[Tsundoku workshop] Sawa Azusa

Well, to start off, I had no idea what I was getting. It’s a long story.

In early December of 2020, I happened to stumble across some odd Japanese website called Suruga-ya. It looked like any other ordinary “I sell all kind of stuff” website I’ve seen numerous times before. It did focus on culture items (anime stuff), so I figured why not and did a search for Girls und Panzer garage kit (in Japanese).

Then boom.

Garage kits I’ve never even seen before popped up. It was a gold mine. I grabbed three almost immediately while deciding to wait on more expensive stuff.

Among the three initial items, one of them is this kit. Info on this kit is non-existent. I had no idea what scale this was. I had no idea whether this had eye decals. All I knew at the time of order was that this was a garage kit of Sawa Azusa. Her kits exist but rare.

Fast forward a month, it arrived, and I am positively surprised.

This is Sawa Asusa 1/12 scale kit. AND it comes with a pair of eye decals. Now, despite being 1/12 scale, this figure feels smaller.

For a kit that cost me only 2,000yen, its part quality is outstanding. In fact, it’s much better than what I’d get from most circles. Fingers are crisp, surface is smooth, no air bubbles, and parts fit very well. It even comes with its own stand.

The quality is close to Volks resin parts. I’d give 9 out of 10 for resin quality. And, again, this cost me only 2,000 yen.
Another important aspect is that parts are properly separated, making overall painting a lot easier.

I mentioned it comes with its own stand, so here it is. Normally, I would totally use it. But, for my purposes, this stand is not needed. Thus, I will be discarding it.

For the record, this is the first garage kit that came with its own stand.

Ooarai uniform is a pain in butt to paint mainly due to the green lines on their uniform. While I’ve developed a solution to this, it isn’t perfect.

Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve done this and I’ve come up with my own method. Still, it can be a hit or a miss. In this case, I’d say it is a miss mainly due to a fact that the gap to follow and draw a line was too shallow.
I normally don’t bother fixing it since it will make it worse. The result is below.

Anchovy and Clara are 1/16 scale. Clara is one of the tallest characters in Girls und Panzer. You can see why I say it’s smaller than it looks. This is a 1/12 scale.

Now, next to each other, Azusa looks way big but the size difference is still relatively small and it can still work in photo projects.

For an example, if I place the figure in a tank ….

It doesn’t seem too out. The tank is 1/16 scale. She looks a little big for the tank but this works.

Since I am pretty sure that I won’t be able to find any 1/16 scale Azusa, I am happy with what I have because I finally have someone outside of the main cast in Ooarai.

Until next time.