Book Binge

The Great Singapore Sale is here! And coinciding but not related to it, I went on an almost uncontrollable book binge this weekend. Resulting in my wallet being S$204.14 lighter. The culprits from left to right are:
Military Modeling Manual 19 - some really cool vignettes are feature in it.
Mak Profiles 1 Falke - one of the poorest price/value purchase I made. Still if you bought the new hasegawa falke model kit and can read japanese, then this book is highly recommended.
AFV Modeler Tamiya Anniversary Special - a nice compilation of built Tamiya models and a great selection of interviews from well known modelers. Including our very own Dinesh Ned.
Shimada Humikane Art Works - features girls (cyborgs?) that have parts of military aircraft and vehicles fused to their body. I think this is from a computer game. More on this later.
Exodessey - a great selection of concept art from Steambot Studios. Totally inspiring art works ranging from landscapes to characters and vehicles. I'm well pleased with this piece.

Minimized Maxim MG 08

It's a scratchbuilt 1:72 scale Maxim MG08. Used by Germany during WW1. Built from bits and pieces of plastic sheet, plastic rod and metal foil.
The machine gun itself is about 2 cm long.
When finished, it will be part of a ww1 diorama where a FT-17 is attacking a German trench.
The whole thing is built up from 3 main components. It is still missing the muzzle, handles and a mechanical bit on the gun mount. I'll also probably need to build an ammo box, ammo belt and the water can that cools the barrel. Stay tuned.

DIY laptop

Well, not really. It's actually my home made backdrop holder for taking photos of my projects. The photos from the last mazinger Z stikfas post made it painfully obvious to me that I need a nicer background to have better photos.
The list of materials used:
2 x cheap balsa wood framed cork boards
2 x metal hinges
4 x self tapping metal screws
2 x packaging string
3 x paper clips (made from sheet aluminum)
double sided tape
Various colored papers for use as the backdrops.
Process:
The hinges were aligned with masking tape and then screwed onto the back of the boards. A couple of screws were then attached to both sides where the strings were looped over. I made sure the angle of the boards was more than 90 degrees when opened to prevent it from closing on itself while I'm photographing.
Aluminum sheet was cut into small squares, corners were rounded, the edges were sanded and then folded over to form clips that would hold the paper backdrop. These were attached via double sided tape. 2 at the bottom and 1 at the top. Locations were based on the size of my paper backdrops.
The sheets of paper I got were quite small but were big enough for small projects. Eventually I'll need to get larger sheets and I might need to adjust the clips position or add new clips.
We'll see the backdrop in action for my next posts.

Mazinger Z-tikfas

I'm calling 'im done for now. In fact, he's gone off for a vacation, can you guess where?
One day I gotta get my airbrushed properly cleaned so I can spray a final semi-gloss protective coat on Mr Z here, till then he'll have to wait in the cabinet. Now if you're wondering why you only ever see him in one pose. Why isnt he supposed to be stikfas custom and hence should be poseable? Well you see I built him out of an old stikfas I had lying around. He had yellowed a bit due to sun exposure and the plastic had gotten a bit brittle. The joints started to crack when I put him together so I had to glue him all up. So now he's frozen in that pose, not much action in this figure. Hope none of the baddies come around to bust him up! hmmm...is that an idea for the next stikfas custom?

See here for all the work in progress posts.

Mazinger Plas-stikfas Almost Done

Got hit by a stomach bug and put out of action. The consequences are of course I get a chance to catch up on some light activities at home. Mr. Z here is all painted up and almost ready to go! All that's left is a protective spray on varnish and final assembly. Of course I didn't forget the second most important chest pieces for all male Mazinger Z fans. See below:
The pieces were pretty small and I was too weak (lazy) to whip up the old compressor and airbrush, so I decided I'd brush paint them by hand. Problem is that brush marks are so obvious when it comes applying glossy paint. I'm thinking of applying a final layer of envirotex lite gloss varnish. Lets hope it works!

Cashless Stash

Happily received this in the mail about a month ago, it's a 1/35 scale model the Centurion Mk 5 battle tank. It's a generous gift from the folks at armorama for my SAS jeep article which won the feature writing contest. You might remember my first ever post is when I mentioned this article.
It also come with a set of metal tracks and resin gun mantlet as seen in the photo.

Mazinger Plas-stikfas all wrapped up

No, I'm afraid it's not wrapped as in finished, instead it's wrapped up in tissue and tape for spray painting. Actually did this about a month ago, it's the second stage in painting. 1st layer was Tamiya Color Racing White from a spray can. After drying for a day or so, I masked and airbrushed on Tamiya acrylic Blue color mixed with a bit of Field Blue and Clear. The result is what you see in the pic.