A Matter of Building (tiny) Giant Robots

Like a child with a new toy, this blogging business has given me this sense of great power at my finger tips to do practically anything. I feel like I can create worlds, move oceans, rewrite history, talk about cheese. So I had to bash out something to post just for the heck of it. Goodbye my sweet beautiful evening - you had so much unfulfilled potential - then I had to go and this and write three pages about a fairly recent hobby I've picked up. Mind any errors - it was late and I didn't have time to proofread. Building model kits has been a recent hobby of mine for the last 2 or 3 years. Oh certainly I'd built a few simple ones when I was 11 or 12, but I haven't seriously started building them until just now. As I've stated elsewhere, I love giant super robots. On the one hand they are war machines made primarily to fight and kill. But let's ignore all that - I don't enjoy them because of that. On the other hand, there's just something about robots that I enjoy. There's a certain artistic beauty to their impossible mechanical designs. But let's not delve into that - we're here about my obsession venture into the world of building scale model kits. When we think robot model kits, Bandai's extremely popular line of Gundam models often comes to mind. Now, I know little of the series they come from, but I like the robots. I didn't think I'd really get into them as they looked like too much effort for something that got you less than what you put in. I mean, the kits cost just as much if not more than ordinary toys that can be bought complete and ready to play right off the shelf. In addition to that, the preparation and the cost of preparing them certainly add to the bill too for both money, effort and time. In the end, what you get is just a statue with some moving parts. A very delicate statue at that. Something you have to gingerly manipulate in case it breaks from rough usage. And boy can they break easily! Luckily, though I do manipulate the toys every so often, I mainly buy toys to look at and display rather than for actual play. There are many ways to enjoy toys, and that is how I've chosen to enjoy them. So yes, I thought I'd pick one up and give it a go. It was amazingly hard to put together, and I broke lots of bits in the process. But in the end it still looked great. I put a few of the foil stickers on and was generally happy. I wasn't intending to get another, so thought the whole ordeal was over. Or was I? While browsing my local auction site, I saw a large kit from Bandai for a 1:35 scale Mastergrade Ingram 03 from the Patlabor series. Again, a series I know very little about, but I like the mecha designs. So I got it. At this point I should note that I was blissfully unaware of the varying complexities of Bandai's model kits. Their kits are separate into various complexity levels such as First Grade, High Grade to Master Grade, etc. The higher the grade, the more complex the more elaborate the model is constructed. Obviously this also equate to more work! A Master Grade is roughly a highly detailed model that generally requires someone with moderate to expert level plastic model kit experience. Something I did not have at the time. So I built the Ingram. Stuff broke, things didn't go right. It took a long time and I almost went cross-eyed when I lost track of time while putting it together. Good lighting is essential! In the end another very nifty model was constructed. Sure I was still a beginner, so there were sprue (parts tree) stubs everywhere, parts weren't aligned properly and it's unpainted, bits were broken and I'd damaged some display gimmick parts on account of not reading the instructions properly. However, I felt a sense of satisfaction for completing it. As with the other kit, I was quite pleased at how you could bend the arms or twist the legs and put it into various poses for display. The articulation was more elaborate than any old action figure that you can buy of the shelf. Later on, I picked up another Gundam kit and built that. This time I started taking more care to detail it. I started painting some detail in with a fine brush. That added to the frustration, but the overall look of the finished item looked great. A year ago, I discovered a brand new hobby shop called Hobby One run by some fine Japanese gentlemen that specialized in Japanese toys. Need I say what this resulted in? A very empty wallet, I can assure you. Slowly I started buying more and more kits - I've lost count. For now I was shying away from the Master Grade Bandai kits for a time since they were proving to be a bit too complex for me. Each time, I started to improve my construction technique. The best ever thing I did was to buy a proper set of side cutters. These were Tamiya branded side cutters, and boy was this the biggest and best investment I ever put into this hobby. The parts that were cuts from the parts tree came off with much cleaner cuts. Not perfect, but much better than what I was able to do before. By now I'd started using a sharp X-Acto hobby knife to cut down the sprue stumps. Once or twice I tried to use sandpaper as well, but never really got into the habit of it. Then I progressed onto detailing the kits with more paint than before. Probably the simplest was to use a fine point technical pen to ink in the panel lines. I don't do this much in general, but it's quite a nice way to bring out detail that would otherwise be hidden. Generally accomplished with what's known as a black wash as well. Then I started working on the Master Grade kits again. I think about the third or fourth one in, I got to work on the Master Grade 1:100 MS-06J Zaku Ver 2.0 (a whole new mould from a previous kit). I just fell in love with this kit. The articulation for a Gundam kit was breathtaking. Complex, certainly, but I was getting better. I weathered it a little with paint and did something that was quite new to me at the time. I gave it a clear gloss coat. Several MG kits later, I picked up on Kotobukiya's line of robot kits featuring the 1:72 renditions of the mechs from the Armored Core series of computer games. Their construction was simpler, but the amazing detail that went into the designs had me working with tweezers just to fit parts on. I eventually got into the habit of using plastic cement or glue just to put bits together. But that added another tool in my toolbox to work with. Several more Bandai and Kotobukiya kits later, I started airbrushing some of my models. I managed to pick up a second hand Tamiya Spray Works basic air compressor and air gun. I rarely used it, but it's amazing what you can do with it. Again, more money thrown into this rather expensive hobby. Oh and the paints. And thinner. Oh my! I started delving into building dioramas. Thanks to Woodland's Scenics scene elements, I've managed to build a few simple but oddly effective countryside scenes (3 as of typing this). Though I find I rarely pose my builds in them, except for the occasional photo shot. I also picked up a copy of Degenki Hobby's special edition magazine on Zaku 2.0 models. Man was I blown away by the piece called Flak - North America 0079 by Toriwa Toriyama featuring a diorama of blasted wreck of a building with two MG Zaku 2.0 models done up in WW2 styled German tank decor. Simply amazing - I had to do something like that too. And I did, albeit much simpler. During this time I picked up a copy of Fine Scale Modeler from the library. It was an issue for beginner modellers. Quite a fascinating read - and some of the techniques were well worth adding to my repertoire of knowledge. One thing definite was that I've started using floor wax to coat clear parts. Odd, but strangely useful. More recently, while building the Armored Core CR-C75U2 Delta Version (Scylla's AC in Armored Core 3) - I started sanding. It's amazing what sanding can do to smooth out the stubs. They're still visible, but you can't feel them anymore. A marked improvement - so I've started sanding for every of my builds after this. This has unfortunately almost doubled my construction time. What used to take me 4 - 5 hours, now takes me up to 8. That's not counting setting up my tools and the cleanup afterwards! About two months ago, I entered a few of my works into a competition held by Hobby One. There were two stages to the voting, the shop voting and the Auckland Armageddon 08 expo voting. I didn't enter to win - I just did it for fun (and I admit - to show off the diorama I spent ages to put together). Sure enough, I didn't win, but I was surprised that I got 3rd in the store voting and 2nd place for the Armageddon voting. A lot better than I'd hoped - but hey. I got a lovely Zaku folder out of it, so it was no loss. No loss at all! I think I've come a long way (and spent a lot of money) since I first started. And you know what? I might just keep going. It's an odd hobby that takes up a lot of time simply to draw out the small sense of satisfaction of having built something yourself the way you want to build it. The funniest part of it all is probably the fact I still consider myself a beginner. Maybe I'll write about this all over again - but for now, good day to you.