It’s been two years since I’ve done Kongo, and for the amount of detailing and effort I’ve been putting on my Girlpla kits over time—such as spray painting and airbrushing them—nothing has beaten the amount of work I’ve put on her, even if she was only hand painted, because my god was there so much hand painting involved, not to mention the amount of panel lining and custom decaling I did that really transformed her appearance from her OOB state. After completing my Yufia and Neo Neverlia builds, it was finally time to tackle Kongo’s aircraft carrier sister, Izumo, wondering if she would be the one that would overtake Kongo’s place as my most detailed build yet.
Starting off, Izumo builds very similarly to Kongo, I would basically define her as Kongo+. Her hair is tied up with a tiny ponytail and her bangs are the inverse of her sister’s, her core body is completely different but shares a very familiar aesthetic. Like what was advertised, she comes with a newly improved waist system that acts like Megami Device where it basically floats on a peg and allows for extended hip movement, but unlike Megami Device where the waist can move more forward, the waist goes more back accentuating them curves, making me act up fr fr wich in my opinion shows that Izumo’s the hotter sister of the two, but Kongo’s still cute. The limbs, both normal and armored are exactly the same bar the knees which are bigger and rounder, and her ship rigging takes everything Kongo had, removes her gun and shield in place for a big aircraft deck that is split into two. With the deck pieces alone, Izumo’s armored silhouette is larger than her destroyer sister, but it also makes her boat transformation look much more complete, which I was actually considering having Izumo’s normal form sit on her aircraft deck as her final pose, but the idea didn’t follow through which I will explain later. Surprisingly, for how much plastic Izumo comes with, I managed to complete her snap build in just 3 days, she’s all around solid out of the box without needing much sanding or tightening to do on the joints.
But enough about her build, it was time to tackle the most challenging part of the kit—painting. Although I wasn’t going to be doing any spray painting or airbrushing, I knew hand painting was going to be chaotic, and… chaotic it was. I painted her very close to how I did with Kongo, doing all of the color corrections from the box, and really going ham on using US Dark Gray to fill in the details inside the ship riggings. I opted for Tamiya Titanium Silver instead of the usual Vallejo Steel I used for the silver painting, and yes for the back of the aircraft deck I hand painted all of the insides gray, and yes, that took a considerably long time. But don’t worry, I did just as much for the front of the deck, giving it some orange and yellow to really resemble how an aircraft deck looks in real life. There was already so much I did in Kongo, but with the aircraft deck alone, it was already beating Kongo in terms of how much hand paint I’ve used on a kit, and I still had panel lining and decaling to do.
Unlike Kongo, I actually used a fresh new pen to panel line Izumo, and somehow it still brought the pen to its knees. There’s still a lot of lining to do, but the nail in the coffin was once again the aircraft deck, having so much goddamn surface detail in it, but the lines being too thin for the pen to reach. I brute forced my way to get the lining done, but it thickened up the tip to oblivion. You may notice an inconsistency of panel lining on the gray, most of it is panel lined, but there are areas I completely skipped and forgot to do, but… I don’t think you could tell. Or care. Don’t.
For the whip cream of detailing, I once again used generic caution decals from Delpi Decal, basically referencing my Kongo to a T when it came to placement. There are a few differences here and there, but there’s just a shit-ton of them that I used, and once more, there was a lot used for the aircraft deck. And of course, for the cherry on top, I did two clear coats, a gloss coat to protect the paint from scratching (it was effective) and a flat coat to really nail the painted look across the kit.
Detailing Izumo overall certainly took more effort than how I did with Kongo two years ago. Granted, I had direct reference from Kongo versus figuring out what to do from scratch, so it wasn’t as messy or exhausting to do, but there’s just still so much to do regardless, in addition to detailing the new stuff of Izumo.
It was time to assemble her in her completed state, and the first thing I said taking a picture of her in my light box was “holy shit”, and I think I said it a few more times before I changed her angles, which I then said more holy shits. Kongo and Izumo are definitely sister units, but Jesus one more time the aircraft rigging makes her look fucking insane, whether the front or back is shown. The fact that this in addition to the existing ship pieces, there are so many ways you can pose Izumo and just be at awe for how much detail bursts on your eyes. Fair warning though, because of her extended hip articulation system and heavier package overall, her hips are weaker than Kongo’s, which posing does become problematic using the stand that comes in the box. I opted for a Simple Stand, which fixed those issues, and also just helped the body maintain its place while I was moving all the pieces around. Barely sanding any of the joints, Izumo all around is solid AF, which I posed her to my heart’s content, mixing up the parts to all sorts of configurations.
As I said earlier, I was meaning to pose Izumo in her unarmored form sitting on her transformed boat, and while I really liked how she looked, I was enamored in her armored form much more. I couldn’t let the gray I painted go to waste by not being displayed.
Overall, Izumo was a fun fucking time. 2025 has been full of banger Girlpla builds, with Izumo finally dethroning Kongo as my most detailed gal. She’s also very hot with them curvatures, she is absolute PEAK. I wish I could take a break, but I have to finish a job that took my dad way too fucking long to finish his part and I still have an outstanding Girlpla backlog as well… so, I’ll see you soon with the next one.
