Here’s a fun fact - the cockpit in the Gundam Mk. II gives its pilot a 360 degree view of the battlefield. Here’s another fun fact - according to the kit, this is achieved by making the cockpit a spherical chamber embedded within the suit’s chest. I never thought I’d learn about such a technical detail from building a model kit, but considering how many times I’ve praised it for its detail, I shouldn’t be surprised.
The torso came together fairly easily. I wanted to try and avoid some of the nastier sprue marks I inflicted on OG Gundam, so I re-readjusted my approach to sanding. Earlier in this build, I would start with my highest grit, and work my way down to the lowest. Eventually I got lazy and began skipping a few grits, thinking that they weren’t making a huge difference. Then I got to the torso, and very early on I found myself staring down a particularly nasty sprue mark. I went back to the full grit treatment in hopes of buffing it out, taking my time and avoiding the use of excessive pressure. The result was much better than I expected. I stuck with this approach for rest of the torso, and it continued to serve me well.
The result is that this whole section of the model has no glaring blemishes or marks. I’m very proud of this, though I wish I could go back and give the same treatment to other parts of the model.
I wish I could say the decaling process went just as smoothly, but it didn’t. I lost about four of them, possibly due to the fact that I was working in a poorly lit room while watching TV. Thankfully I was able to cover up my mistakes, as the decal sheet contains a bunch of spares. A few of them were either identical or very similar to the ones I lost, so I repurposed them. I’m not sure if spare decals are a common feature among more recent Real Grade kits; I know my first two kits didn’t have any.
Some notes and observations:
If someone called these model kits “toys” in front of me, I would actually be OK with it. I last time my thoughts contained so many instances of “Oh man that is so coooooooool” was when I was building GI Joe playsets and Lego models.
The torso contains the last of the Test Suit pieces. The yellow grills in the chest can be replaces with these things. I’m not really sure what benefit they would during testing, unless the Titans are taking a Physics test and have to solve problems by shining light through a slit.
- I’ll go into this in greater detail in my Conclusion post, but the torso (along with the attached backpack) is the number one reason why the Mk. II is one of my favorite mobile suits.
At this point, we’re in the home stretch. The next post will cover the last bit of construction.
