The MG Astray Red Kai, a.k.a. BIG RED in my collection! This is my very first MG and 5th kit overall. It’s also the build on which I’ve done the most painting. The only thing I didn’t paint was the white because I don’t see a reason to. Maybe some experienced builder would tell me the pros of doing so. I made SO MANY mistakes here, my dudes. The biggest one is using rattle cans. I paid as much for paints as I did for the kit itself! Those things are wildly inefficient! I might just jump on one of those sub $100 compressor and air brush kits. Regardless, it was an extremely engaging build. The legs’ build path is the most unique I’ve worked on and I recommend it to everyone just for that experience. There’s so much surface detail to play around with on this thing and I was really tempted to do so BUT the goal and exercise here was to create Big Red. I was really going back and forth on detailing the silver part on the back of the shoulders but since it’s on his back that will only be seen in a photo I opted against it. Maybe down the road I’ll get a Blue Frame to play around with and detail to my heart’s content. The kit does have a couple of loose spots, like the triangular black things on the weapon, but those can be fixed with some extra top coating. The biggest appeal for me is the giant-ass sword. The transformation is great and if I were to have had a different goal in mind I could have played around and detailed that too, BUT I wanted a giant sword. It made me want to buy a second one and paint up in a Guts theme but I’ll leave that idea on the shelf for now. Other, vastly different models await! Please forgive my photography and shitty phone camera. I promise I will try to do better next time!