Build Off With a great Sculpting Engine

Hello Dear readers ...... Welcome to another Blog post from the hummingbird. I am terribly sorry (again) for my delays in updating my WIPS and few posts on my blog. Life is hitting me hard and having some family issues that drained my metal energy which also sap my mojo and  physical energy.

Anyway, today I would like to blog about what I have been doing, Gunpla-wise. As you can see from my title, I am having a build off with a great,great, great sculpting and SBing modeler.

That such modeler goes by the name of TheHelmosEngine. His works can be seen on this blog, which he named Hanger03 . Here are some example of this finished work  (LINKS ARE IN THE PICTURES PLS CLICKED ON THEM ) -

  

He is the modeler that sculpted the entirely new kit using the MG Zeta, which is the very same kit that Kamm is working on. Don't worry, I will link you guys to Kamm's videos -

Part 1 of the Drehksturm - LINK
Part 2 of the Drehksturm - LINK
Part 3 of the Drehksturm - LINK

From Kamm's videos, you can see how Amazing this guys .... he is just awesome. Going against this guy won't be an easy task. The funny thing is, while I am admiring his sculpting skills, he finds my mechanisms and gimmick mods inspiring, so we both can benefit each other from this.

You might be wondering how the hell we decided to have a build off, well, it wasn't anything special as I was building a Legend and he is working on a Providence so we thought it would be cool and a very nice addition to the MAC forum to have our Build-Off in the Workshop and then Boom, we are having a build off.

Here is the link to our Build-off Thread on the MAC form - ''Official Build-Off Thread''  be sure to check in there as TheHelmosEngine builds at a very very fast speed. you can always check the works he does on his blog - Hanger03.

This is really exciting for me and I am up against one of the great modeler of MAC, a great sculptor and I am kinda worried he will beat me (hands down) in details and shapes and sculpting but rest assured, I am countering his every move with mechanism mods :P.

Wish me luck....

OH by the way, I am also having a Build-Off with a certain Monkey of Gunpla ... the reason he is called Monkey is that HE can copied up to 90% of the original work, you know, monkey see monkey do ?? hehehe.... but that's a story for another day.

I will be updating my Legend here on the blog as usual so don't forgot to tune in.
Thank you All for reading and really appreciate the support. You guys are the best.
Till next update, be sure to Stay Tuned.

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Special Feature 1.2 - Kamm's Ground type Sazabi (HG)

Hello there Ladies ( if there are any) and gents .... Once again, its time for the little birdy to blog again....


And that's right ... you saw it in the title... Another special feature ... a few moons back, I made a first special feature and this is the second one .... and in the special feature, I will be featuring a ground-breakin, breath-taking work for one of the Legend of MAC and ADMIN of. MAC . A man with a golden heart, who goes by the name of ''' trumpet'' .....Kamm.


Now if you all could remember that I made a blog post about the build off between the Decaying Legend and the Hand Painting Assassin, You might have noticed already What I will be featuring today. But in case you don't remember, let me kindly refresh your memories with a link back to it - Here it is 


I seriously doubt Kamm will need introduction to who or what he is .. but just in case you guys forgot about him or haven't actually heard about him, let me refresh your memories - 

• Kamm  only got into the hobby since 1 year ago, 
• He loves to paint models - he's a painting guy, pure and simple.... 
• He used to paint warhammer models and now, he has switched to gunpla. 
• He HAND BRUSH his models - that's right, HAND BRUSH 
• His most famous work is the FAZZ: FEARED ONE
• He rose to fame after building his HLJ gundam
• And best of all, A very very very good friend of mine.

Kamm is a very skilled modeler, most particularly  in the painting and weathering departments. He has done  a range of modeling including painting warhammer figures, clean works, weathered and the ever impressive modifying works.


If you could kindly refer back to the announcement about their build off, Decay and Kamm decided to mod a HIGH GRADE Sazabi into their own version. Kamm choose to work on a ground  type and he really went all out on his sazabi.


To go along with this concept, and of course with some help from me ( hehe, just kidding) ... he choose to go with a two tone green colour scheme just as you would see a real war machine in the outside world.


And don't let this blow you away  but the whole kit has been hand painted. You saw it right, , Hand painted... I will be damned if I could find a single brush stroke on that thing... Always tried to look for one so that I could rub it in his face.. but damn, I still can't find one... LOL



Just with Decay's sazabi, You may be wondering why I featuring this exclusively while I have my own chapter, featuring Kamm's work...  Well, here's a list of why -
1st - a very very magnificent piece of model
2nd - the mods are just too realistic, I am a military geek and I can assure you, he made everything practical and realistic 
3rd - one of the best weathering I have seen
4th - amazing paint and clour scheme, Certified by this Military Geek ( me !!)
5th - perfect decals 



I could go on and on about this Sazabi ... but Why prolong the photo section?? You guys properly can't wait anymore ...
So without Further Ado, I present to you ....
'' The ASSASSIN SAZABI '' 

A simple yet beautiful wallpaper made by  Kamm himself -









And as you know, is a Vloger so here is his video he made for this baby -

Kamm doesn't have a blog but you can see many more photos and the discussion over at the the offical Thread over at MAC.

I hope you will find this Sazabi as magnificent and beautiful as I do. Lets give Kamm a round of applause for completing such a monster and please DO visit his channel to give feedback, add friend or subscribe.

Oh, and if by any chance you know Kamm  or if he has helped inspire you or helped you in modeling or whatever it is, please do click the picture below and check the tread out.

^^^^^^^^

You will know what I'm talking about and What is going on and What to do after visiting that page. So please please, do visit that page.

I hope this post has been a fun to read one.
As usual, thanks so so much for being such supportive and kind readers.

STAY TUNED FOR MORE

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Build Off - Kamm Vs Decay

Hello party people. I terribly sorry to post this belated event but, to my own silliness, I completely forgotten about it. My bad.

Right, before anything ... let me just post this banner I shamelessly ripped from Decay's blog



Yep... That's right, its a build off between legends of MAC. I dobut there is a need to further introduce Kamm as you all would know him as the Hand Painting Assassin. His Works have been featured on my blog and Don's blog so , if you kindly let me, I will skip the intro about Kamm. ( Sorry kamm buddy.. haha )

Right, I haven't featured Decay as much as Kamm, so here's a summarized info about him -

• Decay has been modelling for over 20 years
• only started working on Gunpla for a mere two year
• Decay was only scarcely active at figure FM once
• he became an active member of MAC as soon as he register
• He now hold the VIP status in MAC
• And best of all, A very very very good friend of mine.

Right, Kamm and Decay has decided to work on 1/144 Sazabi and they will be tackling this in their own way. Kamm is going for a (quote from him ) a stealth jungle, fast and quick weapon theme ..... and believe you me, he's making a terrific job on this. Decay, he's working a space themed, weathered kit. Both of them are making their own version of the Sazabi but Kamm is keeping, more or less, to the original sazabi looks while Decay is pimping out new designs like crazy. And both have agreed to finish this by the end of October.

An awesome awesome build off between the Legends of MAC. The handpainting assassin, pushing himself to scratch build VS the decaying scratch-builder, A man with great scratch building skills. With those great modelers, this build-off have no reason what-so-ever to not to be awesome. Who will you support? The hand painting assassin that have been making beautiful hand painted models OR the Decaying scratch-builder that have been making magnificent modding and scratch build to his models? 

Choose a side..........

Here is the link to the Build off thread at MAC forum - 

Kamm Vs Decay

In case you are wondering about the individual works of kamm and decay - 

Kamm's Youtube channel

Decay's blog

There you go.

Hope that was a good read for you guys. Stay Tuned for more.

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MG Strike Noir Raven Ver. H.Bird

Hello dear readers. I am so so happy to be posting this .. :P... my first ever serious and carefully finished kit... I love every bit of this kit... from tip to toe, from colour to mods... Hope you guys can share my love for this one with me ...

The only thing I am so pissed about is that the decals ( the sticker ones) popped up after flat coating and everything.. it just won't stick.. well it sticks.. but not that much ...grr .. I am so pissed at myself for not noticing them earlier on ... and for other doo-doos such as some paint chips here and there due to bad handling... and STILL, finger prints, only small one this time though ...... sigh ( i know.. i am so hard on myself... I have to )

This is the Third major work of the hummingbird and took me 4 months to finish this baby... and finally it is finished... so without further ado, I present to you, a kit that I am really proud of, The STRIKE NOIR RAVEN

2015 Edit - 
For the sake of easier reading, I have not edited this post with larger font, better photos and with links to my 8 part WIP post -
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4 
Part 5 
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

lets start with my most favourite pose --


with Scratch built beam shield .. ( i know, the paintings on that shield sucks big time.. waaahh T_T )


The other arm's beam shield activated ... showing you guys the different configuration of the Beam shield


Strike freedom/Freedom wanna be LOL


Love this pose very much


some more poses








And body shot ..


Hope you guys like it ... comment and critique are more then welcome ... just be gentle... LOL .. thanks
Stay Tuned for more

2015 Reflection -
Looking back to this kit which I have done 4 years ago, I really was bad back then. Regardless, this kit gave me so much joy and I gained a lot of experience with modding so this is one of my proudest creation, 2nd only in my list after my Perfect Gundam. 

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Apocalypse is coming to MAC

Don't be alarmed. Not really. Its just a build-off between 4 members of MAC. The concept is the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. 


This build-off is headed by none other then one of our beloved Admin of MAC, Kriz. According to him, he just woke up one morning and bam, he got the idea ( I wonder what kind of med has he been taking, I could use one or two of what's he taking LOL, anyway) and shared with us about the idea. 


He got pretty hyped by the idea and started working on it right and soon after, another one of MAC,  Amir_anti_yosi , saw what kriz was doing to his kit and since he was also doing the same thing, he proposed a build off to kriz. Kriz accepted and it became a two person build-off and then, one of our very own, original and founding member/ global moderator ( a good friend of mine to boot), vanz anazasi saw the build off and asked to join and now he is accepted into the group-build-off. They still need one more person to fill in for the last horseman though.


Kriz is working on the 2nd horseman, WAR 
here is a preview of his work 



Amir_anti_yosi is working on the fourth and final horseman, DEATH
here is a preview of his work 



vanz anazasi is working on the very first horseman, PESTILENCE
here is a preview of his work 



We are still in need of the last horseman, Famine. 
They are still on the look out and are recruiting the last horseman. If you are interested in this build-off, just contact kriz. 


Edit - I have been accepted as the last remaining horseman and I will be building Famine.. :P... oh excited .... You can check out my WIP on this blog or if you prefer, you can visit the forum and see my WIP there. I will be dropping the link below, so don't worry.


I have to say I am pretty damn well impressed with kriz for coming up with this idea. True, the theme is not exactly a good catch but what the hey... as long as the concept is good and the final results are great, that's all that matter. 


If you want to read more about the builds WIP and the discussion, just drop by to MAC or just you can click on those individual links 


Kriz's second horseman, WAR
Amir_anti_yosi's fourth horseman, DEATH
vanz anazasi's first horseman, PESTILENCE
Hummingbird's third horseman, Famine

Just for connivance sake and in case you don't know those modelers, I dropped links to their respective blogs.
Kriz's blog
Amir's blog
Vanz's blog

All three of them are veteran builders and all there of them are good. Wondering who the fourth addition could be, lets sit back and watch those three monster builders build three monster kits. Will definitely keep you guys updated.

Stay tuned for more and thanks for reading.

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Build Off!! Strike Noir Raven - Part 8

Alright you guys... I did some very very very small works on the Noir.... pls take a look.. thanks.. again, i have to disappoint you guys as no major works are included in this build ..

First off, did some detailing on the shoulders.. nothing fancy, the usual plating...


and the arms ...

The forearms plating haven't been beveled yet... but i did beveled the eh... is that triceps ??? 

right ..these are the thighs

as you guys can recall, i did the thigh extension and as you guys can see from the photos, that leave a pretty wide gap after extension so I had to cooked up that for appearance sake.. I DO HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT UNEVEN SLIDES though..

right... here are the skirts


didn't do much... just put on plates .. I am still debating about panel-lining... I'm kinda lazy to do that..Well.. that's all for this first part of the update ... If i disappoint you with this simple update, then i do apologize.... 
For the 2nd part, the first thing i did is the rear skirts ... put in some internal details ..  


Didn't want to put in too much so I just put in only this much

next  - I put in a bigger head crest

I was watching Cleopatra and I have always dig those roman/greek helmets with large crests... and as you can see, i just put in one.. 

thirdly - I put in some plates on the wings ...

It wasn't anything big or serious.. .but for some reason, I love that lower plates with the holes... kinda look like vents to me..

finally - i did soething about the gaps i have on the thighs...



That trick was, I just cut out strips and glued then, beveled them. and try to blend with the kit... It look messy now cos I primed it to see if it needs fixing and clean up... boy, it needed clean up alright... anyway... i'm quite happy with that i get there...

Again.. this is not some major update so I do apologize for those who were expecting heavy works... this is nearing completion and i don't want to stress any more major works...

Thank you for reading and stay Tuned...

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Build Off!! Strike Noir Raven - Part 7

Hello dear readers.... .. another very very small update on the Raven,

i guess for the first part of the  update... pictures will speak a thousand word, eh??



I had to do what will you see in the following picture as it was too bloody ugly..


The adapter you will see in this photo is make by stackign three plates together ...


this is test fit and showing you what it can do ... it can swivel up and down and left to right.. consider that a multi-directional booster...


and this is a overalll look ( front and back ) that i have acheived now .....


well that's that ...
Right ... the 2nd part of the  update I will be making this time is about the Beam Shield Generator ( lets keep it B.S.G for short )

here's the process



right - Step 1 is where I cut off a shape that i want to the B.S.G to have ... these shapes are clearly and heavily influenced by the B.S.G on the Strike Freedom forearms , the destiny and legend's wrist...

Step 2 is where i cut off two more same shape yet smaller size plates and carefully aligned them to be along a central axis, then the ''pyramid'' was sanded down at an angle and putty filled along that angled and voila..i got that nice little slopes ... ( I am sorry I couldn't show step by step as I simply forgot to take pictures of the step by step)

Step 3 - the things you see on step 2 are basically the lower portion so i had to build an upper portion, same theory, i had to build a pyramid so cut the large ones and then the smaller ones. ( pls refer to the finished product to see how they look like )

Step 4 - as you see from step 3 , i drilled two holes .. so i had to drill holes in the lower portions too ... the reason for it will be explained in step 5

Step 5 - as you can see, i put in pla-rods on the upper portions... that's why i drilled those holes on the upper portion .. they will serve as pegs .. and obviously, the holes on the lower portions of the B.S.G will serve as female part of the pegs ...

and voila.. as you can see from the photo, i have made a NG standard B.S.G.... pretty nifty.. love it ..

right, moving on... this is a huge update for me ... the first time i have successfullly done a major surgery on a MG


Step 1 - as you can see from the picture, i cut the thigh off. .. drilled a hole and inserted a brass rod

step 2 - i made 9.6 X 9.6 mm square plates from 1mm thick plates and make a 5mm thick block

Step 3 - I drilled a hole straight through the 5mm block ... so that that brass rod can go in ...

Step 4 - I drilled a hole on the top part of the thigh, where the PC cup is ... again.. this is for the brass to go in

and as you can see from the finished photo, i just push in the block and put the PC cup part on top ... I had to use CA GLUE for the brass,PS, ABS to bond ...

And this is a comparison (sort of ) pic of the thigh extension ...


Hope you guys love this thigh work as much as I do... me i love it.. my first successful cutting of a MG inner-frame ...

Alright, this it for today... thank you all for reading and stay tuned...

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Build Off!! Strike Noir Raven - Part 6

again, this is not gonna be a massive wip.. so forgive me on that..

ok.. on to the update ..

I cut those identical pieces like you see in this picture ....


those parts are to be used as girders ... as support for the skirts to take shape....
they are glued on like so ..


which in turn... closed off with plates like so ..

(not really my best works but it will do fine.. for now )

then i moved on to the feet ...
1st step - cut those teeny tiny pieces... ( it was hell )


2nd step - glued them on to the front of the feet like so in the picture ...

those things are angled.....

3rd step - glue another piece of angled plate on the side

those were done to give the feet talons ( hence the name Raven ) 

right moving on... last update, you guys saw the integration of the front part of the booster... this time, its the back of the booster... which you can see from here ..

not really top notch work like the masters here but im happy with that i got... just need some clean up

and this picture -

shows the step by step of how i used my ''shaping-by-stacking'' to make some parts for the booster to blend in with the over all kit...
in figure 1, you will see that i started with the middle section...
in figure 2, you will see that i stacked a stair case ... that will of course be sanded down .
in figure 3, you will see i stacked another stair case... the first being sanded down to give a slope..
in the finished product, you will see some green stuff as i used putty to fill in the gaps and to have a nice slope/angled parts much akin to the Mk.II

and this is more or less what i got after a day of work on this baby... apart from the side skirts being bulky. i love this ....

i may end up making the side skirts thinner again.. but im not sure... anyway.. fingers crossed

Stay Tuned for more... and thank you very much 

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