It’s been over two weeks since I finished the Master Grade F91, but I finally got around to taking some photos (I told you I’d pull through eventually).
Anyway, here it is!
Despite everything that went wrong, I’m still extremely happy with how this model turned out. It turns out that in this case, time really does heal all wounds. After being away from the build process for so long, I honestly don’t zero in on the mistakes like I used to. They’re still there, but they don’t bother me.
And even if they did, it wouldn’t matter, because overall this model still manages to blow me away. This Master Grade does such a good job of capturing all of the intricate surface details and color separation that makes the F91 such a stunning design.
A Few More Remarks
A few more remarks before we look at the articulation:- I posted this build to the Gunpla subreddit and I got a few compliments, so it’s not just me who thinks it came out alright.
- One of the commenters compared the F91 to the Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation, which I think is a great comparison. They were both meant to usher in a new era for their respective series, and even if the F91 film failed to do so, it was through no fault of its mobile suit design.
- I generally don’t like mobile suits with overly large wings or backpacks, but I do like the VSBRs. I think they strike the right balance: they’re big, but not too big.
- The F91 is, to this day, one of the least blocky Gundam designs. It has so many curves; it really does look like a race car.
Articulation
Judged on its own, the articulation is not great. I haven’t done any action poses yet, so I don’t know how much of a problem this is going to be. For now, all I can do is report on my findings.
As with many models, the root problem is that the range of most body parts is limited by the armor getting in the way. For instance, the fairly bulky arms prevent it from getting more than a 45 degree arm flex:
The shoulder joints aren’t really designed to accommodate upwards movement, so the arms can move up only slightly higher than a T-pose:
The range of its torso rotation depends on how far you want to push it. This is about as far as it can go naturally:
If we take a look around back, we can see why: the torso bumps up against the bazooka clip, which rests slightly higher than the rear skirt armor even when it is closed up:
If you really want to, you can push it further, but you may cause the clip to pop off. If you’re doing a front facing pose, you’d be better off removing the top of the clip off, so as not to break it.
Let’s try a split:
The skirt armor gets in the way, but I’d say that’s a little bit better than half a split.
When it comes to the legs, we have to remember that the knee joint can be extended to give it some extra range. But even when it is extended, the leg armor gets in the way:
The skirt armor also gets in the way of a good leg lift:
But this is largely mitigated by bending the back:
Indeed, the model has a fairly decent back and forward bend (though it doesn’t really look it from photos, so I’m not going to show any. Just trust me that it’s good enough).
Now we get to the feet. As I mentioned during the build, the model can point its toes up, but not down:
This is a little weird for a Gunpla, but it’s actually more similar to a real human foot. Which means you can get a decent walking pose:
There’s also some nice ankle articulation:
This allows for some nice wide stances:
Is it Good Enough?
I don’t yet know for sure if the articulation will be good enough for action poses. Everything we’ve seen so far suggests the answer will be “no”, but I’m not entirely convinced. If you’ve seen the F91 film, you’ll know that the mobile suit is a lot of fun to watch in action, but it’s mainly due to its cool weapons and gimmicks, moreso than any acrobatics. The F91 tends to move its whole body when it attacks, so the limbs may not need a whole lot of range to come up with a good pose.
Hopefully I’ll be able to find out sooner rather than later. I’ll admit that I’ve been putting off action poses during these last few weeks, partly out of a fear of being disappointed (and partly out of fear that I may break something).
Let’s just agree to this - I’ll give them a shot, and if they don’t work out, then we’ll just move on and I won’t force the issue. The model itself still looks good, and as long as I can come up with one or two poses to use when it’s on the shelf, that will do just fine.