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08/30/2006

All Of MP3

All Of MP3

I've been hearing a lot about this site recently. It's a Russian based music site offering extremely cheap downloads at various qualities from MP3 to CD quality.
With songs starting at around 12 cents and albums for $2 the first thing you think is rip-off, but there seems to be controversy over this. Recently Radio 1 in the UK blasted the site for not paying royalties to the British Music Industry, but apparently that is not the same as paying royalties to the artist, which as far as I can gather they claim to do.
The site is owned and managed as a legal Russian business, so the BMI dont have much chance to stop them, and as Russian copyright laws are a lot easier than in the UK this seems to be the cheapest legal site around. I say legal, because wheras the UK do not like this site, in Russia there are no laws being broken.

What do you do:
You join up and add a minmum of $10 to your balance through a secure pay site. When you have your balance you can then start shopping. Just add albums or songs to your basket and either download the whole lot using the PC software or on Mac's just download the tracks seperatley using the links supplied.

I've tried it with no problems, sound quality on MP3 is excellent.

17:05 Posted in Home Cinema | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

08/24/2006

Silver Award

Just a quick post. I got my certificate yesterday for winning second place in the International Modeling Competition hosted by E2046. I took 2nd in the Diorama catagory for my model "It's Dead".

14:31 Posted in Scale Models | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this

08/21/2006

She's a big girl!

She's a big girl!
Ray Vandamme (aka Naked Potato) has produced 2 of my most favourite kits of recent years. Both of them Lara Croft from the hugely succesful Tomb Raider franchise.
The first was the 1/3 Bust which I finished last year and can be seen by clicking here:

by Model_Citizen

Recently Ray has finished altering this bust into a full 1/3 figure. Since I loved the bust so much I could'nt wait to get my hands on the full figure. There is a clothed and nude version available. I went for the clothed.

You can see the pieces here. Ray has taken every comment and advice to heart regarding the bust and fixed up all the small issues that modellers had with seams. What he has ended up with is a work of genius that all modellers should take note of. If all kits followed the simple but extremely effective breaks of this kit there would be a lot more happy builders without so much grey hair.

Here's a pic with my 1/6 Gladiator bust that I had just finished before starting this kit. You can get some idea of the size. Like the post says she's a BIG girl!
As I was saying, Ray has put all major seams along natural clothe lines. For instance, that big chunk of resin at the bottom of her head is not waste to be chopped off, but an extremely well fitting plug that slots into the top of the t-shirt. It really is a joy to see how it all fits together. The only seams to worry about are where the hands meet the arms.

I started and finished the boots first. I dont know why, but both Ray's Lara's have made me think of Mod looks. So I gave her some Union Jack boots and planned to give her a Who top.

I sprayed the skin in one sitting. I mixed up a lot of pale flesh and tanned flesh paint from MP Paints and gave her about 4 or 5 coats. Then using just pale flesh added highlights, and that was that. It did take patience, as my brush got clogged quite a bit with this amount of paint flowing through it, but I have to say, it was actually easier than a 1/6 figure! I had some paint leftover, which was just as well, as I did have a few nicks at the end that needed a slight bit of touch up.

I started work on the head last. I chopped the end off her pony tail and used a brush for the hair instead, there was a few strands left over which I thought I'd attach to the sides in front of her ears. Also I sed some very thin wire for some strands coming down at the top.

All that was left was to put her together. I wanted a base for her and knocked something up in clay. I painted it to resemble marble which is more in keeping with the bright shiny look of her clothes.

And now the finished pics, as you ccan see she only just fitted into my light tent:

Hope you enjoy. if you want one of these colossal beauties then Ray can be contacted at The Clubhouse under the name of Naked Potato.