Everything that has a Beginning…

has an End.
It even rings true with this number. After all this time, I can’t believe that I’ve finished it. After over a year (2 if you count it from the first time I started pinning) of limbo, 2 false starts and 1 instance of running out of paint, I have finally, FINALLY finished one of my modelling grails, Something I have wanted since I first laid eyes on it’s original design.

Readers, The Knight of Gold awaits!!

Previous posts can be seen here, here, here & here

This particular kit is a G-systems recast of a kit made by a company called work shop cast and was a gift from a friend (good friend, huh? he even apologised when he saw just how difficult the kit looked!! Though I’m sure part of the reason why he got it for me was because he wanted to see what one would look like, and was probably feeling a little sadistic). Took me a while to realize that it was a recast despite the ridiculous amount of evidence which quickly mounted against it, which I will go into later.
Still hard to believe that I have it completed next to me. It was easily the most complicated and most difficult resin kit I have done up until now with the total number of parts exceeding double that of any other kit I have made thus far (or probably will make, unless it’s another from the same series).

For those not in the know, the Knight of Gold (KoG) is the mecha of  the main protagonist for an ongoing manga written and drawn by Nagano Mamoru called “the Five Star Stories.”
It started in 1986 and has been compiled into 12 volumes (that’s right, after 23 years, it’s only had 12 volumes) and had 1 anime OVA made covering the first volume.
If you consider yourself a mecha fan, then I would highly recommend that you track down the manga and have a read. It’s really good and the mecha designs are the most beautiful I have ever seen from ANY anime or manga.

Unfortunately, trying to condense or explain the plot of the manga would require a separate blog post (or several) so I’m not even going to try. The manga also has a tendency to jump to different times to show a glimpse of thing that have happened or will happen in the future timeline so it can be more confusing than a Quentin Tarantino movie if you’re not reading it yourself.

It’s also a bit weird in that the timeline for the entire saga has already been written out, so the reader already knows of the major events that have or will occur in future volumes (if we ever get there) even if has not been shown yet. There’s still tonnes of room for detail and expanding what it already known tho.

But Back to the KoG (like I’m going to type knight of gold everytime in this post), This mecha, or Mortar Head (MH) as the manga calls them, is a little special in several ways. Normally, a mortar head requires 2 pilots, a headliner (human with special genes and powers who would make jedis cower in fear) to serve as the main pilot to control movement and a fatima, a humanoid computer (usually female) who serves as a CPU and handles the data analysis and other stuff. Fatimas are said to have unsurpassed beauty (to the point that normal females cannot compare) and are loyal to their headliner master. However, due to their beauty and the fact that they are essential to running a MH, they are subject to many laws which protect but also severely restrict them. A fatima without a master has no human rights, for example.

This particular MH, the knight of gold, was created by the main protagonist of the manga, amaterasu, the leader of one of the most powerful nations (if not, the most powerful) in the system in which the Five star stories is set, the Joker system. He created it due to a promise to his Fatima (before she was fully completed) and future wife lachesis, the main female protagonist of the manga, as she asked for him to create a Mortar Head made of gold under which they would be married (hey, when your fiancee is the head of one of the most powerful nations in the system, you can pretty much ask for anything!!). He created the gold MH, but it was a while before he would accept her completely as his wife.

There are several things which makes the KoG special compared to other Mortar Heads, the first is something you have seen in every pic so far. The massive cannon on it’s back!! As well as the generator which you can see in the pic above.

And here it is detached from the main body. A massive cannon folded in 2. When in firing mode, it stands at almost twice the height of the body, and it’s a sawed off version!!!
The cannon is called a buster cannon and is the second most powerful weapon in the five star stories. The version mounted on the KoG, according to the official notes, is the B grade version. There are 5 grades going from E to A with A being the most powerful? How powerful? The A grade is capable of blowing up planets, in fact it did (or rather will do. it’s one of those flashpoint moments) so we’re talking death star powerful without the size…

The only thing stopping everyone from using these things is that, in the FSS, when wars are fought, the most valuable “commodity” are workable land and the people, who are rather docile and willing to work for any ruler so long as they are not abused to hard. Kinda hard to have that when you’re blowing up planets. The one mounted on the KoG isn’t enough to blow up a planet but it’s enough to destroy cities and any enemy unit with a single blast.

The buster cannon simply slides into a connector on the hip of the KoG. The fit is quite good, but something doesn’t feel right about it to me. Call it modellers gut instinct. The cannon simply feels too high.

And a few shots of the body without the cannon on it’s back. Last time I took a pic in the same angle, the left forearm and entire right arm was incomplete!
Another thing which makes the KoG special is that it’s one of only a few MHs which seems to exhibit a consciousness or will of it’s own. On several occasions, it has moved on it’s own and even teleported itself to aid it’s “parents.” Only it and Junchoon have displayed this ability clearly.
The KoG is also used as a testbed for ideas for the mainstay mortar heads of the AKD, the nation Ameterasu leads. So it can be somewhat temperamental…

The back got a little crowded near the endgame. It also didn’t help that the thin stabilisers were all bent out of shape due to the time they spent in hot water during the cleaning process. I had to reheat them to bend them into a shape which wouldn’t interfere with the addition of the buster cannon.

But you can still see the second head…

And the genitalia on the headpiece.

Full back shot.

I said earlier that this was a recast, which would explain some of the insane difficulty I had when building this number. If I ever needed a reason why recasts are bad news, this one gave it to me, in SPADES!!!
Some parts, esp the leg and waist sections, didn’t fit properly, the resin was of poor quality which made cleanup much longer than it needed to be as I had to remove the damage marks from when I cut the excess resin. The basecoat also wouldn’t apply smoothly to the parts, which was really odd… Then there were other issues.

If the buster cannon looks a little bent, it’s because it is! Ironically, it’s the part behind which is straight so the part you are looking at is crooked. It was much worse before! I managed to straighten it out a little by heating the resin with very hot water and bending the part but the wider section simply would not budge so I had no choice but to leave it. If I was more adventurous, I could cut the part off and add putty to straighten it out completely, but I’m not at that level yet, and that opens up a whole other can of worms.

Another point is something which you might not notice from a distance, but one of the fingers on the left hand is a prosthetic. At some point in the build process, the forefinger broke off and I was unable to locate it. so I used some putty to sculpt a new one. It looks fine from a distance, but doesn’t hold up to closer inspection. If I ever find that missing finger, I’ll stick it back on.

Let’s not also forget the moment when the entire waist section decided to fall apart when I was trying to glue the connector in place. I think I must have thrown expletive words for a good 10 minute before I calmed down. The only bright side was that the parts were undamaged. they just all came apart from oneanother, meaning I had to glue them all back into place again.
And then, there was the wonderful time I had when I first put the buster cannon on and realized that the kit was too back heavy to stand straight! In the end I had to break off the feet and stick them back on at a slight angle to allow the KoG to stand with the buster cannon on it’s back. As a result, it’s leaning a little forward…
However, all was not lost as, due to this and a little inspiration from members of figure.fm, I devised a rather useful technique for holding parts together while epoxy glue takes it’s sweet time to dry!

Dubbed the “figma modeling clamp” the pics above show figma Nanoha and Fate holding parts up while the glue used to hold the parts together dry. The top pic shows the 2 making sure that the KoG keeps leaning forward so it will be able to hold the buster cannon once the glue dried. I’m sooo going to use this on later troublesome parts on future kits!!

Overall, I’m happy with this kit, despite the really long time it took to complete (mostly my fault) simply because it really is beautiful. The five star stories have the most beautiful mecha designs bar NONE and the knight of gold is one of my favourites (although I’m not a fan of it’s later incarnation/replacement). It has taken me a long time to get to this point and I don’t think I’ll be doing another FSS kit for a long time, but I’m not going to say goodbye to it quite just yet. There are still a fair few kits I would like to try, such as the volks KoG which shows it ready to fire it’s buster cannon, not to mention the LED mirage and several others. I would also like to see a Jagd Mirage twin tower. The pic in the link is just to give you an idea on the size of the thing. The 2 “towers” are full sized buster cannons, the planetkiller kind. Also bear in mind that the main body of the jagd mirage is also 3~4 times taller than the average Mortar Head. I had a look at the 1/100 scale (same as this KoG) Jagd mirage twin tower kit from work shop cast and aside from the staggering cost (more than a dollfie. maybe even 2) I found that the finished kit stands at 1.7 METERS TALL!!! from feet to tip of the cannons. Serious room needed!!

I think I’ll leave that for much much later. for now, I’m happy with just 1 FSS kit as that is enough to enter the rather exclusive club of FSS kit owners!!.

P.S: I wish Petopeto good luck with his current project Schelptor. Hope he doesn’t take as long as I did to complete it.