I'm a bit Blade Liger obsessed. I don't know what it is about the robot cat with golden swords, but it just does it for me. I like the big ol' teeth, the cool shield, the agility, and the overall vibes. It's been my favorite Zoid since I first watched Chaotic Century. So I was stoked when Tomy announced they'd be making a new motorized Blade Liger for Zoids' 40th anniversary.

This is a motorized kit, but unlike the old Hasbro models from the early 2000s, this one is quite a bit more detailed and complex. There are LEDs to light up the cockpit and Zoid core, an included stand, much more motion in the walk cycle, and some nicely molded figures of Van and Fiona... but no Zeke.

My initial impression of the design was slightly negative, but it grew on me pretty quickly. I love the more organic "wild" elements which were clearly inspired by the recent anime, but it still retains that original Blade Liger silhouette and charm. The teeth were the biggest source of my initial distaste. They're absurdly big. Look at those chompers:

But like the rest of this Liger's design, they grew on me. They're still ridiculous, but it gives it a unique look that I've come around to. And the whole spine and rib cage of the inner body are really excellent touches. There's also tons of molded-in detail that were fun to panel line and paint.

Unfortunately, that's about where my praises end. A bunch of minor annoyances added up pretty quickly which caused early burnout. Having built a bunch of HMMs and RG Gundams, I think my expectations were a little out of whack. That's on me, but there were also some really bizarre choices here.

The Minor Annoyances

One downside to Kotobukiya's HMM line is the annoying gate placement. For example, the Sturm Tyrann had nubs right on the front of the face armor pieces, making for some stressful removal. One slip of the hobby knife and there'd be a divot in the middle of the Zoid's face.

This Zoid takes that problem to another level by not just having inconvenient gate placement, but massive chunks of plastic coming off the pieces that require arduous nub removal. Nub removal is part of the hobby, but most Bandai and Kotobukiya kits give much more thought to gate placement, even undergating in many cases.

The part fitment and mold quality weren't great. Some pieces, especially the blue and white, didn't fit together all that well. There were also some pretty chunky mold lines and inconsistencies. With a bit of sanding and trimming, these issues were mitigated. While these minor annoyances can be worked around, they lead to a far less enjoyable build overall.

And lastly, there's no Zeke. How are you going to include Van and Fiona but no Zeke? What have they done with my boy?

The Major Annoyances

Is this a toy or is this a display model? The designers didn't seem to know the answer. It's priced like a display model: about $100 USD. The molded-in detail suggests it's a display model, but the included stickers scream "toy." Again, my expectations were probably too high, but I was hoping for waterslides at this price point. I posted an Instagram story about my disappointment and several people responded with the same level of dissatisfaction. I know I'm not the only one who expected more.

And then there's the gold...

I was initially quite happy when I unboxed the shiny gold blades. But that excitement was diminished at the sight of the tan claws. This confirms my theory that the designers didn't know what they wanted this kit to be. Painting only some of the gold elements satisfies neither the toy nor the model crowd. If you're straight building this as a toy, you will end up with mismatched parts. If you're painting this as a display model you'll either have to find a perfect match for the prepainted gold, or strip it, sand it, and paint over all the gold and tan elements with the same color. Nobody wins here.

The Sad Things

This last one is probably on me. When you paint a kit, the pieces are tighter than normal. I usually try to account for this by masking connection points, or stripping the built-up paint on them, but this method isn't perfect. After attaching all the legs, I tried activating it...

Ugh. It ran fine without the legs. I triple checked the leg assemblies and got the same results. I can't really blame this on the Zoid. It could be fitment issues from painting, but I'm not sure. I spent too much time troubleshooting and wasn't enjoying the project much at that point anyway. So I did what the designers did not, and decided this was a display model.

To add insult to injury, my compressor broke in the middle of the project. Then, I found my remaining two pots of Mr. Super Gold 2 had completely dried out. This project felt cursed.

Distractions

So I got distracted.

VERY DISTRACTED

Ok, I shoved the Zoid in the closet and built Legos for like a month. I needed a break.

Back At It

That's enough negativity. Let's quickly run through some paint choices:

• Motor box: Unpainted and untouched. Bad idea to paint this and hardly visible anyway.
• Inner frame (skeleton): Mr. Color Burnt Iron. My first time using this color. New go-to paint unlocked.
• Black pistony bits: Top coated with Alclad Flat. Unpainted.
• Blue armor: I agonized on whether I should paint this red as that's my preferred Blade Liger color. But I opted to keep it blue since it represented the 40th Anniversary and contained Van and Fiona inside. The standard plastic color is a really nice, deep blue. I simply top coated it with Alclad Flat.
• White armor: Also just topcoated with Alclad Flat.
• Weapons: Mr. Color Steel, top coated with Alclad Flat.
• Caps: Mr. Super Metallic Iron.
• Gold Bits: Lightly sanded the existing gold pieces, then hit it all with Alclad Gloss Black, followed by Alclad Pale Gold. The Alclad turned out nice, but is very sensitive to flooding and scratches. The Mr. Super Metallics are fool proof by comparison. I like Alclad, but learn from my mistake and seal their metallics so they don't scratch.
• Hand-painted elements: Mr. Metal Colors. Wear a respirator and keep your workspace well ventilated. These paints stink. They also don't really adhere to the plasic and will rub off with just a finger. These need some kind of top coat (Alclad Flat here).

Everything was panel lined with Tamiya black and before top coating, I placed a few stickers in spots that looked cool. The instruction book has a reference model that I used as a very loose guide. There are plenty of stickers and no right or wrong way to place them. This part was pretty fun, despite my disappointment that I wasn't applying waterslides.

The Good

Gosh, this kit is pretty when it's finished. Despite my grumbling, I ended up with one heck of an addition to my Blade Liger collection. The sword kitty shelf is getting crowded.

I also appreciated that many of the pieces had molded-in part numbers. When I paint a kit, I usually write the numbers on them somewhere so I can make sure I'm using the right piece when building. This made paint prep and final assembly a bit easier.

Another fun aspect was the way the caps attached. Included is a small tool for locking them in place. You insert them, then rotate about half a turn until they click. It was super satisfying and gives the final build a really solid feel that none of the other Blade Liger models have.

And oh my gosh, have I mentioned how good this thing looks all painted up!? The design of this has REALLY grown on me since I first saw pictures of it. I almost want to buy a second to paint red... Almost. I might quit the hobby for good if I try to put another one of these together.

Final Thoughts

If you're on the fence about this kit, I think it's a worthwhile purchase for certain people. You may value different things than me in your model kits so the issues I noticed might not bother you as much. Or you may just be a huge Blade Liger fan. If you check either of those two boxes, then this is a solid kit. The finished product is stunning, especially if you can correct the strange gold color choice.

Tip: If you don't have an airbrush: Mr. Surfacer Primer, and Tamiya Gold rattle cans will produce a wonderful smooth gold without an airbrush. Look up a few tutorials on how to spray paint models and please do it outside. The gold on my Murasame Liger uses this method.

Part of what I love about this hobby is that you can tailor your experience to your preferences. Someone who only uses nippers and a hobby knife can have just as much fun as someone who has a room full of paints and spends months agonizing over every nub mark, seam line, and color choice. And there's a whole spectrum of people in between.

While this kit may have frustrated and annoyed me, it might not cause the same consternation in you. The default plastic colors are great (minus the unpainted claws) so a straight build will turn out pretty nice. And the overall design is very cool, especially when placed alongside other Blade Ligers. I just wish more care was put in to the building experience.

This one nearly broke me, but I'm glad I can at least admire its rad design while I cleanse my palette with the Zoids in my backlog. I may have caved and pre-ordered the 40th Anniversary Liger Zero Phoenix... And I'm almost definitely getting the Death Saurer... So clearly they're doing something right here.

Until the next one.

- Tyler

Our story begins a few years ago. It is a tale of blood and brittle plastic. Of aluminum and gold. A tale of despair and triumph. The year is 2021. The month is March. A large box appears on my doorstep.

The final two Genesis Ligers arrive. The Murasame Liger was the first model kit I ever painted. I started with rattle cans, but by the end I was a budding airbrush evangelist.

For those not unhealthily obsessed with Zoids model kits, this set of three Ligers hail from the anime series Zoids Genesis. The "ZA" on the box, means "Zoids Aggressive" which references a line of action figures from 2015. However, these kits are knock-offs, not officially licensed by Takara Tomy. Made by Super Nova, these clone the 2015 Zoids Aggressive line, scale them up to roughly 1/72 scale, and turn them into model kits.

The online Zoids community seemed to be raving about these. You couldn't visit a Zoids Facebook page without seeing 6,000 pictures of these knock-off kits. They were filling a gap in Kotobukiya's HMM line since no Genesis ligers had been produced. And at about $50 a pop, they were a reasonable price to boot. The fervor was so high, that people tried arguing that these weren't knock-offs and were serving an important, unfilled niche, with no harm done to the Kotobukiya or the Zoids brand. I didn't buy that argument, but I did end up buying these with no illusions about what they were.

With all the hype, I decided to check them out for myself. The Murasame Liger was a reasonably fun, albeit flawed, build. And I couldn't just have the one, ya know? You gotta get the whole set. And so, the Hayate and Mugen were acquired.

This build started like any other: cutting and organizing pieces. I knew I wanted to try something new with the armor and even though "Hayate" means "a blast of wind," I couldn't shake the aura of fire while working on this. I wanted the armor to invoke intense heat.

There was a technique I saw on the Gunpla subreddit that matched what I wanted to do perfectly. A few experimental spoons later...

The technique was fairly simple, but required some patience. Layer 1 was gloss black, followed by a layer of gold:

Then, blood...

Or in this case, Tamiya X-27 Clear Red thinned with Mr. Leveling Thinner. Through experimentation on spoons, I found that making this fairly thin and spraying about 4 VERY light coats worked best. Otherwise it would pool up and fail to produce a consistent, smooth look. The best approach was to lightly spray one piece, then put it down, and work through the rest one-by-one. By the time I got back around to the first, it had dried enough for the next coat. On the 3rd or 4th coat, the color started to pop and by coat 6, they were done.

The gold base under the clear red gives the impression of a golden-orange glow when the light hits it just right.

For the nubbins, I applied a very similar technique. I skipped the gloss black and instead started with Mr. Color Super Iron directly on the blue plastic. Over that, I sprayed Mr. Color Clear Blue, then panel lined with Tamiya black. These looked pretty good at that point, but I felt they were too glossy and distracted from the smooth amber glow of the armor. So I top coated with Alclad 2 Flat which turned these candied nubbins into something resembling the anodized aluminum rails of an iPhone.

The chocolate brown body didn't seem to match the vibes.

It needed something more... Steel.

Mr. Color #28: Steel, to be exact. One of the best colors to have in your arsenal. Leave it smooth, or top coat it with flat. Both are great.

The blades come coated in a decent looking metallic color, but they lacked that real steel feel. Here are the stock blades:

Time to chrome. Like all good chromes, this process starts with a super glossy black. It's Alclad all the way down here. Gloss black, followed by their chrome.

I think I went a little too heavy. This stuff apparently requires an extremely light coat in order to make it mad reflective. My results turned out more iron than chrome, but either way, the blades looked sharp.

Then...

I crushed a gold ring trying to assemble the tail piece.

Alclad Chrome may look like Mr. Super Metallic Iron when sprayed too heavily, but it is not as forgiving. It did not like me panel lining directly on it... The mineral spirits ate away the finish.

Many minutes, and many many dirty q-tips later, I stripped it down and did it all over again. This time, top coating the chrome with Alclad Aqua Gloss before panel lining.

During final assembly, I realized I was missing a piece needed to connect the foreleg armor to the front legs... It must have still been on one of the runners that was tossed in the trash weeks prior.

I tried to fashion a replacement piece out of some junk plastic. This probably could have worked, but I gave up on this idea. The armor was able to grip the leg well enough on its own, at least for display purposes. Posing was a problem, but I rarely pose my kits... especially this one.

While assembling, I also broke 2 additional pieces. The white booster fin thing on the head snapped and needed some superglue, and the rear right leg joint cracked. Ugh. These SuperNova kits don't fit together quite as well as Kotobukiya's or Bandai's do and the plastic is much more brittle.

Snap Back to Reality

The included pistony bits came in an unappealing gray color. I spiced them up with Dspiae's newly launched bronze metallic.

I hand painted the interior bit with Tamiya flat aluminum, and bingo bango, this robot kitty was finally starting to come together!

The thigh and shoulder armor were giving off some serious McDonalds french fry vibes... That wasn't gonna fry. I mean fly. Even if they were painted gold, I wouldn't be able to get over that.

Mr. Color Iron swooped in to save us from this unfortunate color combo. I also painted a few of the white fins on the boosters in this iron color.

Last, and definitely least, the white pieces were painted whiter, and top coated with Alclad Semi-Matte. In hindsight, I should have done Alclad Matte or Flat because Semi-Matte is just as glossy as the plastic. I find their lineup kinda confusing. They have Flat, Matte, Semi-Matte, Light Sheen, and Gloss. Matte is more like satin, flat is flat, and Semi-Matte is sorta glossy. This is why I try new things on the cheap kits.

Assembly was painful. Some parts are held on by super glue, others by a prayer. Many pieces overlap so much that any amount of posing risks scratching the paint. People who say these are fun to pose just because the body has a half-neat extend-and-bend gimmick are out of their minds. There's so much overlap with the head fins, legs, and boosters, that it's really annoying to move anything at all.

Seriously, the boosters are touching those white ear things and will get scratched by the gold head fins if you move anything at all. Compared to the Murasame, this one is extremely annoying to adjust. The Hayate will be locked in this pose for all eternity.

For what it was, it was a reasonable kit. It even came with waterslides which isn't common at this price. If you're a big fan of the Genesis Ligers and are itching to add a roughly 1/72 scale kit to your collection, then this trio is pretty much your only option.

If Super Nova left it at that, I wouldn't have a problem. These kits filled a gap in the Zoids lineup that wasn't being filled by Kotobukiya or Tomy. Do these make HMM Genesis Ligers from Kotobukiya less likely? Probably. But they're not in direct competition with the officially licensed Zoids. Unfortunately, Super Nova did not stop here.

After the huge success of these Ligers, they made more Zoids. Rather than cloning old action figures or making Zoids that weren't otherwise available, they cloned existing Kotobukiya Zoids, tweaked them some, then sold them at lower prices.

Hopefully I don't have to tell you why this crosses a major line. While the Genesis Ligers lived in a gray area, these newer Super Nova Zoids directly compete with the real thing. Kotobukiya is not Bandai and Zoids are not Gundams. They're still pretty niche by comparison and there's a real risk that the HMM line gets discontinued if sales drop enough. I don't want to see that happen, so the backlog will continue to grow. But it won't grow with these new knock-off Super Nova kits. My closets will overflow with the real thing, wallet be damned.

These Ligers were a fun distraction. Overall, I had a good time and am glad I built them. The Hayate Liger is by far the worst one. The boosters and head fins are way too obstructive. After Hayate, I built the Mugen and had a better time. I learned from my mistakes here and was much more careful with the painted joints. The design is also much improved. The side head spikes are a bit close to the front leg armor, but otherwise there's far less overlap than Hayate.

Maybe in like 2 years I'll finally take good pictures of this one and write up a post. I went wild with the metallics and tried a cool effect on the white. It looks rad and I love it. The Mugen Liger has always been a favorite of mine. It looks so mean. Kotobukiya, please make an HMM version. I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

We're living in a new golden age of Zoids so maybe the fact that these robot animals from the 80s are popular enough to warrant knock-offs in the 2020s should be viewed as an encouraging sign. As great as the HMM line has been, there's still so much more Kotobukiya could do. I just hope Super Nova doesn't try to beat them to the punch.

Until the next one,
Tyler

Is there such a thing as too many guns?

Both the Gun Blaster and America have the same answer: No. Definitely not.

The year is 2002. I, a 12-year-old boy, find myself at Toys "R" Us, face to face with this monstrosity. A dinosaur with twenty two cannons strapped to its back, looking mad and ready for war. But alas, my piggy bank is empty. The allowance had run dry.

The year is 2022. I, a 12-year-old boy at heart, see a post on a Zoids Facebook group. In it, someone is selling a bunch of Zoids, including one very loaded, very angry ankylosaurus. The Gun Blaster, or Gunbluster (ガンブラスタ) as it was called in Japan, was finally mine.

The Gunbluster I acquired was not the same Hasbro version I saw twenty years prior. This was the Japanese release, identical in pretty much every way. This version had way cooler box art though.

I built this in my extremely limited free time in the weeks following my son's birth. So I opted to keep it simple:

• Contray to what the box art depicts, the bronze pieces come in flat looking bronze-ish plastic. I painted these with Dspiae bronze with absoluately zero prep work on the plastic. If you look too close, you can see some spots where the paint didn't adhere fully. Most of it turned out just fine though.
• I masked and painted the teeth with the same bronze.
• The guns were painted with Mr. Color Steel, then top coated with Alclad II Matte.
• The rest of the body was panel lined with black Tamiya Panel Line Accent Color, straight on the plastic. I then top-coated the body with Alclad II Flat.

And the results are nice! I think it looks pretty close to the box art. The added bronze teeth really elevate the final look. This is one of those toys I remember always wanting so it's neat to finally have one for my collection.

A month or so later, I finally finished some home office renovations I had started the prior year. One of my favorite pastimes is getting 90% of the way through a project, and then getting distracted by other things. Anyway, part of this renovation included LED light strips on our large desk.

After several hours of managing cables and installing the lights, I wanted to see if they could be used for any sort of model photography. So I slapped that new Gunbluster down, set the lights to orange, and tried to recreate the basic look of the 1999 box art.

A few over the top edits later...

Donezo bunzo. Gunzo blasto.

The Bandai 1/72 scale Resistance X-wing caught my eye a few years ago. Last Christmas I was fortunate to receive one as a gift. These kits have some incredible detail out of the box, but they look VERY unfinished.

This would look OK on a shelf, but even compared to a snap-built Zoid or Gundam, it leaves a lot to be desired. These Bandai Star Wars kits beg to be painted and weathered. I also just bought my first airbrush and a bunch of paints so I was ready to give this thing the attention it deserved!

Painting

I wanted to keep it fairly stock looking except for the main accent color. I was originally going to go with a pale green until my wife suggested purple. I had never seen a purple X-wing before so I picked up some Tamiya X-16 Purple and got to work.

After cutting and sanding all the pieces, I primed everything with Alclad Grey Primer (ALC 302) then sprayed just about every piece with a mix of 3:1 Tamiya X-2 White to XF-19 Sky Grey.

I then used a ton of masking tape to highlight the purple panels. These were sprayed with a 50/50 mix of Tamiya X-16 purple and Tamiya X-1 White.

The little enginey bits were painted with Tamiya X-10 Gun Metal... This didn't turn out quite like I had hoped. The black pigment separated in the airbrush which resulted in a much more silvery color than I was expecting.

Not quite what I had in mind, but these parts aren't that visible so I opted to continue rather than try again. It might have been my thinning ratios or something. I'm not sure.

The engine scoopy things and exhaust ports (I have no idea what these are actually called) were first sprayed with Alclad Gloss Black then Mr. Super Metallic 2 Super Iron 2. They have got to think of some better names!

Despite the crazy long paint name, the results were stunning! These look like actual metal! This paint is also super durable and was incredibly easy to airbrush. Since I'm so new to airbrushing, I didn't really have a strong preference for paint brands and types. I chose Tamiya to start because they had a wide selection of colors and I had a good experience with their spray cans. However, the Mr. Color Super Metallic 2 colors were incredibly impressive and I went out to pick up several more over the course of this project.

Anyway, the cockpit and some greebley bits were painted with Tamiya XF-84 Dark Iron then dry brushed with Tamiya XF-16 Flat Aluminum. They ended up looking pretty incredible for such a small amount of work. The canopy was sprayed with Tamiya XF-16 Flat Aluminum.

For some tonal variation, I picked out a few of the panels and painted them with Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey.

It took a lot of masking tape...

Finally, I wanted to add the wing markings. I used the included decals as a guide and cut some masking tape templates. I then remade my purple mix and hand painted the purple lines. I used a random grey oil paint for the gray lines because I wanted it to look faded and sloppily painted on.

And with that, the base coat was complete! I could have assembled it then and there and had a pretty nice looking model.

Weathering

This is a Star Wars ship, though. It is required to be filthy! I have never weathered a kit before... Heck, I had never even painted a kit this size before. So this entire thing was a learning experience. I watched a ton of YouTube videos and read a ton of tutorials.

I started with chipping. I opted for the hand painted technique instead of using a sponge. Mainly because I just didn't have a sponge that wanted to work for me. They were all on strike. I practiced on a few spoons then went to work on the real thing.

For the grey areas, I first chipped with white to hopefully make it look like some of the paint had rubbed off and the primer was showing. I then went back over these white parts with the Tamiya XF-84 Dark Iron, staying just inside the white areas. This helped give it a 3D effect.

Do X-wings even use primer? Are they just bare durasteel? I began to question my sanity as I debated how fictional spaceships were painted.

Anyway, I did a similar technique on some of the purple pieces. I mixed a lighter shade of the purple for the "primer" then chipped inside that with the same Dark Iron. The results were... decent in some places, just alright in others. I like how it turned out on the wings and I definitely improved a bunch as I went, but I'm glad the later weathering steps helped cover this up a bit.

I definitely need more practice with the hand painted chipping technique. On the next kit I weather, I'll be using a sponge. Hopefully they'll be done striking at that point.

I finished snap building the kit, but kept some pieces loose in the event that I'd have to reach some nooks and crannies. I had a nearly factory fresh X-wing! I was very nervous for this next part... It would make or break the entire build and it too, would be a learning exercise.

But first, I sprayed the entire thing with some Alclad Aqua Gloss to lock in my existing paint detail and provide a smooth finish for the weathering effects.

I purchased a cheap set of oil paints off Amazon for about $10. I then mixed some ivory black with some burnt umber for a mostly black, but slightly brownish color then added a bunch of enamel thinner until I had a gross runny mixture.

I had no idea what I was doing, so I just slathered it all over the model until it was nice and gross looking.

24 hours later, it was still fairly wet, but not so wet that it all just wiped off. So I took several thousand Q-tips with a bit of enamel thinner and went to town wiping off most of the oil. This left grimy looking paint mostly confined to the nooks and crannies of the model. I didn't clean up my mixing cup so it had partially dried overnight. I used that partially dry paint to add a bunch of streaking effects all over the model.

Again, I had no real method. I just sort of went to town with my paint brush, streaking bits of paint in places that seemed to make sense and using enamel thinner to erase parts I didn't like. It became sort of like dry brushing. I'd dip the brush into the oil, wipe of most of the paint, then streak on the model until I was happy with the effect.

Not bad for a first attempt, I think.

The Figures

At the time of writing this, I still haven't finished painting the pilots... I sort of lost steam but will get to it eventually. For their flight suits I mixed Tamiya X-6 Orange with a bit of Tamiya X-7 Red until I found a color I was happy with but will never be able to replicate.

Once that dried, I hand painted the face with Tamiya XF-15 Flat Flesh, the visor with Tamiya X-8 Lemon Yellow, the helmet with Tamiya X-2 White, the boots with Tamiya X-9 Brown, and the gloves with Tamiya X-1 Black. I had a lot of issues with the orange paint reactivating as I painted on top of it. So midway through I switch to oils on the white, brown, and gray parts. These take ages to dry between coats.

That's where the pilots stand today.

The BB unit had a big seam running down the middle.

I used Tamiya cement to fuse the two parts together then sanded the line until smooth. This ended up being a mistake since I lost a lot of the side detail from the sanding. You can't really tell after it was painted though.

I used a random mix of Tamiya X-1 Black with Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey to a dark grey color. I then hand painted the copper and aluminum bits with Tamiya XF-6 Copper and Tamiya XF-16 Flat Aluminum. Because my hand is not steady at all, I was pretty sloppy. So I mixed another round of dark grey to cover some of my metallic mistakes. I then painted random bits in this other dark grey color to make it look like intentional paint variation. In reality, I just couldn't replicate the original dark grey color properly.

The eye lenses were painted black and the whole thing was given a flat Alclad top coat. I then went back over the lenses with some Mr. Color clear gloss to give them a shiny appearance. The BB unit was complete. I call it BB-Q:

Oh, and I broke the antenna while assembling which immediately fell into my carpet and was lost forever. Where is Rey when you need her?

Lastly, I painted some detail in the cockpit using various random colors.

I let the X-wing's oils dry for about 2 weeks then masked off the metallic bits, and sealed it all up with the Alclad flat top coat.

I am thrilled with how this turned out! It was a lot of fun learning these new techniques and putting my new airbrush through its paces.

Thanks for reading!

You can find me on Instagram @GurStudios.

Have a nice day.