Gunpla Build - Master Grade Gundam F91 (Part 3)

Skirt Armor

We already completed the inner frame for the lower torso, so “all” we have to do now is assemble the skirt armor.

I put “all” in quotes because the skirt armor itself still requires a lot of work. It’s a good thing though! This was by far the most fun I’ve had so far with this build.

Let’s start off here, with the crotch area:

Instead of a traditional “Crotch-V”, we get some nice looking vents. Note that the black shading are panel lines, to give it a nice sense of depth.

Now on to the front skirts. We start by embedding an orange piece inside the frame, which will eventually (and cleverly) become not one, but two orange vents:

We then do the exact same thing for the rear skirt:

And then cover it all up:

Here’s a fun little gimmick - the raised section in the center is hiding a secret compartment. Let’s open it up:

What we have here is a claw-shaped holder for the Beam Caster. Lots of model kits have something like this, but this is the first time I’ve seen one that can fold away like this when not in use¹.

Now let’s tackle the side skirts. The big gimmick here is that they store the beam sabers on one side, and an extra beam shield on the other. While they’ll look identical from the outside, on the inside they have very different storage mechanisms:

For the beam sabers, we get this nifty control arm that pops out and provides a limited amount of movement:

As for the beam shield emitter, it fits in snuggly, so there’s little to no extra space inside. All the skirt armor can do is open slightly to let it out:

It would have been really cool if it had some sort of springy ejection feature, but this is still impressive. Both gimmicks make the model feel extremely high tech.

Let’s now take a look at the side skirts one attached to the body:

I love all the little details, and all of the color separation. The F91 is such a deceptively intricate design, where even the skirt armor has a lot going on (don’t let the lack of panel lines fool you).

Comparison to the High Grade F91

Back when I built the High Grade F91, I found myself in a bit of a jam regarding the skirt armor. I initially painted in all the triangles and vents with yellow paint, but it ended up looking too bright and distracting. There was simply too much yellow dotting the body.

At some point, I came across an illustration of the mobile suit that suggested that, in fact, the vents on the skirt armor are not supposed to be yellow, but rather grey, with a very tiny yellow tint around the edges. In the end, this was the look I aimed for, and at the time I was happy with it. But looking at it now, it’s pretty dire:

What makes this even more frustrating is that I can’t remember what illustration I was looking at that gave me this idea. I’m 99.999999% certain that it wasn’t this official illustration, because if this is what I saw, then I would have (or at least should have) noticed that they’re supposed to be orange:

The difference in color is important - by using both yellow and orange for its triangles and vents, the F91 avoids having either of the two colors dominate, which in turn prevents either color from being too loud. If I had done this in the first place, I doubt it would have looked as overpowering as it did when I used only yellow.

Either I never did come across this illustration, or I somehow misinterpreted it. I’m really hoping it was the former, because if it was the latter than I may just melt out of embarrassment.

Setting aside my self-inflicted mistakes, I think the skirt armor on the High Grade does a pretty good job of capturing the important details:

The only thing that looks dramatically different is the rear skirt. The holder for the Beam Caster is not (and cannot be) tucked away, and the bit of armor right below it is a different shape. But those are really the only differences; overall, I have to give this section the same high marks for fidelity as I gave the legs.

Upper Torso

I made some more mistakes here. You won’t see them all in the photos below, but you will see them all eventually.

These mistakes include:

• Chipping off a piece of the blue cockpit hatch
• Creating some stress marks on the left blue chest piece
• Accidentally scraping off a layer of top coat on the same left blue chest piece

None of these are easily fixable. Maybe the last one is if I strip off all the topcoat and reapply, but knowing my luck that would somehow make things worse. Instead, I just did another layer to try and even it out a bit.

Now, are any of these mistakes dealbreakers? Not really. The stress marks are fairly hard to see, and from certain angles the chipped off clearcoat looks more like a hazy sheen. The chip on the hatch is the only one that is really noticeable (and believe me, it really bugs me). In the aggregate, I shouldn’t feel too bad, but the truth is that I still feel deflated.

I wanted this model to look very special. I mean really special. As close to perfect as possible. But between all these mistakes, as well as the mistake I made on the legs, that’s no longer possible.

I’m trying to take solace in the fact that even people with decades of experience building models still make mistakes (though I’m sure those folks have the tools and the know-how to fix most of them too). Or the fact that the Law of Averages ensures that I’m basically guaranteed to make some number of gaffes like this for any sufficiently large model. Case in point - I know I screwed up the “crotch-v” on the Real Grade Nu Gundam, and I broke its V-Fin. But whenever I pass it by on the shelf and look at it, neither of those flaws stand out. My hope, then, is that the same thing ends up being true for this one (and if not, I guess I can always cover up these mistakes with some weathering to make it look like battle damage).

And, of course, I vow to try to do that much better next time.

In regards to the build, the chest is done in layers. We first begin with the cockpit area and the surrounding frame:

This being a Master Grade, not only do we get a tiny pilot figure, but it actually fits into the cockpit:

Painting these little human figures isn’t easy, but I know I can do better than this. Since this one isn’t really going to be seen, I intentionally opted for some quick, sloppy color just to give it some amount of detail.

Here’s another fun gimmick - the model comes with tiny cockpit monitors, which I painted in various metallic colors for the heck of it

It then fits in neatly alongside the pilot figure:

Once that’s done, we basically wrap up the cockpit bubble with a whole lot of armor and framing:

It’s a bit weird realizing that the pilot is placed right behind the heat vents in the chest. I bet it gets pretty toasty in there.

Next we add the cockpit hatch, and then finally the blue armor plates (which don’t appear in this photo. Just use your imagination for the next few paragraphs until we get to the end):

Once the chest is done, we can move on to the backpack:

As you can see, the main “body” of the backpack is completely clear. If you’re like me, you’re now wondering how the heck that’s going to work. Spoiler - it all gets covered up in the end.

First, we slot in these white separators:

Then we add the thrusters:

When it’s all said and done, the only clear bits that are visible are direcly in the center, and that’s only to allow the light of the LED to shine through.

Lastly, we have to plug the thrusters into the chassis, and then hook up the control arms for the VSBRs:

And now we’re done with the entire upper torso:

Despite my mistakes, it still looks incredible. The chest has that beautiful, lean, “sports car” look, and the backpack is perfectly color separated.

Comparisons to the High Grade F91

First off, the backpack is obviously night and day:

While I know I could have painted that backpack better if given the chance today, I still don’t know if I’d get it anywhere close to “good enough” considering how small it is. It just begs for real parts separation like you get on the Master Grade. There isn’t any debate here - the High Grade version is junk in comparison.

Now let’s focus on the chest. In some ways it is a far more interesting comparison.

I’ve said it before, but something about the chest of the High Grade model feels off. And I think I finally figured out what it is.

First, the proportions aren’t quite right. On the Master Grade, the upper torso is noticeably longer:

Additionally, the blue plating looks relatively wider on the MG (even though both torsos seem to be the same relative width overall):

Second, the skirt armor on the Master Grade looks like it is ever so slightly higher up on the waist. This hides the connection point between the upper and lower torsos, and gives an illusion of vertical continuity across the body.

All of these differences combine to achieve a particular visual effect in each model. For lack of better words, the Master Grade F91 has the appearance of a (largely feminine) human silhouette underneath all the armor. Something like this:

The High Grade, on the other hand, looks like someone dropped a square box (the chest) on top of a wide platform (the lower torso). It’s silhouette is angles rather than curves:

The High Grade chest erases some of the most subtle (but crucial) curves of the F91, and it throws off the entire model.

Conclusion

There’s no denying I made mistakes this time, but I think there’s still a chance for redemption. If I can get the VSBRs and the shoulders (with those big “F” and “91” logos) to look perfect, they should serve as an excellent distraction from all the flaws.

The big question now is - can I pull all of that off?