Gunpla Build - Master Grade Gundam F91 (Part 1)

I’m so excited for this build! Not so excited that I plan to rush through it, but excited nonetheless. Let’s get started.

It should be no surprise to any of us that a Master Grade has a lot of parts:

But I must admit that I did forget how “premium” a good Master Grade kit feels.

For instance, we get a display stand:

We get fancy gold parts with a nice shiny coating (as opposed to the cheap, toylike gold plastic you typically get):

We get three separate decal sheets, including dry transfer decals:

And a nice, stapled instruction manual:

It’s been a while since I’ve had a gunpla that has all these nice things in the box. It makes me feel classy or something.

Beam Saber

Not much to show here. It’s a simple handle with a nice clear green blade. I don’t know why the F91 uses green instead of red, but I’m not complaining. For some reason it feels appropriate, in a way that it wouldn’t with other mobile suits:

Comparison to the HG F91

Believe it or not, the beam saber handles for the High Grade model are ever so slightly longer than on the MG:

My guess is that this has to do with storage. The Master Grade model is large enough that it can store its beam saber handles inside of its skirt armor, but it’s also small enough that space is still going to be tight. Trimming the size of the handles probably made the gimmick easier to implement.

Meanwhile, the HG model is far too small to store anything in its skirt armor, so the handles could be properly scaled.

In the end, the size difference doesn’t really matter. It’s not like you see much of a beam saber handle when it is held in hand.

What I find much more interesting is that they have slightly different shapes, and different detailing. The MG handle is a simple tube, with some nice lines running along one side. On the other hand, the HG version is tapered on both ends, and lacks the same kind of surface detail. I guess I like the look of the HG one more, but as I said, it doesn’t really matter when it’s being held in hand.

Beam Shield

We get beam shield emitters: one for the arm, and one to store in the skirt armor:

To assemble them, you basically create a box out of four pieces. It’s pretty simple, but it works.

In terms of detailing, you get a triangle decal for the top, but nothing for the emitter ports running along the sides. These are supposed to be black with a yellow outline, which is tricky to pull off even at this size. Instead, I painted them yellow, then added some black highlights:

It isn’t 100% movie accurate, but (I think) it still looks pretty cool.

In order to attach the beam effect part to the emitter, you still (unfortunately) have to take it apart, in order to wedge the shield between the front and back plates. The good news is that the plates come apart without any resistance, so I don’t forsee any future breakage:

Comparison to the HG F91

The High Grade version replicates the general shape. However, due its small size, there are no rectangular openings along the sides. Instead, it actually has rectangles that protrude outward:

As you can see, I just painted them straight yellow. I guess if I had painted the center/protruding rectangles black it probably would have looked more accurate (at least from certain angles).

Still, there is something to be said about the parts separation in the Master Grade version.

Now, let’s attach the beam effect parts

While they have the same general shape, the Master Grade version looks far more rough and “wavy”. I actually prefer the look of the HG shield, as it seems more accurate to the way beam shields are depicted in animation.

Beam Rifle

This is a simple construction, but it’s packed with so much great detail:

If you’re wondering why some of the parts are smeared with excess gold paint, that’s because those sections are going to get covered up. This is one time where I had license to be sloppy.

Here it is all assembled:

A few notes:

• Yes, I did the gloss coat/matte coat combo again. I think it’s become one of those “when you have a hammer” situations, where I just can’t help myself. I’ll probably (hopefully) stop once this can of Mr. Hobby gloss runs out.
  • In my defense, I think it looks particularly good in this case
• I love how the (painted) gold details in the interior peek out from the white exterior.
• That yellow triangle at the tip is not supposed to be painted, but now it matches all the yellow triangles that run along the mobile suit’s body.

I love the look of this rifle. A lot of Universal Century weapons were designed to be near-identical copies of actual firearms, but even the ones that weren’t still tended to borrow from the visual language of modern weapons.

Then there are the weapons for the F91, which instead have a sleek, futuristic look to them. It really feels like the ushering in of a new era of mobile suits, one that has the luxury of focusing on aesthetics as much as engineering (something I’ve said before about another mobile suit from the UC 0100’s).

Comparison to the HG F91

Hmmmm ….

As it turns out, neither version of the Beam Rifle is 100% movie-accurate.

Here is an artist’s sketch of the rifle:

Now here are the two models:

To my eye, the following things are “correct” on the High Grade version:

• Muzzle
• Grips

And here is what is correct on the Master Grade:

• All the detailing on the white exterior

I also have a few additional observations:

• The High Grade rifle does not have a white cap fixed atop its camera, and the camera decal uses a different tone of blue:
• The surface details on the High Grade rifle don’t even attempt to look correct. While they roughly (and I do mean _roughly_) echo the original design, everything is in some way flipped, exaggerated, altered, etc.
• While most of the black sections of the Master Grade rifle are incorrect, the only change that’s really noticeable is the shape of the barrel. Everything else is much less noteworthy.
• The Master Grade rifle greatly benefits from having actual cutouts in its white exterior, which allow the black frame underneath to peek through. It creates a sense of depth that not even a good pane line can replicate.
• Looking at these side by side, it becomes immediately obvious that the High Grade rifle isn’t simply scaled down in size - its proportions have also been altered. It’s a bit taller from top to bottom, and a bit shorter from left to right. It’s a small but noticeable change, and to be honest I don’t like it. In fact, this may explain why I rarely posed the HG F91 with this weapon. Perhaps I subconsciously knew that something was … off about it.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again - while it is technically impressive just how much detail they managed to cram into the High Grade F91, the end result is less than the sum of the parts. I’m not even willing to entertain the idea that it’s some sort of “artistic re-envisioning” - it just looks like a bad ripoff.

Meanwhile, even if it isn’t 100% accurate, the Master Grade rifle feels correct.

Beam Caster

The Beam Caster uses a decent number of parts, though it’s not exactly complicated:

This black piece runs across the entire length of the weapon:

Though we’ll only see a little bit of it once it is fully assembled!

Now all we have to do is add the bits to the front and back, and we’re done:

Once again I used a gloss coat on all the black parts, with the exception of the E-Pack in the rear. I wanted that to have a more rough and rugged look (I’m not entirely sure why).

Like the Beam Rifle, the Beam Caster looks very stylish and futuristic. It may have the general shape of a bazooka, but to my eye it feels like something different. That’s the mark of a good design.

Comparison to the HG F91

Again, here is a sketch of the weapon:

And here are the two models:

It’s basically the same story as with the two Beam Rifles. Once again, there is a part of the High Grade version that is more movie accurate, namely the area right behind the camera:

Once again, there are a lot of other surface details on the High Grade that are incorrect. For example, the fins on the back are completely wrong, as are the diagonal grill marks running along the sides.

Once again, the proportions are off. The High Grade Beam Caster doesn’t feel long enough, even at its relative scale.

Having said all that, I think it looks closer to its Master Grade counterpart than the Beam Rifle does.

Conclusion

My gut instinct is so far proving to be correct. The extra size of the Master Grade F91 really is making a difference. Excepting the Beam Saber, every single one of these weapons benefits from being larger. The details are more noticeable, and both the details and proportions are (mostly) more accurate. Unlike with the HG model, I am actively excited to equip all of these accessories on the final model.