DoW on G15, anybody?

Ok, I'm just throwing this out there (because I know there are people that come and go without leaving comments). But does anybody out there have an applet for the Logitech G15 keyboard's LCD screen that does anything for THQ's "Warhammer 40'000: Dawn of War" series of games?

Tonight I finally saw the G15 in person and it does indeed look very sexy as far as keyboards go. Actually, I like the look of the "Gaming Keyboard" (with the blue lighting) better than the "Version 2" (has orange lighting). But then I came home and started doing research. And it seems Logitech was pretty sparse on the included software for the cool little screen.

But they did release a full SDK suite for the general public to code custom applets. So has any body out there tried this thing? Is it easy to work with? Hard to work with? I may be an IT professional, but I'll admit, my track record for setting up my own compilers has been spotty at best - I do my best work when I just have to worry about the code itself and not the mechanisms behind the machine language.

Anybody? The best answer would be to say, "why yes, I play Dawn of War also and have a G15 set up to show lots of good info on the mini-screen. And here's how you can get it too!"

Zaku: semi-final

Anyway, here's what I've been up to the last few days (not that I worked a total of this many days). I mean it took this long to disassemble, paint, and reassemble, in between that little thing we like to call "real life."So yeah, the big part was the legs - especially since they had those "tubes" that promptly fell apart as soon as I pulled the knees apart. Looking at the colour photos of the original anime, the legs are hardly molded in the right colours, so that's where I concentrated.

And here's the "semi-final" model.
Only 2 major things to do at this point, try to find a fine-point marker to do the panels (there are lines molded into the plastic. Pro builders add dark lines into them to give the illusion that those are separate pieces - we call that "panel-lining." I used to own a "Gundam Marker" - that's right, Tamiya paints actually branded a series of paint markers just for Bandai kits, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. I'll have to replace it.
Secondly, I really want to add some decals to it.

Lastly, and this is optional, I will clear-coat the whole thing with a matt-finish. In the photo above, you can see that the whole thing looks really "plastic-y" (note the glare on the chest). For small-scale kits like this, a matt anti-reflective finish make a world of different and it's stupid easy to achieve.

Soccer team vid

Been a good long while since I did one of those silly DOM posts. But it's also been a while since I was genuinely entertained by a new single coming out of Hello!Project. What's interesting is that according to Hello!Online, this is the first song penned by the masterminds behind Morning Musume's biggest hits (Love Machine all the way to Renai Revolution 21).

Ongaku Gatas are a derivative group stemming out of Hello!Project's kickball team (if there's anything the Japanese have done well it's promoting compulsory athletics among their youth). But that's not what I care about - I'm happy to find Konno Asami is back in the biz!

Anyway, check out their latest single courtesy of Dohhhup!

Zaku Update 5

The home stretch - The torso came together a lot faster than I thought it would. Once the pilot dried and stuffed him into place, the armour panels went onto the upper body. From that point on, it was just stocking up the armoury with weapons!The gun-sights need lenses. I'm using the same clear paint trick with a coat of silver beneath to give it a reflective quality. Just needs to dry - and I'm taking no chances because for whatever reason, Tamiya clear paint takes a long time to dry and if it doesn't do so properly, it won't give a smooth finish.In the photo I've left it on the sprue to paint. That's okay because it'll be nestled into the gun-sight frames when completed so it doesn't need to be coloured all the way around the edges.

And here's the almost-complete MS-06R-1A Zaku II!!!Just needs detailing. Some additional paint on the arms and legs (because for some reason Bandai didn't mold those parts in the right colours). Then I will apply the decals. And of course, some aging and dirtying weathering effects with paint.

Zaku Update 4

Another quick one because I wasn't home last night but I did have time to paint up the pilot figure...I didn't wait long for the primer to dry: it's only one side in fact!

And yes, I know the helmet is pretty messy - the blue visor over-runs the top edge of the visor on the right (his left) side. But I don't care. Seriously, it'll be almost impossible to see once it's in the cockpit, you'll see.