Featured Modeler Decay: A Young Old Pro

Hey all,
  This is gonna be my second featured modeler section, and I've dedicated it to a modeler that I respect greatly, and who has years of experience despite him being in his early 30's; he goes by the handle Decay.  The way this feature is gonna work is first I'm gonna show off some of his pieces, then I'll post a section where he answered a few questions of mine as they pertain to modeling.  You probably recognize him from the forums as an awesome guy who's always willing to grant praise and offer positive suggestions to anyone, and he hails from Germany.  One of the reasons why I wanted to feature him is for his amazing scratchbuilding skills, immaculate clean up and attention to detail, beautiful immersing dioramas, and most important his willingness to always learn something new.  Now as I featured Kamm last post, this post makes sense to make because Decay was Kamm's partner in the build off of the High Grade sazabis.  Decay chose to go about his build a little bit differently, instead focusing on an space type Saz.  His modifications remade the chest, legs, the head, feet, it's all modified to look more rounded and fluid.  He even topped it off with a sweet red and black paint job with pigments for weathering.  Here is Decay's Sazabi Space type:

The kit just flows so well.  From the larger hip skirts to the really odd really neat leg shaping, to the shoulders and the bit launcher the kit is just so well presented it's amazing.  The guns were modified too.  Decay typically uses and airbrush for his painting, but for this build off with Kamm he decided to hand paint to make the build a fun learning experience as it was what Kamm was going to do.  Here are some more pics of the Space Type Saz:

As amazing as this build is, Decay is a well rounded modeler who does realistic dioramas, clean builds, and resin kits.  I want to show off some of those as well.  Next is his version of a High Grade Vent Savior Gundam, which (not that the kits even requires me to say this) if you look at the base kit it started as you will realize how much of an achievement his version is.  Here is Decay's Vent Savior:

He added a myriad of small details, cleaned up the kit, remade the wings, and generally made this kit look like a resin conversion kit, and it's just a High Grade kit.  The paint job is flawless and clean, a gorgeous display case showpiece.  Gawd I wish I could make a kit this clean, and I don't typically even like clean builds that much, but this is truly beatiful.

Next is a stunnin resin kit of the Kshatriya from the Gundam Unicorn series.  Now those of you who have worked with resin before know it's difficult to work with at best, which makes this piece that much more breathtaking.  Decay added weathered the kit to look battle worn, and even made the thrusters look like they are ignited, which look great.  Even the 1/100 pilot figure is well painted and it's a tiny tiny little figure.  I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking on this model:

Oh and by the way that hangar in the background is scratch built by none other than Decay himself, that is not a photo manipulation, he actually made that.  Yeah, no lie.  I just tinkled myself with jealousy. 

Which brings me to the last piece of his to show off; his Armored Core diorama he recently finished.

Look at all the little details he displays.  The dirt on the ground, the sewer vents with water flowing through them, the rubber marks on the road, the collapsed building rubble and inner frame of the building.  Amazing, truly.  Not to mention something that is always a favorite of mine, when modelers make a dynamic diorama that is angled to look like a chunk cut out of reality.  I love it.  Even the soot weathering on the smokestack.  It's an inspired piece and I wish I could make dioramas like this, cuz I would do it all the time.

Now on to the Q & A part of the feature where I asked Decay some modeling questions and he answered me as best he could.  He was kind enough to humor me on this, I want to do this as a way to get some insight into the modeler and how they work.  Here goes:

Where do you derive your inspiration for your scratchbuilt parts?

  "That is a hard one, mainly out of the internet I will see something on a model I like, like the shoulders maybe,and then I might see another kit with a cool torso I just add one and one together and Boom New Model.  Another way I go at it is I see let's say a cool Sazabi, I will take that and do it on a Zaku. Mainly I see something that i really want to do and do it, no matter what kit is I got in my hands at the moment."

How long have you been doing this and what experience do you have in the hobby?

"[I've] been doing this for 20 years about, mainly I was painting warhammer and resin kits. I did quite a few ruins for the Warhammer stuff. I started gunpla in 2009."

What do you consider to be the most important thing you look for in deciding if you like a kit or a build by another modeler?

  "I would say detail, but in the end it's all a very subjective matter of taste."

If there was any advice you could give to a fledgeling modeler what would it be?


  "Good tools are everything. "



Well that about wraps up this feature, I'd like to thank Decay for being so cool in answering my questions and allowing me to show off his amazing skills.  If you want to contact him you can do so on the MAC forums or through his blog here.  Thanks for reading guys and stay tuned mechaholics for more features, and hopefully soon I can share the work I've been doing in secret on a top secret project.