Gunpla Build - High Grade Shenlong Gundam Final

These last few days have been wild to say the least. The went something like this:

Thursday, November 10: Finished Shenlong for realsies. At this point I feel that the build was good and clean, but the model itself - mostly the head - looks a bit off.

Saturday, November 12: Took photos. Still believe it was a clean build, and I was able to work around the head, positioning it at different angles so that it looked less derpy. Later on I clean up all of my tools and put the model on the shelf.

Monday, November 14: Took my first real look at the photos from Saturday. Suddenly I now think the head looks perfectly fine. Also, I’m noticing mistakes that I never saw before, most notably some crusty black paint on the left side of the head, as well as some clear coat frosting on the backside. I go into a mini nervous breakdown, as I struggle to understand how, after just a day or two, the model looks so much different than it did before. Why does the head look so different, and why didn’t I notice these mistakes earlier?

I don’t have an answer to the first question, but I do have on for the second. On Monday night I took the model off the shelf, took a good look at it, and realized that the mistakes (especially the crusty paint on the head) are nearly invisible to the naked eye, even when viewed up close.

Of course, cameras are not the same as human eyes. Sometimes they can see things “better” than we can, and while I don’t quite understand the technical details behind it all, it seems true that my camera settings for taking photos in the lightbox are such that they highlight fine grained details - including mistakes - that you might not see otherwise.

Since I couldn’t see these flaws without the camera - and since I didn’t take a close look at the photos until Monday morning - that explains why I was seeing them for the first time.

Now, this may be a controversial decision, but I decided to omit the photos in which the flaws are most apparent. Obviously I’m not trying to deny they exist, considering I just mentioned them several times. And here, I’ll even give you a look at them, just once:

But that’s it. The rest of the pics in this wrapup post are going to present the model in the best possible light, because that’s kind of the point of a wrapup post.

Let’s begin:

Overall Look

I still can’t explain it, but I no longer think the head looks derpy. It still looks a little squished, and it still isn’t 100% accurate to how it is in the TV show, but in general it looks fine.

Indeed, that’s true for the entire model. Yes, the color tones are a bit too neutral and plain¹, and yes, the green things on the shoulders still look cheesy, but overall I do think it nails that “fierce warrior” look. While it may have the worst color scheme of the five Gundams, at the same time, I think it has one of the best armor design (aside from those goofy green shoulder domes …)

Dragon Fang

So we learned how the Dragon Fang works during the assembly process, but how does it look in action? Here is how far it extends in its stock configuration, without doing any partsformation:

That’s … pretty good! It’s certainly long enough to sell the idea that this is the Dragon Fang.

But how does it look like with the partsformation? Let’s find out.

To start, we’ll the need parts:

All we have to do is disassemble the existing arm segments and insert these two extender pieces at two specific points in the chain:

This is where I learned that the whole Dragon Fang uses a locking mechanism to keep each segment together:

When you plug in one of these segments and give it a twist, these “teeth” prevent it from being pulled out. Of course, you can accidentally undo this if you rotate a segment the wrong way so that the teeth line up with the hole. Still, it’s a clever idea!

Here now is the Dragon Fang fully extended:

While technically impressive, I actually don’t like having it this way. The joints struggle under the extra length and extra weight, so I found it a bit harder to keep the arm in exactly the position I was going for. The “original” length is plenty for my needs.

Articulation

I did a full test of all the joints, but I’m not going to show the results, since those are the photos where the model’s flaws are most visible.

It really doesn’t matter much though, since Shenlong uses the same joints as Sandrock, Deathscythe, and Heavyarms. It can pretty much do everything they can. I can even confirm that there aren’t really any instances where the armor gets in the way of any of the joints. Surprisingly, not even the Dragon Head on the right arm causes any notable problems.

On a related note, this kit is fairly sturdy overall. I had to tighten up one leg joint, but other than that it managed to hold together throughout the photo shoot.

Action Poses

You’d think that posing Shenlong would be similar to Deathscythe. After all, both mobile suits use a shield and a long pole weapon.

And yet, for some reason I had a much easier time posing Shenlong.

I think it has to do with the fact that, despite being of similar size and shape, the beam glaive is more versatile than a scythe:

The glaive looks more natural in both one and two handed poses, as well as in both thrusting and slashing poses.

Of course, it also looks great just standing there showing off:

Conclusion

I had a lot of fun posing this thing, and I do think the overall design is sound. But the overall look is still just … fine. It’s flaws don’t ruin it, perse, but they do bring it down a bit. If ever there was a mobile suit in dire need of a repaint, it’s this one.

Has my opinion of Shenlong risen thanks to this model kit? Yes. Has it risen as much as my opinion of Heavyarms or Sandrock? Not quite.

Do I think this ranks among the best of the five model kits in terms of poseability, sturdiness, and gimmicks? Absolutely.

In other words, it’s a great model of an okay mobile suit. Make what you will of that.