It’s time for another trip to the Piececool Q-series line of Legend-esque models. Thanks to some helpful readers and comments on Reddit, I’ve learned that I should have done this in groups of three. Apparently the first two I built were two of the three main characters. But… consistency wins, and I’m going to keep doing them in groups of two. Because I’m stubborn.

Anyways, this time around we have the two characters Quinton (or Zhang Fei) and Lagsse (or Guan Yu). Hopefully one of them is the last of the main characters, otherwise I’m going to feel rather foolish. I did do some digging after the last post, and found that the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” is one of the most famous of Chinese writings, almost akin to the way the Odyssey and the Iliad are in Western culture. Also, it sounds like it’s around the same level of epic-length, as many parts of it have been turned into standalone movies.

These two seem almost paired, though, when you look at their garb and armaments. So I’m really not sure if one of them does fall into place as the third main character. I mean, they both have similar shapes to their headgear, and both are armed with spear-like weapons (or maybe scepters?). Anyways, they are both rather intriguing and fun. No idea why Lagsse has such dark red skin, though. Almost makes him look inhuman.

Unsurprisingly, these two are fairly on par with the previous pair as regards their difficulty. Though they up the ante with those beards, especially Quinton’s. I hate those beards. Curse you beards. Anyways, most of the model is fairly straight forward, with a few exceptions. And some surprises, if you’ve never dealt with the metal tubes that some of the Piececool models use (and their accompanying rubber tubing for holding them in place).

The rubber tubing comes as a single piece, but needs to be cut to fit the appropriate locations. For each of these models, you need one 6mm length and one 7mm length. The shorter one is embedded inside one of the hands, while the longer one ends up inside the “head” of the spears. The metal tubes fit inside these in a tight fit, and allow you to secure the tubes without any tabs or slots in the metal tubes themselves. Rather creative, to be honest. The rubber tubing in the hands is a lot easier to seat the metal tube through than the ones in the base of the spear heads.

On the build of Dorado, I was able to confirm that my aspiration to complete the “skirt” (parts 7 and 8) before securing it to the legs does work, allowing you to have the tabs on the inside. All you have to do is leave the flaps on the top of the leg parts standing up straight. Then you slide the assembled skirt down over those, and then fold those flaps down and slot the tabs. Nice and clean.

Once again, on both of these models, I would recommend that you secure the ears and stand-alone facial hair to the face before you close up the heads. It is helpful, though, to pre-fold all the creases just a smidge, so that the fold is “broken in” already, making it a lot easier to complete the folds.

Now, when it comes to assembling the staff/spear “heads,” you’ll probably want to disregard the direction on Dorado’s, and use a twist when securing the flame-like blade to the “hilt” of the spear head. I thought they had set this as a fold to make room for the rubber tubing, so I did that. However, that ended up leaving too much room for the tubing, which made it hard to actually secure the metal tube tightly in place later on. This was not marked as folded tabs on Lagsse, so I think the 7mm length was actually measured with the assumption that these tabs would not be folded.

As for the most frustrating, infuriating, and difficult part of both these builds, I present the steps to attach Dorado’s beard. The shaping diagram is not that helpful, and the fold lines are not well defined in the sheets. Add to that the fact that it’s a super-tight fit, and it does not go well. I actually ended up with the beard secured under the chin, instead of in front of the chin, due to trying to get the sideburns slot aligned. Then I had to pry the lower section of the beard over the chin. It was unpleasant. Lagsse, on the other hand, had better defined fold lines and was a bit less of a tight fit, though not easy by any terms.

And finally, I’d like to not again that there are plenty of opportunities in these builds to add a bit of flair by introducing some curves that are not specifically suggested in the instructions. From the ribbons to horns, bear hair tips, etc. However, the best chance, in my opinion, is to add a bit of curvature to the tips of the flames on the shoulder dragons on Lagsse (part 23). It’s adds a lot of character to them, in my humble opinion.

Below you will find the customary build videos, both rather short, and completely silent. These are for reference only, definitely not entertainment.