GoodBye Gunpla... Hello Miniatures!

The photo above is a Deathwing squad from Games Worshop Warhammer 40k, modeled and painted by Ron of FromTheWarp.blogspot.com. I spent a large part of my day yesterday reading on the how to's of miniature painting. Learned a lot from FromTheWarp so much thus I bought my first minis yesterday too!



So many informative tutorials all over the net, but I got hooked to Ron's well explained tips and tutorials the most. Ron also has so many inspiring finished projects. However I am not into Warhammer ( as of now ), so I bought a box of Games Workshop Lord of the Rings " Mordor Orcs " yesterday instead. I will post some updates later today if I have the time.



Should I be renaming this site from DC23mecharts to DC23miniarts or plastic arts? Maybe once I get to finish more minis eventually or maybe when my domain expires. One thing is for sure... my display cabinet will take ages to fill up with these mini plastic figures ( lol ).



I am not leaving Gunpla or Gundam plastic modeling yet ( or at least as of this writing ), but I am super excited on painting my first minis. As most of you know, I only like the hobby part of Gundam / Gunpla and have very little knowledge of the Gundam lore, Anime or Manga. Heck I do not watch the anime / cartoons at all to be honest.



However as I've said a few times before, I am a super geeky fan of the Lord of the Rings and anything Tolkien. I love the books ( even the ones edited by Christopher Tolkien ), I have the action figures, I have trading cards and I have watched the movies at least 4 times already... including the director's extended cut.



Thus it was an easy decision for me to choose between the boxes of Warhammer stuffs versus the boxes of Lord of the Rings minis yesterday. And unlike painting and modeling Gundam kits, painting and modeling Lord of the Rings minis is far much more exciting for me.



I cleaned my minis yeaterday and glued them on their small round plastic bases... and as I scrub each figure, flashes of images of the movies and excerpts from the books played in my mind ( lol ). Besides, painting miniatures would not cost me much unlike Gunpla. And I get to do super small bases which I loved the most, I could even do Minis Tirith and Helm's Deep ( castle ) dioramas if I like.



Great miniature stuff ahead guys!



I also added some great Warhammer and miniature blogs on my sidebar. Most of the sites I got from my best friend Kriz of KreativeMinds. Here are the list of the new blogsites in my sidebar...

• http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/


• http://saskminigamer.blogspot.com/


• http://www.belloflostsouls.net/


• http://armorfarm.blogspot.com/


• http://smellslikewargaming.blogspot.com/


• http://warpstoneflux.blogspot.com/


• http://www.how-to-paint-miniatures.com/

Star Blazers Dual Tri-Deck Carrier by KRIZ

Now that the Gunpla Builders Cup dust has settled, we could now see great non-GBWC entry posts at the forums. I have here a very nice miniature build by my best friend from the other side of the planet in KRIZ. Kriz's talent and knack for good diorama composition is undeniable and he did a nice quick job on this Star Blazers 1/200 model kit.



This is as long as a couple of lighters lined together but he managed to create a very interesting scene of the craft taking flight. Photography is also improving ( Kriz ) and I am proud to give you the link for more photos and discussion of this miniature diorama at the forums. Here is the link guys...

Star Blazers Dual Tri-Deck Carrier by KRIZ

Bushido ver Red Dragon modeled by Kriz

I am not a bling guy, why? coz I know nothing on how to pull one off. But I have here a couple of nice 1/144 kits which are so bling bling, they look like they just came out from a cow's mouth. I present to you Kriz's most recent bling bling masterpieces!

Both kits are beautifully painted with an airbrush using some prismatic colors and made extra bling bling with some polishing compound. I am very sure these finely built models looks super nice in person as it is very difficult to capture the beauty of glossy kits in photography. I particularly love the blue tone used in the GN-X as it is just so pleasing to the eyes.

Anyways a gazillion more photos in Kriz's Photobucket account, here is the link guys...

Bushido ver Red Dragon modeled by Kriz

Thanks for dropping by! Til' next featured guest modeler. ;)

Happy Birthday to Kriz / Rmahza!!!

This is actually my first time to actually greet a person here in my blog. But I would just like to shout my greetings to my closest, most trusted, dearest and oldest ( lol ) Gunpla friend! Happy Happy Birthday to Kriz / Rmahza and may he have a great day today! More Gunpla years to come and just enjoy the friggin' hobby man! Love yah!!!



I have been friends with Kriz in ZeroGunz since both of us have Zero G ( at that time ) as our first Gunpla forums. We sort of were like a tag team back then, and we always made it a point to comment in almost all the posts in Zero G! We also did the tag team commenting team in FichtenFoo forums for a while. Now we are both admins in our own new MAC forums, enjoying the hobby together more than ever! Nope we are not gay, but I do love this guy! hehehe



Like Kriz always say... birds of the same feather, flock together! ( This is soooo true! LOL )

Happy Happy Birthday man! and may ALL your wishes come true!!! :) Just Enjoy the Hobby Kriz!!! :)

GN-X Ver Black Pearl bling modeled by Kriz

This is just in today! This 1/144 GN-X is fabulously painted, I somehow keep on reminding myself that this is not the MG GN-X. The beautiful metallic / pearl  painted kit is modeled by Chris Cook aka Kriz / Rmahza and this is his entry in the weathering versus metallics GB at ZeroGunz.



Kriz painted this with all sorts of paint including pearl powders which clogged Kriz's AB during the build. I love the purple ( clear blue + clear red ) on some parts and I will copy the colors for my Eva kit which will also be submitted for the same ZeroGunz GB.



Now for more photos here is the link to ZeroGunz under the Weathering versus Metallics GB...

GN-X Ver Black Pearl bling modeled by Kriz

MAC Forums is shutting down!

Forget MAC Facebook, forget MAC Forums! Its a ton more fun to chat at Skype! We will now be shutting down both the forums and the facebook extension as we spend more time chatting this days. Heck I will also shut down this blog soon...



Nahhhh... not really, just had to think of a nice title for the post coz MatX beat me to it ( hate you man ).

I haven't been blogging lately as there is so much MAN-LOVE at Skype these past few days. First time for me to do video chats and it's really kinda fun to have those faces behind the avatars and the Gunpla names.



Kamm ( UK ), PhantomPain ( Europe? ), Gary ( London ), DCMKii ( Sweden ), Kriz ( US ), rzero1 ( Phil ), MatX ( Mars ) are my regular Skype lovers. I am actually building more coz of the chat. I usually sleep after work and just do modeling on weekeends, but the Skype thing makes me build or paint kits while Skyping.



Nyways, Love you guys! and here is the link to MatX's blog post of our man - loving at Skype...

MATX - I'll Blog About It...

Bombed City Corner Gundam base by Kriz

Ello guys I just want to share the recent work by a really really good modeler friend from the US. I present to you a Bombed City Corner Gundam base by KRIZ COOK aka RMAHZA in ZeroGunz.com. I saw this last night at ZeroGunz but waited for more pics before I could blog about it.



Rmahza is really fond of experimenting with paints, paint finishings and painting techniques. He does so with jars of alclad and other paints unknown to me at least. hihi. I have been acquaintance with this guy since he joined ZeroG and we have been supporting each other's build ever since. Naturally he is a BIG contributor to MAC at facebook also.



Rmahza went AWOL in the Gunpla scene for a period of time to attend to personal reasons... honestly it was my first time to worry at a fellow modeler. Thus I researched his email and sent a message to him, anyways, all is well now with this guy and he is now amazing us with his painting experiments and now a very very well built Gundam base.



This build is but a practice build for Rmahza, he is planning to create a ruined city diorama soon... and we are all looking forward to it at ZeroGunz. The ruined building is casted and the other parts scratch built... The realistic painting of the dio is made this special... it is mostly about painting when in comes to dios after all. Nyways, here are some more pics of this fantastic build...

MORE photos of this amazing base in Rmahza's flicker photostream