On the Painting Desk 230

 So this has been a VERY productive week for the stack of ZZ related models I am painting currently.

As in that I managed to get about everything nearly finished bar basing and varnishing, long live sleepless nights!

The first being of course the ZZ Gundam itself.

But I also did a heap of work on the Agguguy nautical mobile suit.

In between, the tiny Hover Tanks got as good as finished as well, though I must admit these are so small you can paint them in about an hour once the basecoat has dried.

 

All they need is a coat of varnish now and the basing.

And after a long time, I also started working on my Tau force inspired by Gundam SEED Destiny, the next on the list being this classic metal Broadside whom I will adopt the colours of the Calamity gundam for.

 

 

So yes, that has been a mighty good amount of progress made on the small gachapon models and 1/400 scale vehicles, and as such I estimate they will be totally done by next week hopefully.  Though some sleep might be nice as well hehehehe.

My Dress-Up Darling volume 7 - Shinichi Fukuda

 It's time for more innocent romance and cosplay adventure with Gojo-kun and best girl Marin, as volume 7 of My Dress-Up darling was the next one on my reading list.

And we are well passed the anime since last volume, making it all the more exciting as I have no clue what might happen next.

 

Sucker-punched by the question if they are going out, they deny their feelings.  Gojo thinking she is out of her league, and Marin that he doesn`t like her for denying it always.  But when he sees two guys apparently picking on her in the bathroom, he rushes in to her aid.  Except it turn out to be two stylists of the salon she goes to, giving her advice... 

When Marin comes down with a cold, Gojo skips school to go take care of her though.  Once better, their life as friends picks up again, with even a birthday party for Marin's favorite character and such.  But with the school festival around the corner, there is going to be a pageant contest and her classmates select Marin to represent them.  The assignment requires her to dress as a male, so she selects a popular television character, Rei, as her cosplay.

This makes it a challenge for Gojo to find the time between his classduties for the festival and making her costume, so she decides to give it a go herself.  But when Gojo arrives for his tasks, his classmates didn't factor him in, wanting him to make her costume instead.  In order to help him out and save time, she decides to make him bento lunches all those days, something he greatly appreciates, and strenghtens her feelings for him even more.

And thus concludes this volume, now we have to wait (not extremely long) for the next instalment, and I`m looking forward to seeing how the pageant turns out...

Food Wars volume 6 - Yuto Tsukuda and Shun Saeki

 It's back to cooking with Soma and his friends from the Polaris dormitory!

And with the school festival approaching and it's competition, the tension is rising amongst the students.

Erina still has serious issues with Soma being in the selection for the competition, but her niece sees it as the perfect moment to defeat both her and Soma before the world to see.  But he is not without allies, as not only did his dormitory friends also got in the selection, he also receives backing from the student council.

While he learns that the council of the future will in all probability come from the first years that win at the event, his father returns and arrives at the Polaris dorm house.  Not only was his father a student at the school and a member of Polaris, it turns out he was even the Second Chair on the student council.

His father cooks a delicious feast for all in the dormhouse, but the next morning he wakes Soma early.  Because it wouldn't be a father / son reunion without a cooking contest, so he can see how much his son has already progressed at school in his cooking skills.  Soma is soundly beaten by his dad, for the 490th time in a row now since he started challenging his dad.

The assignement for the fall contest comes in, the dish being "curry dishes" so Soma and Tadokoro go look for advice.  This leads them to second year teacher and former dormitory collegue of his dad, but she punches him down as she doesn't want anything to do that reminds her of Soma's dad.  Her assistant shows them what can be done with fresh herbs in the kitchen.

 

Practicing all summer break, the curtain rises as the Fall contest is about to begin. When the dean of the institute explains the rules of the challenges, they all realise only 4 of each block will move on to the finals.  As the top students unleash all their skills to create exquisite dishes, Soma... is taking a nap.

So how will this play out?  I guess I'll have to wait for volume 7 to find out.

MechaTop stat cards for Super Mecha Champions

 Awrightey, I completed the three model kits I acquired of Super Mecha Champions models, and went about making some stat cards to use them in a game of Mecha Top.

Now, these mecha are in general smaller than a Gundam ranging between 6 to 10 meters, and not to high techy in most cases, so they are kind of like cheap grunt units with some added specials to make them unique.

Though I didn`t label them as Unique, in a game you can theoretically have 100 times the same mecha in play...

Please be forgivefull for the not always crisp outlining of the lettertypes and statlines, it was a Paint effort and I`m no graphical designer or such, just an old bloke with a slightly less older computer.

The first card I created was for Caramel, the cute and not so cuddly, cannon hoisting teddybear mecha.  I tried to recreate the game feel by giving it two different types of long range guns, and some heavy plate for protection.  

The second mecha stat card made was Arthur, one of the two starter options in the game and basically just a knight with a big sword.

 

 

The third mecha that came out in a kit is also the most expensive one points wise, as Hurricane, who can transform in an attack plane, is as such tech level 2 and with some expensive traits. 

 

 

So that's the three models all statted out, and if I wanted to field the SMC team, it would cost me 1425 points for the mecha, leaving some playroom for pilots and skills to tinker around with and get to an 1800 standard game force.

One of these weeks I got to arrange a solo game and see how they fare!

Dirty Work

 Time for another erotic thriller during our movie night, and after Darker Shades of Elise from a while ago, which was total crappiness, we persisted and went for another low budget one of the same british stable: Dirty Work.

Though this one seems to be higher rated at IMDB, though well, not that uberhigh hehehe.  But heck, who knows it might turn out NOT to be a waste of time.

Arabella is a young fahsion student that finds work for erotic novelist Marylin Blacklock.  But as she looks to please her new boss, she learns of her darker sides and mind, as she watches from behind the bedroom screen how she cheats on her husband time and time again.

But Marylin knows she is there, and one time calls her out to make love to one of the guys she brought along.  Arabella is more and more drawn into this life of debauchery, as she finds it so exciting.  Marylin takes her along to a party in a fetish dungeon, where Arabella first experiences jealousy, but also decides to become her submissive doing anything Marilyn wants.

Marilyn however has been playing her from the beginning, and she sets up the murder of her husband, but making sure Arabella takes the blame and goes to jail for it while her hands remain clean.  But when Arabella comes out of prison 5 years later, she returns only to become Marilyn's pet, the one thing she really craves as she realised in jail.

Now this was definitly a better film then the previous one we saw in the genre (sorry neighbours), and it gave a good insight in the actual sub / dom "addiction" I saw people live before as well. 

The Great Jahy will not be Defeated!

 For the J in the anime letter challenge, I watched Jahy-sama wa Kujikenai!

And while the letter I entry might have been a short series, this one compensates that with it's episode count of 20.

 

And the first impression appealed to me, looking and feeling like a balanced mixture of Dragon Maid and Devil is a Part-timer.

The former second in command of the demon realm, the lands are destroyed by a magical girl, and Jahy finds herself entrapped in a childish body in our world.  Devoid of almost all her powers, barely able thanks to a mana crystal to assume adult form for a while, she has to struggle and work to get by every day and pay the rent.  One day, she runs into her former servant Druj, who has made a far better life for herself in this world, making Jahy decide to go find more mana crystals.

While she manages to find one, it is not nearly enough that she needs.  One day, Druj visits her workplace, and she must convince her that it is actually hers to show her power in this world... instead of how weak she in reality is at current.  Her rival of the Dark realm, Saurva, also is on earth, still trying to become the number 2 herself.  But her efforts to ruin Jahy's reputation only result in it becoming even better.

Meanwhile as Jahy keeps struggling for budget, the Magical Girl appears at her home to claim the mana crystal, but ends up arrested by the police.  Never the less, later on she manages to steal it, resulting in Jahy going in a drinking bout with her landlord to forget her sorrows.  As she continues on her search for mana crystals, she and the others of her realm get caught up in various daily life struggles, but she also learns friendship through a young girl, Kokoro, who wants to help her find her crystals.

The middle parts of the series are mostly seperate stories of how she copes with real life and her ever lasting monetary issues, like trying to plant tomato's yet ends up with peppers, which was a hilarious episode mind you, or how her landlord temporarily moved in.

When she finds a heap of mana crystals at the beach, she decides to confront the Magical Girl again, but learns that she is actually a very lonely girl.  Jahy takes pity on her, and befriends her in exchange that she will leave the Dark Realm, once restored, alone.  Over at her place, she learns the Dark Lord herself has moved in with the Magical Girl, and she must do everything possible to regain her favor.

But the Magical Girl becomes a real stalker for Jahy, even going as far as taking a job in the same restaurant.  Though Jahy must admit to herself that she kinds of warms up to her, resulting in Druj challenging Magical Girl to a duel to prove who is the best underling.

But the mysterious light being that empowered the Magical Girl to destroy the mana crystal has returned, powering up Saarva who goes after Jahy.  But she is unable to hurt her, as she has been collecting so many crystals she is actually more powerful then she was back in the Dark Realm.   Together with Druj she faces off but the being flees.  The light then turns boss into a magical girl, but she gets lectured instead by her, causing her to reveal herself as the jealous younger sister of the Dark Lord.

Jahy stops them fighting in huge forms to protect the city, and scolds them that all her misfortunes are due to a sister squabble.  They together rebuild boss's pub that got damaged in the fight, and after attending a festival Jahy comes to the conclusion that living amongst humans isn`t that bad after all as the whole gang enjoys the fireworks together.

Okay, so this was a good, innocent fun series with a fun intake.  Jahy is a pretty (pun intended) anti-hero and the jokes are amusing all round without turning into slapstick.  A good series to watch for sure.

Super Mecha Champions Hurricane (mini-kit)

 The time has come to begin work on the third and final mini-kit I have for Super Mecha Champions, and that is the Hurricane.

Ingame transformable between plane and mecha, it is a top tier suit to play with, but I personally haven`t given it that much game time unless it was for quests so far.

 

The set comes with quite a nice amount of sprues, as could be seen in this unboxing video, and some stickers that are as always tossed aside.

 

 

Now, I must say that on first look of the design, I doubt this one would be able to stand on it's legs and carry the wing weights.

 

But of we go, and the body section is the first to be assembled.  Now out of the three kits, this also is by far the fiddliest to put together, with lots of tiny pieces that you can`t force into the slots, like the antenna for example, to prevent snapping.

 

 

After that, the wing pods are on the plan.   These take quite a bit of parts to put together.

But once you figure out the correct sequence, the mirrored second wing goes way faster.

That brings us to the legs.  Now as you can imagine, those small feet are nowwhere going to carry the upper body and the bulky wing assemblies later on, hence why I got that base ready.  I also didn`t attach the feet just yet, waiting for the model to be assembled and then I can still "wiggle" them a bit to fit it suitably.

With the legs assembled, it,s time to put together the whole mecha and add it on a base just to stand upright.  Being rather fragile with all the little portrusions, I suggest filling of about a quarter of the balljoints and then glue the pieces in place though.

And then the mecha is completed.  Definitly the most fidly one of the three kits, but now it's time to go painting and bring it better to life, even though the blue of the plastic isn't to shabby a representation of it's ingame blue colour.

 

 

First job is putting Vallejo's black on all the engine parts, exhausts and the likes, namely all the sections that will become dark grey in the end.

I also did the two layers of blue on the model, respectively Dark Blue and Heavy Blue, both from Vallejo, to do the dark blueish areas as well as the more vibrant, lighter blue areas.

So then we went to the smaller sections that needs to be done, and base colours where put on it for those as well.  That meant that for the orange areas I used Vallejo Amaranth Red, Coat D'Arms Dark sand for the yellow section and Cold Grey from Vallejo for what will become the white lines.  Only two light blue bands when it's finished aren't base layered yet, as those will start off from a blue that I will be using in the final layer of the main body.

So with those done, it is time to go in the second layer to start adding the contrast.  I began with the grey sections first, using Dark Rubber from Vallejo.

Moving on to the biggest part of the model, the blue areas, the dark tone is done with Vallejo Imperial Blue, while for the more vibrant sections I opted for Hideous Blue from Coat D'Arms.

For the smaller colours, Vallejo Sun Yellow was used for the yellow, the orange got a layer of Orange Fire by Vallejo and the cold grey sections where done with Sky Grey from Vallejo as well.

That meant the second layer done, so let's move on to the third and final one, beginning with the grey areas receiving a final touch up with Necromancer Cloak from The Army Painter.

 

 

The blue tones where then finished off, with the darker sections getting a layer of Intense Blue and the lighter ones one of Magic Blue, both by Vallejo.  The latter is also used now as the first coat of blue for the coils on the wings and the engine intakes. 

For the smaller sections, I used the following colours, all from Vallejo: White for the markings, Moon Yellow and Heavy Orange for those respective areas, while the coils where finished with first Falcon Turquoise and then Electric Blue. 

The model now completely painted, all that is needed is a layer of Matte Varnish from the AK range, and basing the mecha.

And there we have it, the third and final of the Super Mecha Champions line of mini-kits has been finished now.  I sincerly hope they will start doing the other mecha from the game as well in this range, but I guess that is a case of wait and see...

Age of Sigmar Seraphon pre-order at -20%

 The newest force for Age of Sigmar has been released, as your favorite Lizardmen have gotten a new line of figures.

Look at that lovely toad!

 

 

And you can pre-order them now at Wayland Games, just click the banner above this post to warp over there.

On the Painting Desk 229: Hurricane is in the final stages

 So another nice week of progress this time!

And of course, as the title already says, the Hurricane from Super Mecha Chanpions is nearly done.

And with done, it is actually just the varnishing and basing that has to be completed and which I hope to do this weekend, before finishing as such all three sets of the line.  And then it will be stat card making to use them in a game one day!

 

I also made very good progress on the Turn A, as his complete fist layer has been done.  If it stays a bit on the quiet side the coming week (I'm looking at you Thorin) that one might be as good as done as well by the end of the week, and go together with Hurricane in varnish and base line.

 

 

So that means it is also prep time for a few other models, and I think I`m going to do a lot of ZZ models first, starting of course with the titular Gundam ZZ, but also the comical looking Agguguy.  The final models I will begin are two more of the MechaTop sample in the form of both the tiny Hover Tanks.

But I`m also going to be painting up both Magella tanks from the sample pack, in order to get a force rounded out for the next try-out of the game.

 

 

And I also assembled the resin rocket launcher I showed earlier this week on YouTube for my Infernal Dwarf force.

And began painting on the first Levy archers to see if the intended colour scheme is going to work out.

As well as one of the ogres from Clan wars that came in the box I got from a collegue, to serve as the additional potential crew member for an Earthshaker.

 

 

So that's another nice stack of models to work on, let's hope it all progresses well.