In the last post, we got through the roughly half the body and half the accessories. In this post, we knock out the other half.
Skirt Armor/Waist
As I expected, this kit comes with a decal for the model’s crotch arrow. What I didn’t expect was that the decal would only be of the arrow. Normally the sticker is large enough to cover the entirety of this red piece:
The model has two additional decals in this area. One is right below the crotch arrow, and weirdly enough, the second one is between its legs:
I’m not entirely sure why it is there, but it makes it very clear that this model cannot fit onto an Action Base. That’s a first for me. I wonder if it was more common in older models from decades past.
As for the skirt armor, it is almost completely flat. This prompted me to go a little heavy with the shading, and I think that was the right call:
It really highlights the thickness of the armor, and that makes it at least a little bit more interesting. My only regret is that I forgot to wipe off some of the weathering compound on one of the side skirts, so it looks darker than I intended.
Beam Saber
Getting this detailed was a four step process:
- Paint the hand
- Paint the beam
- Top coat the hand
- Gloss coat the beam
That’s a lot of work for a single piece, but in this case there is little choice if you want it to look right.
Shield
This is the same shield design as the Grandaddy Gundam, minus the big yellow cross in the front:
I always thought that the cross was the most Super Roboty element of the original Gundam, which is why I prefer this design instead. It looks simple and practical. And that shade of red …. wow. So dark and rich.
As for detailing, that front decal is looking rough. I failed to align it properly, but even if I got it right, there would still be the issue of the shiny, red, foil outline around the Earth Federation logo. It clashes with the matte look of the rest of the shield. I’m not really sure what the solution to this would be. Cutting the foil bits off would be too difficult (at least if you wanted to do it cleanly). And yet if you look at the instruction manual, someone at Bandai clearly did something, as the foil outline cannot be seen (perhaps they used a waterslide decal):
I considered taking the sticker off, but then I’d have to spray another layer of topcoat, and I’d rather not risk it. Red pieces are always the most likely to discolor after spraying, and I like the way this one came out. I’ll just leave the decal there and pretend it looks better.
Flipping it around, you can see that I painted the inside of the shield black:
I did this after seeing something similar in the manual:
I thought this was a great look. It gives the shield yet another level of (fake) parts separation. Now it appears to be made of three layers of material instead of two!
Upper Torso
This is arguably the most “complicated” part of the build. It has the most parts, and it needs the most detailing. It was the only part of the model that I wasn’t able to finish in a single evening.
It also wasn’t particularly fun. I waffled on what color to use for panel lining and other detailing. I started with light grey, but then switched to black. Between that and me frequently, accidentally wiping paint off of various parts, I ended up re-detailing each part several times.
I also decided to gloss coat a few of the pieces, namely the red hatch and the chest vents. I immediately regretted this decision. I think this model looks better with a fully matte look. In retrospect, I think I used the gloss coat out of habit more than anything, since that is what I do with most Gundam-type models.
(Almost) Breakage
Well, technically I did break something, but it ended up being okay. When assembling the chest, I ended up incorrectly inserting the ball joint for the head. This was a problem; due to the way the chest parts fasten together, getting them apart again is extremely difficult. Everything fits very tightly, and I found myself trying to wedge a tool in between the two main chest pieces to try and pry it open.
Instead, I ended up breaking out a nice, triangular-shaped piece of plastic from the side of the chest. Thankfully, it was clean break, so I was able to very carefully glue it back in. I have to emphasize the “careful” part - if I used too much pressure, there was a chance that the piece might have fallen into the hollow interior of the chest. If that happened, I was unlikely to get it back.
Thankfully, it all worked out. The break is largely obscured by the right arm, but even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t look all that bad:
Of course, before I made the repair, I tried prying open the chest just far enough to wedge the ball joint into place. I thought I got it, until it fell out again.
This is when I decided to take a risk. I got out my nippers, and cut at the sides of the ball joint. The idea was to trim away enough of it so that I could jam it into the chest cavity where it was supposed to be. Amazingly, this actualy worked. Despite trimming off some pegs that were meant to keep it in place, the ball joint slotted in very tightly. It may be butchered, but it doesn’t feel like it is going anywhere.
Soooooooo, while I inflicted some of the most severe damage ever upon this model, the impact was, ironically, the most minimal. The model has lost none of its articulation, nor does it have any obvious visual defects (unless you raise the right arm all they way up, and even then).
Arms
On the outside, the arms are pretty simple looking:
Inside, however, it uses some polycaps that I’ve never seen before (at least I don’t think I’ve seen them). Assembly is extremely simple, but the resulting build is quite stable.
Side note - like the feet, the arms look very similar to the GM Sniper II’s:
Conclusion
And with that, the build is complete!
We’ll take a closer look in the final post. See you then.