This amazing resin kit is Kotobukiya’s Super Double Zeta Gundam in 1/144 scale. Makoto Kobayashi penned the ZZ Gundam for the TV show of the same name, but this version is very different, bearing all the trademark traits of this prolific author/artist, like the tiny head, gigantic gun and feet, and a kind of neo-cubist organic look that is strongly reminiscent of the works of the French artist Moebius.
I bought this kit in Japan back in the early 1990s but was too afraid to build it, even though it was super gorgeous looking and was well molded. It only suffered a few air bubbles and had mold lines that matched up really well for a resin kit. All of the joints were DIY, meaning the builder had to devise a way to secure the parts together.
I did most of the cleanup when I got the kit, using a tiny bottle of resin de-greaser detergent that was included in the box. I think Kotobukiya was promoting the resin cleaner (it was called “Liqcaper” or something like that) so it was like a freebee promo. Anyway, the de-greaser worked really well. And that was where I stopped work, as I had never assembled a large resin kit before.
3 decades passed. Finally, I decided it was time to get off my duff and have a go at the kit, as 30 years is a long time to wait. Plus, I really liked this design and wanted it on my shelf - display shelf, not shelf of doom. 
So here is a condensed rundown of the assembly.
Some black basing.
Some marbling.
Base colors applied.
Dry fit everything to see what the overall look was like.
And then I had an accident while trying to pack the model to take to a contest. I dropped the model and broke one of its legs off. This was about an hour before I had to go to the airport. You see, stupid me used plastic pins to hold everything together, including the very heavy legs. It didn’t take much force, just a doink to cause the hip pin to snap. There was some additional damage that would require paint touch ups, so that wrote finis to my contest plans.
I didn’t really figure out exactly how I was going to pad the box until after I returned from my trip and took the model to the local model meeting.
Note how bulky the box needed to be to safely contain the model. I think it would have been a nightmare to have tried to carry this through airport security and into the airplane.
Lesson learned: Do not bring big, bulky models on airplanes. Do not use puny plastic pins to hold heavy parts together. And don’t put off packing until the last minute. Actually, I have violated these rules at least two other times. I can’t seem to learn.
