The end result – an unwanted rest for almost a month from work. Some people told me I was lucky for being off from work for a month. I have only this to say: I would rather go to work for a month non-stop with no weekend than going through the hell of having your ankle cemented and going through what I have gone through. My ankle still ache to this day… almost a year later and I have been deprived of simple things like jogging in the afternoon as my ankle can’t still handle the force exerted.

I have almost completed my PG Strike Gundam which started just before my accidents. I’ll post some new pictures soon. I have backlogged of Gundam waiting to be assembled:

1. PG 1/60 Strike Gundam

2. PG 1/60 RX-78-2 (this look real cool)

3. MG Freedom Gundam

4. MG 1/100 Force Impulse

5. PG 1/60 SkyGrasper

And did I mention I bought a new airbrush? The IWATA HP C airbrush. A hell of a lot better than the generic Taiwan made airbrush I used before.. Sparmax if I’m not mistaken.

I arrived in Langkawi after taking a one and a half hour ferry ride from Kuala Kedah at about 12 o’clock midday. I am there partly on business and since the accommodation is covered by the event I am attending, that’s one less thing to worry about. Did I mention that I am staying in Westin Hotel, it’s just beside the Jetty.

First thing to do if you arrive by ferry or plane, is to get your transport sorted out. Rent a car and you won’t be disappointed and it’ll make your life a lot easier. To rent a car you can get the cheapest at MYR 50 (about 16 US dollars) per day. The rental is cheap partly due to huge competition from the locals offering the service… but expect to get what you paid for. I don’t worry about getting nice car or anything. One other thing, choose the rental company well and make sure the insurance is covered with the rental.

This is a side view of Pulau Dayang Bunting roughly translated as Pregnant Maiden Island. This shot was taken just as I disembarked from the ferry. The strange name of the island is due in part of how the island looks from a certain angle. Get the angle right and you can see as though a pregnant woman is lying on her back. Folklore says that any woman who swims in the lake will get pregnant!

The name of this bay (pic above) somehow escapes me but it situated very near to the jetty (about 5 minutes drive) there’s a small resort at the beach and even though its just 5 minutes drive from the town, it’s a bit secluded and peaceful. If you like peace and quiet while having the convenience of not being far from town, then this is the place for you.

As the sunset approaches, me and the wife arrive at Awana Porto Malai, situated in Pantai Tengah. It’s at the western part of the island. If you look at the map above its at bottom left of the map. I didn’t go into the resort but the picture is taken at the entrance of the resort. The sun sets beautifully here.

My hotel is situated at the town center Kuah but when night comes, finding a good local restaurant can be a bit of a challenge. On the second night of my stay on the island, I’ve traveled to Pantai Chenang just to check out the local scenery. To my surprise, there’s huge number of local eatery there and even authentic Arabic restaurant. The prices are very reasonable. If you are into seafood – this is the place for you. The road stretches about a kilometer and both sides of the streets are lined with various restaurant and stalls. What I did was park the car and just stroll along to find the best restaurants that suits my taste.

One of the must see places on Langkawi is definitely the cable car ride. It is situated about 3 kilometers away from Burau Bay. The cable car ride is not for the faint of heart. The ride is so steep that at one point it seems that we are traveling at an angle of 60 degrees! The top most summit is about 750 meters above sea level and on top of it is a magnificent view. You can see the Island all around.

There are two stops provided on the ride. The first platform is about 650 Meters above sea level and the platform is about half the size of the second platform. You can stop here a wile before continuing to the top most level.

The bridge in the picture above is a suspended bridge giving a clearer view of the Eastern part of the Langkawi. For those with vertigo or a fear of height, don’t even think of going onto the bridge. You can feel the bridge rocking back and forth as you walk on it.

A sight to behold. the view is just breath taking and at the top the air sure seems so fresh and cool.

The final night of my stay is at Mutiara Burau Bay Resort. Its about 2 minutes drive to the cable car ride. The resort offers chalet accommodation. There’s a lot of boats at Burau Bay and they offer chartered boat rides to nearby Island. Theres is a resort located on another Island called Rebak and the only way you can go there is by boat.

The last time I went to the Island is about 3-4 years ago and it is amazing how the Island has improved and evolve during such short period. This is definitely a must go place if you ever come to Malaysia.

This the latest take on my current progress working on the gundam. As you can probably see the picture ain’t perfect due to the fact that it’s taken using my handphone.

The headless gundam picture is due to the fact that I have to re-do the whole head again. I’ve painted the head and I saw that the seam on the side of the head makes the head unsightly. I’ve tried to spray the head with a coat of Mr Surfacer 1000 and it turns out looking bloated. Mr. Surfacer 1000 is quite thick and covers even the panel lining. The solution to this: Paint Stripping.

I’ve put the whole head in acrylic thinner and leave it there for a few hours. Next step is to scrub excess paint off and redo the whole thing again… What a drag. Enjoy the pic in the gallery

This is a short update of the MG Strike Gundam I am working on. The parts are all completely done with preshading and a few coat of FFA (future floor acrylics) have been added to the parts. Pictured above is a piece of the armor of its foot. Since the base coat is black, the red is somehow turn into a darkish red color instead of its gaudy red color.

This is one of the pitfall of using Max Technique as you must take into account of how the base coat can affect the top coat. Funnily enough, the color white will not be affected when used with black base coat. These are some of the color affected: red, yellow and blue.

Eventhough the red turns out a darker shade of red, you can enhance the red color by spraying a coat of clear red. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any clear red at the moment… this is some of the technique I learn from using the Max Technique. I did apply this technique when I was airbrushing the yellow bits in model and it worked.

The FFA worked really great on the model. I was half expecting to get the kit to get all shiny, but instead I got a nice satin type finish. Apart from that, the model smells great thanks to its scented properties.

The base color may not necessarily be black. You can use a totally different color. In my case, the base color for the white armor is dark brown.. the reason I use the color is to give a dirt like outline of the edges.

Another thing I learn from doing this is that the parts looks so much better with this technique as oppose to without using the highlighting technique. Not to mention it is much more challenging and interesting. The hard work really pays off…

This are some of the first take on the currently on going IWSP Gundam. These pictures are taken using my Sony Ericson K-801 camera phone. Sometime the pictures turn out decent enough… but for these initial shots, it lacks the clarity.

The initial coat (base coat) are flat black used on all of the IWSP pack. The wing are one of the more difficult place to apply this technique due to its large flat surface. Getting the even tone across of the areas take a lot of getting used to. There are a lot factor you need to consider such as the air pressure, and getting the right amount of paint with the right amount of air to it.

Since I am using a dual acting airbrush, this is not a huge problem.If you don’t have a dual action airbrush, my suggestion is get one! Doing the Max Technique takes a lot of time and patience.

The IWSP cannon looks pretty decent when using this technique. It gives the impression of high intense heat on gun’s metal surface making the paint a bit faded. I’ll post more pictures when more progress are made. The inner frame of IWSP gundam has been painted and shaded and it looks cool. More pictures will be uploaded soon.

[Some of the stuff i got from my trip to Kuala Lumpur]

Notice at the background of the picture, my IWSP Gundam was all ready for the first coating of dark grey base color. Since this will be my first time applying the max technique.. we’ll see how the IWSP Gundam will turn out. Anyhow..

I’ve set foot once again in City Square. The last time I was there, I was still in high school, which is almost 20 years ago. The place doesn’t look quite alive like the newer shopping centers but that don’t matter as the hobby shop is the one I’m after.

The Gunze Sangyo acrylic paints and Mr Surfacer was bought in City Square but the Future Floor Acrylics was bought from Ace Hardware in Ikano Power Center. The Bandai Modelling Tools kinda neat and don’t cost too much. I got that from Toy’s R Us in City Square Basement. That shop was there for ages.

The Future Floor Acrylics retails at RM 56.50, almost bought two but decided to see how long that one bottle will last. If you are wondering what on earth does a modeller do with a floor cleaner, you can google it. Basically I use it for the final coating of the model. You can make your model shine or you can add Tamiya X-21 ( Flat base acrylic) to it and get a satin finish to. The MK-II gundam’s final coating was not done using Future, but a mixture of Tamiya clear gloss (X-22) and Tamiya Flat Base (X-21). I use the ratio of 1 part flat base and 10 part clear gloss.. add thinner to it at a ratio 1 to 1 and voila, you’ll get a nice satin finish to it.

Apart from making a final coating for your model, Future can also be use to make clear plastic parts shine. Just dump it in a Future liquid, making sure all the parts are submerged and leave it overnight. Come tomorrow morning your clear part will be clear and shiny.

13.4.2008-017

Originally uploaded by nasrulh76

I’ve downloaded almost all of my gundam photos in flickr and feel free to view the photos there.

www.flickr.com offers 100MB of space for you to host all the picture and the interface are pretty slick. It even have the tool to automatically post the picture to your blog from Flickr.

According to the website, the space it offers is 100MB of space per month. Since I’ve just registered at flickr, I’ll to wait another month before I find out if that really the case. Enjoy the gallery

Perfect Grade gundam kit can cost a fortune but for me its really worth its price. In previous post I’ve suggested you have a look at www.dalong.net if you want to see any Gundam Kit (unpainted) with a detailed review. Since the pages are all written in Korean, it’ll be great to see how the google translation deals with it. Wait… I’ll check it out

Well the translation certainly isn’t great but at least you get some idea of what the webmaster trying to say… which is better than nothing.

Back to the topic at hand. A perfect grade gundam kit stands at 3Ocm and the details are just amazing. All the joints are can be articulated and you can certainly pose the model in way imaginable. The only limitation being that some of the armor may hinder the movement of the internal skeleton.

Did I mention that each of the fingers can be articulated and movable? The external armors are removable and some of the hatches are able to opened and closed.

All of the models in Dalong.net are unpainted. It just doesn’t do justice for a model of that amount of detail to be left unpainted.. to me; it’s just not right. Another thing is that some of the more experience modeller (me; not one of them) use scribe pen to put more panel lining onto the visible armor plates. A scribe pen is a pen with needle like tip to etch the surface. You can buy it or you can make it yourself.

I’ve seen a blog that actually shows you how to make one of these scribe pens with old mechanical pencil and a needle.

Finally got around attaching a Youtube video review of RX-78 Perfect Grade Kit. Run a search for Gundam PG in youtube and you’ll get several video reviews of a Perfect Grade Gundam Kit.