Denise Delightful Dookers Ferret Rescue

Today I updated the banner exchange page with Denise's one. Please visit the website... so many photos of cute ferrets! ^_^

My new toys

I just got myself some new tools for my models: some foam boards and a foam cutter... I hope to use them to make interesting bases but we have to see if I'll actually be able to get something off them! :P

While in Trento I also went to a very nice DIY store and stocked up with paints and a couple of large wooden bases. I got some Americana acrylics to try out and a pot of Sandstone textural acrylic. I wish I had this store down here in Naples but unfortunately I don't!

I do have a couple of DIY stores in town and they are also rather large but they don't carry any interesting material... well, at least from my point of view! :P

Now if I only could finish that damn skirt (Ryoufy Housen from Ikkitousen... why does she have to wear a tartan??!) I can move on and start preparing for the 2 contests we'll be having over at Hobbyfanatics toward the end of the year (yes, I do need a lot of time!).

Arrgh!! It sucks! Still a lot to learn about masking and airbrushing! 

And I'm back!

My little trip is over...

I didn't manage to do half the stuff I planned, but that's quite normal. No Austria and no villages in the valleys as it snowed a lot and traveling by car wasn't the safest thing to do. However I managed to spend some time with my bro and his lovely cats.... and to play a lot of videogames on his Xbox! ^_^

One day we went to this brewery and although I don't drink I couldn't resist and tasted some of my brother's beer (Forst)... well, I felt tipsy immediately! Good thing I wasn't the one driving (but I wouldn't have gone near any alcohol if I had to, I'm a very responsible driver!). Anyway, it was a very nice place, I tasted some Austrian Franks and a real Strudel (not the industrial kind).

Little trip

Tomorrow morning I'll be going to Trento, in the north of the country, to visit my brother who lives there with a girfriend and 3 cats.
It's a 9 hours drive and, in spite of the lovely weather we've had through the whole winter, now that is officially spring the weather sucks: it's cold and snowy so the trip will probably be even longer.
However I hope to be able to post updates from there with some nice photos since it's a beautiful mountain region. I'm also planning to spend a day in Austria while I'm at it.
I'll be sharing all this with my best friend, whom I'll call here Kekkosoul since this is what he calls himself on the net.

I'm very excited...

... if only he didn't decide to leave at 5 a.m. *sigh*

Banner Exchange

E2046: Resin Model Store from Hong Kong





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Pitanga, a dear friend and fellow modeler from Brasil






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StayPuft is one of the best modelers I know and a true friend! He also works on commission.





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Denise is a fantastic lady who takes care of ferrets, many of them with serious health issues. The shelter is located in the state of Washington, too far away for me to visit but the web is a wonderful tool even because of reasons like this!
Donations are always welcome as the fuzzbutts need a lot of assistance and vets' bills are expensive.




1810 K Street SE, Auburn, Washington 98002
We are a non-profit, no-kill ferret shelter dedicated to
* the care of homeless ferrets
* placement into permanent loving homes
* hospice for the elderly, sick and terminally ill
* ferret education

Email: ferretladee25@yahoo.com Phone: 253-797-9115



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CafePress. an online store where you can get your own customized items like apparel, mugs, magnets and many others.

Banners... again!

I just added the half-size one at the bottom of the page... I also think I'm gonna edit the large one too with "Stuff from Misato" instead of "Misato-chan"...
Later...

Edit: Ok, my banners are ready, all the 3 sizes commonly used.

Let me know if you like them or if you have suggestions for improvement, will ya?

My banner? I need help!

I've been trying to come up with a nice banner as I want to be able to exchange it with my friends, but I'm obviously having issues...
What I managed to get so far is at the very bottom of the page but I have to also make the half one and the small one (do they have names? I'm new to the Banner world!)

Now, aside from the look, which is not definitive, it looks so small to me! It is 468x60 but it looks smaller than any other I've seen. O_o
Bah, I guess it's the late hour that makes me say stupid things!
Anyway... in the next days I really want to start the exchange with you guys, so if you feel like posting my banner and have yours posted here... let me know!

Ni-hao! ^_-

Father's Day

Today is S.Joseph Day and also Father's Day: being Italy a Catholic country the 2 celebrations fall on the same date. Tradition is to have a typical cake named "Zeppola di S.Giuseppe". In the photo you see my mother's personal version of it since on top of the custard there should only be a cherry... however with jam it's much tastier! Yummy! ^_^

Her "zeppola" is so popular among our friends that we expect a crowd tonight here at home!

I need a break!

Ok, I admitt that this is an excuse to talk about my beloved Palinuro and to show some pretty photo I took there.
Palinuro is a very small village some 2 and 1/2 hours away (by car) from Naples, my hometown. There I've been spending most of my summer vacations and, since I now own a house there, also some weekends. During summer it's a lovely place but very, very crowded while during the rest of the year it's lonely and relaxing... pure balm for my soul.

I do wish I could live there permanently as I'm truly fed up with metropolies, especially with one with so many problems as Naples, but it'd be even harder to find work there so at the moment it's not possible... however I alway keep an eye on the job offers for that area too... who knows, I might get lucky for once!

Now just look at the photos and tell me if it's not a beautiful place... this is where my heart truly is!

I finally did it!

What did I finally do?



Nothing special really, sorry to disappoint you all! I just finally went for a haircut since my hair was begging for it since last November... I'm so lazy sometimes!

While I was at it I also got back my lilac hairlocks, I'd been missing them!

I obviously took these photos in front of a mirror and I didn't bother to change clothes (I'm not that vain! ^_^) so I'm wearing one of my old workshirts... thing is, everytime I wear one of them I never spill any paint on myself, while I do the few times I paint wearing anything else!

I guess the Murphy's Law is the only constant thing in the Universe (or at least in my life! ^_^).

BTW, I so wish this blog would allow emoticons, it's really a pain to upload them!

A memento...

Today is my father's birthday: he would have been 70 but he left us 10 years ago.

Love you daddy!

Meet Akira!

Here I introduce that pest of my cat, a 3 years old male named Akira (although we usually just call him "cat" or worse names! ^^)


He's a real witch cat, doesn't like to be cuddled, he bites, he scratches and he wakes up very early in the morning... then he decides we have to get up too since he's awake, so he opens doors and does all the tricks he learned to get us on our feet!

Sometimes I do wish he'd act like a sweet kitty at least an hour a week, but at the same time I sort of respect his wild attitude... I'd probably behave the same way were I a cat!

Oh and... did I mention that of late he only drinks from his own glass? A crystal glass, of course: mine is a classy cat! ^_^

My models

Time to post my finished models. I want to make clear that I'm no way as good as some people from the forums I mentioned in my previous entry... but I have fun and I'm learning! ^^

All of my completed models are handrushed but, after few failed trials, I finally got an airbrush I like and I'm slowly learning to use it and to take care of it (it's an Iwata Revolution gravity feed) so my next one is gonna be a mixture of both techniques.

This is Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion (Shin Seiki Evangelion), one of my fav anime. My first Garage Kit ever, handbrushed with artist acrylics. Her skintone is way too "healthy" for Rei (who is probably an albino) and the whole model completely lacks of shading except for her hair... today I'd do it differently but two years ago I didn't know any better! :P

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As anybody could easily guess Misato Katsuragi (again from Evangelion) is my fav character. However this time I had a lot of troubles putting together this model as it was a terrible Thai recast: the material used wasn't resin at all but some very hard and brittle stuff. It took me months to complete because I had a lot of accidents in the process and I had to go back some steps more than once. Pinholes and general surface imperfections didn't help either but I did learn a lot while building it!

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3rd model: Asuka Soryou Langley, again from Eva. I really had fun with this one and, although it was again a Thai recast, it was actually of excellent quality. There's a whole story behind this little scene and, although it's not in it, you should watch the anime to understand it. To summarize, Asuka just arrived in Japan from Germany and she's staying at Misato's (hence the boxes). She's reading a magazine because she's on the cover as the 2nd children (yes, "children", not "child")... she's very vain, so she really enjoyes this. Then she puts the magazine down and looks at the photo of Kaji-san because she has a major crush on him. I used this as my entry for the E2046 Winter Contest 2005 in the Diorama cathegory... only I found out later that a diorama is supposed to display at least 2 figures interacting. Oh well, I still like it, although maybe today I would use different colors for her clothes (I used black and red as those are her Eva-02 colors).

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Little Memoru (or Memole, in Italian) was done for a dear friend of mine. Although I'm not really into "cute" models I grew fond of this one! ^^

This is probably my best so far and the last one I actually completed as I'm really slow at assembling and painting. I also have the bad habit of starting new models before I complete any, so right now I have several on my workbench at various stage of prepping/painting.

This is it for now... hope to be able to post a new one in a short time since it's almost done! ^^'

Carmen Consoli Live

A couple of days ago I finally managed to go see Carmen Consoli in concert again, since last spring I had to give up. Although it was definitely not my first one, it was my first time at one held in a theatre... very weird! I was used to sing a lot, jump, dance... you know, the stuff you usually do in such occasions; however, this time everyone was very quiet, just some applause at the end of each song.


I was sort of embarassed at first but then I thought, the hell with the others, I didn't spend 40 euros to sit down quietly and if they didn't like her they shouldn't have come in the first place!
So I started having fun and at one point I also managed to go under the stage to take some nice photos... well, what do you know! As soon as my friend and I reached the stage a lot of people followed us, joined us singing and in a little while almost the whole theatre was doing the same!


Carmen seemed quite pleased!

First Entry

Well, here I start this new task: being constant and keeping a nice, updated blog. The reason why I chose English as a language is because, although I'm actually Italian, I'm a member of a couple of international on-line communities. However my Italian friends are more then welcome to leave messages in the language of their choice between the two!^^


My main interest right now is modeling: this is a rather creative hobby I've been enjoying for the past 2 years and that is absorbing me completely. I am lucky enough to have a spare room in my apartment where I can mess up as much as I please...here are a couple of shots of my workspace (warning: order maniacs, keep out for your own safety!) :

Later on I'll post photos of the few finished works I have and of the in-progress ones.