The Strike Freedom’s weapons weren’t perfect, but they were wonderfully weird. They gave me hope that the rest of this build will be similarly interesting.
Feet
You know what’s not wonderfully weird? The feet. They’re about as standard issue as you could possibly get:
I feel like I’ve used this exact kind of construction several times before, complete with the toe bend and everything.
Visually, they’re fairly plain, though the oddly appealing:
I like how they’re blue, when most Gundams have red soles. I also like how that one little white piece creates such a strong sense of part separation.
Legs
This part requires quite a bit of painting and detaiing, but we’ll get to that in a minute. First, the partiall inner frame:
Pretty standard stuff, except for it all being gold.
Now let’s talk about the detailing. The bit in the front of the shin has to be painted grey, then the inner wall has to be painted red. There are also some vents in the front that you can shade in to fake some parts separation:
Without this extra bit of detailing, I think the legs would look far too plain, but with it, they look just complex enough.
On a final note, check out this knee bend!
Lower Torso
This too is shockingly plain:
I feel like this is a pattern with any mobile suit that’s got a lot going on in its top half (see the Wing Zero as another example). They make the lower bits clean and simple, probably to prevent visual overstimulation:
I mean, that back skirt armor is two tiny panel lines away from being completely flat and smooth.
But you know what? I think it works:
We see a little bit of each color, each one roughly isolated form the rest. It feels colorful without feeling busy.
Upper Torso
Now this is where we’ll see a lot more color:
These three bits here come together to make the whole shebang (minus the back piece):
And then with all the final trimmings:
Despite being so colorful, it still doesn’t feel busy. The two different tones of blue work really well together, and both the grey and gold bits are neutral. That leaves only red as the odd color out, and without any yellow (or green) to get in the way, I think the hint of red ends up pairing well with the dark blue. I feel vindicated in my belief that the Strike Freedom has one of the better color schemes in Gundam SEED.
Side Skirt Armor … Guns … Things?
The Strike Freedom has some extra side skirts.
Well, actually, they’re guns … but they’re kind of shaped like side skirts … okay, so I’m not really sure what they classify as. All I know is that, due to their construction, you can’t actually assemble them until the upper torso is finished:
All you do is assemble these two separate sections, and then connect them together with these swivel joints:
This, of course, allows them to deploy or fold closed as needed:
Once they’re ready, we assemble them by attaching them directly to the upper torso:
This is interesting, because it means the Strike freedom doesn’t have “traditional” side skirts. If look behind the guns, there’s just a big gap in the side of its body:
Personally, I think they look a bit too much like guns and not enough like side skirts, but I guess that’s the point.