F.S.S. Dougulas Kaien 1/8 scale by Volks

Forever a lady’s man.

About the character himself

Dougulas Kaien is a major character in Five Star Stories. An interesting trend about him is that he never has a story of his own. Rather he shows up as a side character in other stories and tend to overshadow others.

Despite having no story of his own, his birth, life, and death is very well covered in the story.

Because he is just too famous, he usually goes by an alias, Hugh von Hitter, who acts very carefreely and loves to hit on women, any women. This habit of his results in a twin, Magdal and Dupre who later become the pillar of Hathuha Union Republic (AKA Holy Atoll Dynasty).

He also has another son, Ballance Kaien, from Meeth Silver Ballanche. They never had an intercourse however. This is a looooong ass story within F.S.S. that I am not even going to bother trying to explain. Perhaps, I will a bit in Auxo’s entry if I ever get her figure.

There are some really ugly facts about him as well. First of all, his mother is fatima Queen, the first masterwork from Chrome Ballanche.

Get it? His mother was a fatima. Worse (second of all), he has slept with her.

Aye, he slept with his mother. In his defense, he wasn’t aware of his birth circumstances at that time.

……….. Well, fatima Queen is another one that deserves a story of her own. God, so many things that require at least a page of words to explain. Gotta love F.S.S.

In the end, Dougulas is killed while protecting a lady. It isn’t just an ordinary lady though. She is the holy maiden of Holy Atoll Dynasty.

Forever a lady’s man, he was.

The kit

The box felt quite heavy which meant there was a big block of resin inside.

And there was. Normally, I really dislike this kind of setup. But Kaien’s wardrobe is a simple one, so this might work out pretty well. Though I will still say this is a bad design overall. His arms should have been at least separated.

Because the resin is already white, I won’t bother with painting his sleeves and upper shirt. I will, however, add some blue shading to it later.

I followed the same method as how I’ve done Allen Braford’s kit. I spray-painted the whole thing in black, the body block, the face, the feet, everything.

Then I airbrushed his vest in medium gray to differentiate colors. Once that is done, everything else was painted with a brush.

I believe I’ve stated before that I dislike when hair and face parts come molded together. We have another case of such here. Hair and face should really be separated.

In this case, this is a lesser issue simply because his skin is darker, meaning mistakes can be corrected more easily.

When it comes to his sword, I had to make a decision.
In the whole manga, you never see his sword. You can see him swing it but you never see the blade itself. That is because he is just so fast that we, readers, never get to see his blade. All we see is after effects of his swinging.

This kit has the same idea. There is no blade. It is enveloped by an aura, and I dislike it. I just want a simple, straightforward, katana on it.

Therefore, I searched for a miniature katana. Then I saw them costing pretty pennies; they cost around 40 CAD. It felt a bit too much to buy something for 40 bucks only to break it.

Therefore –

I decided to make my own by using a bamboo stick I already have. Using a sandpaper, I shaped it like a katana blade. Painted in black and then applied some Mr. Metal color on its edge.

Not too bad in my book. The sharp, shiny side, is very light-dependent, meaning if there isn’t enough light, it remains black like in the first picture.

In the second picture, there was enough light for decent reflection. I didn’t make that intentionally but I like how it has turned out.

Well, in the end, he has turned okay except for his face perhaps. Mine looks just far worse. But, well, this is the best I can do when there is no decal. There was actually a decal I felt I could have used but chose not to.

Dougulas is never described as handsome anyway.

Still, I decided to do some more works on his face. Now he looks sort of like … Jacky Chan? Okay, I am not touching the face anymore.
Only his head has been varnished. I didn’t feel like his other parts needed varnishing. While varnishing sets colors in, it also kills paint texture. So, if avoidable, I don’t varnish stuff.

The Kaien project

My initial project for F.S.S. was the Braford project which was getting Allen and Kyo figure and then acquire Terror mirage to complete. It has been completed at this point.

Now that I have Dougulas as well as his son Ballance, the project Kaien begins. I have two things left to collect for this project. One is Auxo and their GTM. An optional piece would be fatima Queen. Both Auxo and fatima queen are available on an auction site. But there are issues with both. In Auxo’s case, she doesn’t look like Auxo because the kit was made before she went through a redesign. In Queen’s case, her kit is prohibitively expensive.

Their GTM is easy to get since Volks makes them actively. Well, we will see.