Gundam Unicorn Model Kits

Gunpla Build - High Grade Byarlant Custom 2024-03-21

Picture it - Holiday Season, 2022.

I’m taking my kids to shop for gifts while mom is out of town. We go to a store that just so happens to sell model kits. I’m hoping to score a Real Grade God Gundam, or maybe a High Grade X Divider. I come up short on both counts, but in the meantime I find something else. Something that I never expected to come across at a brick and mortar store.

Then I sat on it for a year, until one day I got tired of its giant box taunting me and finally decided to build it.

That day was December 16th 2023. And that kit was the High Grade Byarlant Custom, from the Gundam Unicorn OVA:

Of course, like so many other kits over the last six months, I got tired of it mid-build and put it back on the shelf, which is why I’m writing about it here in March, instead of December.

Whatever! Let’s get to it.

Gunpla Build - High Grade Jesta Cannon (Final) 2022-04-08

The very first challenge of photographing the Jesta Cannon was in figuring out how to … well … photograph it.

The colors are so dark that it was hard to see front of a white background. Unfortunately the black background that came with my lightbox is made of shiny plastic, rather than matte paper, so it was reflecting light everywhere. After covering it up with one of the side panels (which is made out of paper), the background looked better, but then the model was a problem. All that silver weathering compound I brushed across the body was now reflecting light.

At least, that was the case with my smartphone camera. When I busted out the mirrorless, I had to lower the brightness settings and the aperture (in addition to cranking the lightbox’s light source all the waydown) just to get it to look halfway decent.

It was, I suppose, a good lesson in photography. Note to self - dark model kits are dark!

Gunpla Build - High Grade Jesta Cannon (Part 3) 2022-04-07

Upper Torso

This model goes out of its way to include a big hunk of light blue plastic just to create this little bit of color separation:

It’s wild to see this from the same model kit line that went out of its way to make the legs of the Dijeh out of as few parts as possible. My guess is that since most of the engineering work was already done for the original Jesta, they had the luxury to get fancy with the Jesta Cannon.

Gunpla Build - High Grade Jesta Cannon (Part 1) 2022-04-05

As always, let’s begin with a look at the runners:

As you can see, most of the runners are massive. This model definitely has a generous amount of parts for a High Grade - and since I’ve already built it, I can tell you that only a few of them are unused “spares”.

You might also notice that it comes with two separte sheets of decals. One of them contains color correcting stickers, while the other comes with logos and other optional markings, much like the High Grade GM Custom. The latter of the two uses Japanese characters, rather than Arabic numbers. I thought this practice was abandoned a few years before this model’s 2013 release date, but it looks like I was wrong.

In any case, let’s get to those weapons.

Gunpla Build - High Grade Jesta Cannon (Part 2) 2022-04-05

Having already built this model before writing this post, I can confidently say that the following things are true:

This model has great part separation
The parts themselves are largely lacking in surface detail

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem. The part separation in and of itself should create a lot of interesting details to look at. But that’s not really the case here. The pieces are so flat and angular that they run the risk of running together.

What to do then? In this case, I decided to use a bit of silver weathering compound along the corners, and then brushed an even smaller amount across each body part once assembled. I figured it would add a little bit of extra texture, as well as give the model the illusion of very minor weathering (as if its paint is very slowly starting to flake off).

In retrospect, I’m not sure it was a great idea. The silver compound reflects light, and that made it difficult to get good photos (at least with my smartphone). Without getting ahead of myself, I had to futz around with the settings on my mirrorless camera in ways I’ve never had to before.

But we’ll get to that later. For now, let’s start from the bottom and work our way up.

Gunpla Build - High Grade Jesta Cannon (Pre Build Part 2) 2022-04-04

Now that I’ve excised my demons, I can finally talk about the Jesta Cannon and its High Grade model kit.

About the Mobile Suit

The Universal Century has a history of mobile suit designs with the word “Cannon” in them. Usually all it means is that someone took an existing MS and strapped an extra gun or two to its shoulders, to give it some long range fire capabilities. Examples include the Zaku Cannon, the GM Cannon, and the GM Cannon II:

The Jesta Cannon falls squarely into this proud tradition. It exists to answer one question - “what if you took the Jesta and made it absolutely strapped?”

I guess it also exists to provide long range fire support too …

Gunpla Build - High Grade Jesta Cannon (Pre Build) 2022-04-03

Before we go on to building discussing the High Grade Jesta Cannon, I’d like to take a detour and talk about its “predecessor”, AKA the standard Jesta. It’s not strictly necessary, but it will help me excise some emotional demons. I hate the Jesta for a long time, and it was only recently that I realized that this anger was grossly misplaced.

Gunpla Build - High Grade Jesta Cannon 2022-04-02

Folks, this next build is going to be a doozy. It is going to involve mutliple, (weirdly emotional) pre-build posts, and some slightly-more-complicated-than-usual build posts.

Oh, and I already built the whole thing. For reasons, you see.

First, the kit in question:

This here is the High Grade Jesta Cannon. I have a complicated relationship with this one. Well, not really - you’ll see what I mean. For now, just bear with me.