As I mentioned in my last post, when building OG Gundam’s head I had lost one of the three stickers that made up the model’s eyes. Thankfully Bandai provided a spare, which combines all three pieces into a single decal. To say I was relieved is an understatement.
When building the Mk. II’s head, I used the “spare” decal right off the bat, and it went on nice and easy. Crisis averted! Or was it?
Not quite. I ended up making three different errors of varying degrees of severity:
The One I don’t Care About
The head is supposed to have a pair of tiny stickers placed on its left and right sides, and I lost one of them to the Ether (AKA the carpet). At first I was angry, but then I looked at the one I had already placed, and realized it looked pretty fugly. I had no qualms removing it, and I don’t consider it a loss.
The One I Salvaged
The outside of the head is made up of two halves which snap together. There identical sprue marks on the back side of both halves. I think I might have cut a little bit into the plastic, and I didn’t want to test my luck with the hobby knife. I did try sanding, but the pieces were too small to work with. Here’s how they look:
But wait - with a bit of Magic (marker), we now have this:
Now it kind of looks likey they’re supposed to be there. All things considered, it could be worse.
The One I’m not Sure what to do with
The blue plastic is discolored just above the right eye. It kind of looks like glare in the photo, so here it is again:
This is the second or third time this has happened, and I’m not sure what I’m doing to cause it. Am I accidentally hitting it with sandpaper? Did I apply pressure? If anyone has an idea, please let me know in the comments.
After attaching the crest and doing some panel lining, it looks better, but I can’t entriely conceal it. My only hope is that it will look better after some clear coating, since that should reduce the sheen. If it works out, or if it becomes less noticeable from a distance, then I’ll say I’m happy overall with my work. If not, then I’ll be kicking myself for a long time to come.
Here are my two obervations at this point in the build:
I’m not sure if I’m making more mistakes than I did with OG Gundam, or if it just feels that way because they’re more noticeable on the Mk II’s dark colored parts. I do rememeber freaking out a couple of times when building Gundam, but whenever I glance at it on my desk, it looks fantastic. Hopefuly the Mk. II will end up looking as great.
I compared the heads of both models, and found that OG Gundam’s is made of a few more pieces. It looks quite a bit more detailed as a result, which seems curious, considering they’re both from the same lineup. I’ve heard that OG Gundam is based on the design of the giant statue they built in Japan, in which case the model may simply be benefitting from the care and thought put into it. Or maybe they simply put an extra bit of effort into making sure the most iconic mecha of all time looked perfect.
I think the most likely scenario is that this is a case of tradeoffs. If you look at the Real Grade line as a whole, some of the models look a lot more complex than others. Specifically, the stuff from Mobile Suit Gundam looks much tamer than anything from Gundam Seed. While the models do vary slightly in price, I imagine that Bandai tries to make sure each kit uses about the same amount of runners. If we consider that the two Gundams are the same size and shape, but that the Mk. II has additional features and complexities, than it would be safe to assume that Bandai would have to sacrifice detail somewhere in order to accomodate those extra pieces. On the flip side, since OG Gundam is so much simpler, they could afford to add a few extra touches to all its components.
Ultimately, I’ll reserve final judgement until the Mk. II is fully built. But from here on out, I’ll be looking out for these little details. I’m curious about what I’ll encounter.