Gunpla Build - High Grade Leo (Final)

Somehow I managed to write six - six! - posts about the Leo, a mobile suit I have absolutely no love for. How the heck did that happen?

Anyway, let’s get started and see if the Leo can redeem itself.

Quality of My Work

This was not my best build. Not even close. In fact, this is downright sloppy work.

Just look at the shoulder armor. There are drizzles of grey paint, and the clear coat is blistery and rough.

In the back, we see that the shading on the rear torso is incredibly inconsistent. It is thick along the top, and almost nonexistent along the bottom.

There’s nothing too objectionable from the sides, save for that lumpy, nasty paint on the head that makes it look like the model is made of Play-Doh:

And let’s not talk about the brown parts of the torso. If you look at them up close, it looks like a child painted them.

Having said all that, I still think this (mostly) looks better than a stock Leo. Someone could even argue that this worn, crusty look is a good fit. It vibes with the suit’s “utilitarian military equipment” aesthetic. But I still don’t like seeing such sloppiness on display.

The lesson I learned here is to not work on a model kit if I don’t like the mobile suit in the first place. You can’t paint away structural, physical problems in a design. No matter what colors you apply, those physical attributes will still be there, and they will still bother you (or rather, me). This dawned on me about a quarter of the way through the build, and at that point I lost a lot of my motivation. From there it was all downhill.

Nothing I can do about it now. Let’s move on and put the model through its paces.

Articulation

We saw how nice the knee and elbow joints are, and indeed they end up being very good in action:

Unfortunately, it turns out that these joints are limited by poor performance of neighboring joints. For example, despite the fact that the Leo has short skirt armor, the hip joints have terrible forward and backward range:

(The leg can go forward a bit more than that, but not much).

The arm can only swing outward to a 90 degree angle at the shoulder:

And it can only swing about halfway across the body:

All of this means that despite having a handful of good joints, the overall articulation is less than ideal.

Fun fact - the shoulder can also shift up and down:

It’s not all that useful in practice, though I suppose you could use it to make the Leo do a little bit of a shimmy shake ….

Moving on, you can get a halfway decent split:

But you don’t get much in the way of an ab crunch:

In fact, the backward ab crunch was only possible by practically splitting the mid-torso apart:

And lest we forget, the Leo’s head cannot (by design!) move in any direction.

Pretty much the only articulation on the Leo that is flat out excellent is its torso rotation. You can easily make the upper body face backward if you want:

This is something that a lot of model kits can technically do, but it isn’t always this easy. Something usually gets in the way. However, as nifty as this may be, it isn’t all that practical. So I’d say that on a whole, the Leo’s articulation is disappointing. With those fancy joints and modern High Grade technology, even a kit this cheap should be able to do more. What really kills me is the fact that somehow the skirt armor gets in the way of certain moves, despite the fact that it is practically nonexistent. How the heck does that happen?

Weapons & Accessories

In order to attach the shield, you actually have to detach the shoulder armor, so that the shield can clip on instead:

This makes sense, considering the Tallgeese does the same thing. However, the Tallgeese’s shield is attached to the shoulder via a long control arm, with multiple points of articulation:

This allows you to position the shield pretty much anywhere you want. But without this control arm, the Leo’s shield is forced into a fixed position, and thus cannot be moved to face forward.

The only thing it can do to solve this problem is to rotate its upper body:

Of course, the problem with doing that is that it prevents the Leo from looking forward at the same time, because as we already established, it cannot rotate its head. So it can either protect itself, or it can look forward, but it can’t do both.

It is stupid sh*t like this that makes it hard for me to take the Leo seriously. It’s as if it was deliberately designed to be as nonfunctional as possible. But more on that later.

Here’s another thought - the shield has a handle on the inside, but it cannot come down far enough for the Leo to grip it. So why is it even there?

Maybe we can detach the shield and have the Leo hold onto it. Let’s give it a shot:

These photos make it look more natural than it actually is. The Leo can’t get a solid grip, so the shield is prone to flopping off to the side. This would be easily solved with a simple tab or peg that plugs into the wrist.

Let’s bust out a beam saber for some melee action.

I think the Leo may comport itself best with the beam saber and shield. It gives off a nice gladitorial vibe with that round shield. If only the articulation were a bit better. That way it could pull off some more dramatic poses.

I tried spicing it up with a two handed pose, but it could just barely hold on:

Time to whip out the ol’ gun:

It doesn’t look too bad in an idle position. It’s when it gets to firing that it gets a little awkward:

First off, it’s harder than you’d think to point the gun straight. As big as that side handle is, it isn’t quite big enough due to the arm’s limited cross-body range. It still feels like a reach.

I don’t like the Leo’s body language when it is in a firing position. The way the it holds the gun is more befitting of a larger weapon, like a chaingun or something. It looks like it is struggling to lift it up and keep it steady. What do you say about a grunt unit that can barely handle its standard issue rifle?

This next pose looks a lot better - or at least it would if it could turn its darn head.

I guess this one’s okay too:

Let’s try one more thing - can the Leo can equip the Tallgeese’s Dober Gun? Leo’s occasionally use them in certain episodes of Gundam Wing, though only as stationary weapons. It should work.

The grip is a bit of an odd fit, but once it is in, the gun works just fine.

This is actually a perfect fit for this kit, as it doesn’t require all that much in the way of movement.

Comparison to the Tallgeese

How is it that the worst looking mobile suit from Gundam Wing could possibly be based on the best looking one? How in the world do you get from the Tallgeese to the Leo?

To find out, let’s try and make it a fair comparison. Let’s strip the Tallgeese of as much of its extra gear as we can, to make it look as Leo-like as possible:

Aside from the shield (which I didn’t take off for fear of it breaking), there’s nothing here on the Tallgeese that isn’t also on the Leo. And yet it still looks cooler.

Part of the problem is simply that the Tallgeese has more detail. It has the chest vents, the bigger shoulder armor, the colored trim … without these, the Leo simply looks more monotonous and visually dull.

The other problem is that wherever the Leo substitutes something on the Tallgeese with some simpler replacement part, it isn’t merely simpler. In most cases, the replacement is, well, stupid.

For example, the Leo doesn’t just lack the Tallgeese’s cool shoulder armor. No, it replaces it with literal semicircles. Semicircles. They don’t even fully cover the shoulders!!

And it isn’t enough that the Leo has smaller bottom thrusters. It also has to make them point straight downward. They can’t move or adjust, not even a little bit.

Lastly, on the Tallgeese, the panels on the side of the head match the color of its trim. It actually kind of makes sense. But on the Leo, there is no trim, and so the head panels are just … kinda there (and remember, in the original design of the mobile suit, those panels red, not tan).

Of course, once you throw back on the Tallgeese’s thrusters, it becomes even cooler. But that’s not really the point I’m trying to make. Rather, the point is that so much of the Leo’s design is just plain asinine.

Imagine a real world soldier that was sent into battle without a helmet, but also (for some reason) with a neck brace that kept them from moving their head. Imagine this soldier was given literally half a piece of body armor, and a parachute that they couldn’t steer.

Now imagine that the army this soldier belongs to is not in the midst of losing a war, but instead is well funded and well manned. You would have to assume that such a military considers its troops to be sub-human cannon fodder, not worth the time, money, and materiel needed to properly outfit them.

This is exactly how I feel about the Leo. It can’t move its head. It can’t control the direction of thrust. Its shoulders aren’t fully protected. It’s gun is both too simple and too unwieldy. It’s shield can’t be moved in front of it. It’s as if the in-universe engineers who designed this mobile suit went out of their way to make something that would put pilots in danger.

Of all the grunt suits in all the Gundam settings, the Leo is by far the one I’d be most scared of piloting. It’s the only one where I feel like I wouldn’t have a fair chance at surviving the battle.

Conclusion

Poor Leo. I tried to spruce you up, but it just wasn’t enough. It isn’t your fault, of course, but at the end of they day you just don’t have the right stuff.

This was arguably my least enjoyable build ever. It wasn’t fun, and there was no real payoff in the end.

To be fair, I came into it prepared for such an outcome, but it is still disappointing that I couldn’t find a way to turn it all around. I think I need a serious palette cleanser after this one. Something simple but enjoyable. Something I know I will like.

Hmm … I wonder which kit might fit the bill …

Other Thoughts

• I said earlier that I avoided removing the Tallgeese’s shield for fear of breaking it. The joke was on me - I ended up breaking other pieces while stripping it down. Thankfully I was able to super glue them back on. I don’t otherwise tend to move it or adjust it in any way, so it is okay by me if some parts can’t move.
• One thing I can say in the Leo’s favor is that it is a rock solid little kit. As you can see below, it passed the “playtime with a three year old toddler” test with flying colors: