Feet
This is a fairly common design, with separate toe and heel sections. All of the black bits on the toe needed to be painted:
It’s not identical, but it reminds me a lot of the feet on the F91.
There’s a pretty nice toe bend, but it goes in the wrong direction!
Legs
A few observations here:
- It looks to me like there are quite a few more pieces than usual
- There is a lot of surface detail on the partial inner frame
- Once again, there’s a lot to paint
Despite having a few extra parts, it goes together pretty normally. The blue cap on the knee is unusual, but it adds a nice bit of color:
Then there are the heat venting fins on the sides, which are one of the model’s gimmicks. You might think this is based on the venting system on the F91, but these are actually from the Double X Gundam:
You have to be careful when assembling this part. The individual fins must go in exactly the right place, and in exactly the right orientation.
And with that, the legs are complete:
Overall, I love the look, though I think the covers for the heat fins could be a bit smaller.
Lower Torso
Once again, we have an unexpectedly large pile of parts. There’s a lot going on in just the inner frame alone:
And even the crotch:
On the side skirts, we get the usual parts layering that we see on modern High Grades:
I really love these two colors, and how much the model is willing to use them:
The model is really coming along now. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something about the lines on this model that feel atypical for a Gundam.
Let’s wrap up for now. In the next part, we’ll two the rest of the body, and then we’ll wrap up with the wings (which I predict will need a whole post all to themselves).