**Warning - freakin long-ass post ahead**

Let me get one thing off my chest first. Master Grade kits rawk. For the amount of money I paid (which wasn't exactly a lot by gunpla standards)... the level of detail and atriculate poses you can get outta this MG is amazing. When I placed the MG Aile Strike next to my 1/144 HG Dynames... I went like... whoa...

I can't even begin to fathom how mind-blowing the Perfect Grade version is gonna look like...

Anyways, this blog entry is dedicated to the 1 month plus duration that went into assembling the gunpla during the spare time I had after I coming home from work. Honestly, if you're planning on assembling this with no changes whatsoever, you can probably get it done in about half a day or so. But I wanted to add something different to this MG Aile Strike, so it took a little longer.

Here's the color scheme which I decided on, which way before I actually started any work.

1. Blue parts - Candy Blue (RM7.00)
2. Red parts - Candy Red (RM7.00)
3. Yellow parts - Candy Yellow (RM7.00)
4. Grey parts - Gunmetal (RM25.00)
5. White parts - Pearl White (RM7.00)
6. Strikerpack Black Parts - Pearl Black (RM7.00)
7. Base for candy paint - Decorative Chrome (RM9.00)

As you can see, it required quite a few cans of Anchor. But no biggie, since my nearby hardware store carries all these colors.

All except for the gunmetal... which Anchor doesn't carry. So I had to drop by one of those hobby shops and get it from Tamiya instead.

You might think it's ok... but this little can is much smaller than it looks.

In fact... it's so freakin small... it's only a quarter the size of one regular can of Anchor spray paint. And yet it cost 5 times as much!

Suck blood.

That is the reason why I dun wanna go down the branded way of doing things. But for this particular color... I didn't have a choice.

All set.

So here goes :

Here're the blue armor parts before they're painted. Plenty of washing and sanding before hand.

This was followed by several layers of chrome paint, and let to dry.

Then came the candy blue. The candy paint is very brittle when dry, so it WAS EXTREMELY EASY TO SCREW UP DURING ASSEMBLY. This I found out the hard way.

Here're some of the yellow bits chromed...

... before being blasted with several layers of candy yellow. Which look rather 'gold-ish'. Me like.

As I mentioned earlier, the paintjob was extremely easy to screw up. So I spent the bulk of my time, scrapping and sanding off the errors. For certain parts... it took up to 3 tries before I got the effect I wanted.

But when it came out right... it was well worth the effort. But hell... it was tiring.

It kept raining last month, so I had to keep the freshly painted parts in a low humidity area (or risk getting a dull finish). So I converted one of my closets into a DIY dry box by adding in 2 packs of Thirsty Hippo.

Once all the paint job was done, assembly didn't take much time. But yet again, I had to be very careful to make sure I don't scratch the painted parts. This I did countless times... and it hurts like hell. I ended up touching up the errors with a Gundam Marker since candy paint surfaces were impossible to fix.

The decals were fun to put on... but a bitch to remove when you get it wrong. I actually accidentally peeled off a 2 cm section of candy red paint, and had to redo the entire wing section.

I decided to skip inking the panel lines this time round, as I wasn't confident enough of doing a good job after my experience with the HG Dynames.

Most of the time, the inking look nice from a distance... but when you zoom in to have a closer look... you'll go... ughhhh..

Also, I felt that the Strike look pretty okay without inks... so I decided to let it be. Gunpla purists can go ahead and lynch me now...

The stand which came with the kit was muthafarking big. Hell... it was supposed to be a section of the launching pad on the battleship ArchAngel... so I couldn't really place it on my shelf above the tv.

So I bought a separate white 1/100 stand from Robot Master for about 20 bucks... which looks much better.

Here're some shots of the completed Aile Strike :

I stuck the two beam sabres together with some tape to create something which looks like the double edged light sabre Darth Maul uses... haha...

One of the more popular poses... the launching sequence.

This is definitely my favorite pose... Strike brandishing two Armor Schneiders... ready for close melee combat.

"I just flew into 16th floor... and a gagak attacked me..."

Side profile...

A butt shot of the Striker Pack...

"Still flyin... still flyin... aiyak... battery habis..."

1/144 HG Dynames vs 1/100 MG Aile Strike...

"Move aside you punny bugger... coming through..."

???

This fella is definitely earning a permanent spot on my shelf...

Full frontal...

Happi gila sial... ehehehe... ehehehe...