Ru ru run, run run...

Greeting fellow Gunpla enthusiast,

My name is Joc (or Jock, or Jöcke as I sometime go with depending on my mood) Tejapaibul. For the most part of each year, I spend working on getting my Master degree for the MFA Design & Technology program at Parsons, here in NY. While the rest I spend in Bangkok, Thailand where I hailed. I have studied Architecture/Interior design on my undergrad (Zzzz), which, more than I'd like to admit, did influenced my overall outlook and preference when it comes to modeling.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's get to something that anyone might remotely interested in. I'm talking about, my modeling background, of course. Now all you kids that stumbled on this page can know about the traps and pitfalls, thus avoid growing up addicting to thinne... erm... model kits like this ol' timer.

Well, I grew up in a household full of plastic models. So naturally, after wrecking more of my older brother's finished model than I can count --Come to think of it, those that I destroyed weren't that well-made anyway, now I feel like I gotten beat-up for nothing--, I began leaning toward building one myself. Therefore when I was around 6 or so, I (more like my parents) got myself an airplane kit (I think it's from Airfix). Suffice to say, I wrecked it. Several kits (victims) and attempts to quit the hobby later, I've gotten a bit better these days. Most of the works displayed here are some of the stuff I've done in the past 7-8 years.

As with most kid my age at the time, I was a huge fan of robot genre of animation. The problem is that I just never grew out of it, so here I am 2 decades later and I'm still building robot model, more obsessively than ever. I first ventured into Gundam kit in 1980 or so, shortly after the first Gundam animation aired around here. Soon after that the Gunpla-boom of the 80s started to manifest. Funneled by the like of Plamo Kyoshiro comic, the gunpla population were exposed to the dark art of modifying and scratch building. Our lives were never to be the same again....

Apart from modeling, I'm also a total die-hard Metal Maniac and a Classical music freak. I play Violin (very badly) and guitar (a little bit better). After several aborted attempt at getting my metal band sign, these days I'm just experimenting playing as a duet with a violinist friend for our brand of metal renditions of the classic(al) and game music. My old, old shredding (noodling is probably a better word..) sample can be heard here.

Well, that's all I have to say at this time. If the need arises, e-mail me at virapat@mozart.inet.co.th.

My so called big break...

...basically came in August of 1999 when I was invited to participate in TV Champion's 6th pro modeler competition, by venerable Max Watanabe (I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy!). It seems that Max-sensei was scouting for a 'challenger' from foreign country to join the 5 men roaster of that year's competition. Through a friend who's in contact with him, I got the called. Now, I'm not one bit the competition type, but hey when someone like Max called, you DON'T say no. So there I went, against the like of Takuji Yamada, Sagae Hiroshi, Murao Godzilla, and Tahiro Yamada. If haven't guessed it at this point, I didn't win. But boy, did I ever care. The opportunity of seeing the masters at work was just plain invaluable, not to mention almost 3 weeks of free trip in Tokyo...

That's something I'll probably do an article on when it's actually old enough to be nostalgic about.

About this site

I started Church of the Machine in May of 99, out of frustration seeing the state of non-Japanese, robot modeling web site (or lack thereof) over the Internet back then. Now I'd have to acknowledge Hiroaki Fukuda's site as a total inspiration. I could have put up a site a long time earlier than I did, and it would have turned out to be just another one of those cheesy site with poor photos. That is until I see how brilliant the finished models and photography on Hiroaki's were! I practically went on to learn how to photograph properly at that point to take pictures of my models. He's also given me some great tips when I joined the aforementioned contest, which did help prevent the humiliation of losing 1st round ^^; and thus extended my stay there.

The purpose of this site is primarily to display my model works. Thus, I don't put upon myself the burden of providing the public with latest news, model reviews and such, like so many people out there do. The same goes for the model gallery. I described them as a journal of each model, sort of reminding me of the fun (or the pain) I had with those models. It was not meant to be a full-on tutorial/lesson of any kind, but if anyone can learn anything from it then that's even better.

I tried to provide a background of each MS, if there's any. Most of them, thanks to Mr. Lersak B. AKA Metal Slime, who helped translate/BS those backgrounds with his 'enormous' Japanese skill. This salary-man himself finish kits at the rate of elephant giving birth (the guy's now counting the day when I'll hold a full-time job and suffer the same fate).

Linking policy

It has always been my intention that the link page is to provide the visitor the places I find interesting/useful, thus might be of any interest to the visitor, rather than mere collection of any sites just so I can fill up the page as seem to be on a lot of people's agenda. Therefore I don't believe in the politic behind the link exchange mentality (i.e.: I'll put yours if you put mine). What's with all this obsession over page hits anyway?

Now, I am not, for the least bit, intended to get holier than thou here. If you think yours or someone else page is worth a look, by all mean, send them in. As long as there's something interesting and original, I'll put the link on this humble page of mine regardless of whether the site link back here or not. It doesn't matter if it's not Gunpla specific. Hell, it doesn't even have to be about model! At the same time, if it's not up there, don't be upset, it's not personal.

You'll be surprise how many times I got asked to put up a link (some even in a threatening tone, mind you) when all that's there is an unfinished-barely-working page, with no work whatsoever up -- which I see no point in linking to.