As we wrap up the build of the GM Cold Districts Type, we find our subject outside, in its natural habitat:
I mainly took this photo as a gag, but it turned out be one of the best shots I have of the model. Gotta love that great outdoor lighting.
Anyway, let’s head back indoors to take a deeper look.
Problems with the Gun
The Cold Districts’ machine gun may look very cool, but from a functional standpoint it has a lot of problems. There are two major flaws, the first being its stock. It prevents you from pointing the weapon straight forward, as it will inevitably bump up against the top of its big chunky arm and force the barrel into a downward angle, like this:
The only way to avoid this is to position the gun so the stock rests against the side of the arm - but that causes it to face wide, either to the left or the right. That’s okay for certain poses, where the GM is obviously not going for precision aiming:
But if you do want a straight shot, you’ll have to do something like this:
It may look as if it can barely hold its weapon up, but at least it works.
The second problem with the gun is that doesn’t lock into the hand. Most model kits have some way of locking its gun(s) into place in the hand, so that they don’t move around when held. Sometimes that comes in the form of a “peg and hole” system:
Sometimes the hand has a notch etched into that is exactly the same size as the gun’s handle:
The GM Cold Districts does neither of these things. Literally the only thing that keeps it in place is the trigger finger:
If you do not put the finger through the trigger, the gun will flop around and eventually fall out. It feels stable up until the point in which it doesn’t. Part of me wonders of this is intentional, or just a happy accident.
The end result of these flaws is that the GM Cold Districts doesn’t do well with shooting poses. To reiterate, you can kind of get away with it if you use a “spray and pray” pose:
And it kind of looks okay with a two handed grip:
But overall, you are better off sticking with “at rest” poses …
… as well as actiony poses where the gun is at rest:
Or where the model is in motion, but the gun isn’t ready to fire:
Beam Saber
This is where the GM Cold Districts holds its own. As I mentioned in previous posts, the beam saber handle is molded into the hand. This turns out to have a lot of advantages, both functional and aesthetic.
Aesthetically, it allowed the model’s engineers to design the hand so that it has a much more natural looking grip on the weapon:
You simply cannot replicate that with a standard Gunpla holding hand.
Functionally, you can pull off poses in which the beam saber is at all sorts of angles without worrying about it falling out:
Normally I treat beam saber poses as an afterthought, but this time they were the best part of the photos shoot. I was able to focus on getting the proper angles (and the proper footing) without worrying about losing a fight with gravity:
Articulation
The articulation on the Cold Districts isn’t great, but it also isn’t as bad as I thought it would be for such an old kit.
For example, this is the best you are going to get for crouching poses:
And it can’t quite reach the beam saber:
But neither of these limitations is particularly worse than your average High Grade.
Thankfully, what it lacks in range it makes up with in character. Maybe it’s their size and proportions, and maybe it’s the fact that they have no eyes to speak of, but GMs emit a lot of personality even during simple actions:
Conclusion
This is one of those models where you really have to know what you are getting into. It is extremely basic, and it has a lot of the limitations you would expect from a kit that originally retailed for only 900 Yen.
At the same time, it looks like a dream, thanks both to its color palette and its overall visual aesthetic, which can be best described as “the original GM if it were slightly less goofy looking”. If you are willing to use a little bit of elbow grease, you can make it look that much nicer still. Maybe it’s because I just built it, but my eyes can’t help but gravitate to this model when I see it on my shelf.
The GM Cold Districts is so simple, and yet so appealing. I’ve wanted to own this kit for years, but it is even better than I thought. This is such a good, classic design, and it may be my favorite model from the last few months.
Final Thoughts
Here are my takeaways about the new shading technique I tried:
- It really does work
- It looks particularly good on this model, so much so that I cannot imagine it looking any other way
- I don’t think I am going to use it on all models going forward. I feel like it works best on models that have very simple color palettes, with body parts that are mostly (or entirely) monochrome. On a kit that is more colorful (or one that more evenly intersperses its color across the body), I think the shading would become too much of a distraction.