The morning after I finish my [Giant Axe Amethyst custom], a black package arrives with my name on it, which happened to be none other than the SNAA Tristan, which arrived much faster than I expected. Still lamenting over the beauty of my last build I just finished yesterday, I decided to get this one done as I couldn’t contain my excitement just to leave in the backlog.
My expectations were high for the Tristan—I was really captured by its design more than Iron Sickle and Giant Axe as it has the most knightly aesthetics, the beam cape looked siiiiick, and it was using a completely new mold, which if there’s anything to go by the joints that wasn’t reusing the frame in the Giant Axe, the joints were not going to be as nearly as tight as they were in previous kits.
And I can attest to that notion, the fitting of the joints are amazing, requiring minimal sanding to do just so the parts can fit comfortably. The upper body is basically perfect, but you’re going to need to some sanding on the joints of the hips and legs, as I did not sand them as much and had a bit of difficulty getting them to move around while posing. As for the rest of the build, SNAA really ramped it up from their previous kits. Their two-tone frame is back that was surprisingly missing from the Giant Axe, the torso has cool hydraulics (non-functional) on the torso, and there’s actual knee separation that had been missing from before. The armor pieces fit like a charm, though I did have troubling getting [these pieces flush], which I had to cut off the tabs entirely to make them fit better, and the weapons Tristan comes with are quite a step up from the Iron Sickle’s giant scythe and Giant Axe’s… giant axe.
As you could probably tell, I did not do any crazy painting like I had done with Giant Axe, but I did spray paint the blades with chrome backed by a glossy black base. Since I left most of the kit as is, I decided to go real crazy detail painting it instead, using six different colors and doing as much as I could before it would become too much. For the white/off-white pieces, I opted to use Tamiya’s Metallic Grey as always and Vallejo Andrea Blue, then for the navy blue I used Tamiya Light Green, and for the frame I used Vallejo Light Red. The backpack and the accessories are using all previously mentioned colors. Painting everything by hand certainly took a while, but I’m definitely happy how it turned out. Having so much surface detail, there was also still a hella lot of panel lining to do, but I was using a new pen for this, so it went pretty smooth. The decals are in typical SNAA fashion—they’re very quick to get out of the sheet, questionable to deal with as they are very thin, but they certainly spice up the look. All that was left was a flat topcoat bar the clear pieces and a gloss finish for the swords as I wasn’t gonna just flat coat the chrome out of the blades.
It was time to pose Tristan, and it’s by far the most posable SNAA kit I’ve had. Not having super stiff joints, weapons that don’t take up half its silhouette, and actually good knee articulation allows for a super fun experience getting to pose the kit however you like. I did follow a lot of the poses from the box and manual as they were sick as hell, but there’s still a lot to do outside of that. They learned from their lesson having a proprietary display plug to using the standard 3mm connection point that allows Tristan to stay on an AB7 flawlessly, being able to do some sick aerial shots on top of how many cool poses it can do on ground. Oh yeah, it has great balance thanks to all of the heft of the main body and everything else not weighing as much. And did I forget to mention how fucking sexy the kit looks from any angle?
Overall, this kit was amazing. While the experience may not be as substantial as my Giant Axe custom, the Tristan is by far the better kit out of the box. While I wish I could’ve found it for less than $20 like I did for my previous SNAA kits, at $27, it is still very great value for the price. I need more of SNAA. I don’t really know how I think of Percival, but the Phantom Fire Lord gets more enticing every day, and depending how their upcoming Nether Emperor will be colored, it might be an immediate buy from me just by its Astray-esque aesthetics. I think I’m gonna take a break though. I have been building and painting kits non-stop this entire year, I should probably hold off from plastic crack for a week or two. Until the next one! See ya!
