Just when I thought I peaked with my Command Qan[T] custom being my first fully painted kit, now looks like an appetizer compared to the full course meal that is this Giant Axe Amethyst custom, including a fully airbrushed inner frame, a fully spray painted custom color scheme and loads of detailing across the entire kit. Besides the lack of preshading, I’ve done something that matches the level of my dad’s painted builds that did not involve him whatsoever.
I got the Giant Axe back on April where I managed to find it in person at Teso X in Flushing, NY, and while I wasn’t too big on its color scheme, I really liked the Iron Sickle that I built a month prior and still got it at an insane price of $18. It stayed in my backlog for a while as I didn’t know what exactly I was going to do with the kit, but then I saw this one Instagram post that showed the kit in different color schemes, which I got curious to see if I could come up with something that was better the original colors, which I messed around with Paint.NET until I landed with this. Considering this was a huge departure from the kit OOB, I wanted to wait until I tackled a fully painted build, which I finally did with the Command Qan[T] last month, and just getting off another build that I painted with Rubber Black, I thought of keeping the momentum going and finally getting the Giant Axe done.
Now, I had a pretty rough time with my last painted build, which I painted without sanding nor masking any of the joints, which made the entire kit a tight mess. Knowing how tight the joints were for the Iron Sickle, I made sure to sand every joint down for the inner frame, which helped immensely when assembling the painted inner frame together. Like how my dad paints inner frames, I used three different Alclad colors for the frame, Magnesium for the main color, Aluminum as the secondary (my coverage wasn’t great) and Copper as the tertiary color, which certainly pops. I also used Gunmetal for the weapons just to give it some bling.
Spray painting was the bigger challenge—there were a lot of white parts, which I hoped 4/5ths of a Tamiya Rubber Black can would suffice and I did not know what to expect painting Tamiya Lavender of the clear cyan parts. Fortunately, I was able to paint all the white parts with the can having a sliver of paint left (though I bought another can just in case), though the Lavender on the clear parts left… quite a few blobs here and there and did not adhere well to corners. I also used Tamiya Gunmetal as the secondary black color which was also quite runny, and Metallic Purple for the blue parts which worked like a charm. It was now time to assemble the kit together,
And fuck me was it rough. Quite a few areas didn’t fit flush, some of the corners were scraping paint, exposing a bit of white, and it was still quite a tight build regardless of how much I sanded the frame. However, once everything was put together, I was at awe. The black, purple, lavender and plated gold struck an amazing combination, and with its busy back it had such a dominating silhouette. Now, the colors were quite different from my concept, but I still liked what I crafted anyway.
After I glazed my eyes with the fully snapped build, I disassembled the kit and started detail painting, going a frenzy with some Tamiya acrylic Metallic Grey, Red and Vallejo Light Red. Having so much surface detail was screaming to be painted, so I made sure I did as much as I could. Panel lining was minimal due to the kit being black, and I was real surprised how the decals went—I thought because they were gray, they were not going to be visible at all, but they surprisingly pop on the rubber black. The decals instantly slide once it’s in contact with water, but like the Iron Sickle, they’re thin and a bit troublesome to work with, but I had smoother time with the Giant Axe as the placements of the decals weren’t as egregious as the Iron Sickle’s (middle of sharp corners and rounded pieces).
Finally, I was going to need to figure out if I was going to fully gloss coat the kit (which faced opposition from my dad), or leave it as is. I particularly wanted to gloss it to make the purple and lavender shinier and wanted to protect the paint, but I was unsure if I wanted to keep the black matte or not, because separating the pieces would be impossible without breaking everything, and masking everything but the black would probably take an entire day. So, I glossed the entire kit, and what I saw from the coat, I was leaving it glossy. Everything I have painted rubber black is all matte anyway, I might as well do it glossy for a change.
Leaving it overnight to dry and cure, I put it together one last time in its completed state, and holy shit it looks fucking amazing. My dad was awestruck. My sister and my mother, who would usually give lukewarm reactions, were seriously impressed by how it looked. The bling, the colors, the silhouette, this is truly my Magnum Opus.
It was time for the posing photoshoot, and if there’s one big flaw besides the kit’s tightness out of the box, well it has a pretty hard time posing. Don’t get me wrong, the kit itself is an absolute brick, nothing snapped off and no joints got loosy goosy on me, but it’s a bit tricky to get it to stand right with all of its accessories equipped, and moving the hands are a bitch due to the gold fangs blocking its rotation. The biggest flaw is a lack of a display stand, because it doesn’t support the standard 3mm pegs for shit, you can’t clamp it with a universal claw by its love handles, and even the Iron Sickle’s stand can’t bear the imbalance of the giant axe. The only way I could pose the kit was through standing poses, and they were pretty tricky to do. I was able to get some satisfying shots in the end, but man, was I cursing a lot on the way there.
Overall, this was an amazing kit and experience, I kinda forget that I also got it for $18 and that this is a non-Bandai kit. I finally invested getting the Tristan for $27 shipped after being stingy for months trying to find it for $20 or less, and that recently announced Phantom Fire Lord looks seriously tempting, even though we have no goddamn idea where to display it. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you with the next one!
