Gunpla Build - Real Grade Nu Gundam (Part 1)

I can’t get over how big this stupid box is. Here’s a comparison with a standard High Grade box for comparison:

It’s more like a Master Grade box than anything used at ¹⁄₁₄₄ scale, and the question on my mind is ”Does it NEED to be that big?”

Short answer - not necessarily.

If we crack it open, we find the runners stacked into two neat columns:

Now, I don’t think this is exactly how they were stacked during packaging, as I took them out (and placed them back in) before taking this photo. But that doesn’t really matter in the end - the way they’re arranged in this photo, the rightmost column is stacked to the top of the box, while the leftmost column has a lot of empty space above it. In other words, even if we stacked them evenly, there’d be empty space inside.

That got me wondering whether I could fit them all into a particularly tall High Grade box. I happen to have two of them that I use for storing spare parts and instructions. One is the box for the High Grade Gundam Alex, and as we can see, it is not tall enough to store all of Nu Gundam’s runners:

Now let’s try to box for the Tryon-3, which is even taller:

It’s extremely close, but I think they would fit. If Bandai really wanted to, they could have used a box like this (or maybe slightly taller, just to give the contents a bit of clearance). Then it would have at least been more in line with the length and width of standard Real Grade/High Grade boxes. That leads me to believe that they deliberately chose the extra big box to signal that the Nu Gundam is a Very Special Model. I’m not necessarily opposed to that, but at the same time, it’s dimensions make it kind of hard to store.

Anyway, here are the runners:

And the stupidly large decal sheet:

It’s a lot, but it’s also kind of not? If we take out all of the parts that are used for weapons and fin funnels (or at least all the parts that I can identify), we’re left with this for the body itself:

Again, it’s a lot, but it’s also kinda not? Especially considering that some if it has to be used to make the backpack too.

Well, let’s see how it goes. As usual, we’ll start with the weapons first.

Shield

There are not as many parts to the shield as I expected:

Obviously the two big “main” pieces do all the heavy lifting, and impressively, they manage to pull it off. The rear piece has a lot of detail that you can paint in if you are so inclined, and the front piece has some nice panel lines. When you fit them together, they reveal some very intricate part layering that makes the whole thing look more complex than it actually is.

On a side note, I love when a mobile suit has a shield that is tall enough to protect its entire body.

Beam Rifle

This one isn’t complicated, perse, but it uses quite a few parts:

As you can see, I went to down detailing one of the pieces. It’s not strictly necessary, mind you. I just like customization.

That piece is inlaid inside the outer “shell” of the rifle:

You then add another piece on top as a sort of cap, then the muzzle, side grip, etc:

Interestingly, this is the second build in a row where the Beam Rifle came with no decals for its cameras/sights. In this case it is particularly weird, considering it the kit comes with two decals for the bazooka. Why not have one on each gun? Or just cram another one somewhere on the sheet?

Whatever. I ended up painting them on:

All told, it’s an impressively large rifle, one that looks both futuristic and realistic at the same time. I will say, however, that I’m not sure I like how the top piece is blue. I think it’d be better off as white, or maybe plain black.

Wait a minute … blue? In my Nu Gundam?

H-how did I not notice this? There are no black runners in the kit. Just dark blue.

That can’t be right, can it? Have I been wrong for years? Is the Nu Gundam actually dark blue instead of black? Let’s open up GIMP and use the color picker:

Sorry folks, but that’s black. Not blue. I’m not sure if they changed the color just for this Real Grade, or if it secretly is supposed to be blue, but I’m painting mine black. Now let’s try this again:

Much better.

Bazooka

This one is called the “New Hyper Bazooka”, which, sure. Why not?

Here are all the parts:

Of particular interest are the two parts I circled below:

They each slide onto different parts of the barrel, and (eventually) lock into place. As usual, they’re precisely engineered, which means that applying even a little bit of paint creates a lot of unwanted friction. I eventually got them on, but it was a bit tough.

What made it even tougher is that both parts are extremely thin and fragile. One of them actually broke along the top, though it was extremely easy to super glue it together once it was secured in place.

Here now is the final assembly:

I really like this weapon. It shares a baseline design with the classic Hyper Bazooka, but it’s much longer, and a bit thicker. It feels that much more lethal.

Here you can see the bazooka’s two camera lens decals (I jacked up the brightness so you can hopefully see the one in front. The one in back is there too, though it is out of focus):

Beam Saber

Normally this is the shortest section of any given build, but not this time.

Nu Gundam has two beam sabers, but they aren’t the same. One of them is your standard issue, one-piece saber hilt:

But the other one is a multi-piece custom job:

This one looks an awful lot like a Star Wars lightsaber (or at least even more than usual). Second, it has this little flap piece that flips up like some of blade guard:

It gets even fancier when we look at the beam effect parts. We get four of them:

The two on the right are standard issue beam blades, and interestingly enough, they only fit in the standard one-piece handle.

As for the other two, you can see that the large one is curved, and the smaller one is, well, extremely small. And they only fit into the special handle:

That’s right folks - the Nu Gundam has a beam saber with a tiny extra blade poking out the bottom, for Maximum Shanking Action.

I’m also digging the curved blade. I’ve manually curved blades before, but I like not having to do it.

You might be wondering why the two saber handles are different. The answer is that they’re stored in different locations. The “main” one is strapped to the backpack like usual, but the standard/spare one is instead stored in a hidden compartment in the XXXX

Fin Funnels

At last, I finally get to see exactly how the fin funnels are put together. Considering they can bend and fold and attach together, I couldn’t help but assume that they’re little marvels of engineering.

As it turns out, that assumption proved correct. The Fin Funnels are built upon a lot of very clever uses of simple concepts, all precisely engineered at a ridiculously small scale.

To start with, here are all the parts needed to make a single funnel:

It all (literally) hinges on this central joint piece here:

It has two hinges that can fully bend in either direction. These are the only prebuilt “Advanced MS Joint” pieces in the entire kit, and honestly it’s the one place where a prebuilt joint is needed. I can’t imagine how small the parts would be if we had to build this manually.

We surround the joint with some external armor to keep it safe and make it look pretty:

Next, we attach one half of one funnel. Take a close look at the photo above - it shows off exactly how the funnels are able to clip together.

See those two small grey pieces inlaid in the funnel? They are what make the magic happen. Keep them in your head for a minute while we go through the rest of the assembly. We’ll double back in a minute to go over how they work.

To finish the assembly, you next pop on the white part of the funnel:

And then repeat the whole process for other half (minus the two small grey pieces)

Now let’s talk about what those little grey pieces do for us. Let’s zoom in on them:

When “at rest” like in this photo, there is just enough room for them to stay hidden and flush within the funnel. But there is also just enough room for them to swivel out like so:

And now they’re clips that can attach to another funnel.

But where do they attach to? Let’s flip the funnel around to see what’s on the left side:

All those “holes” are attachment points for the clips to snap into. Now, when the clips are “at rest” and folded into the funnel, only one attachment point is viable:

However, when the clips are deployed, the “big” clip essentially turns into a second attachment point, which allows the funnel to connect to another at a different height:

Ultimately this is how we achieve the uneven, asymmetrical, “official” layout of the funnels:

The whole setup is brilliant, if a bit fragile. The clips are prone to popping out if you’re a bit too rough handling them (whether or not they’re liable to break I cannot yet say).

Finally, we can see how the double jointed inner frame means that the funnels can easily fold up:

And move into attack mode:

Conclusion

What fantastic set of accessories. They’re big, highly detailed, and they’re all sharp iterations on the classic Gundam arsenal. And those fin funnels are a work of art.

I’m also glad I decided to paint everything black, even if it ends up taking a lot more time and effort. Everything is looking exactly how I remember it, and it should be worthwhile in the end.

Other Stuff

There is a span of five days between this post and the intro post for the build, but the truth is that I actually started it on the 11th. That means it took me just over a week just to build the weapons. That should give you a good idea of how much more complex this kit is than my usual High Grades. I’m honestly not sure if I’m going to finish it until December, which would technically mean that I’d have no finished models for the month (not like that’s the end of the world, especially if it’s because I was working on a big one).