Kai's Garage Kits

(this is the photodump and I am the garbage truck)

Here’s a bunch of pictures of some garage kits I’ve built and painted previously, more or less in chronological order. This is by no means all of the GKs I’ve made, just a few that I feel particularly attached to. Also, I don’t guarantee that all the links in this are work-safe.

“Luana Kahale”

After years of building Gunpla (i.e. GUNdam PLAstic model kits), this was my first foray into resin kits. This is Hasegawa’s “Luana Kahale,” from their Egg Girls line. I mounted it to a big cork, since it was circular and about the right size and, most importantly, the only thing I had lying around at the time. The whole experience was a steady stream of mistakes, including having to completely strip the paint and start over from the base resin at one point. It was frustrating enough that I swore at several points that I would never touch resin again. Yeah…

“Sasha Ilyushina”

This was my second kit, another Hasegawa Egg Girl. Learning from the ordeal of the first one, I started to get the hang of things with this kit. Some things. A little bit. Kind of.

Anyways, see those injuries on her leg? I scraped the paint there and decided to cover it up with blood, and now she looks like she needs first aid. Not sure if this what Bob Ross meant when he talked about “happy little accidents.”

“Bike Sasada”

This kit was sculpted by GrizzryPanda (Booth page: グリズリーパンダ), a prolific sculptor in the GK world. It was the first time I’d built something from a well-known creator, and at 22,000 yen was also the most expensive kit I’d done at the time. For that reason, I was hesitant to start on it for fear of screwing something up. A couple of drinks fixed the hesitation. The screwing-up part I can do completely sober. Still, I was pleased with the end result, and I have this kit on display at my local HobbyTown.

“Usa Tights-chan”

Usa is short for usagi, not United States of America. Usagi means rabbit in Japanese. Her outfit resembles a rabbit. It does not resemble the United States.

This kit by Flat Work (Booth page: ぱっとん) was significant in that it was the first time I tried hand-painting the eyes instead of relying on decals. I settled on a swirl pattern because I figured that without distinct pupils, it would be harder to tell if I’d painted her eyes looking in different directions. It was also the first time I really strayed from the vibe of the original design (shown on the box art). Where the original was kawaii-cute, I leaned more into creepy-cute. I think it kinda works.

“kei and mac-kun”

Last in this selection is a GK by Arakawa Models (Booth page: arakawamodels). Kei is the graffiti artist, and Mac-kun is the personal robot. I can just imagine the chaotic fun they’d have together. I wish I had a robot friend.

I just like this kit, idk. I enjoy messing around with computers and I enjoy painting, so this just clicks for me. It does mark one minor first in that it was the first time I’d used UV resin in the eyes to give them a bit more depth, not that you can really tell the difference in pictures.

Anyways, I guess that’s it for now. At some point I’d like to get a proper photo backdrop to replace the hobby mat that I used as a background for a bunch of these. The hard part’s not getting the backdrop though, it’s finding a place to set it up in my apartment…

bonus photo: