Can't Decide....

I'm in a dilemma at this moment for not being able to decide on what to buy for my next toy purchase. Just finished paying for the shipping cost of my previous online purchases, which were earlier this month and as this month's salary is around the corner, it is time for my next round of purchase. No point for me to stop buying now, or even just to think of stopping, as I'm already way too deep in this toy collecting arena.

My wish list just keep on getting longer and longer with every passing days... and when I'm ready to make the purchase, I can't decide which item to buy first. If I choose to let go an item, will it be available again next time? I believe this is the kind of problems that any other toy collectors with limited budget are experiencing all around the world, at any given time. But, I also believe, this is the fun part in toy collecting, other than the happy moment when we receive the parcel itself.

As for the moment, there are 6 items that really got my attention to bid/buy. All these items are quite rare and insanely expensive to buy locally, if its available here in KL, and all of it has about 2-3 days bidding/buying time left. In other words, I have to decide fast.

Here are the items in random order...


1. Transformers G1 Sixshot


2. Medicom RAH Ghost Rider


3. Medicom RAH Wolverine


4. SDCC 2009 Exclusive Baroness


5. MOTU Classic He-Man


6. Darth Vader Real Action Doll Collection by Tomy Direct

Come to think of it, I'm actually lying to myself about the 6 items. It is actually a lot more. The list, and this post, could goes on forever. Darn it....

Maybe I'll sleep over it for a while...

Dragonflies, spaceships & those neverending office works.

A few weeks back, I was given the task of designing a logo for our PE-PATUNG Group, or at least to come up with some design proposals that can be modified later by the other PE-PATUNG members. After all these years working as a 3d Illustrator and using graphic software all day at work, I always knew that graphic logos weren't really my thing, but still it is something that has to be done somehow for the sake of this group.

My first step on that matter was to download some images of some dragonflies.... never expect that there are so many species of these insects. Later, I imagined myself as a robotic dragonfly, flying around enjoying my little robo-insect life, hopping around a little here and there on some metallic branches of some unknown alien type trees and moments later, viola!... ideas & images began to pop up in my head.

But that was then, at the beginning of the process. A few days later, after developing some weird looking shapes in Photoshop, office job began to pour in like crazy since last week and I was stuck with a halfway done robo-dragonfly drawn in a plan view. Far away from what I've imagined earlier which was supposed to be a logo with some sort of 3 dimensional view.

As an alternative, I've decided to used some of Rampage Studio's older, unused works, hoping to recycle it somehow to make it look acceptable enough to become a logo with that robotic dragonfly touch. This is where I need all the help I can get from the other creative peoples at PE-PATUNG Group. Its always been a team effort after all.

So, here it is, originally this was a personal spaceship design project that I came up with sometime about a year ago. Supposed to be for some sort of a space strategy game thing but it never happened. Sorry about the watermark and low resolution images, which is necessary at this point as a protective measure because these are work-in-progress protected materials. There are actually 2 different design of ships belonging to 2 clans at war, but I will only post one which is more suitable for the development of the logo. The other design is also a bit lame and embarrassing so I'll just keep it in my hard disc for now.


This is the Battle Cruiser.
As you can see, the front portion of the ship is highly inspired by The Imperial Cruiser from Star Wars. I was thinking to modified the rear end of this ship to make the head part of the robotic dragonfly, and some modification on the wings to make it look more insect-like. Hope this will work.


The second ship here is the Carrier. Just a slight improvisation of the Battle Cruiser which I haven't got the chance to finished but I think it still looks alright as an unsymmetrical ship design... and yes that landing deck thingy was inspired by none other than the Pegasus from Battlestar Galactica. Haven't really decide yet what I can salvage from this one to be use on the logo. The landing deck's arm will be the dragonfly's legs perhaps.


This third image is just a close up view of those ships, showing the clan's insignia. Haven't got the chance to fully develop any story lines behind these designs during that time, so I just put the insignia as Clan Rampage. All these drawings were done fully in Photoshop 7, with standard effects and filters without any additional plug-ins.

Well, thats about it for this post. Hope to get all things in order after this. PE-PATUNG really need its own blog space up and running soon.

Wassalam...

Waiting for Cik D

My first video shot, video composition & video publishing... sorry it became blur after all the resizing for uploading purpose. What do you expect from a newbie.... (and slow internet connection)

Anyway, this was taken last night while waiting for my sister at KLIA, returning from a trip from Berlin. The dude in this video is my brother, the young girl is my niece and the lady is my aunt.

Not exactly Cannes Film Festival material just yet... LOL

If They Can Do It...

After 33 years of my life, yesterday I did something which I've never done before. Bought myself two packets of stuffs that I wanted to buy for sometime but never did, up until yesterday.

It all started last Friday night when I followed my 'partner in crime' Spooky P to see his buddy Jeff, of 3d Whiz-Art. Yes, it was that time when I started to have that fever as mentioned in an earlier blog. With a feeling of mild aching began to crawled up my head plus with an empty stomach, I forced myself to tag along because I really wanted to meet Jeff and to see his artwork for myself.

Eventually, it was not a bad decision after all. Headache & hunger aside, it was a very worthy little experience for me that night. We spent about 2 hours inside Jeff's studio/workshop somewhere nearby Taman Len Seng in Cheras and that moment was really an eye opener for me.

Jeff, a very talented artist and also an independent businessman... or shall I say, an entrepreneur, were cool and kind enough to tell us the story of his life on how he started his sculpting & casting works plus some tips & tricks.... and believe me when I say that in this line of work, it is quite difficult to find someone whose willing to share that knowledge.

My only regret for that night was that I didn't have my camera with me, hence, I cant show any kind of prove of how good Jeff's works are.

Beside his works and his charming persona, one other quality about Jeff that one can noticed at first sight is his superbly positive attitude whenever he wanted to learn something new or experimenting with new techniques of casting. During our conversation, actually it was him who did most of the talking while me and Spooky P were in awe most of the time, there were several times that he mentioned something like "If they can do it, why cant I"

Hearing that from a successful artist like Jeff himself, it is expected that those simple sentence could turned out to be a form of enlightenment for me that night, thus making me want to try out something new.

So, here it is, those two packets of stuffs that I bought yesterday.



They are modeling clays. Sorry if you're expecting something else.
Yes, I'm going to try my hands at sculpting, which I haven't got a single clue on how to start. But, at least I've got the raw material with me now, and with Jeff's enlightening words "If they can do it, why cant I", I hope I can achieve something.

Wish me luck... wassalam

Iron Man 2 toy line

Found some pictures of the toys that would accompany the upcoming Iron Man 2 movie. At this point, I'm still not sure whether to buy any or not, or even what to expect from these toys that all seems too 'normal' in their packages. Except maybe for Crimson Dynamo which looks promisingly cool at the moment. But then again, I'm not much of an Iron Man fan. Sure, I do love the movie but for a super-hero character, I'd chose Wolverine & Thor at any given time. Maybe its the scruffy looks that I have.... and also because of these certain royal blood that runs through my veins. (Yeah, right... LOL)

As usual, Hasbro the manufacturer of these toys, is 'kind' enough to bring to us fellow toy collectors a number of variations for this figure. Even the conceptual toys got their chance of getting on to the production lines.

So, here they are.... a quick look at some of the Iron Man 2 toy line. Judge them yourself as you like. As for me, I think I'll wait for some reviews before doing any purchases. Tony Stark can wait.

Yes, sometimes I pimp....

I have not been feeling well since last Friday evening. Suffering from a minor fever with some headache & neck pain. Hope I can still go to work tomorrow because I really need to take a leave this coming Wednesday for a certain family matter.

Though still feeling a little light headed even after taking several Panadol Soluble, I still have the urges to write stuffs but it seems like every time I log in here, none of those ideas that I had turn out as proper sentences. I guess I should just stop squeezing those ideas for the moment and just write whatever crosses my mind... and having said that, I guess what better ways for me to occupy my writing time for today than to pimp out a dear friend of mine.

I'm sure that most of you tech geeks, toy collectors and art freaks out there especially those who are into Star Wars, would find this guy very interesting.

Introducing, Khairul Hisham, a dear friend of mine from Deviantart.com (which I myself have not been around for quite some time now, LOL)

Hisham have always been kind enough to linked my Komikon @ Rumah Menan or any other form of 'artworks' that I've done before to his Facebook profile. An awesome Star Wars artist of SWAG, a great father and a real nice guy. Though he may already be a more net-savvy person than myself, with much more 'followers' than what I could ever have for my Komikon, its just seems unfair if I didnt do exactly the same for his gallery like he did to mine.

Sham, if you're reading this, I hope you dont mind me putting up your latest artwork here for decorative purpose bro ;-)



And here is the link to his other published artwork at his Deviantart gallery... enjoy

http://khairulhisham.deviantart.com/gallery/

Roll Camera !

Just had a wonderful conversation with my 'partner-in-crime' moments ago regarding some future planning for our little, newly-found so-call company. Its more like a fantasy planning at this stage actually but both of us have strong faith and are passionate at what we do, so any form of ideas and suggestions were not to be taken too lightly. It may came out merely as a joke or small talks at the beginning but who knows what the future may look like for us.

If all things goes as planned, plus some help from lady luck, you might see us among the nominees at the Cannes Film Festival someday ;-)

Sorry for the inconvenience

My original idea of creating a blog space here was for the convenience of publishing my Komikon. Instead of posting a whole episode in Facebook, I thought that I would just post the 'cover page' of an episode and provide a link which will bring readers over here. Then, from here I could also easily post the whole episode to my personal Komikon thread at the Sembangtoys.com forum.

But now I'm having some issues with image sizes. Without any official education in internet related computer graphics, I have to rely purely on self experimenting the whole uploading process. Meaning that I have to try various image sizes that are suitable here and also in the forum page. Its all for the sake of viewing pleasure for Komikon readers. No point of having a comic strip that's too small to read or to large that it wont fit the forum page, isn't it.

Well, I guess its back to Photoshop for me now. Hope to solve this issue soon...

wassalam...

Minimal Assembly Required !

It has been a while since the last time I did any model kit assembly. Lack of proper painting skill is the major reason why I've stopped doing it, apart from those other more common reasons such as lack of time, proper working space & proper tools, which were actually quite easy to overcome if I really put my heart to it. Guess I'm just not gifted enough in that particular trade. The modeling processes itself were not a problem to me, infact, I enjoyed doing it like any other intermediate level scaled modeler would have felt, but its the finished, colored end results that differentiate between a good or a poorly done scaled models.

The latest kit that I've worked on was called Sword Wolf from the Zoids toyline and that was way back about 4-5 years ago. Its a pre-painted kit with snap on joints, meaning that it doesn't require any painting works to finish the process. Still, many professional modeler would consider giving these kind of kits atleast some minimal paint job to make it more realistic thus adding up the awe factor. For me personally, I'm simply happy with the outcome of my unpainted Zoids back then... suggesting that I wont reach that professional level at any time soon.

Enough about Zoids for now. Actually this post is about some simpler model kits from two different brands. So simple that a young kid would have no problem doing it, yet fun and cute enough for adults to appreciate.

The first product is the official Transformers Pla-Kit model kit made by Takara and the others are Transformers model kits made by Kabaya, which are actually 'candy toys'
(Toys that come as free gift in a candy box, but in this case looks more like the candy is the free giveaway)

The one that I'm posting here is Transformers Pla-Kit Grand Scourge from Transformers Energon series, while those from the Kabaya factory are G1 Optimus Prime, Star Saber & Henkei (Classic) Optimus Prime.

Credits to Mr Fauwaz Zawawi for helping me out with the assembly of Grand Scourge. Like I mentioned earlier, I lack the time & proper tools (LOL) but I did apply the stickers myself

Here it is...

Images


Grand Scourge in his Super Mode form


Not much articulation for this little bad boy


Close up view


Scourge without his add on


Vehicle Mode... with all the drones that made up Grand Scourge's limbs


Trailer Cab


Size comparison with Superlink Convoy & Superlink Convoy Fire


Another size comparison


Kabaya Candy Transformers toy
Left to Right - Star Saber, G1 Optimus Prime & Henkei (Classic) Optimus Prime


Kabaya G1 meet Hybrid Style G1


About the same size


Size comparison - Kabaya, Hybrid Style & Pla-Kit


"You are scrap metal dude"


Kabaya Henkei Optimus Prime... again, limited articulations for this guy


Size comparison with Hasbro Classic Optimus Prime


Amazed with his elder brother...


Some brotherly love photoshot

Does It All Really Matter?

What can I say... I'm back at this silly little thing called blogging.
Seems like ages ago that I wrote about anything, and now, for purposes which are still unclear to myself, I found myself typing away on my keyboard about things that would matter to me... or even those that wont.

Writing have always been one of my deep hidden interest since primary school, but for some reasons I never really got the chance to brush up on that skills or to venture deeper in this area. I guess a personal blog would serve as, let me call it, a second chance to all those wasted years of working in a 'non-writing', all technical architectural environment. I hate architecture by the way.

One thing I hate about doing all these blogging (or writing) is that it will take lots of my time, plus lots and lots of boxes of cigarettes. Not to say that it is a bad thing in general, just that once I've start writing, the passion will get me carried away to the extend of leaving my actual office work. Well, I suppose that can be considered as a bad outcome. But heck, does it really matter? Everyone else is doing it.

Hence, without further a due... I proudly pronounce the official launching of the new blog space of Rampage Studio... let the chaos begin