Random crap.
I am nearly done with this build. It’s coming out rather well. Decals were slightly yellowed, but for the most part I was able to apply them. There were a few rips, but I was able to correct some of the damage with a bit of paint. I only lost one decal. There won’t be a build video for this, but just pictures posted on my Tumblr feed.
A handy website called WaifuXL uses AI or something to clean up, color-correct, upscale, and enhance anime images. Above left is a very old picture of Madoka from Kimagure Orange Road I’ve had since high school. It’s a very low-resolution picture. To the right is a 4x enhanced version, courtesy of WaifuXL. (I never use the term “waifu” and it’s pretty stupid, but this website is pretty cool.)
Linna from Bubblegum Crisis. Look how blurry and low-res the original is.
Nadia taking a shower. You can see how it clears up the dithering considerably.
Nadia taking a nap. It really sharpened up the picture.
Nadia’s wedding.
Nadia wedding dress.
Komillia from Macross 2036. The original looks blurry in comparison.
Plus it works on non-character images. Look at how it cleaned up this image of a Macross Valkyrie prepping for takeoff:
This is a nice tool. Apparently it does not work on non-anime images well.
I’m working on an iron beads work of Rei from Evangelion with Nano Beads. She’s proving to be difficult! The source has irregularly shaped pixels. This non-uniformity is really forcing me to fudge and guess a lot, making this time-consuming. I’m using 1/4 size Nano Beads rather than the full-size Perler Beads, which also makes things difficult due to their tiny size. I’ve run out of the blues and skin tones, so I’ll have to wait for my shipment from Yodobashi Camera I ordered tonight to arrive before I can proceed much further. Here is the original sprite I found on Pinterest:
At this point, I’m unsure if I want to stop at Rei’s head or go ahead and do the rest of her. Her boobs are so pretty, it’d be a shame not to.
This is the original, non-pixelized image. Someone must have run this image through a pixelization filter to get the image above.
The first one I saw was of Asuka Langley, apparently by the same artist. However this one too is not true sprites as the pixel sizes are not uniform. If you zoom in you’ll know what I mean.
Update 1, Dec. 5th. I’ve had to order the fleshtone and blue colors for her hair. They’ll arrive tomorrow.
Update 2, Dec. 6th. Last night I finished most of her hair. Her skintone should be easy. Just dump the beads and nudge them onto the pegs. I’ve decided to go ahead and do the whole image. I’ve sort of gotten used to the pixels being wonky. I’m able to improvise more and not worry so much about complete accuracy because it’s impossible anyway.
Update 3, Dec. 7th. Her face is now complete!
Update 4, Dec. 8th. I have to wait for more peg boards to arrive now before I can continue…
Update 5, Dec. 10th. Almost there… Now I’ve had to order more Gray colored Nano Beads as well as one more peg board. They’ll arrive Tuesday perhaps.
Update 6, Dec. 12th. I finished the beads! Next will be ironing. I hope it goes well. Not in the mood for that tonight.
Update 7, Dec. 16th. I finished Rei at last! Unfortunately there was a bit of a mishap on the right side where her shoulder is (and a little where her breast is), but I was able to salvage and rescue the project.
And here she is on my wall. Neat.
My Lum strap on my phone is getting old and discolored. I have a choice between Minmay and Hikaru. Which to choose?
I went back to Shimamura a few days later and found Sega towels on sale! They were all discounted from their regular price. For each of the Megadrive, Saturn and Dreamcast, I bought hand towels, face towels, and bath towels. The hand and face towels are a two towel set.
Here are the hand towels:
Here are the face towels:
And here are the bath towels:
BONUS! Here is a set of Urusei Yatsura’s Lum-chan face towels I also bought:
Painting eyes is the most nerve-wracking part of building garage kits. One can do an excellent paint job and assembly on a garage kit (aka GK, or gareki in Japanese), but if the eyes look weird, it’ll ruin the entire figure. You’ve gotta paint the eyes well, otherwise it’s crap and the whole build is no good.
I’m using Delta Ceramcoat acrylic paints, which are typical craft store paints. White, Black, and Mediterranean. I added some white to Mediterranean to add highlights to her irises. I didn’t notice imperfections in the molded surface of her face until I started painting. I tried to imitate Sadamoto’s art style. His distinct eyes are always great. I’m probably going to upload this build’s videos directly to Odysee rather than YouTube.
Arii’s 1:100 scale model of Roy Fokker’s VF-1S. Well, actually Hikaru is piloting it at this point in the story. It’s rather nice box art, but notice that the thruster pod in the center is facing the wrong direction! Oops. The decals for this kit do not seem to be usable. I am thinking I might build this up as Jetfire from Transformers instead. I have plenty of Autobot emblem decals to use.
I dunno whether to call the show “Spy Family” or “Spy x Family.” I’Ve seen a lot of Suntory Coffee Boss Spy Family products at drug stores lately. The top picture is peanut-flavored café au lait. I bought this box, but I have yet to try it. I’ll show this in the next Japanese snacks video I upload to my YT and Odysee channels.
Unfortunately, the Spy Family movie won’t be out until December! By that time, it will have been a year since the 2nd season on TV ended. They’re making us wait a whole year.