Model Kits

Gunpla Build - High Grade Gundam Astray Red Frame Inversion 2022-10-08

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - when your significant other buys you a model kit, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I had a rough week, she wanted to cheer me up, and she saw this at Target. The price was nice ($22 for a $25 kit), and so it came home with her:

This here is the Gundam Astray Red Frame Inversion, as featured in Gundam Breaker Battlelogue.

Gunpla Build - High Grade Gogg (Final) 2022-09-18

For the sake of conversation, let’s say that Home Alone 2022 kicked off my summertime model kits builds, and that this Gogg build is my last (I’m not going to get another kit finished before the end of September, and despite the fact that October can be surprisingly warm in my neck of the woods, I just can’t think of it as summer).

In that case, I’d say that the Gogg was the most pleasant experience of them all, and in addition to being the most pleasant surprise. I wasn’t expecting much going into it, but I’m impressed with what I got out of it.

Gunpla Build - High Grade Gogg (Part 1) 2022-09-11

Alright, let’s take a look at this little Gogg.

But first, a few remarks.

I'm covering the entire build in a single post. There's just not enough going on here to justify stretching it out any further.
I got some new toys at the hobby store, and I'm going to try them out with this build: Granted, it's just two sheets of waterslide decals, but this is the first time I've ever purchased aftermarket decals like this. I purchased these two particular sheets for use on a few particular model kits, none of which are the Gogg. But there are so many of them here that I think I'll use some on the Gogg to spice it up and make it look a bit fancier.
A lot of the photos you'll see here are from before I went back and added weathering. The final build is going to look a little bit different once it's all done.

Now, on to the build:

Gunpla Build - High Grade Gogg 2022-09-04

For this build, I’m going to be tackling the oldest model kit I’ve ever built. It’s HGUC #008, hailing all the way from the year 2000.

It’s a pretty simple model, and it’s a bit on the ugly side, but nevertheless there’s something about it that I find endearing.

It’s also a first in the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise. Specifically, it is the first amphibious mobile suit ever seen on screen:

Gunpla Build - High Grade Victory Two Gundam (Wings of Light) 2022-08-28

Now that the Victory Two is finished, let’s try out some poses:

Eh … sorry, but I can’t do it. That pose would look fine for just about any other model, but the V2 looks downright naked without its Wings of Light.

Thankfully, I have some we can use:

But first things first. There’s a lot I want to talk about regarding these Wings, and that’s what we’re going to do in this post. If you want to see how they look on the model, you’ll have to wait for the next (and final) post, where I’ll actually get around to taking photos.

Gunpla Build - High Grade Victory Two Gundam (Part 1) 2022-08-26

A bit of housekeeping before we begin.

While I did this build back in December 2021, I recently went back and took some comparison photos between it and the High Grade Victory Gundam. As a result, the photos throughout this build are a bit scattershot, and come from different periods of time.
Since I built this model so long ago, my commentary about the build is entirely from memory. I may get some details wrong in the process.

Good? Good. Let’s begin.

Parts and Pieces

The V2’s runners