Another year means another Astray commission and for this one the client wanted an amalgamation of the red and blue frames.

Thankfully the client requested that the majority of the kit be from the blue frame which turned out to be a really good thing since the red frame used was from a Daban kit. Since Daban has been as visible as Dragon Momoko in the third party space I really had high expectations for their quality but if the red frame here is an example of what they produce they fall very short of DM and are more like the standard “nothing fits well” kind of bootlegs you see out there.

Besides that the client wanted me to attach the red frame katanas to the backpack of another third party set. The biggest issue was getting them to align correctly, which forced me to have to fill and re-drill holes just so the angles were right.

While working on the Astray the client (who was also the owner of the Mega Shiki) changed his mind about the Defenser backpack’s cockpit and wanted me to work on it.

Finally with everything painted and decaled I ran into a really bad case of paint chipping. The Astray is pretty tight and most of its inner frame is visible so when there is joint rub it can get pretty bad. I had to do a bunch of touch-ups and even had to strip and repaint some pieces.