Gunpla Build - HG Woundwart Psychoblade Custom (Part 1)

Sooooo it’s been a while since. Eighteen days, give or take.

That’s because this build has been a real trip. At the time of this writing, it’s now complete, but we have a lot of ground to cover. So much so, in fact, that this post isn’t going to cover the build itself, but rather pretty much everything surrounding it. Trust me, it’ll make the actual build post go much smoother.

(Also, I’m going to frame this post as a conversation/FAQ between me and some hypothetical reader. Please just humor me)

Okay, here I am, your friendly neighborhood reader. Where do we begin?

Where we always begin: with the runners:

That's a lot of parts!

You bet it is.

First question off the top of my head - why are there two display stands?

One is for the mobile suit itself, and one is for propping up its weapon when it is in Claw Mode:

This is unusual. Normally, if a mobile suit has a “prop-able” weapon, you have to buy something separate to do the propping (usually an Action Base, or in the case of Witch From Mercury kits, a pack of Weapon Display Bases). I guess this is an example of Bandai actually putting the “premium” into “Premium Bandai”.

Next Question - Does it use ALL of these parts?

No

Then why does it have extras? Other than the Psychoblade crest on the head, I thought this was the same as the original Woundwort

So did I, but it turns out not to be true. There are three (well, really just two) main differences between this version and the original:

1. The head is actually an entirely new sculpt
2. The legs are slightly different. On the Psychoblade custom, the legs have different internals to allow it to combine with the High Grade ReZeon Barzam:

   

3. Externally, the legs also expose a more of the inner frame, but only from the backside:

   

And that’s it really.

So this is just a case where they tossed in some of the runners from the original model

Yes.

Did they toss ALL of them in? Can you build an OG Woundwort instead of the Psychoblade version?

Yes you can.

That's pretty cool I guess. So which version did you choose to build?

I did a hybrid. I built the Psychoblade head, but the original legs. As far as I can tell, the new legs don’t support the transformation into Mobile Armor mode. And since the head isn’t involved at all in the transformation, building the original legs gives me the best of both worlds.

So how many unused parts did you end up with in the end?

I had all of these intact runners:

As well as these loose parts:

In regards to the runners, the purple and black ones contain all the parts for building the new legs. As for the yellow runner, I’m pretty sure the only reason it’s included is so that you have the two yellow V-Fin parts with which to build the original Woundwort head. Everything else goes unused, since aside from those V-Fins, neither version of the Woundwort contains any other yellow parts.

That doesn't seem like TOO many extra parts

I’ve seen worse, but the problem with all of these parts is that they’re so specialized that I can’t imagine ever using them as spares, or as part of any sort of kitbash. So their presence annoys me more than usual.

What's the plan for painting and detailing this thing?

Months ago - after seeing the manga cover pictured below, I bought a can of gloss coat that I said aside just for this build:

I was convinced that it needed to look glossy - or that least the black armor parts do. But I was thinking of using a matte coat on all the purple parts that make up the inner frame.

Indeed, that’s what I did initially, but I didn’t end up liking it. There’s something about this particular shade of purple that makes the plastic look really cheap and, well, plasticky. And as it turns out, a matte coat only made it look worse.

On the flip side, a gloss coat made it look a little bit better. So while I’m generally a fan of mixing matte coated parts with gloss coated to create a contrast of textures, I’ve also had luck going with a (near) full gloss paint job, so that’s ultimately what I decided to do again here.

How bad is the color correction?

The model has a bunch of color correcting decals. If you rely on them, then there’s not too much mandatory and/or important color correction to be done. If not, then you’ll have some work to do.

To be honest though, it’s kind of hard to say. There’s a lot of optional color correction and panel lining, and this was a rare instance in which I didn’t bother with all of it. In terms of what I did, this wasn’ a difficult model to detail. But I can’t really say how hard it would be if I did it all.

How about seam lines?

Again, not much. There’s one in the front of each leg, but everything else is largely invisible.

Anything else worth noting?

The kit comes with an extremely large sheet of polycaps, but it doesn’t use all that many. My guess is that it was easier to just toss in one of the larger, generic polycap runners than to create one custom for the Woundwort.

On a more interesting note, this build was unlike any I’ve ever done before. I suppose it should be no surprise that its unorthodox design is leads to a similarly unorthodox build.

Can you be more specific about what makes it so weird?

First, it uses quite a lot of (very small) parts for a High Grade. It may not technically have a full inner frame, but it’s pretty darn close.

Second, it features quite a few hinges, all of which help support various gimmicks. At a certain point it started to feel like I was working with LEGO Technic.

Interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing the build

I’m looking forward to writing about it!