Or “Sunkist”, if you prefer.
The last Sazabi I built was in 2013 and it’s such an incredible kit that I wanted to make a new one. At first I was going to use a colorscheme that was similar to my original build but in the end wanted to make something with a brighter, less used color. From what I could find via google, there was only one other orange Sazabi out there and so I made my choice (plus orange is pretty far away from my usual color choice, blue).
Start to finish, this kit took me somewhere between 5 or 6 months to finish. I tried to stay focused on it the entire time and also gave a new build process a try where I finished the outer armor sections completely (as in, painted, decaled, topcoated) before moving on to working on the inner frame. I did this because some of my recent builds have had damage happen to them while I’m test fitting stuff or impatiently assembling things to see how it looks, then having to take it back apart to finish things and damaging it while doing that. Working from the outside in really fixed that problem (along with exercising a lot of self control) and I’m pretty happy that the paint damage on this kit is extremely minimal compared to past builds.
While I had originally intended to make a very creamsicle themed Sazabi (Orange body with white accents underneat), when I got the GaiaNotes Polarized Prism Pearl Mint Blue Green paint I loved the way it looked so much that I decided to use it on this build. Luckily, blue colored metal thrusters were available for this bad boy to keep the color singing throughout.
The main orange used on this kit is a custom orange mix, with the lighter orange parts being GaiaNotes VO-14 Coral Orange. Other paints used are Gaia’s Premium Plated Silver, Star Bright Iron, Bright Gold, Ultimate White, Blue Fog White, Mr. Color Tan and Mr. Color Light Brown.
Metal aftermarket parts were used for the tubes and thrusters. There were more included with the set I bought but I opted not to use them. Some issues with installing the metal parts incorrectly left the shoulders unable to close but it’s a minor issue since it’s being displayed with the hatches open anyway. I assembled the rear skirt opened up because I wasn’t comfortable transforming it, had a strong feeling I’d damage the paint if I did that.
Decals are a mix of SIMP and Bandai sets. Had a mishap with some water that trashed half the Bandai set but the you can’t really see the differences when you’re looking at the kit.
The hatch open gimmick with this kit with this paint job looks so wonderful. I opted to leave the metallic finish on the frame bare, so that’s just the finish of the paint without a gloss coat or anything like that. The armor parts are all finished with Mr. Color GX-113 Super Smooth Clear.
The one bummer thing about this kit is that the resin hands I got for it aren’t really able to hold the rifles. I had to get a little tricky to get the kit to hold the long rifle all told.
Overall, this is one of my favorite kits. I really feel like I nailed this one between the custom orange color, shading, and metal parts. Hands down my favorite kit I have on display now.
After I finished this kit, I found a set of silver holo decals for the MG Sazabi so….maybe I’ll make a 3rd one someday.
