evidence which negates all that and proves that our girl is the princess. BTW, we’re showing that evidence after the revelation!”
Man, that pissed me off…
Runner up: Gundam 00/Shakugan No Shana II
