Gunpla Build - Gundam Heavyarms (Part 2)

Onward and upward (literally)!

Upper Torso

I got out of the habit of posting photos of loose pieces, but allow me an exception here. The Upper Torso uses a quite a lot of pieces, and I felt compelled to share:

Like with Sandrock, Heavyarms uses a lot of parts layering (and a little help from some clever use of decals) to create a level of detail you don’t often see in a High Grade.

Building the chest was not without its problems:

• The orange ring that surrounds the white part of the chest has a tear in it, and it got some gunky old paint on it. I blame it on the old, crusty, high tension alligator clip I used to keep it in place for drying.
• The kit comes with decals for the blue stripes on the chest. I’ve seen complaints online about them not staying on, but I figured I’d give them a shot. They are tough to get on, but with some patience (and a thin layer of gel super glue) I managed to do it. Later I used a tiny bit of blue paint for doing touch ups, and some of it dripped down into the inside edge of each white chest piece. Of course I didn’t realize this until after applying clear coat, which meant I had to bring out some white paint to do even more touch up work.

  

• I painted the inner chest guns with gunmetal paint, then sprayed it with clear coat. This gave it a much duller finish than I was expecting. I had to “rejuvenate” it using some gloss coat.

  

None of these mistakes outright ruined the build, but I’m not proud of the work either.

Backpack

This is one of the simplest backpacks I’ve come across. It is only four pieces, and it is very small:

In case you are wondering, I painted the triangle yellow: there is no yellow decal or anything to put there.

The most striking thing about the backpack is that it is not black, or grey, but rather a very dark shade of blue, which means there is yet another color in Heavyarms’ already large color palette. Personally, I think it looks great, but that got me thinking: Why is it that I like the Heavyarms for being colorful, but not the Wing Zero? Let’s take a detour to talk about colors.

Let’s Talk about Colors

Heavyarms and Wing Zero prove that it isn’t about the sheer number of colors used on a mobile suit, but rather which colors, and where they are used. Heavyarms’ color pallette is dominated by red, orange and yellow. You don’t have to know anything about color theory (and I really don’t), to intuitively know that these colors pair well. If you’ve ever walked around trees in autumn, then you’ve already seen it!

But what about the other colors? Heavyarms uses a decent amount of white and grey, as well as two shades of blue and a bit of green. White and grey are neutral colors, so those are fine. The green is used in one place - the head - and only in a few very small areas. It adds a bit of variety without being distracting. It also happens to be a specific shade of green, one that happens to pair well with the rest of the color palette:

Now what about the two shades of blue? This is, admittedly, a lot harder for me to explain, but I’ll give it a shot. In regards to the lighter blue on the chest, I think it is important to note that it is surrounded by white. The white acts as a buffer of sorts between the other colors. This allows it to “pop”, but it also prevents it from clashing.

As for the darker blue of the backpack, it is so dark that it basically becomes a neutral color. It adds a little bit of variety, but doesn’t bring attention to itself.

Now what about Wing Zero? Let me try to (poorly) use some technical color terms to describe what it does wrong.

The first problem is the intensity of the colors. Wing Zero uses a darker, “shaded” blue alongside a neutral yellow. Blue and yellow can pair well, but usually when they are the same general intensity (ie. both dark, both light, etc). When you tweak one and not the other, they start to clash.

Similarly, the shaded blue clashes with the neutral red. A darker, shaded red would pair much better.

Wing Zero is also much too happenstance with the placement of colors. The rear skirt armor is all blue, the side skirts all red, and the front skirts all white. It looks much less uniform than Heavyarms’ all-red skirting¹.

Wing Zero’s chest and shoulders use the entire color palette, but the thrusters don’t. Neither does the shield². Every one of Wing Zero’s individual body parts is doing its own thing, and that feels very distracting and sloppy.

That’s enough color analysis for now. Let’s move on.

Head

This is another example of how Heavyarms takes traditional Gundam design tropes and plays with them. Most Gundam heads have color in very specific places - the V-Fin, the chin, the eyes, the cameras - but are white (or grey, etc) everywhere else. But not Heavyarms! Look at that huge stripe of red running along the top.

I honestly can’t imagine it being any other way. Seriously - can you imagine it with an all-white helm?

I love the antenna thingies on the sides. I love how there are two of them, and how they’re aligned horizontally. Lots of mobile suits have antennae on their head, but not like this.

Oh, and those eyes. Still love those eyes.

Putting it Together

Hmm …. something about this feels off.

Without its big, beefy arms, Heavyarms’ chest looks much more narrow than I expected.

Let’s talk a bit about the detailing. The blue chest stripes are …. okay. There is a bit of white space near the center, but I don’t dare try and touch it up again. Nevertheless I am impressed with how well the decals look (as well as the fact that they are staying in place!)

I’m impressed at how nice the yellow decals look on the underside of the chest. High Grades use decals like this all the time in lieu of painting, and if you put them on right (and clear coat them), they tend to work surprisingly well.

I managed to paint the shoulder-mounted vulcan cannons yellow without screwing anything up - and yet I completely botched some of the panel lining on the inside:

None of the mistakes are game changers. I’m more concerned at how weird it looks without the arms. I’m a bit worried that I’m still going to find the proportions to be weird once the model is complete. We’ll find out one way or another in the final part of the build. See you then.