Gunpla Build - High Grade Gundam Maxter (Build)

You know the drill. Let’s look at the runners:

One of my most common reactions is to say something like “There aren’t as many colored parts as I thought there’d be”, but not this time. There’s plenty of red and blue plastic in this spread. And of course, we get the Action Base just like we did for the Gundam Rose.

Shield

Here are all the parts:

Plus this one I forgot:

It’s a straightforward assembly, with only a little bit of color correction at the top:

A few observations. First, the shield is huge. Taller than the Maxter itself. That makes sense considering it’s used as a surfboard, but I have to imagine that it’d look goofy if you were to use it as an actual shield.

Second, this feels like a snapshot of the 1990’s. My memory tells me that a lot of the fashion from the decade was dominated by these four colors paired together, and a cursory image search tells me I’m not entirely wrong:

Third, you will notice the ridges running along the inside. These are for mounting the foot clamps, which keep the mobile suit in place while riding:

As you can see, they attach via a peg on the bottom of the clamp. This allows you to move them around to different positions as desired:

As for the feet themselves clamp in, they don’t. Instead, you just kind of slip them in there, with the idea being that the clamps will keep them from moving around. I’m not sure how well that’s going to work.

Pistols

They’re very simple in construction, but there’s a lot of surface detail:

The only problem is that they have this massive peg on side, so that they can be secured to the mobile suit:

There’s not much one can do about this, but it’s definitely an eyesore.

Core Lander

I love that these new HG kits all have a Core Lander, as we finally get a better view of what they look like. While the Gundam Rose’s looks a bit like a futuristic shuttle, the Maxter’s looks quite a bit like a car:

Also, while the Gundam Rose’s Core Lander boasts the mobile suit’s one and only thruster, the Maxter’s does not.I guess that means the Core Lander’s only real purpose is to cart Chibodee around.

In terms of color correction, there’s a little bit of grey paint on the bottom, with yellow and green stickers for some of the details on the top.

Head

If you look closely at this photo, you’ll see that I broke the V-Fin:

It’s been quite a pain. I’ve actually had to glue it back together multiple times, as it kept falling off. In the past, I would have been devstated over this. Here’s one of my favorite mobile suits, available only through Premium Bandai, and now it has a (highly visible) broken part.

But now I recognize that lots of people break V-Fins. Bandai themselves admitted as much when they listed it as a top three most common mistake in one of their Gunpla Kun promotional videos (sadly, the video is unavailable at the time of this writing). It’s not a good thing, but it could be way worse.

Anyway, I love the parts layering here. It creates such detail with so few components:

Chest

This is done in two phases. First, the “regular” chest:

No real surprises here in regards to its construction. If you’ve read enough of my posts, you can probably piece it together in your head.

Then there’s the armor plate, which turns out to really just be a thin piece of armor that snaps onto the chest:

Here it is from the top view so you can see what I mean:

Lower Torso

Not much here, but it does come together nicely, especially after adding some panel lines:

Here we see the Maxter’s single thruster, which is located in the butt instead of on the Core Lander:

Feet

These are as simple as can be:

That being said, I like the look. I love how squared off they are, both the feet and the ankle guards. And I love how there’s four thrusters on the bottom, all lined up in a row. It’s a traditional Gundam foot that’s also surprisingly _un_traditional.

Legs

These are really cool. They’re deceptively simple, but once you put them together you see just how much color separation there is, and how sculpted they are. I can’t think of many other mobile suits whose legs look so toned.

In terms of color correction, there are black stickers that go behind the vents in the knee, and I then painted in some of the other vents in the back and on the sides.

Shoulders

The shoulders - or should I say boxing gloves? - are bursting with color and detail. I mean, look at how much is going on under the hood:

Arms

Again, there’s so much color here (look at all that blue!!)

But what I really want to focus on are the Fighting Knuckles. They work via a fairly intricate little hinge:

It takes a bit of finagling, but you can pull them out and swing them forward to attack, and then swing them back in when you’re finished:

Here is the arm with the shoulder attached:

My only complaint is that, because these G Gundam mobile suits are smaller than usual, and because these kits are at ¹⁄₁₄₄ scale, the hands are extra small. That’s not a good look for a fighter that excels at punching his opponents. Even with the Fighting Knuckle in place, this doesn’t look all that intimidating.

Complete

And with that, the Gundam Maxter is ready for battle:

In the final post, we’ll see just what kind of moves it has.