Heya ~ Good day my friends!
Work and life is just as crazy as ever, but today, I’m giving a quick photo tour of my office!
The whole thing in general was a big multi-month project that I knew was super necessary to work on as soon as finished graduation last spring. Some of my coworkers who’ve seen my space online think my desk alone was kind of crazy, while visitors IRL were always on board with nerding out with me here. Personally, I couldn’t be any happier with it - everything here is tailored to both my needs and wants. With some minor adjustments along the way this office will have no problems fueling my productivity for the next few years.

The last 2 decades I have been operating primarily off of laptops, and while having my digital workspace be mobile with me was great, the work demands began to overpower it - especially in the last few months of school. I was asking a lot out of my previous Lenovo Yoga C9 from 2019, having frankensteined it to work with an eGPU enclosure for VR alongside multi-monitor and drawing tablet setups. The banging around it suffered as I moved between home and school probably didn’t help. My main external hard drive started to fail, the laptop itself was running as hot and loud as a jet, and Adobe apps were getting way more stalls and hiccups. The second-to-the-last night before the Gradshow went public, InDesign crashed, taking my 34 page 2022 Creative Portfolio with it into some unrecoverable void.

And ah, I really needed to leave of my bedroom - my entire life, my work, school, escapism, SLEEP…
It was all happening in that tiny space for years and it was driving me nuts.

I have never built a PC before. Initially, the plan was to go a safe route and work off a pre-built (which I found out in hindsight was also in itself already a gamble). But, me being me, I tinkered the hell out of it; there’s quite a bit of funk and a few things that are likely pretty questionable, but in contrast to what I was operating on before this machine has been soo much better. And it reminded a lot of when I used to work on cars, just as fascinating and equally as traumatizing. I initially didn’t even connect that PCs are now cooled with fans and radiators just like cars. I think I did a fairly decent job at cable management too in the tower and around the desk, especially for an amateur. Some amenities I have in my new office as well: a visitor/therapy/siesta chair, a tower fan and two air purifiers, a mini-fridge and dedicated snack cubby, extra outlets, and very importantly, my Gundam display case! The lighting is also way better both during the day and at night out here.

I can save the hardware specifics another time, but the images above left are there if you’re interested in what the office progression looked like. For the next post I’ll give a work-related update - in the meantime, the very last image is a quick peek at another personal project.

See you next time!

Functionality-wise, it offers me this combination of a triple monitor setup with two drawing tablets as well as easy Oculus Rift S accessibility. I also have an interesting camera angle for online calls and live streams! As a newbie, I could’ve def used some hard and software troubleshooting help. xD

When I was 7, my dad introduced me to Mobile Suit Gundam through VHS tapes. Besides watching and drawing these giant machines for two decades, I’ve also dabbled in Gunpla, a portmanteau for Gundam plastic model, Bandai’s culmination of art and engineering compressed into a build-able model kit. Despite having handled a large variety of kits since the 90’s, I’ve seldom done more than a simple snap build. 2018 marks the year of my first custom build, wherein applied kitbashing, panel lining, detailing, and coating. What you'll see here are the results of my laborious craftsmanship and passion over the course of that summer season. At the bottom of the post you can also watch a short timelapse/montage of some of my working sessions with this absolute unit!

The optional metal parts set was a first for me; I honestly expected a simple parts substitution, but as it turns out I needed to cut and drill a lot of parts of the original build - a scary prospect when working on a $90+ kit. I’ve also had really bad luck applying decals; my prior Master Grades have little to no markings present. I did build two Real Grades before this though and went through the builds diligently, giving me the practice I needed to complete the markings for the Sazabi. Along the way however, I had an accidental spill that ruined the decal sheet, and also lost the mouth visor to boot. I need to give a special shout-out to GUNDAM REPLACEMENT PARTS for getting me the replacements I needed. They secure these by requesting a warranty stub found inside every manual - I didn’t even know that was an actual thing you could do in Japan! If you ever need something in your Gundam model kit replaced, be sure to check these guys out!

All in all, this was a fantastic project to take on. With the exception of a few design/engineering choices on certain parts, the Master Grade Sazabi created by Katoki and the teams at Bandai is one of the best representations of peak mecha and toy design. I look at and get inspired by a lot of custom builds like those submitted to GWBC and am always looking to get closer to that level of craftsmanship. You can see some of my old builds to the right to catch a glimpse of the progress I made. I’m itching for a chance to finish another custom build like this by next year!

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this deeper look - I put in a lot of extra effort for this one cause I have been over-baking its presentation for the last two years. Until next time everyone -

Cheers!

A New Office and Tower

Custom Build: MG Sazabi Ver. Ka

WILSON HUANG