7-Star 2011 Week 1

This is the second toothbrush I've drawn in my whole life, btw

I gotta learn to manage my time better. I spent all week on this and still didn’t finish the drawing up to the level I wanted it to be. I’ll probably take some time after the deadline has passed and work on the girl, but for the most part, it’s done. Any unfinishedness is a product of my own ego.

But that’s just how things go, I guess. Some nights, everything clicks. Other nights, you spend 2 hours figuring out how to draw toothbrush bristles.

7-Star Challenge 2011

7 stars, bitches. I counted.

It’s about time for another 7-Star Challenge.

First of all, Aric said it’s about time. Second of all, it’s a good idea. I haven’t been drawing enough (read: at all), and giving myself public-facing deadlines is a proven way to get me off my ass (read: my ass).

For anyone who remembers this from last time it’s the same deal with new deadlines, and anybody can participate. All you have to do is create one something per week, before midnight on Sunday. Read the rules here. Drop me a line and I’ll link back to your entries as long as you stick with the program.

If I get more entrants than last time*, I’ll even whip together some kind of reward for everyone who makes it to the end.

You, too, can produce crappy artwork in large quantities.

^{*In that, say, two would be more than one.}

When a man loves a primer

At least for me, priming parts is among the biggest pains I have in modeling. Companies that make model paint seem to only sell primer in A) small cans, or B) bottles that could wear baby food containers as sweaters*.

Some of them are still pretty good: the Tamiya primer (canned) is very nice, and the Model Master primer (bottled, for airbrushing) works fine. The bog-standard Testors spray, on the other hand, is just a notch above “ick” on the awesome scale.

Yeah, right about there.

But my main problem isn’t the quality of the primer, it’s just economy: I go through primer really quickly. I don’t want to waste any colors while I’m checking for seams and defects, so that means multiple passes with the primer while I fix things. Multiple passes means lots of primer. Lots of primer means lots of visits to the local hobby shop, and that means I’m probably going to buy a large Coke on the way home. Next thing you know, I’m out $25, not to mention the cost for the primer.

I drink a lot of Coke when I go out.

Anyway, I went around looking for alternatives, and stumbled upon several people advocating Duplicolor sandable primer. It’s cheap: $5 gets you 12oz versus $4 for 3oz of the Testor’s, or $6/6oz for the Tamiya. That alone was enough to get my interest because it frees up a lot of cash for my soda problem. But not only that, it was supposed to be pretty good! Intrigued, and more importantly, out of primer and thirsty, I went down the street and picked up two cans from my local auto parts store.

I took my ready-to-paint parts from my HG Mr.Bushido’s Ahead and gave them a coat. Smooth? Let me tell you.

Smooth as your FACE.

Or possibly even smoother.

I actually did this a week ago (you can see the parts in my post about joint-modification), but I wanted to wait a little while to make sure nothing bad happened, like, say, the parts/my balcony melting. Seems safe for the plastic, though. However:

• I sprayed the coat on very gradually, in light mini-coats, rotating the piece as I went, and I didn’t just go to town with the spray nozzle
• It’s a lacquer-based product, so take that into consideration with any subsequent paints/thinning attempts
• I followed all the instructions on the label
• I only tried it on one type of plastic. No telling what this could do to other materials like rubber joints or ABS

Basically I’m telling you that I treated the spray like it was almost certainly going to destroy my model, and any adventurous souls who are going to use it should do the same.

Having said that, I love it. If I had any complaints (this is not a complaint), I’d say the dark gray is a little dark and, um, gray. In all fairness it is EXACTLY the color of the cap, so the darkness is not a surprise. For parts that are going to be painted light colors, you should use the white, or be prepared to do a lot of coats. It is practically matte black.

Using the Duplicolor did highlight a problem in my setup: the need for a respirator. I used it outside, and took time away from the painting area to breathe fresh air, and I still ended up with a terrible headache and, presumably, dark gray lungs that are as smooth as your FACE. You should not be breathing this stuff.

Couldn’t resist the urge and mostly reassembled Mr Bushido’s Ahead even though I have a few spots that need putty.

"If I remain verrrrry still, no one will notice my missing head thingy..."

I’m going to try decanting the remaining primer this weekend (another first) so I can use it in my cheapie airbrush and waste less to overspray. Updates and possible brain damage to follow, unless I use my respirator, in which case it will just be updates.

^{*Fashion tip: don’t do this.}

Someone, somewhere is a genius

...and ten minutes later, I had produced giant Lego man hands

That picture, above, is a vision of my modeling future, and here’s why:

I’m relatively new to scale modeling, and I’ve really only started doing things “the right way” in the last year or so. I ruined a lovely model in my modeling infancy, and I’ve been gradually getting better over time. It’s a lot of fun. Not quite as fun for the model kits, who are terrified of me.

But I fully recognize that I still suck at scale modeling, so I’ve limited my purchases to pretty cheap kits; I have a couple nicer ones, and they are waiting in the wings till I can bust out the cheapies with ease. And even though they’re simpler builds than some more complicated kits, I try to give them the full treatment–glue, paint, decals, panel line washes…the whole thing.

One thing about “easier” kits, though, is that they’re catering to an audience that is not supposed to give a flying crap about seam lines, unblemished paint jobs, or professional grade awesomeness, so they don’t give a crap (flying or non) either. If you want nice results, you will suffer more on these small kits than on the $75 beauty you special ordered from Hobbylink. The nicer kits are just engineered to hide those seam lines and joints better, generally speaking*.

Take the last two paragraphs and you get me struggling pretty much all the time.

The problems change kit to kit, but a very common one I have is with nested parts; typically joints on mecha kits. There will be an area, like an upper arm, and while you can assemble it and paint it by itself, it’s eventually going to be “nested” in the shoulder armor where it meets the pivot point, and the shoulder itself is another two pieces that meet in the middle around the upper arm. That means you have one of two horrible choices:

1) Assemble it together and try to paint the two parts as a single unit, probably with a horrendous amount of masking/swearing

2) Complete the nested piece 100% (paint and all), then wrap the enclosure around it and carefully mask the nested piece you worked so hard on while you glue, prime, and paint the enclosure

I’ve done both, and they both suck. I’ve searched for alternate methods, and largely ended up feeling like I was the only one with this problem. Then I stumbled upon a build thread on the Plamo site where this was addressed with exactly zero fanfare:

Dear "kite", I'll gladly pull this down if this is against your wishes

So yes, I am the only one with this problem, because everyone else said “hell with that!” and solved it on their own. Has everyone else been doing something like this for a while? Probably. But kite posted a picture of it, so he’s my new hero. This completely changes the way I’ve been approaching mecha builds, and it makes life so much easier.

If it’s not clear, you basically cut out the plastic that completes the loop in the joint so that you can paint the sub-assemblies separately and just “snap” the joints together when you’re done:

You'll need a sharp cutting instrument to take out that much plastic. I used my face.

Assembled thigh on the left. Modified knee on the right.

Inserted! This is NSFW if you're made out of polystyrene.

I tried it on my HG Mr Bushido’s Ahead, and it worked like a charm. One thing: if you’re doing this on a kit with flexible rubber washers in the joints, leave the gap in them a bit smaller than required for the joint axle. It’ll still snap in fine, and you won’t end up with a loose joint (like the first leg I did this on. Insert cough here).

Anyway, major thanks to the excellent modelers on PLAMO (a good site if you like awesome), and extra super squishy thanks to “kite” for posting a pic of something that everyone except me knew how to do.

UPDATE: Turns out this is called a c-joint, or c-joint mod. Of course. Now that I know how to do it, I can’t stop finding information on it everywhere.

^{*Having said that, I’m sure there is a kit out there that will cost you $400, never look good no matter how hard you work on it, and still run off with your wife.}

First piece in Manga Studio 4

Digital inking: now with 50% less weeping

UPDATE 1/25/11: The image above no longer has the moiré patterns I claimed to have triumphed over the first time I posted this. It was a problem with the way I exported from Manga Studio.

I’ve had Manga Studio 4 sitting on my shelf, sealed, for like 6 months. I wanted to buy it for a while (since rev 3), then it showed up on sale at Fry’s, and my awesome wife (who had heard enough yearning out of me) picked it up. As is my way with most things I lust after, as soon as I got it in my possession I proceeded to not touch it for the remainder of the year.

I wish I had just installed it straight away, because I’ve been having an absolute blast with it. To be completely honest, I only bought it for the ability to use the screentone tools — my attempts at creating MacGuyver tones in Photoshop have been pretty crappy (and filled with unpleasing moiré patterns), and I’ve wanted to be able to make manga-esque work for just under FOREVER.

But Lo! (I said ‘Lo!’ here) It also turns out the inking tools are perfect for me. I have terribly shaky hands; they’ve been getting shakier since my early 20s for reasons unknown. It’s frustrating. As I’ve gotten better at drawing, my hands have become harder and harder to control, particularly when using a stylus, which seems to pick up every shudder. But there’s something in Manga Studio’s pen tools that seem to completely ignore my stupid hands, and it allows me to get ink-like results without resorting to using the physical media*.

I realize that’s a special case just for me, but still, it’s AWESOME. I’m actually supposed to be in bed, but I am so psyched, I stayed up to draw and gush. If I was still living with my parents and/or 8 years old, I would be in SO much trouble. Actually, I still might be in trouble; I have to get up in 5 hours. Bleh.

Anyway, for the little piece above, I did a rough block-in with Photoshop, then imported it to Manga Studio 4, where I inked it with the G Pen preset (various sizes), and applied tones. No trace of my PS work is left — that’s all Manga Studio. Not saying it’s the best thing I’ve ever drawn or anything, but it was hella fun, and I am excited about the possibilities.

^{*Absurdly, I don’t get “wiggly” lines when using real pens and pencils. Just the digital variety.}