Up close with Shin Musha Gundam

Figures and Toys

Like Gunpla? Click the image below to visit my new blog, Gunpla 101. 

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If you don’t think Gunpla can be beautiful, you haven’t met Shin Musha. Gold chromed with bright cherry red, this Master Grade Gundam is a futuristic take on samurai armor.

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I first saw a picture of Shin Musha, complete with katana and folding screen, on Tumblr and immediately thought it was a custom build. But as it turns out, anyone who can snap together a Master Grade can put together this model. (Although, some of the custom builds of Shin Musha are truly breathtaking.)

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Since I’m definitely not up to the task, but still wanted this model in my home, I decided to buy it for John for Christmas. (At $100, it’s a big ticket item that’s really best for special occasions, but if you don’t care about all the accessories, there’s also a $70 model.) Luckily, he was just as happy to see it as I was!

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In my close-up shots, you can see the extra attention John gave to this build. He drew in the red grooves with a brown GM03 Gundam marker, and in the white with a gray GM02. The reason you’d use different markers on different colors of plastic is because it creates a more realistic shadowing effect. After the panel lining, he swiped over the thick lines with a cotton swab. Now they’re so faint, it looks like part of the armor. This is a technique called panel lining, and it adds detail and contrast to Gunpla without you actually having to paint anything.

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This has definitely been John’s most time-intensive build, and it has inspired me to put more craftsmanship into my Gunpla. I’ve been nervous about using the markers ever since they came out so badly on my first Gunpla, but it’s been literal years since then.

This is sort of an unusual post for Otaku Journalist, but John and I are always working on geeky projects at home these days, most lately DIY builds with Raspberry Pi. If our projects are something you’d like to hear more about on the blog, let me know!

Like Gunpla? Click the image below to visit my new blog, Gunpla 101. 

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Otaku Links: Let’s analyze it!

Otaku Links

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  • Looks like Montreal is going to become the first city in North America to open up a Tokyo-style cat café. Well, if they can fund it. (Crowdfunding page in French).
  • How do you cosplay Hetalia respectfully when your favorite character is literally a stereotype of a country? Tamara thoughtfully addresses the topic on the latest installment of her podcast, Anime Brains Culture.
  • Mike Toole writes about the lack of animation quality control that leads to sometimes laughably poorly drawn faces in even the highest budget anime.
  • Chuunibyou is both the name of a currently airing anime and the term for “middle school syndrome,” the embarrassing awkward mannerisms we take up as young teens. I loved redball’s editorial: Anime is my Chuunibyou.
  • Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki: The problem with the anime industry is that there are too many anime fans. Oh Miyazaki, you can’t have it both ways!

(Illustration by Tto Chan.)

When fans become influencers: an interview with Tom Stidman

Fandom

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Just how important are fans’ contributions to fandom? According to Katsucon, a 20-year-old DC area convention, they’re comparable to those of celebrities.

On the convention’s Guests page, you’ll find anime voice actors, directors, and musicians. But there’s one name that will sound familiar to local fans, even if they’re not expecting to see it. Tom Stidman has been a fixture of our community for more than a decade. He’s organized, directed, and otherwise volunteered for local conventions from Otakon to Anime USA.

Guests, who are invited and then compensated to attend and speak at conventions, are usually entertainment industry pillars with their own fandoms. But now, Tom Stidman is making waves as Katsucon’s first ever fan guest, who is being acknowledged for his humbler but no less important contributions.

I talked with Tom about his unique position and what it might mean for fandom:

Otaku Journalist: How long have you been involved in the fandom community, and how did you first get involved?

Tom: I entered anime fandom eleven years ago after talking to a friend on a comic message board. Having an interested in animated superheroes that wasn’t being fulfilled at the moment, I asked some people on their about where I can find them. They told me about anime and specifically Devil Hunter Yohko. I started watching anime with that and over the next year I found things like Akira and heard about conventions through the Baltimore Sun because T.M. Revolution was on the Live section front cover.

My convention involvement started ten years ago by attending and helping out at Otakon 2004. With money being tight, I found out about gofering [volunteering in exchange for a convention pass] and used that to help cover costs. Then, I put that money toward attending Anime USA just as a fan. I fell in love with that convention and have been part of their staff ever since.

What are some of the contributions you’ve made to the local fandom community?

Where I have made the most impact is my home con is Anime USA. Throughout my history with them, I have been a Director twice, an Assistant Director twice and a Coordinator multiple times. This has meant that I’ve made numerous contributions to DC fandom. Some are noticeable such as founding Anime USA’s current registration system. Others are not as noticeable, such as trying to leave things in better shape than when I started.

Two of the things most people don’t know about is that I enjoy doing are podcasts and panels. By talking about anime, I think it has broken a period of burnout as an anime fan. What makes it fun is just being more relaxed and under less pressure than a conrunner. If something goes wrong with panel or podcast, it is much easier to fix it on the fly than in event running.

Tell me about getting asked to attend Katsucon as a guest. How did they approach you? Were you surprised?

I was at Balticon last May when Katsucon’s Director of Guests said that the chair of the convention wanted to invite me as guest. Having heard of too many people who get say their invited and weren’t, I said that I needed a written invite before accepting. When I got the actual

invite and contract, that is when I was fully surprised and excited at this opportunity.

In a previous email, you told me, “most cons don’t think about what fans can offer as guests.” What will you offer to Katsucon while attending as a guest?

What I hope to offer to Katsucon is high quality programming. My plan is to bring four panels to the convention, three of which are new panels that haven’t been done in the local scene before. Besides my returning Go Nagai Panel, I am planning on doing panels on the current Winter Anime Season and how the characters evolved from Black Lagoon.

The other goal for being a guest at Katsucon is being a good representative to fandom. It’s why I have been reaching out to the media ahead of the convention to explain better about what a fan guest can offer. [Note: Tom reached out to me about doing this interview.]

Does Katsucon’s willingness to invite prominent fans as guests show a blurring of the line between fans and creators? Why or why not?

Not so much a blurring of lines, but a recognition that fans are part of creation and fannish culture. Cons have done fans as guests before, but they have been most likely cosplay or artist guests. This has been happening just in a specific niche towards fandom. Anime conventions have been pioneers in rewarding creation through mascot and other creation related contests.

Do you think more cons will begin to invite fans as guests, and what will this say about our community?

Hopefully, this is the start of more fans being invited as guests for conventions. In the social media age we’re a part of, fans opinions have more influence than ever before. Their creations are featured on Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter all of the time. We are major influences on the industry. Look at a show like Space Dandy. A show that comes out in America first is a huge risk. It is paying off in the amount of people watching and talking about it. What it ultimately says is that fans are much more important of the anime fan conversation than ever before.

How to get a geek internship by being yourself

Careers

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Inventing at ThinkGeek. Animating at Valve. Translating at Funimation. Writing at IGN.

If you’ve ever dreamed of getting a job working for a company with a lot of geek cred, the best way to get your foot in the door is the same as in any other field—snagging an internship.

I recently got an email from a family friend who is applying to a call for interns at a comics studio. Given my public propensity for nerding out, my parents recommended she ask me for advice. After all, before I became a professional geek, I was a geeky intern for a couple of places.

Probably the nerdiest internship I’ve had was at Kotaku, Gawker Media’s gaming, anime, and fandom culture nexus. I interned there back in spring 2010. The way I got it was kind of unusual: editor Brian Crecente had just sent out a call for interns, and I had the perfect way to stand out. I had just been to Anime Boston and scored an interview with games composer Nobuo Uematsu during his first visit to the United States. I told Kotaku that they could publish my article if they’d make me their intern. They accepted—the published article is still up here.

I know I lucked out big time in that case, but the truth is you don’t need to nab an exclusive with a celebrity in order to get the internship of your dreams. You just need to be your smart, geeky self, with only a little more polish. Here’s what I advised my friend:

Be knowledgeable, but not gushing.

Nearly everyone who applies for an internship at a video game company or comics studio is already a big fan. So to the hiring manager, that becomes the default instead of a perk to them.

Just like with any job, the ideal applicant is going to be familiar with the company’s lexicon and well versed about its products. But they’re probably not going to want to hear what a huge fan you are, because to them, fans are a dime a dozen.

But be down-to-earth.

I’ve found that working at a company where people don’t have to pretend to like the company’s products, people tend to cut the crap out of other interactions, too. A major question the interviewer will be asking herself is, “Do I think I can work with this person?”

Geek companies are often less stodgy than say, banks, and so they’ll want to make sure you can fit in with that vibe. You can drop in some geek jargon in the first or last sentence of your cover letter, but restrict it to that. In fact, last time I was job hunting, I quoted Batman in my cover letter, and got an interview simply because the hiring manager thought I’d fit in with their easygoing, laid back office.

Bring something new to the table.

Your fandom can make you a fun person to work with, since likely the people who work at geeky companies are also big fans. But what else makes you unique?

Think about a technical skill you could offer, like HTML, social media, or especially competent Excel spreadsheet creation. These don’t sound very special, but what sounds like a basic computer skill to you as a student might not be as common among veteran employees. And if you’re asked about a skill you don’t have, by all means say you’re willing to learn!

Be creative in your internship hunt.

Working in a nerdy sphere, I’ve gotten job and internship offers in some strange ways, like over Twitter and being asked point-blank during an anime convention. Likewise, the methods for getting a internship manager’s attention have also opened up.

You could follow the manager on Twitter and (politely) reply and converse with her before sending along a cover letter. Or you could send an especially unique cover letter—for example, if you’re applying for an artistic internship, why not draw it instead of write it?

Finally, take my advice with a grain of salt since I’m not a professional Geek Career Coach or anything. However, I do know one! Longtime readers have seen my many references to Steven Savage, an author and panel presenter who has strongly influenced my own geek career. Check out his relatively new blog, Muse Hack, for advice on applying your passions and hobbies. If you write to him, he might even answer your question on the blog.

What is your dream internship? How are you planning to achieve it, or how did you if you already have it?

(Photo of Cherry MX RGB Keyboard by Corsair. Unfortunately, not for sale yet!)

Otaku Journalist’s best blogging resources

Uncategorized

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Nobody blogs at Otaku Journalist but me. But that doesn’t mean it’s a one woman show. My process is made infinitely easier by a variety of blogging resources I’ve found online.

From hosting to posting, here are a few of the tools I keep going back to for my blog:

The Back End

BlueHost

I pay about $70 every year to Bluehost, and they give me unlimited storage space for photos, digital guides, other blogs, etc. Bluehost also has a one-click install option for my blogging service of choice, WordPress.org.

I’m such a big fan that I’m also a BlueHost affiliate, which means I make money whenever somebody buys BlueHost hosting through a link on my site. And while supporting a company like this can be uncomfortable for some, it hasn’t burned me yet. Look at how quickly support responded to my complaint a few weeks ago!

WordPress.org

Blogging platform WordPress comes in two flavors—dot com and dot org. With dot com, you’re hosted on WordPress’s server, but you have a limited amount of storage space and design capabilities. With dot org, you control everything, but you have to host it yourself.

Dot org works for me because I like having total control over the look of my blog, which I tend to redesign every two years or so. I also like being able to organize and store big files, like my digital guides, right inside my blogging platform.

WP-DB-Backup

Once, when I accidentally deleted my blog, Bluehost restored it from a backup. But as master of my own domain (literally), I try not to depend on them. I set up my blog with WP-DB-Backup, a plugin I recommend to everyone, to create a weekly restore point.

If I could only have one plugin on my blog, I’d be hard pressed to choose between this one and Askimet (a default spam blocker on WordPress). No matter where you’re blogging, I think it’s a important to think about backing up your blog so the worst doesn’t happen.

Writing and Editing

Google Drive

I mentioned I do all my journalism work in this free Google tool. But I also use it for blogging (and Drive’s folder organization helps me separate work and play). I like that it’s right there in my browser, no matter which Internet-connected device I’m using.

The only thing I don’t like about Google Drive is all the formatting it puts into my blog posts if I just cut and paste them into WordPress. So my method now is Drive → TextEdit (or Notepad on a PC) → WordPress.

Evernote

This is a relatively new development. I’ve been using this free desktop app to better organize my blogging goals and editorial calendar. Here’s how that’s going so far:

I created an Evernote notebook called Otaku Journalist. In it, I have a note for each month, along with themes, events, and ideas I have for posting those months. I have another note where I store all my links for the Otaku Links series. And then I have another for entering in ideas I have that aren’t fully fleshed out, or I’m not sure what to do with yet. It’s a work in progress, but I’m already feeling more on top of my blogging routine.

Thesaurus.com

My browser says this is one of the six sites I visit the most often, right up there with Gmail and Twitter. But when I’m blogging, I almost always have this site open, the better to select the most perfect possible word for what I’m trying to convey.

My thesaurus use isn’t about finding big words or unusual words, just words I’ve forgotten about after getting in the habit of selecting certain ones while speaking. I’m not trying to impress anyone, just make my words as clear as I can.

Photos and Art

Flickr

It’s really important to me not to use images on my blog that I don’t have the permission to use. So I love Flickr, which has advanced search options so you only browse Creative Commons licensed art. Google Images has this, too, but when I use it I usually end up selecting results that it scraped from Flickr!

And of course, even if the image’s license doesn’t call for it, I always credit the creator at the bottom of my blog post. Beneath The Tangles is another blog that’s really good at always giving image credit where it’s due.

Big Huge Labs

If you’re wondering how I manipulate my photos into collages, like I did for this 2013 recap post, this free tool is it. Big Huge Labs has a lot of different layouts you can use to transform your photos, some of which I think are tacky, and some that are downright awesome.

I’m certain that I use more tools than these, so list your favorites in the comments and maybe it’ll job my memory. What tools make your blog run?

(Photo by kodomut on Flickr.)