Icarus's blog: "Hurts to watch."

I won't say I spent most of yesterday building parts from scrap

because that would be a lie

No.
I spent MOST of yesterday on the phone...

I'm seriously gonna start telling people any phone call over 30 minutes may result in me putting in my headpiece and returning to what I was doing.

So

this step

I took two solid four sided columns (think an elongated cube) about .50 inches on its sides. Hacked it off at 8mm, cut a 45* angle on the tips of both sides
and cut the column in half

... and I said to myself "man this is the start of a great wing, or fin, or ... booster"

in fact if I laid them side by side I could do all kinds of interesting back structures

I could even fan em out

but

that wasn't the idea

anyway, so I decided to fix the struts upright (after hours of deliberation and repositioning) adjacent to the backpack, between the shoulders and neck.

I then put the cut-off triangles on the back of the upright columns to create a more interesting geometric shape

and THEN

I got the INSANE idea

to hand file

...

hand sand

the bottom 3 fourths of the structure into rods.

y'know what would've been
oh
say

1,000,000,000 times easier?

Glueing the top portion of my colums to an appropriate diameter rod or tube

which I have.
Lesson learned. Good practice anyway.
I shaved the rods at the base so they'd erganamic better with the backpack... I dunno I still might not be done

then I used model glue and affixed the triangles, and the rods to the backpack
I'm
PROBABLY
going to drill a few surfaces in the cubic shapes to give the appearance of thrusters at the top.

big emphasis on probably.

maybe vents on the back
oh

and I'm planning a macro booster on the back
which is going to involve probably crafting a half-tube into a box (cut a tube in half, lay it cut-side flat on the surface, cut the top to an angle, place a flat surface on top of the angled surface, cut an angle'd surface at the bottom so the force has somewhere to go instead of back into the unit and explode >>)

oh

while I was drilling and attaching rings to my broadsword

the tip broke
AGAIN

looks like I've got a ringed machete now

I figured out a better way to make rings
and I figured that on a 1/144 this was probably too small and too delicate for the full process.

I'll be glueing a holster to his hip for the device
plan is still to barb his heat-rod and incorporate it into the display.

so

I still have backpack work to do
surface mods and scrap building
I still have to build jets for the legs
still have to mod the shield
probably need to make a crest and attach it a few places.

don't drink my tea
it'll probably kill you.

...
I could totally put a grenade launcher in the shield.
oh
snap.

.... that may require sketching.And a new problem emerges

this thing only snugs into one side of the arm, the side that isn't very articulated
basically

the arm is a hinge instead of a rotating hinge like on the mastergrades
I can't rotate the forearm AND hinge the elbow
so if I articulate the elbow to where the arm is bent and the shield is pointed forward, the shield is on the underside of the forearm.

... not as cool looking at the gatling shield bent at the elbow and pointed forward on the gouf custom.

I could cut a grooove on the other sides of the forearm so the shield fits into those grooves...

could

sure

the gouf was always designed as a close quarters ground assault unit

I don't design single minded units though.

Look at my mechs in Armored core 4.

A high-speed threat at most if not all ranges.

Enough armaments and resources for Limited or prolonged engagements.

Hordes or duals.

This guy has to keep up with three high-speeds in coordinated long range to close range attacks.

That could be one of two things
too much work
or effing sweet.

Really it could be both.

oh

and pictures later.

I hate doing four things just to upload 6 pictures.

Where the HELL is my grape juice...

Alright, Between work
phone
girl
comics
thirst
and inventorying

Last thing I remember before I went to bed was

doing an initial sketch of my Gouf.

I did it from the manual and did a pretty decent job of it
and I decided on
...
oh yeah I was gonna panel line of the arms.

I decided that this would be a high mobility variant black tri-stars colored Gouf.

High mobility means more thrusters
... ooh that could suck

and less armor.
So I drew the upper 80% of the suit and on one side reduced some of the armor and surfaces.
... I didn't hate it.
So I said that'd be the first thing I do tonight.

Two hours later and some interesting things happening with plastic dust I've reduced the mass of my Gouf's shoulder's by about 20%... probably more.
It...
really might not be that noticeable

but the maneuverability of the arm went WAY up and those unsightly overly round and bumpy surfaces between the shoulder and the spikes are gone

thinned the middle prongs reduced the bevel on the edge of the shoulder down as far as I could and still have the part connect and sit on the body.
Short answer

I like it.
And I love these fucking files.

I think it looks sleeker. And I think I'm going to put a sharp bevel on the bottom of the skirt.

It was a lot more noticeable when I had one shoulder done and placed it right next to the slimmer one.

That rough dry appearance is the result of the filing and sanding, it'll clean up in priming.

There's more surface mods planned. The skirt, the sword possibly the torso. No intentions for the legs yet other than sizing it up for a box and a jet on the calves.

That

needs sketched first.

-----------------------------------------------------

4/15/10:

Skirt and torso bevels/reduction are done.

I got a mango smoothy and decided to feel sorry for myself after work. then I produced a lot of angry blue plastic powder.

Did I mention I was in special projects all day at work today... did I mention the environment at work is becoming more... uptight. Did I mention... nope.

Skirt and torso bevels/reductions are done. I sketched the mods for the kit over breaks and lulls (systems went down for a full hour today). I'm thinking 3 bell cups (jet boosters) on each leg... unless they overlap each other in the space between the legs, and an extensive backpack mod because... the stock booster pack looks like it could barely lift my gramma much less a walking metal god of death. At the moment the booster should get two fairly large cups on the back two shoulder struts with articulated verniers (those lil jets on shuttles and crap to adjust direction in space)

The plan is to put a lot of directional force in the design, a lot of lift and a lot of thrust, but ... not so much in correction, hence the struts. I also played around with the shield, the sword and the command spire. At the moment the sabre fits in the shield and is drawn and stored within.

If I'm gonna put rings in that sword, it won't fit in the shield any more, so I designed a holster, then I'm free to redesign the shield into a more threatening spiked design, I was thinking of giving it a frontal talon so it could be used as a piercing weapon and still have space for the hand machine guns on the left hand. It pretty much just involves extending the current lines to a point.

More conceptualizing and adapting as I can. It's getting late and I need to close shop for the night.

Well...
I think that's an official brush off

"just because I don't think of you in that 'special way' doesn't mean you're not an attractive and worthwhile person to meet'"

Every time.

Every fucking time...

I didn't even bargain for it. Just a club handed remark
and my retort:

if I'm so worthwhile, and thusly so attractive
what am I missing?
Because even though I admire J.D. Salinger, I'd rather not be as lonely and bitter as that man in twenty years.

Saying those things really doesn't do much for my ego
its still rejection
but its softer than a "you smell bad, gtfo"

I even told her...
when I used to do something tedius I'd daydream about giant robots, sci-fi, fantasy
I wasn't ashamed to tell her that lately
it was about her.

Don't read too much into that.
Just a change of pace.

of course
I'm anticipating that she'll "still want to be friends"

to which I say
die in a fire
that I started.

I've decided I do in fact want a Nu Gundam and a Hi-Nu Gundam.

I know. I just arrived at the buffet, have everything I want scoped out, I haven't even loaded my plate and I'm already planning dessert.

Let's review
this time in order of priority

Gouf: Black Tri-stars
Gouf: Black Tri-stars
Zaku I: custom cannon and custom paint job

Backburner:
Zeta C+: Custom colors
Death Scythe Hell: "Opposite day" angel of war motif, surface mods, custom panels, custom additions.

So far nothing has any planned panel lining or decaling.

That's probably a problem.

*scrunches his face in contemplation*
DSH doesn't even need it.
I don't even know that there's room for it on the UC kits...
bull shit there's always room.
And there's always room for superfluous paneling and armor plating.

I should sketch.

I really need to get off my ass and start priming.
"Maybe tomorrow" is slowly creeping on "maybe next week"

what am I afraid of?

There's no way I love Berserk this much. I'm already halfway through 20 years of content.

I dunno.

I need to mow the lawn.
I need to clean my house.
I need to trick my dog insto not eating her tail.

I need to find a reason.

That bloodlust I used to feel.
Soothed by the smooth descent of the sword.

That wanderlust I used to feel that first step out the door.

Adventure
I cried with small torn bits of grass and soft gravel falling from my hand
catching in the gentle plains' wind

Now barely a whisper.

I guess I'm feeling a little lonely.

My gubment monies came in.
So did my paycheck and
my big box o' magic.

(one hour later)

Man these new tools Ro~ck.

The diamond treated files were worth the extra ... $3.

Seriously.

So precise, so sturdy! And pretty fine too considering I'm using surfaced metal with a treatment to file plastic.

I may have wasted my money on a couple things though.

The pin vise I have comes with six (unlabeled) drills. The largest one in the set is TINY. And its slightly bigger than the set of drills I have.

I have 30 drills each one incrementally smaller than the last. The smallest is about twice the width of a strand of hair.

Seriously.

So the 30 drill bits I ordered might be overkill, but I'd rather have over than under.

If I could thread some metal or fiber glass filiments through the holes...

MADNESS!

Anyway, if I run into a situation where I need a BIGGER bit I'll have to special order em. I think I did the conversion on these things though I have up to five milimeters I think.
On a medium sized custom gun barrel I can make pretty nice muzzle holes.

Large gun barrel (IE Cannon barrel) I'll have to find a different resource.

Hardest part is starting the hole, which... I think that's why a lot of these guys use carpenter nails and prod-tools.

What else I got
glues glorious glues and a kicker
enamel cleaner (... which I'm really hoping works to clean lacquer :b)
a small bit of clear finish (which from now on I'm ordering BULK)
my one ounce canister of aluminum finish (which should really be overkill if I'm just gonna use it on jets).

Oh yeah... so the gunbelt

... worthless.
Its basically a metal etch runner of tiny bullets about the size of...

toothpick heads?
Smaller.

Does NOT work with this scale :/

But

the 1/35'th ammo boxes and shell canisters would make BAD ass heavy rifle ammo. Too bad they're not big enough for cannon shells.
I've got several runners with these bullets on em. I think I'll save at least one for recasts.

The rivets I bought are basically micro surface decals.
Stickers with bumps on em.
Don't think I really want em, and they are ITTY bitty
I'm better off doing a weathering effect for extra surface.

So...
a couple busts.
But over all required material and a couple added bonuses.
I'm pretty happy with that.
These files are going to make beveling a breeze.
And I unlocked all kinds of doors with the pin vise and glues.

Next order's probably going through mechaskunk.
I need metal option parts and rivet beads.

Unless... I can find someone just selling a billion ball bearings in just the right size.

Gatts gets me hard :3 what can I say?

Also, I looked into kits for Berserk (which I now have volumes 1-33)

Those kits range from $95 to $400 to $1000.

*sigh* don't think I'll partake for a while.

Other than that I don't really have any kits I'm just gagging to put together. DSH's cleaned smoothed and sketched. I really just need to break down and start priming my 1/144 Gouf... which I'm probably going to start right after this. Friggin royals are down five runs :/

umm ummmm

um um um um um um

*shrugs* I dunno I lost a little momentum after Neue Ziel was finished, but I can't expect more out of that than what I got, it was practice.

Now here's a fair question:
why would you seed and proliferate an unsubtitled DVD rip of something?

Second one I found in a month.
Cocksuckers.

Is that I've got 20 other ideas that will eventually turn into projects.

All of which probably involve fewer intricacies and require less practice than this one.

Sooooo

Deathscythe.

I put down some preliminary sketches, and I decided to stick with the whole wings/redemption thing.

And Out of my brain popped a seraphim.

Why not? He has all the hinges necessary for six wings and a sword (what I often interpret the 7th wing to be in my work :P)

So I have... Huge.
Plans.

For this kit.

Color scheme is light metallic trim
White body (pearl finish if I can get it)
and dark purple panels

Torso/waist mods:
planning to reshape the panels to resemble a crusader's tunic
paneling some of the cockpit and less organic designs
may remove back-skirt, current design impedes maneuverability.

limb mods:
none planned at the moment

Wing mods:
extensive.
Possibly scrap building all new wing/armor plates (or just sanding off some surfaces) and crafting "feathers" and attaching to the outside of all six wings.

Backpack mods:
half tempted to throw the damn thing away.

Weapon mods:
Crafting a massive sword possibly retaining some of the existing parts/blade shapes and recasting in another color
-redesigning "buster" shield to... actually work as a shield instead of some crazy lazer tunneling jet propelled weapon.

Head mods:
Also extensive
planning a face plate redesign in the style of a crusader helm (specifically the judgement mask from WoW with a different color scheme) and removing several surfaces and redesigning the helmet from some crazy kraut/samurai helmet into something more similar to a hood or shroud.
Probably recolor the eyes light light light blue

If I do this the way I'm thinking
there really might not be any turning back

I'm talking part removal at this point
full cut
putty
sand
paint.

I haven't the faintest idea as to how I'll make the feathers they might just be feathered lines... I mean, seraphim are "searpents of fire" I could maybe just funk the panels a bit and make some wild directional lines and call it a day.

A lot easier to sketch it...

This is a way
way down the line project.

But hey, I've got a plan :P

...

.......

Make babies.

Well this morning I realized I had (among other things) a lil block of rock solid sourdough, 2 eggs, and of course the world's best ham
:3

So when I got back from ... going ALL OVER THIS F*CKING neighborhood looking for pins, I finally got back home and made french toast.

I cut some stale bread into about 1/2 inch to 1 inch thick slices, whipped the two eggs with about 8 drops of vanilla extract, and one tablespoon of agave nectar (or honey)

I then soaked each side of each piece of bread for 1-3 minutes each side
extracted and let sit while I cooked my ham.

Once my ham was crispy I grabbed some old granola I had sitting around, the bagged kind with sweetened oats. and dusted the top side of each piece of toast.
I started frying the toast and it occured to me that I could dump the excess batter over the granola to kinda hold it into place, flipped and fried the other side

extracted let cool for a couple minutes, plopped on some apricot preserves, a slice of ham, and some cool camembert (brie would work too)
and consumed.

That's right.
I went there.

It was sweet, puffy, custardy, hammy, fruity, crunchy, and had that spicey crip moldyness one expects from soft cheese.

Soooooooo good.
Sooooooo complex.

I tried about every combination, my favorite was the supreme. Cheese and ham was a close second.

So... anyway, I spent about 3 hours shopping for just a handful of ... PINS! Come on people don't make me go to a sewing supply store for something THAT simple.
Walgreens had them
out of stock
Dollar store had them
out of stock
Hardware store
no dice

Also- how fucking hard is it for me to get some foam board for my paint skewers?

Anyway, I dug Deathscythe out and...

*rubs his temples*

Stripped the hand painted slop I had left on the kit.

Now I have to give little-me props for accuracy, I must've used a single hair brush on some of those pinstripes, but it looked... wavey, uneven, not uniform consistency and stroke like an airbrush.

And there were nibs about half a centimeter out (that's a lot)
some were so big the plates didn't even fit together properly.

These were the days before I used wire cutters to get kits out of the runners
hell
this was before I used a pocket knife (which in all fairness, pretty good idea, it has a file, a straight blade, and clippers... usually SHIT clippers but hey...)
so it looked like...
crap.

I found this to be a great opportunity to learn how to strip paint and more practice on de-nibbing.

Two hours later and the job was done.

Every nib had been cut chizeled shaved or sliced by my #17 exacto blade
that's this really thin square blade

soooooo good for this
push it straight down the panel, or place it at a 45 degree angle and pop
no nib
oh yeah

and don't hold that fucker like a pairing knife
I probably have 8 fairly deep cuts on my thumb and pointer.

Anyway

the paint came off... easyish
Mineral spirits were fucking useless, so I used rubbing alchohol

shoop
that shit practically melted off.
There's some residual paint in the grooves and crevaces, but for the most part its gone.

Problem is some of the gold finish came off on a few of the pieces where the paint had bonded
*shrug*
it still looks better than before.

After I denibbed the
body
head
arms
legs
feet
hands
forearms
shield
hips
wings
wings
wings
I got to the beamscythes and went ahead and cut them to a finer point
it always bugged me how...
round
those blades looked at the end.
Not very manly or intimidating.

Y'know... even twelve years ago I really felt like I had to do too much to this kit to get it ready.

I still feel that way.

The panel colors are wrong (as in parts are WHITE instead of navy or black)
About everything white on this kit should be a shade of gray or ... red.
Yeah, that's some major points off for color accuracy.
And a lot of them don't even have decals to cover it up.

But I do have to say, after having the kit in my hands, it gets major points for panel lining.
Very in depth and cool looking.
But white metal blades?
White jammers and shoulder blades?
At least they gave me clear green blades, unlike the Shenlong which... some day I have to repaint those hideous white beam trident blades.
At least with that kit I had -most- of what I need to fix the color inadequacies but it was too heavilly dependent on stickers.

That kit is also due for a recolor, and possibly a foot mod so it can stand up on its own.

whiiiiich
brings up our next point of order.

Colors.

That's OOB except you see the white trim on the helmet, the red boxes on the wings, and the white panel on the front wings?

Yeah... the red is hanpainted you can tell by the thickness and incosistent quality of the color, So are the white triangles on the shoulder, the white panel is a sticker, the trim on the helmet is NOT there, neither are those gold vulcans, and those vents sticking up between his head and shoulder- those are WHITE on my kit.

Also- not that glossy, or that black.

essentially, that reference point is a lie.

So is this:

At the moment I'm thinking go opposite day with this damn thing

Which could mean
new shield
new weapon
new paint scheme (I was leaning toward white with blue ribs and blue/purple interior side of the wings)

Think angelic, maybe some panel mods on the wings as well to look more like angel wings.

Make babies.