A few days ago, I saw Jin Saotome‘s awesome Swindle bash. Shockwave is one of my favourite Decepticons, so how could I ignore this? I can’t possibly afford one of Jin’s customs, but what I can do is buy an extra Swindle. So tonight I laid down a black basecoat over much of the parts that will be drybrushed later on. I still need to do the neck fix on the toy, and I want to find the perfect gun barrel to use for that left hand. I’m excited for this project (since Ratchet has been pretty much forgotten about for the time being – I’ve fixed most of the glaring problems with him, and it’s down to details that can wait for exciting projects like this one to be finished).

Pictures coming when I get around to it.

Well, not having accomplished much today, I went and boldly set out to get one last thing done (and technically start Day 7). I’ve gone and painted Ratchet’s hands. Touch up will probably be required (the metallic grey that I used didn’t seem to want to cover the yellow, but the paint seemed to stay on the spot test I did, so I’m not too worried about it being unpaintable plastic. It may not stay as well as I’d like, but what can one do?

Not much done so far today – just touchups taking advantage of a nice new brush I found, and I bought some paints that might get some use later on. My goof-around time today has been occupied by adding that little Facebook share link down on my posts. Man, that site is addictive.

Among the little touch ups I’ve done are the hydraulics on the hood. The next major step for the vehicle mode is the tools on the roof and the flashers on the sides, and all that fun stuff in the back. Ideally, I would like to make some labels using the insignia on his doors and tailgate from the movie. I’ve found a rather nice example of Ratchet’s emblem on Flickr that should do the job nicely – it’s greatly simplified on the toy’s tampograph, but I don’t feel the need to settle for that. I would like to find a blend of paint that closely matches Ratchet’s greenish colour to use, but I’m still unsure of where to begin. Hopefully tomorrow turns into a more productive day painting wise.

So, I’ve got a little more done. I’ve done more doorhandle work, finished off the wheels, added silver to the tool rack on the passenger side, and a few smaller details. What I haven’t done is take pictures. I haven’t got as much as I’d like to have done, because on Thursday I went to see the movie, and yesterday I just didn’t get anything accomplished. So, rather than continue to type this out, I’m gonna go paint, I think.

Well, as promised, here’s what I accomplished on Ratchet yesterday.

As you can see, I’ve only managed to get a partial application of silver paint so far. I’ve got three hubcaps, a door handle, a tool rack, and the flashers. The other side is untouched. I still need to go over some of these areas – the tool area isn’t going to be flat silver, and those flashers need a coat of transparent red to complete the effect.

Now that I’ve actually got this written on Day 2, I’ve added the black area around the door panel. David Willis got a bit of trouble over his use of paint pens from Jin Saotome of Jin Saotome’s Dangerous Toys. Well, don’t tell Jin, but I couldn’t find any paint pens. So I did what came natural on Day 2 when I had some small detail work that my collection of brushes couldn’t tackle – I grabbed a cheap dip pen with a sharp nib, and used that. Cheap ass paint pen. Probably not the best way to do it, but it got the job done, more or less. I’ll fire up a picture later. I’ve also got another wheel and a bit done, but that’s about it. I’ll try and get pictures up later. Day 2 was cut short by back pain, so hopefully I’ll be able to get a decent pace out of things once that’s taken care of.

I’ve decided to start updating again.

Well, I never really “stopped” updating, I just sort of didn’t do it. Yes, there’s a difference. If I “stopped”, it would involve actually giving up. Formally quitting, as it were. Instead, I just didn’t bother. Petty distinction, I know.

But I’ve got a new project on the go, and I’ve decided to post it here rather than under the “hobby” section on the main site. I might as well use WordPress to do the heavy lifting on generating the page.

Anyhow, I’ve decided to imitate Dave Willis, and give Autobot Ratchet a few new paint applications. I’ll post the Day 1 pictures when I get home tonight.

I don’t know how in the hell I did it, but I got a heckuva deal on an Evangelion Unit-01 Perfect Grade model on eBay (and an Eva-04 LM-HG from the same guy). I was expecting to be disappointed – how in the hell could someone sell that model for so little? But it arrived today, and looks legit. If it’s a fake, it’s well done, and it’s fooled me (so far). Look forward to a build-up on the site once I get it going. I haven’t found any build-ups of this kit so far, and it should be a fun one.