Moving on to the next piece of the Tallgeese, we come to the chest. Here are all the pieces to assemble it:
Just kidding - I missed a few pieces in this photo, namely two small pieces that go directly below the head, and the two big pieces that are in the very front.
Somehow I remembered to take photos of this piece as the build ocurred, so we can go over its construction bit by bit.
You start out with this basic assembly. You have two halves of frame and that white part below which will barely be visible when we are done. The white part in the middle is the cockpit hatch.
Next we add the pegs that will eventually attach to the arms:
We build two control arms that go onto the back. This is where the verniers will attach:
These arms fit extremely tightly, so much so that I was afraid I was going to break something as I applied ever more and more pressure. Thankfully that did not happen, though I am not sure if everything is snapped completely together.
We get some more white armor on the bottom half of the chest:
Now we add the front armor. I took the yellow vents and painted them gold. I always liked the gold heat vents on the OG Gundam, and I tend to paint them in this color whenever any other mobile suit has them.
Onto the back. The back of the Tallgeese reminds me of a mecha from Virtual On, what with the circle in the middle (Virtual On mecha have what is essentially a Sega Saturn/Sega Dreamcast disk drive in their backs). It is a bit weird to have a model lacking any sort of backpack/rocket pack attached directly on its back. I guess this is what you do with the empty space.
I want to point out the white piece directly below the circle. Based on video reviews I have seen of this kit, I know this is some sort of locking mechanism. It keeps a part of the torso locked in place so that it cannot tilt forward or backward. Very cool, but getting it in place was scary. It starts out flipped upward, and you are then supposed to flip it down. It does not do so easily. You have to apply “I am 100% sure this is going to break” kind of pressure.
It did not break from the pressure. =:) The way it looks in the photo above is the way it looks after final positioning.
Lastly we have these two pieces at the very top.
Notice how tightly the white top part snaps into the grey part beneath it. This assembly is not going anywhere once you fit it all together.
Here is the piece with decals applied. Front:
And back:
Oh, and here is the cockpit opening:
No detail inside of it, but it works!
Mini Zechs
The RG Tallgeese comes with a teensy, tiny mini figurine of its pilot, Zechs Merquise:
One minor gripe I have with this kit is that unlike my older Real Grades, it does not come with a second figurine with the pilot in a sitting position. My guess is that the cockpit is too narrow to actually fit such a figurine, so they left it out. The reason it bugs me is that I finally have the skills to paint these little guys, and it would have been cool to have a fully colored pilot sitting there inside the model.
Regardless, I still painted the one I got:
I have no idea what to do with it, but at least it is done. Hey, maybe it still can fit in the cockpit:
Yeahhhh no.
And with that, we wrap up the chest. This may be the last new post for this build for at least another week. The next two parts on the build list are the second vernier and the second leg, neither of which I plan to post about (since they are identical to the ones I built already). You will have to wait until those are finished until I have something new to document. But don’t worry! The next new piece is the Tallgeese’s infamous Dober Gun.
Other Thoughts
- The chest is probably the best example of the difference in detail you get with a Real Grade compared to a High Grade. The level of parts separation is immediately noticeable, and it adds a level of depth and detail that feels so good, so natural, that it makes me wonder how you could possibly do this model as a High Grade.