I went a bit nuts with the photos with this one.
The nice thing about being a grunt suit is that you’re intentionally designed to be simple and generic. That means you (probably) don’t have any sort of signature weapon, and in fact will look comfortable carrying a variety of different armaments.
And if you’re this particular grunt suit, you also have a bunch of hardpoints built into your body, including on the side skits and the backpack. That means that there are opportunities to experiment with any sort of pluggable accessory.
And lo, I have both alternate armaments and pluggable accessories that I’ve been itching to try out.
But first, let’s do some poses with its standard gear.
It’s nothing fancy, but I think both the shield and the rifle are a good fit for the Daughtress. The shield is big enough, and the gun looks surprisingly punchy.
I’ll also use this moment to point out that later on, when you see it equipped with all the alternate weapons, you’ll (hopefully) agree with me that while some of them look good, these stock accessories are the only ones that really feel like a perfect fit for it. Almost as if the mecha artists and gunpla engineers know what they’re doing …
30 Minute Mission Weapons Pack
I got this 30 Minute Mission pack a while ago, and I just never found the right model to try it out with. For any given model, most of the weapons felt like they were the wrong size, or had the wrong look, or had their own signature weapons. But with the Daughtress being such a blank canvas, I knew I had my test subject.
First up we have this hand cannon, complete with holster (which fits perfectly into the hardpoint on the skirt):
Call this the …. “Daughtress Military Police Custom”, or maybe the “Patrol Custom”. Light loadout, but that makes it nimble, and the gun clearly still packs a punch:
And while akimbo pistols may be a bit too far, why not try it?
Next we have this long rifle (or is it a shotgun?), which is by far the best fit of the bunch:
It’s a bit bigger than its standard rifle, but not too big. It’s either the rifleman of the group, or the close combat specialist (depending on whether or not it’s a long rifle or a shotgun 🤣):
Next we have this monstrosity, which is way too big:
Same thing with this high-tech looking thing:
I’m still glad it exists, but it’s not a match here.
And finally, we have a big ass combat knife and a tiny buckler:
(I feel like the shield could use some sort of decal, but it’s got to be generic enough that I can repurpose it across different models)
This is a good match size-wise, but I dunno. I just don’t see even a grunt as lowly as this fighting with just a knife, unless they’re really desperate (or really crazy)
Final Verdict: the pistol and the long rifle/shotgun are a great fit for the Daughtress, but not so much the rest. But it was a lot of fun to experiment. I’m particularly pleased that I was able to use the holster. It just adds that extra little bit of punch and visual identity.
IBO Weapons
I also have an even older Iron Blooded Orphans weapon set from … however long ago, that I just never got around to detailing or topcoating or using in any capacity. For this build, I at least managed to spraypaint them; I’ll have to go back later and add some finishing touches, because it turns out these are pretty sweet.
First we have this massive railgun:
Though it may be huge, because it’s a two-handed weapon I feel like it actually works pretty well here.
Next up is this machine gun, which is also large (but again, also two-handed):
It looks a bit goofy because I had nowhere to attach the ammo belt, so it’s just dangling around in the back. But if I could do something with it (if not here, then on another model) this would look superb.
Final Verdict: These two are fantastic. I’m going to need to find excuses to use them with more models.
Daughtress Cannon
There is a version of this mobile suit with a cannon strapped to its shoulder:
I wanted to recreate it, but I’m not much of a kitbasher. The best I could do is grab some parts from a VOTOMS accessory set I have lying around, scap together some parts to connect it to the backpack, and voila:
Does this count as a kitbash? No idea.
I did not paint or detail the cannon, as I want it to eventually color match my VOTOMS model once I build it. This was more of a “let me prove that the idea works and get a photo” kind of thing.
A Little Bit More Fun
This series of photos is what I call “Tiffa’s Revenge”. Considering she was kidnapped early in the show by the Alternative Company, suffice to say that she’s this model’s number one hater:
Fin!
I hate to say it, but even just a few years ago I may have skipped out on this purchase after reading people dunk on it. I’m really glad that didn’t happen, but the mere thought that it could have still gives me pause.
Listen, Gunpla is Freedom and all that, but I’m kind of tired of this rhetoric, where models are judged based on how good they are when they’re just snapped straight off the sprues, with not even a lick of additional elbow grease put into the build.
You can certainly do that, and it’s valid … but is that really scale modeling?
I wouldn’t say this is universally true for me, but for some builds I’m becoming more and more interested in what it can become, rather than what it is out of the box. And in this case, between the simplicity (which makes it easy to recolor) and the hardpoints (which makes it easy to customize), it has a lot of good things going for it. This is a grunt suit that you can take in all sorts of fun directions, and I think that makes it really awesome.