PKA Weltraum (K) Kauz

Yet another first here - my first time painting a resin figure and first time making a Ma.K diorama. The Kauz is such a great design with the most unique shape of all the Strahl PKA variants - especially the rabbit ear antennae. This was built from the 3Q kit, which is a Wave reissue of the original Nitto kit with new decals and camo card. The figure is from Sweetcorn Studios and is a wonderful sculpt with a very clean casting. This project was a great learning experience in making a scene "indoors" as opposed to the standard ground work of a vignette base.

The base was made from a selection of various electrical junk and spare gundam parts. The main "body" of the diorama was from the housing of a computer hard drive and a small light strip was mounted inside in order to create the under glow effect. While I am very happy with the way the Kauz suit turned out, I felt as though my painting didn't really do the figure sculpt justice, so it has since been stripped for a repaint.

I got the Kauz from someone on the Maschinen Krueger forums, a wonderful source of information on all things Ma.K and Kow Yokoyama. The person kindly included the interior parts from the 3Q Melusine which fit the Kauz as well and were much more detailed than the old Kauz interior.

While it has all the idiosyncrasies that an old mold would have (lots of seams!), the fit and quality of the parts seems to have not degraded with time at all. Apart from a standard amount of filling and sanding, the suit was assembled without too much fuss.

The new Wave decals are much more vibrant and crisp than the old Nitto decals and I was shocked at how many marking options came with this kit. If I remember correctly, there were actually two full sheets of waterslides in the box (and Bandai still can't include any in Gundam kits!).

I love the Kauz - one of the best of the original SF3D era suits, and with the recent release of the new Wave suit (at the time of writing), I'm looking forward to revisiting it and seeing how 30+ years of advancing plastic model technology affects the same iconic design! (And maybe even reusing the space girl figure!)