Erlangshen here. My first post in GMK! Yay!
I thought I give Prof. Layton some time off and wrote this article myself (I heard he is busy relocating to GMK). Feel free to click on the images to slighthly embiggened (is that even a word???)
A few years ago I modified SD Exia into SD Astraea, but my first attempt is mediocre at best. I learn a lot from that experience and recently have the desired to make a Version 2.0 of SD Astraea. To do that, I hunted for SD Exia kit (I opted for basic SD Exia, not Exia RE-2, as the basic Exia is a bit cheaper). Problem is, this kit is pretty old and most hobby shop in Beijing doesn’t necessarily stock up a lot of SD kit, and once they ran out of a particular kit, they rarely restock it. thanks to my wife’s eagle eyes, she managed to found one in the back corner of a hobby shop in Soshow Mall in Beijing.
From the very beginning, one of the goal in this Version 2.0 is to provide better accessories and better integration between the accessories and the main kit. It has not been easy as I need to figure out the best way to connect the scratch-built accessories into the body/arm of the kit.
One of the way to accomplished this goal is by relying on the 0.8mm hand drill. I found a hobby shop in Zhongguancun mall that has pretty good supply of hobby tools and pla-plate and pla-beams. For instance, the GN-Launcher is pretty big, thus the connector part might be overwhelm to support such weight, but if we drill and insert a small metal axis and connect it to the main body, this will provide enough tension so it can support the weight. The trick is to find the right location for such axis, so that it will not be so visible.
Another challenge when building this kit is how to make the unique GN-Drive. Astraea has a flat cone-less GN-Drive. I decided to use casting method to create a relatively similar cone-less GN-Drive and combine it with some pla-plate for the exhaust parts. The result is not disappointing! I really recommend to try this method if you never tried it before. All you need is just some epoxy putty and some hand lotion.
Before I started the process, I put up a poll to my friends asking tehir opinion whether I should use the original default color scheme or paint it using the Astraea Type-E2 Rosea variation (I built this variation’s HG 1/144 plamo kit a few while ago and felt the color scheme is really nice). Most of my friends recommended using the original color scheme. After some more thought, I agree that this may be the best outcome, as I can create a SD evolution photo once this is done (basically depicting the evolution of Mobile Suit from the Gundam 00 universe). I then thought of another even greater way by changing the color with Photoshop, so I can have both color schemes. The result is the image above.
I hope this kit inspires you to build more plamo and hopefully fall in love with the cute Super Deformed style as I have 
Erlangshen
PS. I am in the process of making a MS evolution chart but using the SD kits that I have. Stay tuned!
