My first complete Kitbash

Had started this model off last year, but never completed it until I read about Gundamguy's (www.gundamguy.blogspot.com) competition. SO nows its finished!
A custom colour scheme and all. Please excuse the quality of the photos but my memory card is not in my house so I had to use my phone.
I'll list the parts used and you can c&c all you want! Oh, the scale is 1/144 and I hand painted the model, hence the untidiness and yes, I know that there's seamlines, but I'm not all that fussy about them myself.

Head: Exia NG (Gundam 00)
Body: Impulse HG (Gundam Seed Destiny)
Waist: Impulse HG (Gundam Seed Destiny), Strike Noir for ass thrusters (1/100Gundam Seed Stargazer)
Legs: Impulse HG (Gundam Seed Destiny)
Arms: Impulse HG (Gundam Seed Destiny)
Shoulders: Epyon NG (Gundam Wing)
Shoulder Guns: I think their from the 1/100 Strike Noir kit.
Beam Saber: Hilt is from the Impulse, the beam is from the wing of the Strike Noir.
Hand Gun: Kotobuyiko(?) M.S.G. weapons set.

Crater: Games Workshop Crater kit
Misc: Dead gundams.

Hello to all, a Happy New Year to you!
5 days into the New Year. I'm a little bit late wishing you a Happy New Year, but its the thought that counts. Isn't it?

Anyway, this post is probably going to be random as I'm just typing it out, no thought going into it at all.

Ok, here we go.

So.... the recession, killing anyone else's hobbies and dreams?
Due to the recession, large clunks of my pay packet are taken off me before I even get to see it due the complete ineptness that is the Irish Government. But however you look at it, I only really have myself to blame really. During the 'good times' when I was earning a decent wage, I made little to no attempt to save any money for the in enviable rainy day, spending the cash on DVDs, cds, alcohol, nicknack's etc. It hasn't until the start of the recession that I started collection warhammer 40k, the occasional Star Trek ship and restarted my Gundam collection. (maybe I'll talk about the recession more in my next post).
Why so late in my life (I'm 26 next birthday and the recession started 3ish years ago).
Well, the 40k came about from a friend of mine from work (who has since become my supervisor at work) who was trying to organise a gaming night. It lasted about 6-7months, meeting on a Sunday evening. We started playing Heroquest, an excellent game if you can pick up a copy. After a few months of that, we moved on to Descent and then finally......Space Hulk. Not the new version, the classic 1st edition. It was so cool! I was hooked! After playing it a few times, the group drifted apart (as all things do) and it wasn't until I was in my local art and crafts shop (Art'N'Hobby), that I saw them selling 40K models. I picked up a packet of Space Marine Terminators (if memory serves) and that was the start of that obsession!

Ummm.....moving on I thinks. I like Star Trek, the series is good, easy to sit down and watch, easy enough to pick up. And I do like the simple yet sleek designs of the ships. They just seem to glide through space. (Yes I am a Trekkie, just don't tell anyone! Please!?!)

And Gundams...... I do like gundams. I first saw the gundam as a TV series on Toonami (again if memory serves). It was New Report Gundam Wing - AKA Gundam Wing. It was around that time, that I picked up some of my all time favorite anime series' Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Martian Successor Nadesico. Unusally for a TV series in Ireland (especially one from Japan that wasn't aimed at kids to sell toys), the local toy shops were selling the model kits. At the time I only picked up a few 1/144 models and 1/100 of Wing. It started a collection that continues today in two regards: all but 3 of my collect are 1/144 scale and I'm trying to collect the entire Wing set!  

Zeon - MS-07B Gouf. Just pictures and bad videos. No text!

 

Christmas time!

Woo-hoo to Christmas time. A time for giving and receiving. Now I'm sure no one cares, but I'm going to say with I got for X-mas from those people close and dear to me!

My sister got me the 3disc SE of Avatar, I've seen the original cut of the film and can't wait to watch the new extended cut!!!!! She also got me a book called 'Elephants on Acid and other Bizarre Experiments' by Alex Boese. This looks like it'll be a really cool and interesting book, based on very real and very weird experiments (tickling machines and zombie kittens. WTF?)

My parents got me a mens toiletry bag with shaving gel, face balm, shower gel and mens face wash. Everything I need in one bag. I don't usually buy this kind of thing because (A) I'm cheap, (B) I'm a bit scruffy looking all the time (C) as I've said, I'm cheap. So starting this New Years Eve, there may be a cleaner looking individual in my place!

My wonderful girlfriend got me many many things: The really brilliant free floating due to magnets Doctor Who Tardis. It is so cool, spinning with no wires. Oh the fun, I spent an hour after setting it up, just spinning it making the Tardis noise!
She also got me the Tron-look-a-like Bumblebee. This version of Bumblebee is from the Transformers Generations line and the design is based on that of his 'War On Cybertron' game form. Really cool.
On the Transformers front, I also got the Transformers novel - Exodus by Alex Irvine, based on the first meeting of Megatronus and Orion Pax (Megatron and Optimus Prime in later life). The book is canon, however here's the problem: Which continuity is it canon for? The original TV series, the marvel comic, the dreamwave comic, the devils due comic, the live action film series or the IDW comic?
I also got the 1992 Grandmaster annual for the Transformers Generation 2. I'm been looking for this for the last two years. So ahppy to have it. I think (must check) that it completes my original TF annual set!
I got two (yes two) Gundam manga: the first is based on the original series timeline - Blue Destiny, a side story to the main war, and the second is Seed Vol 4 - the manga retelling of the Seed Tv series. The art in both is excellent and if you don't want to sit through 52ish episodes of Seed, the manga retellings are brilliant!
Ooooh oooh, I got the superb series: Gundam 0080 - War in the pocket, again a side story to the original Gundam storyline, showing a tiny part of the war and how it affects the people involved. And got the Gundam F91 film, an excellent film in itself, but it feels incomplete, the ending leaving you hanging and craving more.
 
On the gadgets side: A singing Elvis rubber ducky for the bath. I so have to start having baths instead of showers just to try this little ducky out!
And finally ( i think, hope i didnt leave anything out) a really funky retro style robot, whose arms and legs have usb ports. The whole robot is an USB hub for my laptop, but the best bit is: his arms and legs move!!!!!!

BRILLIANT X-MAS PRESENTS FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hope Santa came to all!

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?