Fragmentary Feline

No judging, I have not magically acquired a lovely fluffy white cat, the header photo is a lie.

What I have is a 'fragment' in the form of a white cat, courtesy of the Chitocerium series of Gundam-esque build-it-yourself model kits. They're a Japanese series of models, complete with an anime type backstory and setting involving a realm of fragments from reality that have gathered in a sort of shadow realm.

Or at least, that's what I've got from watching the product line trailer once.

More importantly, the series include two tiny cats. A black and a white cat, otherwise identical bar their colours, complete with little decorated boxes that they can fit into.

I'd never built this sort of thing before and didn't really know what to expect so I just waited for the kit to arrive so I could read the destructions instructions and see what I'd need.

I ended up needing steady hands, a little bit of patience and some 'flush cutters', which are snips that look a bit like wire cutters but have one side of the cutter that is flush when closed. So, it forms a smooth, level face when you close them and you cut with the flush side against the part you're cutting out of the sheet of parts and it won't leave much of a mark that way.

I did need some sand paper actually, now that I think about it, even with flush cutters (I forked out for the Citadel pair, usually used for snipping out bits of Warhammer models rather than adorable kitty cats but a plastic model is a plastic model to the cutters of flush!) I ended up with a little nub of plastic left behind by the plastic joint ('sprue') from the sheet and had to sand a few little bits smoother.

The instructions were in Japanese, but a picture speaks a thousand words and the odd detail that wasn't covered by the diagrams was covered by Google Translate instead.

The whole thing took maybe 45 minutes to snip out the parts and assemble it, and me a complete newbie too. I suspect for an experienced Warhammer or Gundam builder it'd be a sub-30 minutes job!

And now I have a tiny cat! It's fully articulated, plus it has a few different tails to swap in and out and a sleeping face too.

Excuse the pink-ish tinge, it's actually pure white but I take terrible photos!

There is my little friend, prancing about on top of their little box, but you can stand them up without it of course.

They can even sit up (if you don't mind the effort of posing them that way) instead of standing. 

The video for the cat models showed them lying down and all sorts, but for now my miniature moggy is in my display cabinet, looking like they're about to walk off their box and go exploring.

I've added myself to a restock list for the black version but these kit kitties seem to be out of print, as it were, so who knows if my Ghost Cat will ever have a friend.

Either way, the white version is still in stock (in the UK anyway) at Gundam Mad (check here) so if you'd like your own diminutive darling, you can nip over there and order one.

...If I said this didn't send me down a rabbit hole of model building, would you believe me?