A review (of sorts)

Hello all!

Recently I picked up the Traveler TV6500 Film scanner from Aldi for 50euro. A good price, since the only other place I could pick it up anything similar was IWANTONEOFTHOSE.COM for £50.

So what does one get for ones 50euro?
You get the Scanner tower, with a built in 5.0 megapixel camera (up to 1800 dpi resolution).CD with a copy of Arcsoft Photo Impression 6, cleaning brush, 2 negative film holder sliders and 2 slide frame sliders.
The tower is made of matte black plastic and a metal panel on the top with the 'on' light and the scan button. The tower connects to the pc/laptop via USB 2.0 built in cable which also powers it. It feels hollow, cheap and light but as long as I don't drop it all will be good.
The sliders are made of the same matte black plastic and are sturdy.

The drivers and software are easy to install and I was up and running in about 10 to 15minutes after taking it out of the box. The software opens up and you can use it with a normal scanner also. Selecting the film scanner, I have the option to select slides, negatives or b/w negatives as well as the dpi and colour depth. I should be able to select either Jpeg or Tiff file type, however mine seems to have defaulted to Tiff. Not a huge problem except this file type tends to have huge file sizes (one picture in TIFF file was 99.5mb, when I converted it using photoshop to JPEG it went down to 7.5mb). After selecting the options a new window appears with a film reel at the top and a window to the left. The window is a live view from the camera, so you can adjust colour, saturation, brightness on the right hand side and see it live. A nice feature especially to line the photos up right. Up can take a snapshot of up to 12 photos before having to transfer it to the PC. Thats 3 negative film slides. Handy. The sliders slot in at the bottom and you push them manually to the next photo.
Transferring the photos can take time however, but this may be due to my filetype that its being saved as.
The photos are also auto adjusted to make them brighter also when they're being saved.

I like this piece of kit. Its easy to use. I also like the fact that it saves me having to scan the original photos, many of which have become damaged. I give this product a 4/5. I took 1 from it because it  could do with more substance to the tower. That is all!

Thanks for reading!

Inspiration

In my attempt to kitbash my Impulse into something pretty mean-like, I have being looking up images of other kitbashes. Alas, it has been hard, as google images is a pain. However, I did stumble across a nice website for gunpla: www.gundamguy.blogspot.com
He has news at least twice daily, from reviews of new kits to just galleries. However it is his links that I really like.
It's this blogger: http://zyncium.blogspot.com that I'm really digging, especially his latest kitbash. I am so robbing ideas from him!

Kitbash

KITBASHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have kitbashed about 7 gundams and one mobile Armour (though the armour still needs alot of work).

Here is the first below. Each gundam will get a post, I'll ask for critics, suggestions and other things. Feel free to put down what you think.

Each model is in the WIP stage, All the extra parts are bluetacked to the model, for ease of changing.

Also I'll list the parts I used for each model too.

So without further delay:

Parts used are:

Head = Altron 

Torso = Sandrock

Arms = Heavy Arms

Waist and legs = Altron

Backpack = Sandrock

Shield = Sandrock

Weapon = Altron

Sword = Linebarrel (taken from Linebarrel Series)

Small weapons = warhammer 40k Tau weapons.

Any suggestions on names?

Plan of attacking my hobby.

So, whats my plan hobby wise between now and X-mas?

Well, first off, I have a few extra gundam wing models that i picked up over the years, not complete, parts missing extra. I'm thinking that I'll kitbash a new gundam or gundams from the assorted pieces and paint it up to my own colour scheme.

I have the following gundams to use, all in the 1/144 scale: Strike Aile (GSD), Tallgesse (GW), Vevate (GW), Altron (1/144), Sandrock (GW), Epyhon (GW) and a Heavy Arms (GW).

Then separately I have a 1/144 Sandrock custom and 1/144 Deathsycthe Hell custom (Fighting HG grade) that will be kitbashed together to form 2 new gundams.

2nd plan is to get my 1/144 gundam ball set (not HG), spray paint some of the sections and parts and finally get it complete, along with my 1/144 Jegan (not HG) a another Zeon suit (can't remember the name off hand).

3rd plan is to get some of my warhammer 40k figures constructed, primed and painted by x-mas. Still working on the scenery (a.k.a not finished or looked at) and hope to get them done by halloween. As most of the scenery is rock formations and hills, I can use them as dioramas along with my gundams.

4rd plan is to fix my Enterprise E which took a nose dive from my table. All the parts are present and all were clean breaks at their glue points. (Phew!). I'm also going to start on my two Voyagers also, comparing the two kits, building and finally painting them up!

So they're the plans. Hopefully I'll have WIP pictures as I do them!

Wish me luck!

Why no love?

I swear, I do have a good reason for not posting anything. I do.

Kinda......

I went to nom-com and bought over 250euro worth of Gundam goodness. A couple of the nice action stands, few models, markers etc. I will post pictures of these over time when I start to photograph all (yes, all) my collection. I've been building all these models so that's where some of the time has gone.

I haven't had internet in my house for 2months. So the only place I could blog is work. And we've been busy here so thats not an option.

Yet another reason is that I've been trying to watch all the unwatched DVDs I've bought over the years, and to have all that done by x-mas. So far I have seasons 1-4 of Allo allo watched (seasons5-9 to go), all of Gundam Seed Destiny and Eureka 7. I've also some of boxset 1 watched of Gundam Zeta.

And my final reason is that I've been stripping the paint from some of my older models. Its a hard job and many models needed two soakings. I've nearly all the models stripped, so once done I'll be painting them up (hopefully).

And thats it for another post!

Nom-Con

Nom-con is this weekend! I've bee looking forward to it for ages!

It starts Friday and finishes on Sunday!

I have the weekend pass so once I get the timetables, will be able to proper plan the weekend.

I'm dragging my long suffering GF (sorry, casually dating partner), along, poor her. As we have weekend passes, should we get bored, hungry or sleepy, we can go and come back.

OOOHHHHH, I can't wait!!!!!!

Dead? me?

Honestly, I haven't died or dropped off the planet!

I haven't credited my 3 internet dondle this month in an endevour to try and scab a few euro for the nom-con convention thats on at the end of the month. Woo!

So I've been using work internet for some bursts of browsing.

But anyway, I wander.

On the hobby front, I have finished my enterprise e for the moment. Its painted and has the decals (if rather badly) attached. I'm hoping to pick up gundam hobby markers at the convention at the end of the month (real thin panel line markers) so I can define the windows on the model.

Also built are: Gundam OO's Tieren Space type and Gundam Wing Endless Waltz's Custom Sandrock.

Both are nice builds, why different from each other in style and build.

I'll post a review at some stage for both.

I also have a Zaku Gouf from the original Gundam series built too.

On my list of items to build are:An old version of the RGC-80 Guncannon model and Mobile Armour balls too!

Hopefully I'll have more updates sooner rather than later!!!!