Elyn Hobby

Welcome to my end-of-build write up for the 1/100 Elyn Hobby Kshatriya. I’m going to spend quite a bit of time talking about the kit and the build so if you’re just interested in pretty pictures you’re more than welcome to scroll down toward the end of this article.

Elyn Hobby Kshatriya, what’s that?

It’s perhaps the most ambitious, and disastrous first model release from a company ever.

A few years back Elyn Hobby released a 1/100 scale model of the NZ-666 Kshatriya from Gundam Unicorn. A bootleg out of China, it was very hard to acquire both due to its price tag and, from what I’ve heard, legal action from Bandai preventing distribution outside of the country. It may be 1/100 in scale but it’s more of a Perfect Grade kit than a Master Grade. With well over 1300 pieces (if the guide is to be believed) the kit comes with photo etched metal details, metal stickers, regular ol’ decals, plenty of metal detailing parts, and an extensive LED system. read more

It took longer than I would’ve liked, but three weeks and 12-15 hours of assembly/final detailing later the Elyn Hobby Kshatriya is now 2/3 of the way complete.

The biggest issue I had was, again, with the LEDs. The first was the lighting that’s supposed to be in the thrusters on either side of the legs. The documentation in this section of the guide is pretty shit-tastic, shows wires going this way and that but not really how the circuit is supposed to work or where all the leads are supposed to sit. I got one wired up and found out that it didn’t work. Not sure if it was an issue with the circuit, or dead batteries, or what. The second set had a bunch of broken wires including one that connects to the super small switch and doesn’t appear to have an easily attachable point to re-solder the cable. I ended up just saying “fuck it” and pulling the wiring out and assembling those parts without the LEDs. It looks nicer anyway as it looked like there wasn’t any way to hide the cables, they would’ve just wrapped around the back of the leg. read more

An overwhelming sense of doom.

That’s what I’m feeling right now. While I should be pleased that this build is now officially a third of the way complete and things turned out okay I can’t get past the fact that the kit’s LEDs are royally fucked.

So that’s a third of the project complete. Still gotta do the everything below the waist and the wing binders. If I can keep up the same schedule, which is a long shot, that’ll be in about five weeks. From prep to top coat completion took about two weeks with an estimated ten hours of assembly time. Why so long? Well a lot of pieces had to be glued into place and the super clear modeling glue I use takes its sweet time to dry. That and the LEDs were a pain in the ass to work with. read more