This is going to be a big build. How big, you ask? Let’s just say that it’s Runners go all the way up to Runner I:
That’s a lot of parts for a High Grade.
Let’s zero in on the sticker sheet:
As you can see, there are a lot of big red stickers - and I already know they’re going to be tricky. That’s because they’re all going to go on inside walls of their respective parts. You generally only get one shot when applying these kinds of decals. Make a mistake aligning them, and there’s not much you can do without wrinkling and crinkling them.
Beyond that, I’m not sure what to expect from this build, so we’ll be learning together as we go.
A note About the Build
I built roughly half of this kit in December, and the other half in March. This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like that, but I have the same problem that I always do - I have a bunch of months-old work-in-progress photos, and I have no idea what I was trying to say with them. And there a whole bunch of other WIP photos that I should have, but never bothered to take. As such, this build post is probably going to be a bit spotty and uneven. My apologies in advance.
Head
The head still looks a bit monster-like, what with those yellow “gills” running along the bottom. But the GM-esque faceplate makes up for it. It looks pretty good overall, with some nice color separation.
Upper Torso
There’s quite a lot going on inside of here:
In addition to the shoulder joints, we have some nice color separation. Those red parts you can see on the inside are also visible from the outside:
This kind of color separation is rare in a High Grade, but it’s always nice to see.
Moving on, we get some nice parts layering on the exterior:
Then we have to attach these vent things to the sides:
This is our first encounter with those red decals, and this pretty much how all of them go on. Like I said, if you don’t line them up just right, you’ll be in trouble.
Here is the torso all finished:
The vent things really goofy in isolation, but I think they’ll look better once the whole thing is assembled. My only other observation is that, considering how big the mobile suit is overall, the torso is surprisingly small.
Lower Torso
We’ve got some more great parts layering and color separation:
As well as this massive thruster in the butt:
That black section in the middle is a decal, but it goes on so nicely you can hardly tell. Thankfully the big red section is made of plastic.
Front the front side, we add some stubby little skirt armors, and we’re done:
This too looks surprisingly small.
Legs
This is by far the most complicated part of the build. I don’t have a photo of all the loose parts, but I do have one that’s a mix of loose parts and pre-assembled sections (though some of the parts are simply not shown). Basically, the spread you see below is only part of it:
We’ve got all the hits - green piping, a surprising amount of inner framing, and of course, those red decals.
Here’s a cross section:
Then we close it up:
And add some extra armor around the ankles, and we’re done:
Actually, that’s not entirely true. This is the first time so far where we have to bust out some paints to do some color correction. Specifically, these thrusters around the back are supposed to be painted red:
Feet
By far my least favorite looking body part. It looks like it’s wearing pointy elf shoes or something. And then you’ve got those moveable claws in the back that are a completely different color and style:
It’s … whatever.
Thrusters
The Byarlant Custom sure does have a lot of thrusters. We’ll start with the really big ones:
It’s a pretty simple construction, but if I’m being honest, this is probably the reason why I dropped the build back in December. There are massive seam lines running down the two propellant tanks, and of course the thrusters needed to be color corrected. I guess I just didn’t want to do any of that work at the time, so I put the build on ice.
When I came back to it in March, I noticed that the seamlines were largely invisible. While I hadn’t gotten around to sanding them back in December, I had applied cement, and apparently that alone did most of the work.
Next, we have these weird sandwich-shaped thrusters:
The red bit in the center is (thankfully) made out of plastic.
Now we can put them together:
But wait, there’s more! We’ve got these other large thrusters that attach to the shoulders:
We get one last set of red decals to line the inside, except they don’t really work very well. That is, they don’t cover the full interior. What you see in this photo is actually a combination of decals and paint.
I have two things to say about this. First, I think I did a pretty amazing job color matching the decals.
Second, I think the idea here was that the decals would look good enough from certain angles that you wouldn’t need to color in the rest of the interior. And I think that’s probably true in general. But I’m a purist sometimes, and in this case I wanted it to look good from every angle.
Finally we have shoulders, which, yes, are technically thrusters:
I’m getting some Master Grade vibes from all that interior detail that no one is ever going to see.
Anyway, we have to do a bit more color correction - and of course we have to apply that gigantic EFF sticker - and we’re done:
(I forgot to mention it, but the kit comes with a second sticker sheet containing various EFF and Titans logos so you can you can customize your Byarlant Custom. Here it is in the blurriest possible photo)
Arms
This is the second most complicated part of the build:
We start off with the Mega Particle Cannon, which surprisingly can move around a bit:
Then we attach it to the main frame of the arm (as well as adding more of that sweet sweet green piping):
Then we add a few pieces of exterior armor, and it’s all done:
There’s no required color correction to perform here, but I painted some things in to make it look a bit nicer.
Complete
The Byarlant Custom is ready to fly:
We’ll come back for one final post, which will probably be pretty short. I can already tell you that this barely fits in the light box, and will certainly not fit with an Action Base. Like the reviews say, this kit isn’t terribly conducive to action poses, so I’m going to keep it simple.