Fantastic Builds and How to Find Them

I've never been to Japan. Well, technically I have set foot in Japan but connecting flights through Narita don't really count as visits. I don't speak or read Japanese, and my vocabulary is limited to about a dozen words and phrases that I've picked up from anime, such as "sugoi!", "nani?!?!", "kusoo.."  and admittedly, "yameteeee!" . But in my quest to uncover the ultimate mecha modeling techniques I found myself in the Japanese cyberspace wonderland.

For a while I was lost - It seemed like every link I clicked on led to strange fetish porn (what is up with all that goo?!), or an ad for pills that claim to grow your junk a couple of inches. Eventually I learned to adapt - and I began to find blog after blog, website after website of mecha plamo at it's finest... and there I came to realize the truth - the best mecha modelers are from Japan, and no one can ever convince me otherwise.

I began following Japanese modelers on social media. Many even maintain their own blogs, some of which I've already featured in the Superbuilds series. Their pages are treasure troves of information and mecha eye candy that will keep you browsing for hours. The formats differ and the layouts can be quite confusing to navigate, but all you need is patience and persistence - and modelers such as ourselves already have those two traits in spades.

Will you choose to stay within the confines of facebook, and continue to believe that the best builds in the world can already be found in mainstream competitions such as the GBWC - or will you take the time and effort to dig deeper? The choice is yours.

"You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. 

You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes..."

-Morpheus (The Matrix)

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Meijin Modeler - Win Eiam Ong

For many of us, upgrading to an airbrush is the logical choice if we intend to get better at painting our models...But once in a while an artist comes along with enough talent to succeed using the most humble of tools - a good old fashioned paintbrush. He has conquered Thailand's GBWC twice in a row with his mind bending concepts and excellent craftsmanship, and went on to take home the title of GBWC grand champion for 2015. His entry this year is just as awesome if not even better, and he is off to Japan once again to compete with the rest of the world's plamo elite. Ladies and gentlemen, today we get to know more about the one they call The Paint Pusher...our featured Meijin Modeler, Mr. Win Eiam-Ong!

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Weathering - Sponge Chipping

Greetings and salutations plamo nerds! One of the final steps in the Boros build was some minor weathering to make it look fairly used, and to match the wreckage base I prepared for it. I snapped some pics along the way so I could share my preferred paint chipping technique - the tried and tested sponge method - which is easy to do and can give great results if you really put your heart into it!



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Tallgeese Boros

Ohayou gozaimasu my lovely weeaboos! I'm sure everyone is in a festive holiday mood - it's that time of the year when the expanding of our waistlines is inversely proportional to that of our wallets - that 2-3 week window when we can bring home new kits and get a little less flak for it from our significant others, because they're "self-gifts".  

Me? I won't be growing my backlog (...much). I already have too much to be thankful for this year - a healthy family, a stable job, a new house...and the cherry on top of my triple-scoop sundae? the Boros is finally complete! After almost a year of working on this thing, and more than a few mishaps that almost made me want to rage-quit the project...it is finished. 

Ladies, gentlemen, everyone who identifies as some other obscure gender or thing (hey, Setsuna identifies as a gundam), I give you my best effort yet...
the Tallgeese Boros!

warning: pic heavy!



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Field Report - G.B.P. 3rd Anniversary Event

It was high noon...the perfect time for a showdown as far as gun-slinging cowboys are concerned. But the gathering was meant for a different kind of gunslinger - instead of revolvers, we holstered our airbushes and rattle cans. Instead of .28, .38 or .45 caliber bullets, we used lacquers, acrylics, and enamels. Because the day was not about guns...it was about Gundams! That's right folks, yesterday, GBP (Gundam Bootleg Pilipinas) celebrated it's 3rd anniversary with a build-off and gathering of epic proportions. The people were friendly, the food was great, and the builds? The builds were handsome AF. Hold on to your panties fellas, they're about to drop like Axis...


Warning: Pic Heavy

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Decanting Paint from Spray Cans

What's up plamo nerds? I hope you haven't blown your holiday bonuses on kits that will sit on your backlog shelf for at least 2 years! Remember that you don't just need kits, you'll need other modeling supplies too. Paint in particular is a fast-moving consumable in this hobby, and you can easily go through several jars on a single project. Good thing there are cheap alternatives to hobby-grade paints - the most accessible of which is the humble rattle can. Available at almost every hardware and DIY store, these cans are the typical weapon of choice for a modeler's first foray into painting. Eventually though, many of us graduate to airbrushing, and a bunch of half-empty cans end up collecting dust under our work tables. You can still make the most of those old cans by decanting the paint instead!


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