Gunpla Build - Real Grade Nu Gundam (Part 3)

This build has been taking a long time, and it was starting to wear me down. After building the frame, I went a few days without touching it, before finally getting into a nice little groove at the very end of the month. I decided to say “screw it”, and blitzed though the rest of it over the course of two nights. Here now, on the final day of November, I’ve finished the Nu Gundam. There’s still more to do (poses, photos, more size comparisons, examination of all its gimmicks), but at least I can say I finished a model this month (Hello Kitty notwithstanding).

Head

This should be self explanatory, right? Even if you’ve never built a model before, it should be clear how these parts come together.

I ended up losing both shiny metallic decals for the front and rear cameras, but this turned out not to be a huge deal. The back camera is small (and who honestly looks back there?), and the front one is largely obscured by the V-Fin. They’re just not that visible (not to mention they’re made of green plastic, and are thus still color accurate. They just don’t look shiny).

The most common complaint I’ve seen about this model kit is that the sculpt of the head is “wrong”. People say it looks too generic and not “mean” enough, and instead prefer the look of the Master Grade version (pictured below):

They do look different to my eye - the “face” of the Master Grade is longer, for example. Whether this is a big deal or not is up to you to decide (personally, I’d like if it did in fact resemble the MG, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it either).

Lower Torso

Yes, I’m jumping from the head to the lower torso. What can I say? I basically built whatever I was in the mood to build. It was the only way to make it through.

Here are all the parts for all skirts, not including the frame:

It’s not a lot of parts, but there was a surprising amount of detailing work to do.

I guess we’ll start off with the bits in the middle, both front and back:

This is where I have to reveal that I lost the yellow piece for the crotch V. I believe I threw it away with the runner, without even remembering to clip it off.

I was frustrated, to be sure, but not as much as you’d think. The crotch V is the one relic of the Gundam’s Super Robot-esque origins that I don’t particularly care for. It isn’t an eyesore, but I could live without it. That’s why my first attempt at “fixing” this problem was to fill the socket in the red piece with museum putty and paint over it. The crotch would simply be red, with no V or anything.

But the putty only did so much to fill in the hole, and it was obvious that something was supposed to be there. I had to get some sort of V in there, so I rummaged through my spare parts and decal sheets to see if I had anything. The best I could do was find an old sheet that once had a crotch V decal, which I used to carve out a new one from a large, unused yellow decal left over from the HG Wing Zero:

It’s not the same as a real piece, or even the same as an official decal, but it’s close enough for my needs. I am writing this several days after completing this little fix, and I can say that it hasn’t bugged me or eaten away at me. In fact, I forget that it’s a decal at all.

Let’s move on to the side skirts. They are both simple two-piece affairs:

In retrospect, I should have filled in the inner channels on the yellow pieces.

The front skirts are similarly simple, with just two parts attached to the frame:

Surprisingly, the rear skirts are the most complicated. I’ve lost count of the number of High Grades I’ve built where the rear skirt armor was a single piece of rigid plastic. Here, you layer three different parts on top of the frame, and that’s just for one skirt!

When we put it all together, we get a pretty good looking Gundam diaper:

I always like it when the rear skirt armor is longer than the front (or at the very least long enough). And I really love that decal on the back.

Legs

The photo below has all the armor parts for a single leg. I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss any:

Yes, there are twelve individual armor parts for a single leg.

Let’s walk through the assembly. Start with the upper leg:

Then the ankle:

Then the knee (which you have to bend in order to fit this piece in place):

Now the back of the leg:

And lastly the black pieces on the sides:

Modern Real Grade models are half-jokingly referred to as “Mini Master Grades”, and the Nu Gundam does nothing to dissuade that comparison. In my (admittedly limited) experience, MG’s tend to put a lot of effort into the detail and complexity of the legs, since they’re the part is most important to the articulation of the model. It makes sense, then, to see the legs here get that same level of attention.

At rest, they look highly detailed and part separated, but it’s when you bend them that they really amaze. All the armor splits open, revealing much of the workings of the inner frame:

Upper Torso

This handful of tiny pieces are going to make up the entire upper torso:

I didn’t believe it when I first gathered them together like this, because it didn’t seem possible that they could cover up the entire body. But lo and behold, they really do. We start with these white pieces on the sides:

Then layer on these black parts right above them:

Next, we put these ones up in front:

And these two on top:

Now we plug in the chest vents:

Finally, we add the cockpit (which itself is a combination of three pieces), two small pieces below the vents, and a few additional flourishes on the top:

Now, if you look at that last photo carefully, you may notice that something is off about it. In case you can’t tell, take a look at the gap between the white pieces. That’s not supposed to be there.

This is a running theme with this model kit: there are a lot of sections that are on joints and hinges which then need to be folded in (or down, or whatever) in order to make the model look right. Since I haven’t done any posing or articulation tests, I don’t yet know if this is done in the name of improved articulation, or if it is simply a byproduct of how the model was engineered.

In any case, let’s squish it down so it looks normal:

And it’s done! I’m still amazed that all those tiny parts really were enough. It’s amazing to see how they all come together.

But at the same time, they also feel unnecessary. What I mean is that the look of the chest isn’t drastically improved by all this parts separation. Consider that there’s no real articulation in the chest - that means that, unlike the legs, you don’t need the armor to split apart or anything. I honestly think they could have gotten away with one or two larger pieces with some good, deep panel lines. As it stands, all these tiny parts are very hard to apply decals to. It isn’t super obvious which decals go on which pieces until you put them all together.

Let’s see what the model looks like so far:

It’s definitely coming together, but my first reaction upon seeing it this way is that looks very slight, which is a roundabout way of saying that the arms (particularly the shoulders) are crucial to selling the overall look of the Nu Gundam.

My second thought was “those legs look awfully long, almost like they’re out of proportion”. What’s more, while the legs look a bit too long, I know just by the frame alone that the arms may end up looking a little too short.

So what gives? Is the RG Nu Gundam not all it’s cracked up to be? Not necessarily. There is still more to build, and every little bit can have an impact on the overall proportions of the model.

On that note, let’s move on to the next section.

Backpack

The backpack is is made out of a few smaller sections that combine to make the final assembly. We’ll start with the two identical constructs that hold the thrusters:

There’s nothing terribly complicated about putting these together:

When we’re done, they attach to the main body of the backpack:

At this point the backpack itself is complete, but there are still some accoutrements remaining:

The parts in the top photo make up the mount point for the fin funnels, and the ones in the bottom photo make up the holster for the primary beam saber:

Specifically in regards to the holster, you have to twist the yellow cap into place, otherwise there won’t be an opening for the saber to slot into:

Let’s strap the backpack on and see how it looks:

We’re so close to finishing, I can almost taste it!

Arms

The arms are not fully symmetrical, so in the photo below, I arranged all the parts for right arm on the bottom left, the left arm on the bottom right, and the parts for one shoulder along the top:

The shoulder in particular is remarkable. Like the upper torso, it is built on hinges:

Which means we need to “smush” it together to make it look correct:

As for the arms themselves, the common pieces of the assembly are pretty standard:

From here, we add a simple cap onto the right arm:

On the left arm, we have to attach the spare beam saber and its holster. This is an unusual and untraditional place to store a beam saber, though if you think about it, maybe it shouldn’t be. Seems like a handy place to keep (pun intended).

You have to plug the beam saber into a small hinge piece that not only keeps in place, but allows it to move. Then you add a backing piece, and finally the a yellow cap on the bottom:

If you pull on the cap, the backing piece slides down, and the saber pops out to the side, ready to be drawn:

Build Complete … and I am Tired

I have always found that building Real Grades is an experience that is both mentally exhausting and extremely rewarding. They leave me feeling wiped out, and I usually end up taking a break afterward (usually unconsciously. I’ll wake up one morning and realize it’s been X weeks since I last even considered doing a build, much to my surprise).

But that’s okay, because they end up looking so good, so detailed, so interesting, that I usually don’t find myself needing to rush into another build. There is a reason why it took me two years to make my first four models. I got literally months of enjoyment just looking at them on my desk. You can get a lot of mileage out of a well built Real Grade.

This build wasn’t any different, but it also was. It was more exhausting than anything I’ve built before, even the two Master Grades I did a while back. There were so many parts, so much detailing work, and such a great margin for error.

“Don’t break that tiny piece.”

“Don’t LOSE that tiny piece.”

“Make sure you put that decal in the right spot.”

“Don’t forget to paint or topcoat that piece, because you can’t put the arm together without it.”

And so on and so forth …

After getting off to a good start and a fast pace, the building process started to get to me. Unlike with past builds, I didn’t get impatient. Quite the opposite in fact: I would go days without touching it, and when I did try to get to work, I didn’t give it my full attention and focus. That meant I got sloppy, which is why I lost pieces and decals (though amazingly I managed not to break anything).

By some miracle, I managed to have one productive night near the end of the month, and I carried that momentum through November 29th and 30th to just get the damn thing done before December came around¹.

And I did it! I got the damn thing done! And as I find myself (still) processing my thoughts about it, I still think this might have been the least enjoyable build I’ve ever undertaken.

But that’s okay. Because while the build was even more intense and exhausting than is typical for a Real Grade, the end result was equally more rewarding:

Because this is a goddamn work of art. And we’re going to be spending quite a lot more time with it over the next few posts. Get ready for it.