Big Z - Addicted to tiny things...

When I started this hobby my philosophy was always "Bigger is better!". Master Grade Gundam kits were my target acquisition and soon my stockpile had reached epic and gaudy proportions. When questioned about 1/144 scale kits I laughed and shrugged them off, "Haha! My massive, Ogre like fingers could not possibly manipulate those puny pieces! I need substance! I need Perfect Grades and beyond!!".

Enter John..John is a good friend of mine that would toss in small jabs here and there about how awesome 1/144 kits were and from time to time would even mention actual miniatures. "Miniatures?!" I would scoff, "You mean those crappy metal things that look like a melted slug? My huge hands and old eyes have no time for these things. I need resin! I need G-System kits coming out of my ears!".

Over and over again John would point me to smaller things, and eventually even went as far as letting me get my hands on a 1/144 Byarlant Custom. Suddenly I began to realize I might have been wrong. After building the kit and getting a feel of the simplicity of it when compared to a MG I started to understand John's way of thinking. Then he went on at that point and started to explain to me that miniatures, especially from companies like Games Workshop and Privateer Press, have came a long way since the old days of crappy, low detail mini's and have now become super detailed plastic and resin pieces that rival most other models on the market for pure quality and extreme detail. Sure, they come at a premium, some would even consider it price gouging for what you are actually buying, but when you get one of these tiny pieces of modeling gold in your hand you truly start to realize the majesty of these newly designed miniatures.

For my first attempt in this new realm I wanted to do something slightly larger than your standard troop, but still a "miniature" and not a vehicle or large monster. I decided to go with the Ork Warboss. A steal on Ebay at $8.00 shipped, this little beauty has a gun, a giant claw and a little skull. What more could I want? By modeling standards it's a joke. 4 pieces, a couple seam and mold lines and boom, ready for primer. From a paint standpoint however the challenge is quickly revealed.

Now I'm officially bitten by the mini bug. I've talked to my local game shop about starting a small army and joining them for a game night and I have already added more miniatures to my collection than I care to think about. Sure I still want to build huge resin kits and my hunger for copious towers of Master Grades piled to the ceiling of my basement is as powerful as ever, but I must admit a large amount of my free time will be spent squinting, wet blending and trying to figure out how to make a damn base look good.

p.s. f$@k you, John.

There are no mistakes, just happy accidents.

  I've always been a competitive person. As a kid I would be furious if I didn't get all 4 railroads in Monopoly, and I wouldn't even think about passing on a double jump in checkers. When I started to play organized sports my Mom says she wouldn't talk to me for the rest of the day after a loss because she knew what a jerk I would be. With this knowledge I'm not surprised at all how I react when I hear there is an online model building contest.

  So far I have entered two and have not placed in either. From what I hear they were both pretty close, but as my coach always told me "second place is the first loser", and I wasn't even second... Plamocon is currently running a contest as a warm up to this years online portion of the GBWC called the "1st Annual Gunpla Grand Prix". There are two divisions, modified and out of box and has had a fairly large turnout when compared to the GBWC entries they received last year.

  Now, in full disclosure I had already decided that I wanted to build my MG Shin Matsunaga with or without the contest. I was wanting to build a white kit that I could weather and make a small diorama base for, but the possibility of avenging my previous losses provided the additional motivation that I needed to not only get started, but to really go all out and push myself on technique and overall design. I wanted to try my hand at some light modifications and also give sponge chipping a try.

  I started by detailing my inner frame and even going as far as to panel wash, add decals and use some top down shading.

Then it was time for base coats and basic shading/highlighting, then decals.

  Egggzellent...everything is going according to plan! Now, time to try this "sponge chipping" . I took time and watched several videos on YouTube, then practiced for a few minutes on a plastic spoon. I used three colors, going from light to dark and some artist grade white spirit in between layers to give a sense of the paint wearing away slowly around the chips and layers and layers of damage. I gotta admit, I was pretty darn happy with where this was going!

  The competitive part of my brain is screaming, "Yes!! Victory! I mean I'm almost done and this is hands down the best work I have done so far. Surely I will at least place!", but then the artistic side of my brain....the side that has been responsible for the majority of the bad decisions I have made so far in my life decided to speak up..

"Ummm Chris?"

"Yes crazy, art guy part of my brain?"

"You know...this kit is REALLY white. I mean, a kit this white would surely show some dust right? I mean,      even if there is no dust then a wash of some sort would make the whole thing more interesting to look at.   Doncha think? Tonal variation and all that?"

 "Well...maybe brain. But I'm almost done and I really don't want to screw up at this point. I mean I could just flat coat it and walk away and I don't think anyone would argue that it was finished."

"Maybe Chris, maybe. I just thought you wanted to win...." 

  My art brain and competitive brain have joined forces.

  I mixed up an acrylic filter of Model Master rust. I initially wanted to do an enamel filter because it's so much easier to correct mistakes with enamel, but I couldn't find that bottle of paint and seriously I've been painting for over 20 years! What could possibly go wrong?!

  That's when disaster struck...I'm guessing I mixed the filter too thin, or it was too cold, or the Earth wasn't spinning fast enough or Karma was getting me back for laughing when that chick at the Oscar's fell, but no matter the reason my beautiful rust filter beaded all over the entire kit. I didn't get any pictures of this part because I was too busy trying to get this vile demon liquid off of my beautiful kit, but time was against me and the damage had already been done. Tiny rust colored dots all over my kit turned my Zaku into an earth tone version of MC Hammer's pants circa 1989.

  My art brain took over and went into panic mode. Immediately I grabbed the rubbing alcohol and some brushes and started VERY gently streaking the rust colored paint downwards and tried not to damage the acrylic top coat underneath. For what seemed like an eternity I slowly worked section after section turning the tiny droplets into hardcore streaking. I rushed back to my paint booth and applied a few thin layers of my base coat on top to blend out the worst parts, but still all of my chipping, my hours and hours of tedious chipping had been washed out to the point of oblivion.

  That's when I made the call. Ring ring "Yo Z whaddap?" I heard Harry's voice and knew it would be all right. I explained to him the situation, he laughed, I cried, but in the end just the simple sentence "Dude, why don't you just add another layer of chipping? It will probably look better than before you screwed it up."

  Now admittedly this is weathered way more than I had originally envisioned it, but it's considerably better than the polka dotted mess that I had less than 24 hours prior.

  Will I win the contest? Probably not, there are some really nice kits lined up and still over a month left, but more important than a free kit I was reminded that 1) it's just paint and 2) it's just a model. Stop taking things so seriously and just have fun. Screw up's suck, but without mistakes you can't learn how to fix or avoid them. Like my daughters dance teacher told her, "I don't want you to make small mistakes, I want you to make BIIIIG mistakes! At least then I know you are trying to improve!"

                                                                        "There are no mistakes, just happy accidents" - Bob Ross

-Big Z

They call me....Z

Hello, my name is Chris and I’m a Scorpio. I enjoy soccer, long walks on the beach, and building plastic model kits.

In all semi seriousness, I’m Chris, a.k.a. Big Z on MechaLounge/Plamocon/G.E. or The_Big_Z on Reddit. I’ve been building model kits off and on since I was a little kid, the old AMT and Revell snap fit cars and planes, a few Tamiya tanks but my interest in modeling never really took off until late 2011 when I was introduced to Gundam model kits through a random Facebook post. I was a big fan of Wing when it was shown in the States but I had no idea they made models of the kits. Now 10+ years later I am trying to get caught up on all the other anime series (Go 8^th MS!) and discovering all the awesome stuff I have been missing!

By trade I am a professional airbrush artist with over 20 years experience (yes, that means I am pretty old), specializing in custom automotive murals. I have been able to apply that knowledge to the paint side of model building, but I feel I have a long way to go on everything else. Luckily I have met some amazing people in the last year that are helping me every day by answering questions and inspiring me with amazing bodies of work. I also feel very honored to be a member of this group, because I know in modeling experience I am dwarfed by the other 3 guys (So I have a lot to prove!).

My style tends to lean more towards the weathered and damaged side of paint finishes. While I know this isn't everyone’s cup of tea, in my mind it would be a more accurate representation of how these metal monsters would look after an actual battle. On top of that, I just have a lot of fun weathering stuff and learning different weathering techniques.

As far as future plans with modeling, my backlog now consists of 100% Gundam related plastic and resin models. I plan on expanding to Maschinen Kreiger, Macross and the Zoids universe, and maybe even try my hand at some of the Games Workshop miniatures and resin kits. I have also started a small commission business with a good friend of mine (Dave a.k.a. Gunplameister) called 2 Monkeys Studios, mainly focused on resin kits and figures. I also have two young protégé’s in my 11 year old daughter and 8 year old son who both enjoy the hobby with me!

Current projects include:

MG MkII 2.0

MG Qubeley

MG Shin Matsunaga Zaku 2.0

MG Nu ver. Ka

Gsystem Kampfer

A few examples of my kits so far:

To see some of my airbrush work please check out ABCGrafiks on Facebook!