In 2019 and 2020, I built a number of model kits without finishing my writeups on them, and without doing any photo shoots. I got a whole bunch of new kits for the holidays, and one of my short term New’s Years resolutions was to go back and revisit these older kits before building anything new. I decided to tackle them in the order I built them. Here then is my followup on the High Grade Maganac, which I built back in March of 2020.
I actually wrote a final post for the Maganac where I went over its pros, cons, articulation, etc. I even took a couple of decent photos. The only thing I didn’t do was take any action shots. Let’s fix that.
But before we do, let me just say that after all these months, I still dig the look of this model:
It is so bulky and … polygonal. You don’t see many mobile suits that this kind of blocky look. Yet at the same time, it also looks very much humanoid, like a desert soldier.
After attempting a number of action shots, I can confirm that the articulation on the Maganac is spotty. The head can only move side to side. It has no forward ab crunch to speak of. And while the arms and legs have good theoretical articulation, in practice the armor often get in the way. This is one of those models where it feels like you are constantly fighting against it to get it into whatever position you have in mind.
This forced me to get creative with some of these poses. In retrospect, I think a lot of them came out very nicely, but some of them took a lot of work. I wouldn’t exactly call this photo shoot fun, which is why there aren’t as many photos here as usual:
Am I disappointed with the Maganac? Not really. This is a grunt suit. It’s purpose is to stand around and shoot (and be shot at). I don’t think most mecha designers spend a lot of time thinking about how a grunt suit’s body should or shouldn’t move. You’re lucky if it even looks appealing. From that perspective, the Maganac looks surprisingly cool, and really that’s all I can - do - expect from it. If you are looking for a cheap Gundam Wing kit, hit up the Sandrock (or the recently released Heavyarms) first, but after that, you could do worse than this guy here.