serogane
07-06-2007, 09:36 AM
History (How I became a garage kit buying addict - Long and stupid, you have been warned)
(Feel free to skip down to the topic)
Man, it feels like ages since I first fell into the world of garage kits. I remember it started with reading DannyChoo's (www.dannychoo.com) article on Wonderfestival last February/March.
At first, I wasn't very interested/impressed (Just mildly interested); that is, until I saw Max Factory's Ignis and Volk's massive 1/4 Yamamoto Isoroku. It was love at first sight, but I didn't know the latter was a garage kit and the former a PVC until weeks/months later.
After a lot of random searches on the subject (I just wanted to see more pictures at the time), I came upon HobbyFan's site. From there, I went over to the HobbyFanatics Forum, and found GarageKit Finished Works (http://www.paw.hi-ho.ne.jp/reshizou22/index.shtml) and Cody's Coop (www.codyscoop.com). It was there and then that I finally learned about the basics of Garage Kits.
Seeing the finished works/WIP of two of the top builders out there probably played a big role in my falling in love with garage kits.
For better or for worse, I decided to share this finding with friends and certain family members; however, they were not very impressed to say the least. After hitting multiple walls, I decided (For no good reason really) to set up a condition in which if I didn't achieve say objective A I would not pursue objective B. That little stint pleased worried friends enough to get off my case about it.
But sadly I wasn't able to achieve objective A, so the new hobby became just another momentary surfing obsession.
Fast forward to the same month of the next year (2007).
I was living the dorm life. Everyday felt boring and repetitive (2nd year), so I sunk deep into the net again. Then one day, after exhausting all of my options, I remembered HobbyFan's recast site. I decided to check it out.
Unsurprised, I found my passion for the hobby had not died. If anything, it grew in a year's absence. Most of the kits that I wanted to buy a year ago have now been sold out (Including Max Factory's Ignis, recasted as a gk by HF). I was devastated. It was then that I decided to jump back on the bandwagon to make sure I wouldn't miss out again.
I'm still waiting on the Ignis recast gk, by the way.
Anyways, long boring section of the story short, it was Volk's (Volks again:hmm:) huge 1/4 Mai Tokiha kit that urged me into making my first pre-order purchase (I had been following the HF site for about a month now by this point, storing kits that I wanted in my shopping cart but not actually buying them; this made me happy or something I guess).
From there, everything went totally downhill. I totally lost my sense of control and common sense (One kit? What's twenty more). I would buy more kits as soon as I had money in my pocket. This continued on from February to April.
I ended up buying around 25+ recasts. This may not be much money-wise to the top earners here, but for a student living on his mom's money, this was crazy. I was penny-pinching on food to buy more.
By mid-April, buying recasts no longer pleased me as it used to. My mind shifted to originals (And that's how I found this forum, ironically enough).
I figured, "Not all originals become recasts, so there must be tons more originals out there for me to buy!"
Bad move. Very bad move. I hadn't completed even one garage kit at this point, and buying much cheaper recasts was already enough to send me to the poor house (I was barely making ends meet with my mom's money and my pittance of earnings as a school computer lab monitor). I was so paranoid about missing out on kits that I did not dare spend money on building supplies (To my defense though, I had enough stuff to bring home from dorm as is. I couldn't have painted in my small dorm room anyways).
So I researched a bit and found out about YJA and YJA agents and eventually SMJ, HLJ, and HobbySearch. Just to let you know, I had a bit of an "Accident" (Yes I am a shopaholic in case you haven't caught on by now) with Ebay in the past with videogames (Spent about 700+ dollars there; not good, but not too horrible). YJA, on the other hand, almost ruined me.
I spent the remainder of April, May, and the first part of June accumulating more GK goods. Now, as of July 6th, I have about 15+ originals sitting in my room waiting to be built, and 40+ more originals waiting to be delivered. I'm not bragging or anything, because after 2 months of work, I still have 3000+ dollars in debt waiting to be paid (VISA debt no less). Well ok, maybe I am bragging about the size of my debt, but I doubt many of you are impressed.
Now I still love GKs as ever, but let this serve as a warning to all you shopaholics out there. I learned a very good lesson from all this, and it's to not worry about missing out on a few kits. Hundreds of new kits come out every WF, and you'll never hope to build them all (If you plan on doing a good job anyways).
End of History
Topic
Ah, that took a while. Thanks to those who bothered to read it.
Anyways, I want to start building some kits, but I know I'll need to buy some supplies beforehand. Of course, paying off my debt is top priority, so I plan to build to my supplies (i.e. Soak the kit, clean it, go buy some sand paper, sand it, go buy more supplies, and so on).
Can anyone of your experienced builders do an inventory check for me? It would be much appreciated.
- Super Castrol? (For the mold release agent)
- Plastic container (For soaking the kits)
- Tooth brush (For scrubbing away the mold)
- Sand paper/Nail filer (For sanding down imperfections)
- Epoxy Putty (For imperfections)
- ___ Pins (For joining joints)
- Lip chap/vaseline (For one end of the joint so that the putty doesn't stick)
- _____ brush for painting (Heard 0 size is good)
- Paint (Should I start out with only the primary colors and learn to mix on my own? I would like to use oil based paint because I read it is more forgiving for blending)
- Airbrush (Heard good things about Iwata)
- Compressor (I want a silent one so I can use it at night; I will check out the other topic regarding this)
- Masking tape/film (What kind again?)
- Dremel/pin vise (For drilling)
- Xactoknife (For stuff)
Man, I had originally decided to make this list short (As my cash is kind of short at the moment), but I kind of went overboard.:doh:
Again.
Perhaps only the basic equipment for now?:huh:
(Feel free to skip down to the topic)
Man, it feels like ages since I first fell into the world of garage kits. I remember it started with reading DannyChoo's (www.dannychoo.com) article on Wonderfestival last February/March.
At first, I wasn't very interested/impressed (Just mildly interested); that is, until I saw Max Factory's Ignis and Volk's massive 1/4 Yamamoto Isoroku. It was love at first sight, but I didn't know the latter was a garage kit and the former a PVC until weeks/months later.
After a lot of random searches on the subject (I just wanted to see more pictures at the time), I came upon HobbyFan's site. From there, I went over to the HobbyFanatics Forum, and found GarageKit Finished Works (http://www.paw.hi-ho.ne.jp/reshizou22/index.shtml) and Cody's Coop (www.codyscoop.com). It was there and then that I finally learned about the basics of Garage Kits.
Seeing the finished works/WIP of two of the top builders out there probably played a big role in my falling in love with garage kits.
For better or for worse, I decided to share this finding with friends and certain family members; however, they were not very impressed to say the least. After hitting multiple walls, I decided (For no good reason really) to set up a condition in which if I didn't achieve say objective A I would not pursue objective B. That little stint pleased worried friends enough to get off my case about it.
But sadly I wasn't able to achieve objective A, so the new hobby became just another momentary surfing obsession.
Fast forward to the same month of the next year (2007).
I was living the dorm life. Everyday felt boring and repetitive (2nd year), so I sunk deep into the net again. Then one day, after exhausting all of my options, I remembered HobbyFan's recast site. I decided to check it out.
Unsurprised, I found my passion for the hobby had not died. If anything, it grew in a year's absence. Most of the kits that I wanted to buy a year ago have now been sold out (Including Max Factory's Ignis, recasted as a gk by HF). I was devastated. It was then that I decided to jump back on the bandwagon to make sure I wouldn't miss out again.
I'm still waiting on the Ignis recast gk, by the way.
Anyways, long boring section of the story short, it was Volk's (Volks again:hmm:) huge 1/4 Mai Tokiha kit that urged me into making my first pre-order purchase (I had been following the HF site for about a month now by this point, storing kits that I wanted in my shopping cart but not actually buying them; this made me happy or something I guess).
From there, everything went totally downhill. I totally lost my sense of control and common sense (One kit? What's twenty more). I would buy more kits as soon as I had money in my pocket. This continued on from February to April.
I ended up buying around 25+ recasts. This may not be much money-wise to the top earners here, but for a student living on his mom's money, this was crazy. I was penny-pinching on food to buy more.
By mid-April, buying recasts no longer pleased me as it used to. My mind shifted to originals (And that's how I found this forum, ironically enough).
I figured, "Not all originals become recasts, so there must be tons more originals out there for me to buy!"
Bad move. Very bad move. I hadn't completed even one garage kit at this point, and buying much cheaper recasts was already enough to send me to the poor house (I was barely making ends meet with my mom's money and my pittance of earnings as a school computer lab monitor). I was so paranoid about missing out on kits that I did not dare spend money on building supplies (To my defense though, I had enough stuff to bring home from dorm as is. I couldn't have painted in my small dorm room anyways).
So I researched a bit and found out about YJA and YJA agents and eventually SMJ, HLJ, and HobbySearch. Just to let you know, I had a bit of an "Accident" (Yes I am a shopaholic in case you haven't caught on by now) with Ebay in the past with videogames (Spent about 700+ dollars there; not good, but not too horrible). YJA, on the other hand, almost ruined me.
I spent the remainder of April, May, and the first part of June accumulating more GK goods. Now, as of July 6th, I have about 15+ originals sitting in my room waiting to be built, and 40+ more originals waiting to be delivered. I'm not bragging or anything, because after 2 months of work, I still have 3000+ dollars in debt waiting to be paid (VISA debt no less). Well ok, maybe I am bragging about the size of my debt, but I doubt many of you are impressed.
Now I still love GKs as ever, but let this serve as a warning to all you shopaholics out there. I learned a very good lesson from all this, and it's to not worry about missing out on a few kits. Hundreds of new kits come out every WF, and you'll never hope to build them all (If you plan on doing a good job anyways).
End of History
Topic
Ah, that took a while. Thanks to those who bothered to read it.
Anyways, I want to start building some kits, but I know I'll need to buy some supplies beforehand. Of course, paying off my debt is top priority, so I plan to build to my supplies (i.e. Soak the kit, clean it, go buy some sand paper, sand it, go buy more supplies, and so on).
Can anyone of your experienced builders do an inventory check for me? It would be much appreciated.
- Super Castrol? (For the mold release agent)
- Plastic container (For soaking the kits)
- Tooth brush (For scrubbing away the mold)
- Sand paper/Nail filer (For sanding down imperfections)
- Epoxy Putty (For imperfections)
- ___ Pins (For joining joints)
- Lip chap/vaseline (For one end of the joint so that the putty doesn't stick)
- _____ brush for painting (Heard 0 size is good)
- Paint (Should I start out with only the primary colors and learn to mix on my own? I would like to use oil based paint because I read it is more forgiving for blending)
- Airbrush (Heard good things about Iwata)
- Compressor (I want a silent one so I can use it at night; I will check out the other topic regarding this)
- Masking tape/film (What kind again?)
- Dremel/pin vise (For drilling)
- Xactoknife (For stuff)
Man, I had originally decided to make this list short (As my cash is kind of short at the moment), but I kind of went overboard.:doh:
Again.
Perhaps only the basic equipment for now?:huh: