Gunpla Build - HG Woundwart Psychoblade Custom (Part 3)

Our last post was all about a single weapon. With any luck, this post should cover the rest of the model.

Head

The kit comes with all the parts needed to build either the original Woundwort head, or the Psychoblade Custom version. Unfortunately, they share one part in common - namely, the red “core” of the head which contains both the eyes and the chin. Because of this, you have to choose one - and only one - head to build:

Let’s talk a little about the Psychoblade crest. A lot of builders have complained that it looks pretty bad out of the box. The plastic is gold-ish, but not really bright and shiny. And the female body at the center of the crest doesn’t necessarily have a ton of detail.

While I agree that it’s not a great out-of-the-box look, I do think it is possible to make it look better. Here’s what I did:

1. Trim off the guard tabs from all four of the fins
2. Cover the whole thing in gold Gundam Marker
3. Use a bit of weathering compound on the body to bring out some of the detail
4. Spray the whole thing in gloss coat

As for the main body of the head, it’s got quite a few panel lines. I used the same purple-grey’ish paint I used on the gun barrel to fill in these (and other) lines; I think it adds a lot of extra detail to what’s already a very intricate head design.

Speaking of which, here it is:

It’s a very cool design, and I think the Psychoblade crest looks much better now (if I do say so myself).

Is That a Bonnet?

I never quite noticed it until now, but it kind of looks like the Woundwort is wearing a bonnet. You can see it better without the Psychoblade: Perhaps this is another reason why so many people think the Woundwort is coded female.

Upper Torso

This is going to be a running theme with the Woundwort, but the upper torso is made out of quite a few parts despite its relatively small size.

Here is the back half:

This is the second place where the model asks you to apply an obnoxiously large color correcting decal to a curved surface (the first being the gun barrel). In retrospect, this decal can easily be ignored. It’s not super visible on the finished model, and making this section white instead of black doesn’t really add much to the overall look. In my case, I tried smoothing it out a bit more after taking this photo, and I figured it’d look a little better after topcoating.

Here is a side view of the front half:

Here we see our first example of a hinge piece.

Lastly, here it is from the front:

I had to use black panel lining marker on the inside of the white chest vents. I always like when I don’t have to bust out paints in such small spaces.

This is one of those cases where no matter how small you think it looks in photos, it looks even smaller in real life.

Lower Torso

Like the upper torso, the lower torso is made up of a lot of pieces. _Un_like it, it’s rather large and oddly shaped.

We start off with this humble bit of inner frame:

Then we add this … codpiece? … to the front:

It has a little robot arm inside that’s hooked on a hinge, so you can flip it out and forward. I guess it’s meant to hold an additional weapon if need be, though I’m not sure if any actual Gunpla accessories would fit in it.

Here it is from the front, with the robot arm tucked away:

This Woundwort may not have a V-Fin, but it’s got the Crotch V, so it’s still a Gundam.

Next we create another bit of inner frame:

The official description of the Woundwort describes it as having a “drum frame”, and I think that this is what that’s referring to.

Finally, we have the booty rear carapace:

Here we get one of the few examples of a non color correcting decal. I would have used one of my many waterslide decals of the Zeon logo instead, but alas, this Re Zeon logo looks slightly different, and I wanted to go for accuracy.

The carapace also contains two color correcting decals, namely the two green bits on the side. These were actually easy to apply, and I think they look pretty nice.

A few more notes. First, I used a chrome Gundam Marker on those little pipes coming out of the center. Those are normally supposed to be purple, but I thought the chrome would look much better.

Second, there is some surface detail on the underside, but all I did was a quick, lazy panel line:

In my defense, nothing about this model kit looks good from the underside. Not the carapace, not the rifle (not even when it’s in Claw Mode), and not the rest of the body. It’s arguably a flaw of the design, though one could also argue that it’s not really intended to be viewed from below. I certainly don’t intend to photograph it from that angle, so it’s all a moot point in the end.

Anyway, now all we need to do is add two fins to the bottom of the carapace, and then put it all together:

If we attach the rest of the assembled pieces we get something that doesn’t really look like the upper half of a mobile suit:

But we’re not done yet!

Arms

The arms are … tiny. And weird.

I don’t have any in-progress photos, since there aren’t that many pieces, but you should be able to see where they all are in the finished version:

I’m not really sure how to describe them. I guess they technically have shoulders, but they don’t really have an upper arm. Except they kind of do, because the arms can extend like so:

I’d say it’s a cool gimmick, but I admittedly have a problem putting them back into their “normal” position, so I’ve tried not to mess around with them too much.

Hands

Even the hands are weird; as you can see, they’re built on little hinged pegs:

I’m 75% certain I’ve built hands like this in the past, but they’re definitely not common.

Also, I think this is the first time I’ve given a Gunpla a manicure. But hey, a girl’s gotta look her best.

Shoulders?

I’m not sure if “shoulders” is the right word to use here, but these little wing shaped things go between the torso and the arms:

I swear the outline of the Re Zeon decals doesn’t look quite so obvious when not exposed directly to light.

(also, the white tips are color correcting decals, though they don’t fully wrap around each part. I had to add in a little bit of paint in the back)

Let’s slap it all together and see how it looks:

Like the upper torso, the arms are disarmingly small, but they nevertheless go a long way toward making this resemble a person.

Legs

Finally, we get to the legs. And yeah, it’s got a lot of parts. Again …

We start off with this fairly large, fairly complicated inner frame:

Then attach the “bottom” of the leg:

The purple part on the bottom is the Woundwort’s foot. It folds away when not in use.

Finally, we add a bunch of armor pieces to the top half:

You really do just slap those parts on. As a matter of fact, they fit rather loosely. I haven’t had any of them pop off, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do while taking photos.

You’ll also notice that the leg joints are on swivels (I tilted them to the side so you can see them both). This is to help enable the transformation into Mobile Armor mode, thought it might also prove useful for poses.

Extra Parts

There are a few parts that are exclusively used when transforming into Mobile Armor mode:

I want to zoom in on two of them in particular:

The one on the left looks the same as the bulbous area on the back of the torso - you know, the area that’s covered by the white color correcting decal. Meanwhile, the one on the right is clearly the top half of the Woundwort’s head (you can see the V-Fins).

I’m writing this post after having finished the photoshoot, and I don’ remember these two parts being particularly visible in Mobile Armor mode. So while you could paint them, I don’t see the point in doing so.

Conclusion

We’ll wrap things up with the photoshoot. See you then.