Let’s move on to building the body. We’ll start from the bottom up.
Feet
As is typical for a Real Grade, we’ve got a bunch a parts to string together:
The final result is a pretty typical, with a separate toe and heel, and a thruster embedded between them:
I suppose the black and white color scheme is unique for a Gundam: even ones with fairly unorthodox color schemes often manage to still have red feet, but not here. They almost look like a pair of fancy dress shoes.
Building the Frame
At this point in the build, I decided to take a different approach. I’ve never fully built the inner frame before attaching armor, and I figured there is no time like the present. So that’s what I ended up doing.
The rest of this post will go over how the frame is built, and Part 3 will go over the armor.
Leg Frame
The upper leg has some really great details, like those semicircular tubes on the back side, and actual, moving pistons on the front, that slide up and down when the knee joint is engaged.
Meanwhile, the lower leg has this crazy hinge joint, though I don’t think it comes into play once the whole thing is assembled:
Finally we toss on some decorations:
The legs are impressively detailed, and also really long (at least, they will be once we prop them up):
Here’s another shot from an angle, so you can see the gigantic metallic sticker on the bottom of the ankle:
Lower Torso
This is an extremely simple section to build, but eventually it becomes part of a crazy nine step transformation to unlock additional articulation in the hip:
I mean, I guess the armor bits end up moving around as part of the process, because there isn’t enough on the frame itself to justify so many steps:
Note that I didn’t take any photos of the skirt amor, because as far as the inner frame is concerned, the skirts are just four individual pieces that fit on.
Upper Torso
This is the first time that we have to add a bit of armor to the frame. (If we don’t put it on now, it’ll be a pain to put it on later):
Arms
I didn’t take any pictures of the individual pieces that make up the arms, as there isn’t much to show. If you really want to know how they come together, here are the two measly steps in the instructions:
And here they are once complete:
This is by far the simplest and least interesting part of the frame, and as we’ll soon see, they don’t really match the proportions of the rest of the model.
Head
When the manual shows off the inner frame, it includes a half assembled head:
I have no idea why, but let’s just follow suit:
I mean, it comes together like any standard head:
Hands
Might as well build all the hands while we’re at it:
It falls short of the High Grade GM Custom’s ridiculous seven and a half hands, but six is nothing to sneeze at. My only complaint is that there isn’t a left holding hand, so there’s no opportunity to dual wield.
Putting it all Together
Here now is entire the inner frame:
I’m glad I tried building it this one time, but I don’t see myself doing it again. On one hand, it does look pretty cool, and it’s the only way to admire all the crazy detailing they put into the frame pieces (detail they add despite the fact that almost all of it is eventually covered up).
On the other hand, I did a whole bunch of detailing on the lower half, before realizing that, well, most of it is eventually covered up (I then stopped before doing the upper body). While the detailing makes the frame look nicer when standing on its own like this, it was ultimately a waste of my time (and considering how slowly this build is coming along, that’s time I would like to have back).
Building the frame first also left me feeling scatterbrained. By not focusing on one body part at a time, I had pieces from multiple sections around lying together, and it was hard at times to keep track of it all. The build process was beginning to feel rather grueling, and it sapped away a lot of my motivation to continue. It’s been almost two weeks since I started the build, and I still have quite a bit of work to do.
Size Comparisons
We know the Nu Gundam is a big boy, but just how big? Comparing just the frame to other model kits isn’t necessarily a fair comparison, but it should still give us a good general impression.
First, here is a comparison between the Nu’s foot and the foot from the GM Custom:
They’re roughly the same height, but the foot of the Nu is much longer.
Now for some height comparisons of the entire body. It almost stacks up to this old, busted Master Grade Epyon:
Once it has its armor and V-fin and funnels, the Nu will stack up even better.
Next, here it is next to the 1/144th scale GM Custom:
This is a better comparison, because they’re the same scale. And the Nu Gundam absolutely towers over it.
Lastly, compared to the unusually large Tryon-3:
The Tryon puts on a great showing, but it still isn’t as tall. The Nu is officially “freaking huge”.
Conclusion
And with that, we wrap up this part of the build. All that remains is to get all the armor on, which is admittedly easier said than done, as there is a lot of armor.