Seed 1:100's

Well, while i was patiently waiting for my computer to scan through 1.75 terabytes of data, I decided to unpak some of kits their boxes and display them on the blog.
And since Tim started off the previous post with a Seed SD, i decided to show some of my seed 1:100's.

First off, the Astray Blue Frame 2nd L

From Gunpla

I've always had the idea that - the bigger the weapon, the better XD

The Blue Frame 2nd L tactical arms is probably the 2nd largest physical blade used by any mobile suit in gundam history (even bigger than the 00 seven sword config GN Buster sword mkII, though being dwarfed by the 150meter Gerbera Straight used by the Powered Red Frame)

From Gunpla

The sword itself is so heavy that holding it up like this is impossible without extra aid.

From Gunpla

The only way to hold the sword unassisted is to put it over one shoulder

From Gunpla

Although the Blue Frame 2nd is supposed to come with 6 Armor Schneider knives, we only get 4 in this kit
2 hand held, and one in each toe. The heel blades were not included.

From Gunpla

From Gunpla

As with most other 1:100's from the seed line, posing of the blue frame is kinda limited. As you can see, its not designed for air poses.

From Gunpla

WINGS!!!!

From Gunpla

Fortunately, they did give the Blue frame enough mobility so it can kneel while posing with the tactical arms in gattling mode

From Gunpla

And to finish off the astray, an innovative weapon!
The hilt of the tactical arms sword can become the base of a beam saber ^^

Next up is the 1:100 Buster Gundam

From Gunpla

The buster was a decent kit
It has similar joints as Astray so mobility is around the same (slighly better as demonstrated later)

However, posing is still rather limited

From Gunpla

yeah, blurry picture.....i know....cbb retaking it...

From Gunpla

From Gunpla

More pics...

From Gunpla

And Finally.....

Unlike the Astray, the Buster is relatively light weight, and balanced. Thus, its able to do poses like this and still keep balance.

From Gunpla

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SD Blitz WIP 1

): so my internet is capped. damn. i was planning on playing some tf2 over the weekend as well!

so. 

What we have here is a SD blitz gundam ! one of the cooler SD's that have come out imo. It doesnt have anything too fancy or ridiculous *cough 00-raiser* but makes up for it with its sleek streamlined styling. sexy.

in the anime, blitz is supposed to be the stealthy sneaky sneaky gundam. hence the ninja like features of the mecha, like the grappling hooks, ninja mask, colors and the funky weaponry. 

Im not  huge fan of the paint scheme so i decided to repaint it to a more classic ninja paint scheme

Black part will be repainted in a gloss black

Grey to a satin  grey

Red to a champagne gold

Purple to a titanium silver

Yellow S: i havent decided yet .. comment on what color u think it should be ! 

anyway heres the wip!

heres everythig cutout and sanded

purple parts being prepped for paint

A newish lacquer paint i bought. its awesome but i spilt 3/4 of the bottle... !@#$@!#$ it was so expensive as well... all teh gloopy bits on nora are from this.

Normally i would be unhappy with the brush strokes but imo they fit with the cast iron theme of ninjas and their gear so its ok. i didnt have any retarder or thinner so it went on fairly thick. I used some enamel thinner on the brush so that i wouldnt wreck it with lacquer paint. however it backfired on the last piece when i didnt use enough paint on the brush and the enamel started arguing with teh lacquer on the mask. That what is making it look slightly gloopy.Lacquer dries fast .

This is some tamiya acrylic silver... Like every other shitty tamiya paint it likes to turn into a silken tofu desert when left alone for an hour

Here is a comparison between the two silvers, You can see that not only is the lacquer paint thicker, but there are much much mcuh more particles in it that reflect light.

The tamiya silver parts will be used as a base for gold to give it that champagne lightness

This is how the champagne turned out im quite happy with it.

more pics to come later.

love,

tim.

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Breeding with Ditto

As many you should have realised by now that I have fallen into a trap called Pokemon...again but since its been so many years since I last played it i approached this game with a new perspective with a much more mature and and insightful view. When you breed a pokemon you can do it in various ways . 1. shack up a male and female of the same pokemon. 2. breed a female and male pokemon of the same egg type *this is called interracial 0_o* 3. breed a ditto with a pokemon of any gender capable of breeding ( it seems in the pokemon world entire species are infertile)

The point of interest is that the pokemon Ditto, who not only looks like a chewed up pink bubble gum but it can mimic form of any object or thing perfectly and in this case the pokemon I'm gonna breed. It was all fine and dandy until I realised something I wouldn't have paid much thought towards a few years ago...I bred a Ditto with a male pikachu.

Now we can be certain this game is not prejudice towards how people or pokemon swing but the question is where the frak did the egg come from?

Such magnificent observation can only be attributed to my growing wisdom and for attending STHS.

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端午节快乐！！！

Long time no see!!!!
Yes, things have been pretty busy lately, especially with the massive pileup of assignments, which as usual have been left to the last minute.
Yes i know the banner hasnt been updated. Will do so as soon as im free.

As some of you may know, today is 端午节 DuanWu Festival, or more commonly known to white people as the Dragon Boat Festival
And ofcourse, on this day it is a custom to eat 粽子 Zong Zi or rice dumplings.
This year, we got quite alot....just finished eating my 5th one for the day. Better than a cheese filled kebab?? Well, its a bit hard to compare apples to oranges in the 1st place, so i'll leave it up to you guys to decide which is better.

From General

ooo....may 28th also happens to be my sister's birthday.....so happy birthday to her.

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Book Review - High Fidelity

OK, this is a new thing. Every time I finish reading a book I will post a review, the detail of which will depend on how lazy I am not at that present moment =P
Just remember, this is my first time, and I'm doing this at 4.00am in the morning for no apparent reason, so please don't be harsh.

High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
Synopsis
Rob Fleming runs a failing record store in London. He is in his 30's and his girlfriend Laura has just left him. Guided by his passion for music, Rob looks back at his love life from the very beginning, and tries to figure out what went wrong - by seeking out his old girlfriends.

Review
This is an observational story, dealing with the ways our relationships are guided by our interests. Rob hides behind his music, letting it think for him. This liberates him from the burden of having to make serious choices in his life. This leaves him at odds with the other people in his life who have some direction in life, save Dick and Barry, who work at his store.

The characterisation is spot on, the confusion of the narrative structure highlights the random nature of Rob's (or anybody else's) thought process, and the generic suburban London setting creates a backdrop far too familiar. Summed up, it is an honest look at life in the 90's (and today).

My favourite part is where Rob, who is constantly miserable, wonders whether 'I listen to sad songs because I'm sad, or I'm sad because I listen to sad songs' - is the media telling us how we should respond to a given scenario?
I would recommend it, if only to laugh at the mess adults get themselves in. Not because of life, but because of their own immaturity and inability to think for themselves.
4.0/5.0

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ugly week

its a pretty rough week. 5 exams in 5 days, with 45% of my jap marks just in this week alone (which incidentally is worth more than the final exam's 35%). Not feeling too genki either. As some may ask,

Daijoobu desu ka.

Zannengara, daijoobu ja arimasen (i think this is the response, could be completely retarded but).

In english, i am sick and this headache is stopping me from studying for tomlz. Maybe if things get serious i'll go to the hospital, but based on sum's last experience I may actually cure myself before being attended to by a doctor.

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SO . ng impulse complete

So. i finished lining the nongrade impulse, but i dont suppose you could really call it lining, more blackrape. The panel lines had been covered by paint leaving me unable to do a line and wipe and i really didnt want to use the "right" grey for panel lining since its enamel and a PITA to clean off mistakes so i used an old games workshop black and a brush to apply some lines. Freehand. 

 admittedly there arent many lines BUT OMFG who knew using just a brush would be this hard. Not giving any macro shots cos the lines get pretty bad in some places particularily anywhere thats curved. or the shield . fuck the shield is bad cos its where i started with. 

Oh well .. painting lines is a nice skill to learn anyway.

nora looked so good i couldnt help takinga photo (:

(: there it is

next to it is a neue ziel that i will prolly strip the paint off after the blitz !

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Pokemon - take it to the next level!

As some of you may or may not know I have recently become addicted to pokemon again after so many years, the last being with Crystal version. Anyways the addiction got to me hard and just playing pokemon like I usually do was not enough. No, I needed to catch them all. The urge to become the ultimate pokemon trainer was too much to resist I'm even rewatching the pokemon series as I *obtain* them.

Yesterday morning as I was taking my morning shower I had some time to contemplate why there hasn't been a full 3d action adventure RPG of pokemon and what it would be like if I was to design it and heres what I basically had it mind:

The world of pokemon is a vast and dangerous land filled with creatures of various shape and size and ability and if this was to be brought to life on the next gen console I think it would be something like the overworld in Zelda TP and FF. A large central hub with trees, mountains, and lakes which lead to instanced areas such as towns and any dungeons and forest deemed too large to be connected with the hub without loading.

Traversing the world of pokemon can be done on foot or on bike and with the aid of tools such as scaling ropes and climbing instruments, diving gear it is possible to navigate through almost any situation the world can throw at you.

Catching pokemon is retained from the handheld games where you can only carry 6 at anytime with any changes made at a PC and fighting is where it gets interesting. Keeping with the 1v1 battles with wild pokemon which can appear as random battles like in FF games or like .Hack ( one of my favourite RPGs of all time) have enemies which spawn with your within a certain proximity so you can see where they are before hand and plan ahead. The latter allows for the game to have almost infinite 'spawning gates' without the annoyance of too many random battles and making the world feel more alive than just having mobs roam the map like in FF12 which can severly reduce the amount of creatures on at the one time.

Battles are done in real time and the environment is at your mercy to utilise. Meaning that fights will no longer be turn based but instead will be reminecent *ripped-off* of zeldas free combat. but the twist is that at the start of the battle you will have full control of the pokemon trainer but once you have chosen which of the 6 pokemon you want to fight, control is shifted to that pokemon with the trainer watching from behind. Of course for the the most accurate and intense portrayal of pokemon battles it is neccessary for the pokemon to be able to manuver in the battle such as running, jumping, climbing and dodging attacks. The handheld restricted each pokemon to only know 4 abilities but I think this is too limiting but instead they can incoporate systems of combat from games such as Folklore ( fantastic ps3 RPG) where a folk (ranging from cute to kickass looking creatures each having 1 specific function in battle) is mapped onto the 'shapes' buttons on the ps3 controller and in the case of pokemon moves and abilities can be mapped onto the c stick or direction pads ( which may also be used to control the pokenav or are hotkeys to the selection menu which you can use on the fly in battle. Folklore allowed the player to map any folk which they caputre onto the buttons at anytime so you must choose from your library of folk but in pokemon it is possible that this is adapted so that each pokemon has a database of moves which they have learnt and you change it from there. Of course this will require immense amount of data but at the rate of our gaming development it may well be possible sooner than you think. I have also thought about comboing moves but that will really gimp on the amount of skills avaliable in the game.

As i mentioned earlier that the battle field is in real time so there would be some unfair advantages for say flying pokemon in open areas but this keeps with the more realistic aspect of battle, you need a pokemon which can fight in the sky or know ranged attacks. How well fights involving aerial combat on this scale would play out but alot of games atm contain flying enemies which must be knocked down before going into melee.

My proposed idea for this game entails large amounts of data set aside for each pokemons character mesh and articulation as well as their move sets along with a vast and populated enough evironment to do the world of pokemon justice ( not just the fields but believably sized towns and npcs inhabiting them). If this game was to become a reality I would not be surprised if only the first 151 or not even and only a fraction but diverse enough variety of pokemon to be avaliable ingame.

All that in a short 20min wake up shower naturally I'm just incorporating ideas other games which I enjoyed so no doubt if they ever make an action RPG for pokemon it would be very different but if its similar you heard it from here first =P

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Just an observation, then some questions

Looking at the cover for Radiohead's best of, I realised that it was strangely similar to something else I had seen before.



It was a homage to cover of 'Wish You Were Here' by Pink Floyd. That's what it was.



I know they aren't exactly the same, but there is no way in hell Thom Yorke wouldn't have seen this album cover.

On another interesting note concerning music, I read on wikipedia that Liam Gallagher (lead singer, Oasis) is good friends with Richard Ashcroft (lead singer, The Verve), and that it was Ashcroft that helped Oasis get started in their early days. However, I have not yet had the chance to go through the music of either of these two bands.

Now, you may know about the 'battle for britpop' way back in 1994, when Blur and Oasis were at loggerheads with each other over popularity, one which Blur won.




As I was reading about Damon Albarn (lead singer, Blur), he is good friends with Robet Del Naja (3D from Massive Attack). I really like both their bands, and it got me thinking. Should I ignore Oasis and The Verve simply because I like Blur more, or should not care about their personal issues here? (here's looking at you LIAM)


Liam Gallagher looking stoned

VS


Damon Albarn getting his balls squeezed

Well, the answer is obviously the latter, I just like britpop ^^
But are there people out there who would ignore a band just because their favourite band tell them they suck? (please avoid humiliating yourself by not mentioning east coast vs west coast trash here).

Oh and just for the heck of it


*you didn't tell me there was a mousetrap in there*

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Free Bandwith From TPG

As most of you TPG users out there would know
Their download counters totally suck!!
When I did some calculations of how much I download each month, the numbers came down to somewhere between 50-60gigs. However, even on the 70gb/month plan, i still somehow manage to go over the limit every month (well atleast TPG say i do).
Just a quick browse through whirlpool forums and tpg forums, and you can easily tell that TPG do rip their customers off using their innacurate counters (not to mention the drop out complaints).
However, this innacuracy does play to an advantage occationally.
Back in the days when i was using Telstra Bigpond, i once made a suprising discovery, when i noticed that i would get uncapped on the 1st of the month, yet my billing period starts on the 2nd, so data downloaded on the 1st would still contribute to the previous month's quota. Thus, on the 1st of every month, at the strike of midnight, all my downloads would fire up, and i would enjoy 24hrs of unmetered downloads. Unfortunately, adsl1 speeds running at 1.5mbit/sec would only allow me to get around 5 to 8gigs of free data.

Now with TPG, my billing period ends on the 19th of each month. On the 18th of May, I had already used up 95% of my peak, and 98% of my offpeak. Since i was not gonna be home on the 19th, and there were many things that i intended to download for the June period, I decided to fire up all my torrents which included the 10.9gig Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete edition 1080p, and a couple of anime series (Aprroximately 18gigs of data). Torrents were set to auto start at 1am on the 19th of May.
When i woke up the next morning, to my surprise, not only were all the torrents completed, but my download meters were still showing 95% and 98%. And I still wasnt capped!!!
Then i was thinking, maybe there was some sorta delay with tpg, and they would most likely forward the used ammount to next months quota.
Then came the 20th....all download meters reset back to 0%, net still running at usual speeds.
And just to be completely sure, i rechecked today to see the meters at 3% and 6% offpeak (which seems a bit off, but reasonable enough)

So, how to exploit the system? Make sure you aren't capped for both on and off peak. Start mass downloading at 1am on the last day of your billing period. If my theory is correct, you should enjoy 23hrs of unmetered downloads. Either way, you dont have much to lose anyway, since under normal circumstance, you'll end up being capped for 1 day. Worth the try imo.
So to all you TPG users out there, please give it a go, and provide some feedback!!
I would be attempting this for the next few months to see if my theory remains true.

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random progress and ChEsS

so like tibs, reading tim's post prompted me to try and be more active on the forum (until it really is dead - jk). Writing may be what i enjoy, but its usually limited in the format of essays/reports. It'll be challenging to put forward my progress in life, but lets try our best no?

But moving on

So, lately i've been on a downward spiral in terms of uni work. The last jap exam i managed a 1/10 and just 3 days ago 3/10 appeared for my physio (not pretty).

However, solace has been found in what some may call "meh unsurprising" - chess. I've always been interested in the game, though like any good strain of influenza virus, my level of interest in it peaks and dips at different times of the year. I suppose now is what you would call a peak

Started when i received the 1/10 for jap, was playing on yahoo chess when i (who had a ranking of 1530) lost to a guy more than 300 points below me. For those unfamiliar with the ranking system, a drop of just 100 is like a hammer up being paired against a hummingbird. Do i exaggerate? - maybe. It was not pretty nevertheless, i believe the final position ended up something like this:

I am a firm believer in forfeiting before u actually lose, as to deny the smug bastard sitting across from u the joy of actually doing it himself =D.

Still, a loss is a loss - and a bad loss falls even deeper under that category.
A joy which i've recently discovered (which was not made available during the great chess-manic of 2006) was the addition of opening moves on youtube.

The opening i'm currently working on is the hugely successful Sicilian defense (e4 c5) which, according to most grandmasters, is the best opening move against whites usual e5 pawn push as it allows him fair chances (if played right) of equalizing early on. (for those not in the know, white always starts chess first -blame racism- and thus always has a slight advantage over black)

Sicilian Defense: played by black in response to whites e4 push

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Rage in Progress

It's been a while since I last posted something of my own here and unfortunately I don't have any good news this time. As you can tell from the title this post is about me raging.

At Australian public hospitals.

Shit service and substandard quality. Back in '08 sometime during the Pope's visit I took my grandfather to Concord Hospital for an examination which he booked a few months before hand and we arrived and registered at the ward by 10:30 AM which was 30mins early so we waited...and waited and waited till 1:30 PM. By this time I was ready to express myself with none to0 few expletives about what I think of the staff but before I got ready the F-bomb they hurriedly ushered my grandfather into one of those beds and pulled the blinds around and I was back to waiting. I finished watching the Pope's speech on the dodgy TV in the waiting room and it was about 5PM and one of the nurse came out to tell me that my grandfather wanted to speak to me. Here I was thinking that fracking finally I get to go home but DUN DUN DUN he was still lieing on the bed and I was like WTF dude ( ok maybe I didn't say that) when he told me the nurses and shit who was suppose to be carrying out the whatever they was suppose to do was just standing to the side chatting the whole fricken 4hrs it took the Pope to declare shit in 50 different languages. So anyways *insert epic battle music and censored violent battle* after some more hassle we made it out of there by 8:45PM. I kid you not it takes 10hrs just for a public hospital to carry out a small examination. I wasn't planning on staying for so long since I thought I would be in and out within the hr but by the time I realised how much time went by half my day was over so there was no point in leaving just to come back later to pick up my grandfather.

And today I went to St George Hospital (another public one) cos my grandfather had a minor fainting spell the day before and I was told that I can come pick him up by 4:30PM. So being the good grandson *lawl* I got there on time and everything and long story short we got out by 5:30PM. Sounds ok doesn't it? well NO F*CKING WAY! We waited 1 bloody hr for a doctor to write up a letter so my grandfather can give it to his family doctor. Seriously how long does it take to write up a 5 line letter? Did you by chance not speak and write english and it took so long cos you took some english lessons with Dr. DU? cos I'm sorry to say by I can a shit faster than that and I can assure you it will be longer than 5 lines.

Rage more.

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nongrade impulse wip 2

(: so i finished assembly and some of teh other details! 

only thing left is panel lines and probably a bit of detailing on the gun

it doesnt look too bad . overall im fairly impressed with how it turned out. next project is a steel ninja SD blitz (:

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FAST AND FURIOUS TOKYO DRIFT !!

man i love donuts ! <:

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Zeta Gerwalk // Archer Zeta

After watching macross, i became rather interested in a valkyrie's Gerwalk (Ground Effective Reinforcement of Winged Armament with Locomotive Knee-joint) mode concept. After some thinking, I began wondering whether i could apply the same concept to a transformable mobile suit from Gundam. After some heated debates with TOfu, who claimed gerwalk was not achievable with the Zeta Gundam, i decided to do a little experiments with the mastergrade kit.

From Gunpla

At first, I tried using the old Zeta version 1 master grade, which was not such a good idea. Yes, from the picture above, gerwalk does seem to work, but because the Zeta's joints are as soft as melted cheese, the kit basically fell apart immediately after taking the shot.
So what were my alternatives? I did not want to lose in my debate, yet I did not have any solid proof that the Zeta could indeed go into Gerwalk mode. Then my Zeta 2.0 arrived, allowing me to prove my theory.
I placed picutres of the VF25 so those who have no Gundam/Macross knowledge can still get a general understanding

From others

From Gunpla

It is generally assumed that a Gundam can assume the battroid form so no explaination needed. You may also note that Zeta is one of the few MG's that can kneel properly, becuase it has an unrestricted pelvic joint.

From others

From Gunpla

The Zeta Gundam is also one of the few mobile suits that can fully transforom into a high sppeed fighter

So here comes the real question. Would the MG Zeta 2.0 be able to achieve Gerwalk mode, yet still be posable and not fall apart with the slightest touch?

From others

From Gunpla

From Gunpla

Well, i guess the pictures can speak for themselves. I should note though, that i did have to swap the wings around. Due to the Zeta 2.0's simplified yet improved wing joint, it is no longer able to extend the wing binders out like the version one. However, unlike the version one, this Gerwalk mode is very sturdy, and would not fall apart

So yeah. Battroid, Fighter and Gerwalk all in one super glossy Bandai Mastgrade. What more can Zeta fans ask for??
Perhaps they could have given the 2.0 some landing gear. As you can see in the following pic, I had to recylce them from the first Zeta MG, but they do fit after a little bit of modifying.

From Gunpla

Another fun idea also came to mind. Originally i was thinking of constructing a booster system for the Zeta like the one seen in Gundam Evolve. Using spare parts from a MG ZZ, it ended up looking more like the archer arios from 00

From Misc

Just for laughs ^^ Heres how archer arios actually looks like

From others

And here's how my Zeta turned out

From Gunpla

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angst

psychotic troll .

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