Gunpla Build - High Grade Jesta Cannon (Part 1)

As always, let’s begin with a look at the runners:

As you can see, most of the runners are massive. This model definitely has a generous amount of parts for a High Grade - and since I’ve already built it, I can tell you that only a few of them are unused “spares”.

You might also notice that it comes with two separte sheets of decals. One of them contains color correcting stickers, while the other comes with logos and other optional markings, much like the High Grade GM Custom. The latter of the two uses Japanese characters, rather than Arabic numbers. I thought this practice was abandoned a few years before this model’s 2013 release date, but it looks like I was wrong.

In any case, let’s get to those weapons.

Shield

The shield is basically a cooler, asymmetrical variant of the Jegan’s shield. It has the same rack of missile tubes, but in this case they’re all mounted on the same edge:

Unfortunately, due to the design of the mobile suit, the Jesta Cannon cannot equip the shield without removing its shoulder guns. That’s because you have to make room so you can attach one of these two control arms into the backpack:

But we’ll get to that later.

In terms of detailing on the shield, I did have to paint the four missiles, as well as do some of panel lining across the middle. The decals are all completely optional; the instruction manual don’t even offer suggestions on where to put them.

Beam Saber

You get two beam effect parts, specifically the “short” style ones, which I prefer on High Grades.

You only get one handle, and while it is made of two pieces, you can hardly tell.

Rifles

The main body of this model kit has excellent part separation, but the same cannot be said of its rifles. While they have a lot of surface level details, it’s all molded into two big hunks of plastic. You’re going to need to paint these if you want them looking halfway decent.

Speaking of which, when it came time to figure out how to paint them, I found the task to be quite stressful. So much detail meant there were so many different paths I could take.

Ultimately I took some inspiration from someone else’s custom build. Unfortunately I can no longer find a link to it - suffice to say that it was extremely similar to what you’re about to see.

Here is what I first came up with:

I decided there was too much copper and not enough black. So I went back and redid it:

I think this looks a little better. The extra black creates a sense of continuity through the body of the gun, and that in turn creates a more effective illusion of part separation.

Overall, I really like the looks of these weapons. Sure, the big rifle is a little too big, but I think they manage to look fairly realistic without ripping off any real life firearms.

I also like how obvious it is obvious that the larger rifle is just a modified version of the smaller, standard Jesta rifle. It’s a nice bit of continuity in design.

Shoulder Guns

Neither of the shoulder guns are terribly complicated, but with just a little bit of detailing, you can make them look pretty good:

You may have noticed that the shorter gun looks a bit two-toned. That’s because it actually uses color correcting stickers. Not sure why it needs to be multicolored, though I must admit that it does look neat.

In terms of articulation, the guns can both move up and down, but not side to side.

I guess that makes sense, otherwise they might brush up agaist head.

Conclusion

With the exception of the rifles, all these accessories were a lot of fun to build. And while the rifles weren’t fun, the results were worth the work. I chose to build the Jesta Cannon because I wanted to borrow its guns to use in another build, and it’s clear now that I made the right choice. These are going to pair perfectly with that other model kit, and maybe future kits as well.