https://imgur.com/gallery/southern-cross-ms-06gd-zaku-squad-tCaAlIJ

I finally decided to tackle building the whole Southern Cross Squad from Cucuruz Doan's Island. And after around 3 months of work I am finally done.

This was a bit of a challenge with all of the water decals, especially the commander who had about 125 total water decals. I also have decided that I'm tired of mono-colored weapons and have started painting knife and axe blades. Mono-eye = good, mono-color = not good.

Or as my wife likes to refer to it, the iPhone Zaku. I didn't seem to run into the same build issues that I did when I built the OG RG Zaku II, which had me belly crawling on the floor to find spring-flung beads and supergluing the leg spring mounts.

However, the pauldron sticker with the blue stripes was abysmal trying to get it to match the opposing and ever changing radius curves. The sticker was never going to lay flat. Luckily, there was an unused logo that matched the one on the stripe sticker, and I had a bottle of acrylic paint that was bought to paint rocks, and had also been recently used on some Warhammer minis that matched the color pretty spot-on. I ended up freehanding the stripes. It isn't perfect, but it definitely looks better than the sticker did.

I haven't put paint to brush in about 20 years, but got an itch and decided to throw together one of these smaller teams using mostly paint the kid had leftover after painting rocks. Now I just need to figure out the rules and find some opponents!

This model is kind of special for me. I spent several months in Korea last year on an extended work trip. I got to go to a Gundam Base for the first time and knew that I had to get at least one Gundam Base limited model as a souvenir. Among all of the MG size and translucent models I found the one Gundam that I enjoy with my HG/RG mono-eye loving heart. Of course, they released the GBK-20 two months after I got back to the states, but alas.

The model build was pretty standard fare for an HG. The Caletvwlches were more involved than I expected, each of the 3 being a whole sprue worth of parts unto itself. Getting the dual-handed hold on the dual blade S mode was difficult enough that I almost gave up.

Finally got my Maxter in the mail. I can honestly say that there is nothing more American than wearing football pads while shooting sixguns from a surfboard. Of course he looks great fighting against his little Rose friend.

More pictures

The concept and the look of the Slave Wraiths intrigued me so I was excited to put together my first matching squad of gunpla. The Slave Wraith logo decals look quite good for stickers, but I might want to find some water slide versions later to "deputize" other models.

Also getting better at my new game of "balance on one foot" instead of just ponying up for more stands.

I finished putting together the XM-XX Ghost Gundam, and holy crap this was the best model building experience I've ever had. While the special shiny finish was perfect, the massive amount of undergates helped maintain the finish, except some of the arm pieces.

However, the true standout was just how well every piece fit together. These pieces slid together like they were made out of silk. It just felt so nice.

Finally finished moving and got all of the guys unpacked, reassembled, and posed on the shelf. Also have an actual desk to work at now instead of building on the family dining table.

The Messer is the first new build at the new workstation. Not sure how to pose him, he seems heavy so the fluid action poses don't feel quite right.

When looking at Local or All I want to use Top6. However, when viewing smaller communities, there may not be any posts in the past 6 hours, so I want to sort those by new.

Can Connect have a way to remember that so that I don't have to keep changing my sort settings?

Gallery

This was a long, but overall enjoyable build. The waist comes apart easily if you try to pick up the model by the torso, but holds positioning better than most. Maybe I'll feel like putting the water slides on one of these days.

Also, I finally got another mono eye in the backlog so I can stop faffing about with these gundam types.

Finished getting my RG Astray Red Frame assembled and set with his Zeta friend. Also included is the cyclops crew, but mono-eye is best eye.