There were no competition entries yet during that time but they did have a display setup with 3 smaller glass showcases up front with some painted figures and mods, probably from prior competitions. The big glass showcases at the back had a few straight built kits from the ToyKingdom dudes. Mostly stuff from Gundam 00.
Beside the big glass showcase with the 00 stuff were a bunch of Sangokuden kits. Mostly releases pre-Brave Battle Warriors and a few post ones too. Now I've been looking for a particular Sangokuden kit for quite some time now and that's the DX Gundam SouSou or Ciao Ciao / Zhao Zhao or whatever, Motoku from Ikki Tousen.
I was hoping to find the SouSou with the Shin Gurensou (Crimson Lotus) armor + Zetsusei but alas, nowhere to be found. I was also hoping to at least find the Brave Battle Warriors SouSou with the Seven Jewel sword but that wasn't there either. The only SouSou that was available was the pre-Brave Battle Warriors one.
After letting out a small sigh, I grabbed the box and went to the cashier. I also got a free VCD of the Masked BAKUC giving a tutorial on how to build Sangokuden kits. The dubbing is obviously just read of a script but the sheer cheeseyness of it is hilariously charming in a way.
I didn't actually get around to building SouSou for almost a month after I got him, which is more than I can say for a lot of other kits in my Gupla build queue. I went off and finished this basterd first.
The Model Comprehend 1/144 High Grade Hi-Nu Gundam. This build has been put on hold for more than a month (I started it back in May) and I finally got down to finishing it last weekend. The weather hasn't been nice so that prevented me from spraying.
The Monday after, I built the SouSou. Took me only 30 minutes to cut him off the trees abd snap him together. I planned to not use any stickers except for the eyes. A day after, I noticed that his chest is in this shiney grey but the box showed it off as red, same as the armor pieces. I was in a pinch because I had no paint of that shade of red.
Fast forward two days. I had just sent a package to another Gundam enthusiast at Hong Kong and on my way to the office I passed by Megamall. With some time to kill I went around a bit and decided to check out Lil's Hobby store. They have a lot of Tamiya kits and Tamiya paint. They have cut down the price for their paints lately so I looked around at their spray cans section. I found a red can that seemed to match the red I needed for SouSou. That spray can became an impulse buy for me that day but I was happy.
Saturday I started working on the paint job. I was excited on using my new can of Tamiya spray paint. Having never used a Tamiya spray can before, I was curious on how fine the paint was and if the quality lived up to the name. Originally I was only planning to use the paint on the chest, I ended up using it on the waist and helmet too. Did the whole bit without primer. Took maybe 3 to 4 coats before I was satisfied with the chest, I forgot to take in account that the chest was a darker color compared to the paint but it all worked out in the end.
So here I present to you with my badly taken phone camera, my SD Gundam Sagokuden SouSou DX Gundam! I used chrome for the golden armor pieces then coated them with some Mr. Color clear yellow. For the chest and waist I used Tamiya aluminum and some more clear yellow. I used Mr. Color clear red to cover up some paint splotches and mistakes. Not my best work but I'm very happy with the over all result. Looks badass compared to the unpainted one. I'm still on the lookout for the Shin Gurensou kit and I've been eyeing the first form Ryuubi for a while now.
Before getting ready work, I thought to checkout the contents of another kit that I've had in my queue for a while. The 1/60 scale Bandai plastic injection machine kit. It was only 1 tree so I thought why not build part of it since I had time to spare. A very simple build but I'm surprised on the amount of detail it has. Took me around an hour to build (while watching tv at the same time), I opted to use the stickers and I'll probably give it a coat of flat tomorrow.
Oh yeah, I used one of the decals from my Hi-Nu and put it on the battery cover of my cellphone.
