A lot of things sure have changed since I posted last time...I'm back in school and just as busy as ever while trying to keep a social life :p
Part of the reason why I haven't been building as much is that I'm either busy (duh) but also because I broke my camera ;_; I was hiking and doing some volunteer work and my camera slipped out of my hoodie and quite literally tumbled down a bunch of rocks down a mountain LOL...the screen is completely trashed but I can see out of the top right corner so I can still roughly estimate where I want things to be! No chance of fixing flash or anything else though since I can't see the menu commands...
I've been working on one of my Remilia kits for a while, I started her back in December. I also decided I didn't want to work on Amaterasu anymore for now xD
All credit: http://blog.livedoor.jp/ankimo_ymd/archives/65816482.html
I was having a big problem though because some of her chair legs were really uneven causing the kit to tilt. It's kind of apparent in the original photos too, it looks like there's a very slight tilt but chairs that have that drive me crazy so I had to fix it!
My friends advised me to buy some epoxy putty because it would easily correct the issue so I went out and got some Milliput. I've never used Milliput before, when I had big problems I always used Aves Epoxie Sculpt but it all dried up so technically I've been going without putty epoxy for like two years...anyway lol it was surprisingly easy to handle, I just sanded down some of the chair and smoothed it on and waited a while.
So I worked with this for quite a while and as it turns out I overestimated how much putty I needed and was making the kit lean even more because two of the chair pieces were really tall and two were short -_- After a ton of adjusting I think I finally managed to make all the pieces stable!
Looool completely out of focus picture from my broken camera...
I'm very pleased though because it looks pretty natural and the chair no longer tilts around at all. I had to sand it all down to make each part equal but at this point I'm not concerned and I can work on sanding everything else down.
So this is her current state (minus wings, arms, and some small things)! I had to bend quite a few pieces with my blowdryer since her dress wasn't aligning properly with the big fluffy chair cushion and I may make some small sculpting changes to her mouth but we'll see! Most of the parts are actually ready for paint, I'm just trying to prep myself to get out my airbrush and figure things out...
There's also another reason I made this blog post though and it's mostly to rant (what are blogs for anyway if not to rant?). I view garage kit building completely as a hobby, it's something to do when I need to relieve stress, if I'm feeling inspired, or just want to get away from the internet and everyone for a little while. I don't know why I didn't realize this sooner but to some people it's much more than a hobby, it is a complete lifestyle since they either do it professionally or have very strong opinions on certain things that cannot be swayed. One of those opinions is on originals vs. recasts but I may do a different blog post on that, it's a whole different can of worms :p
Anyway I think certain people in the hobby whose entire life revolves around GKs tend to get kind of a "holier-than-thou" attitude and are almost cutthroat about it :/ To give an example one of my friends recently informed me that when she posted a GK figure on Tumblr or some similar site and mentioned to contact me or my WIPs another GK blogger basically told her to contact her instead (and she didn't even know this person). I'm not entirely sure how it went down but I know that other person and it was kind of hurtful they were purposely trying to divert people away from me. I guess that's business though, that part I wasn't too mad about since it's not like I make tons of WIPs or pump out GKs every three-six months, I just don't have the time and this isn't something I want to do professionally x_x
It gets worse though when popular builders constantly view themselves as superior to other builders and then complain of "favoritism" when they are not contacted about commissions or lose contests. There was a recent contest on a figure forum I somewhat moderate and we simply forgot to count every single photo on every single person's entry so one went under the radar...of course that one ended up placing. Now personally I don't judge on the number of photos, I judge on the quality of the figure and it deserved placing imo.
If this were a contest sponsored by some company I would take that much more seriously since there could have been an unfair advantage with more people voting. There were like 17 entries in this contest though and practically the only people who voted were the ones who entered so it was entirely designed to be among friends -_- There weren't even special prizes, the only prizes involved were printed certificates on nice paper. There's always one person who has to stir up drama though complaining that everything is biased and unfair just because they thought their figure was "perfect" in every single way. The mod team even apologized but she took it to a whole different level complaining on all of her media to get people to feel sorry for her :/ Pretty typical internet stuff but it's still sad because it's happening in a community I thought was safe. I deal with stuff all the time on MFC and people expecting perfection so it's disappointing to see yet another thing ruined because a few people are always upset if things aren't perfect.
There are always two sides to a story though, it's just so hard to see both sides sometimes when you have such strong opinions on the matter. It's sad because I really looked up to that person, respected their work, and was going to use their tutorials to figure out how to use my airbrush since I know they are really talented. I'm a little disgusted now that I see how she thinks about other fellow builders and probably thinks my work is scum compared to hers. I think it's important to be very humble when you're in any kind of art business since people's tastes differ and even if they like your work if they know you think you are superior and you can never reach their level of "perfection" they are probably less inclined to buy from you. It's easy to get an inflated ego when people just praise you all the time but there will always be people who are better especially in such a niche hobby and that's just something you have to accept. It's just sad when you look forward to going into a community each day since it's an escape from all the other crazy stuff in life and a person has to bring in their personal problems and make the place unfriendly. Hopefully it will get resolved though in some way or another.
On another note I'll be posting a very exciting post in a couple of days so there's that to look forward to :DDD
