For the build of the Dragon Momoko Launcher Strike and Sword Strike I decided to, for the most part, do a parallel build. I unboxed both kits, and fortunately the Neo Zeong boxes make for a big enough “table” next to my work area for them both to be open at once. First up on the build are some of the frame parts. It’s a bit strange for me to see so many identical leg, arm and body parts on the alligator clips at once. For hand-painting details, I’ve brought this old wooden pen holder into use to support the pieces. Hopefully it will also help me keep my brushes tidy.For the main paint on the frame I chose Tamiya gunmetal. That wasn’t a hard choice, and neither was the use of Tamiya smoke to add depth to some of the details. I’m using gold, either airbrushed Alclad pale gold or Gundam marker gold for the rest of the details. There’s already going to be lots of blue and red on these kits from the armour, so I thought gold would be most appropriate for the frame detailing.  Here’s the frames for the arms assembled. You can see the small gold details on the elbow.For the body there’s some small gold details on the sides.Now getting onto some more interesting pieces, I went with gold on the feet thrusters and Alclad polished aluminium for the leg detail sections.  I rounded up as many pieces as I could find that would benefit from some hand-painted gold details.  Once the gold was dry I added drops of Tamiya smoke around the gold to add depth and ease the transition into the gunmetal surrounding. I was very happy with how the skirt section details came out, and it’s certainly feeling quicker to do the two builds in parallel so far. Here’s more of the leg pieces with the small piston detail hand painted in gold. Now dry, you can see how much those little drops of Tamiya smoke add to the effect. And it’s very quick to do, and looks so good! These parts are the ankles. They need some gold details and the raised boss detail a the front done brighter metal via Alclad polished aluminium. And yes, I totally realize we’ll probably never see this detail on the assembled kit, but by now you must realize I really enjoy adding such details! Putting the gold part onto the tops of the legs was a touch tricky as the parts are very tight. Even tighter were the knees. I masked these sections with 10mm tape which was just the exact right width to fit, so no cutting was needed. A light coat of Tamiya smoke went on to just darken down the aluminium a little. All these parts got a light coat of Tamiya smoke over either the aluminium or gunmetal. This should give some nice tonal variation on the frame without being too extreme.  The thrusters were easily masked for the rest of the foot to be painted gunmetal. Here’s more of the leg assembled. The knees were very tight indeed so I took my round file and gently widened the hole ever-so-slightly. The fit is now snug rather than too tight. Even with the coat of smoke over the aluminium I thought it good to go and hand paint in some more details with the smoke. These parts are for the tops of the legs where they join to the hips. I masked the round section so I could spray Alclad pale gold, and then did some touch-ups with the Tamiya gunmetal by hand. Here I’m letting some drops of Tamiya smoke dry to ease the transition from the gold to the gunmetal and highlight the centre-line detail.More sections for the legs getting some tiny drops of smoke in just the right places.

My current plan is to paint up one of the Strikes the standard colours, and the other in “deactivated” colours.