In Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, all the mobile suits are manufactured by a handful of specific in-universe arms dealers, with each company being assigned its own real world mecha designer who was solely responsible for all their designs.
In the case of Jeturk Heavy Machinery, all of its MS were designed by Ippei Gyoubu, who is quickly becoming one of my favorites.
So I suppose it’s no surprise that, after buying Jeturk’s flagship mobile suit last summer, I’ve since gone ahead and bought all of the other Jeturk kits as well:
Yes, I know these are all just variants on a single design. But I really like it! In my opinion, the Jeturk mobile suits have a very strong Zeonic flavor. They all have pseudo monoeyes and one or more shoulder shields (which is very Zaku-esque), and the Dilanzas in particular are both very bulky and have hover capabilities (making them very Dom-esque). As a Universal Century fan, these Zeon vibes feel like comfort food.
In addition, I like how they all look like giant beetles. I can see how some people might find it goofy, but I guess I’m in the mood for that right now.
Some Build Notes
Waterslide Decals
Last fall I managed to pick up these official GWitch waterslides:
It includes a full set of decals for the Darilbalde, as well as decals for both the standard Dilanza and Guel’s Dilanza. However, if you look closely, you’ll notice there’s a section labeled “common for Dilanza”. There’s only enough of these to mark up one of the two; in other words, there’s only enough decals on this sheet to fully mark up one of the Dilanzas, with enough remaining to mark up roughly 25% of the other one.
It was a tough choice, but I decided I’m going to fully mark up the standard Dilanza. It’s not quite as flamboyant and fancy as Guel’s custom unit, so it probably needs a little more help to make it look good.
Build Order
I have no particular build order in mind for these. I’m just going to play it by ear.