Gunpla Build - Master Grade Gundam Origin Ver. (Build)

This is a Master Grade, so you know the drill. Lots and lots of parts:

Even though I’m not using most of them, here is a zoomed in look at the included stickers:

Also, if you look closely you will notice that there is a runner of polycaps (they’re right next to the beam saber blades). I was surprised to see them; people love to go on and on about how Master Grades are better than ¹⁄₁₄₄ scale kits because they don’t need polycaps, but this isn’t entirely true. Some MG’s may not have them, but others will. It all seems to depend on the model.

Let’s get started.

Shield

I’m so used to building High Grade shields, which often have one (or no) points of articulation. Like this one!

But the Master Grade shield has quite a lot more going on:

Weirdly though, the High Grade shield has a bit more surface detail on the inside:

Though the Master Grade shield has places to store the Beam Sabers, which is a cool touch.

Now let’s flip it over:

There are some subtle but important changes to the Origin shield. I suppose the most notable difference is that it now has actual screws, rather than just holes, near the top.

Next is its shape. The High Grade shield I’m using here is from the Revive Gundam, which is the most traditional, TV accurate design I have. As you can see, it’s pretty close to being perfectly symmetrical, both vertically and horizontally.

On the other hand, the Origin shield is not. To my eye it looks like it’s wider on the bottom edge than it is on the top. And then there are the side edges; the “top” edge is now much shorter than the “bottom” one.

I drew this rough sketch of each shield’s outline to better visualize what I mean:

Lastly, it looks to my eye that the Origin shield is bigger in a relative sense. That is, it’s going to look bigger equipped on its Gundam than the High Grade version will.

I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to feel about all of these tweaks until the model is completed.

Shoulder Cannon

I love this thing. It makes the mobile suit feel so much more well rounded by having just that extra bit of heavy firepower:

Here it is in comparison to the same shoulder cannon from the High Grade Gundam Local Type:

Visually they’re a perfect match, which speaks well to the level of detail Bandai managed to squeeze into the entire Origin line of High Grades. The Master Grade version does have some extra articulation, which is to be expected.

Classic Beam Rifle

I’ve seen so many different minor variations of the classic Beam Rifle, but this hews pretty closely to the original design:

The only odd thing is the yellow sight. This kit does something I’ve never seen before; the sight is made of a yellow foil sticker sitting behind a clear piece of plastic:

I suppose they were trying to make it look hyper realistic, but I think they could have gotten away with a single yellow piece of plastic. Nobody would have been disappointed.

As it stands, the clear plastic makes it hard to see the sticker beneath.

Middle Type Beam Rifle

Here it is: the Beam Rifle’s mideason upgrade:

I’m not the first person to point out that it looks an awful lot like the Beam Rifle used by the Guncannon, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Taken on its own terms, I like that it looks bigger and heavier. But that also makes it feel like a specialty weapon, and that doesn’t really jive with the Gundam’s general purpose design:

I guess the only thing to do is equip it and see how it looks.

Hyper Bazooka

Good news: you can see all the missiles loaded in the back:

Bad news: you have to paint them red.

At least the rest of it is color accurate. No need to bust out the white paint:

Figurines

This kit comes with two figurines of Amuro Ray; one sitting, and one standing:

Interestingly, they’ve got him in his civilian outfit that he wears at the start of the story:

Head

I like how the side vents are color accurate:

I always appreciate not having to paint those in.

Here’s another interesting tidbit. The head has this piece of clear plastic, upon which you apply the front and rear camera stickers. But what’s notable is that you can choose to place them in one of two positions. Basically, you can choose whether to place each decal behind some of the clear plastic to make it look like the camera lens is embedded behind glass:

I tried putting it in this position, but it made it too hard to see (just like the clear plastic on all the weapons).

Anyway, here it is all done up:

There’s something about this design that feels a little … off. Or maybe it’s me who is the problem. It’s kind of hard to tell.

If you look at the original head design from 1979, it’s super robot-y as f*#@. It doesn’t look mean, but it also doesn’t look friendly. Instead, it has this very neutral-looking stare, one that instantly reminds you that this is a robot, not a person.

I think this is the vibe they were trying to capture with the head on this Master Grade.

However, a lot of redesigns of the Gundam try to make the head look meaner and tougher than usual, presumably because that’s what they think sells to modern fans:

So maybe the problem isn’t so much with this design, but with the fact that I’m used to much angrier looking Gundams.

But also … maybe something is wrong with it. If you look at how it’s depicted in Cucuruz Doan’s Island, the eyes are actually bigger than usual, giving it an almost friendly (or maybe just sad) appearance:

But that’s not what I’m seeing in this model. The eyes - really the whole head - feels squished. The side vents are smaller than usual, and it doesn’t feel quite as tall as it should be. As a result, it looks less like it’s wearing a samurai helmet and more like it’s wearing a baseball cap or something.

Chest

Some Master Grades have extremely detailed inner frames. This is not one of them:

I wonder if this was intentional. In-universe, the Gundam has a monocoque design, rather than an independent inner frame. It’s entirely possible, then, that they wanted to keep things lore accurate; that is, this kit has an inner frame because that’s what Master Grades do, but it’s technically not supposed to, so they kept it barebones.

Or maybe they were just lazy!

A few notes on what we’re seeing here:

• There’s Amuro in the cockpit. It’s quite a tight fit!
• You can see the two different types of shoulder guns. They right one flips down when not in use, hiding under a blue panel.
  • The kit also comes with an alternate yellow panel if you want to use that instead.

Here it is all finished:

It’s so interesting how no two Gunpla of the Grandaddy Gundam seem to have identical chest designs. You’ll always encounter changes to the angles, the proportions, the shape of the yellow vents, etc.

This one is no different. Normally the yellow vents are depicted as being embedded inside of the chest, but in this case they stick out, as if they’re just caps attached on top of the blue armor. As a result, they’re also a bit smaller in size than usual.

This design also adds a little bit of extra flair - see the little details and openings running along the blue section, as well as the bits of grey poking out from under the red.

Backpack

I always like to do some sort of painting or weathering in the “middle” area of the backpack - the part where to two big screw-looking things are. But it doesn’t always look good, in part because this detailing is usually just molded surface detail on High Grades and Entry Grades.

Here, though, that whole middle section is parts separated, and really makes it look like a bunch of exposed parts embedded underneath the chassis:

I added a bit of metallic weathering compound, and it just looks fantastic.

Lower Torso

I feel like this is the one part of the Grandaddy design that you can’t really screw up:

There’s not much to say here. It looks fine.

Oh, I guess I should point out how the leg joints can bend down to a 45 degree angle, which is pretty slick:

Feet

Most High Grades have no articulation in the foot.

Some High Grades, as well as pretty much all Real Grades and Master Grades, have at least one point of articulation. It’s usually called a “toe bend”, even if the joint is closer to the middle of the foot than the toe.

On this model, however, we two points of articulation - one for the heel and one for the toe:

Is it going to make a difference while posing? No idea, but it’s still cool to see:

Legs

There’s not much to look at when it comes to the inner frame, but here’s a shot that shows off the new hidden thruster:

Most depictions of the Grandaddy Gundam have little grey vents around the knee:

I often try to paint these in on my High Grades, to varying levels of success. But you don’t have to worry about that here, at its all color separated out of the box (you can see it in the photo above if you look close).

On a related note - on most versions of the Grandaddy Gundam, the knee and ankle joints have these white caps, with the grey inner frame exposed underneath:

Again, I usually have to paint these in on High Grades, usually to a complete lack of success. But on the Origin version, these white caps are simply gone. The joints are just plain grey discs:

As you can see, there is a lot of surface detail and panel lining. Quite a bit more, in fact, than anywhere else on the body. I’m not entirely sure why they did this, and I’m afraid it might end up clashing too much.

Shoulders

This is interesting: the top section of the shoulder armor is actually a flap that can move up and down:

I can’t tell if there is a practical benefit to this, or if its just meant to look cool, but its certainly something you don’t see on most versions of Gramps.

Arms

There’s not much to say here, other than to point out that you get some special parts for each arm in case you want to equip the vulcan cannons, including a grey part that sits outside of the armor that I’m pretty sure is meant to be the ammo magazine:

In-universe, I think only the left arm has vulcans, but you can equip them on both (or neither!) if you choose.

Hands

These F-ing hands:

These are the kinds of hands where each individual finger - and each individual knuckle in each finger - is individually articulated. Not all Master Grades use these, but (I think) many of them do. They’re marvels of engineering, and if they’re just one option of many inside the box, I’m happy to have them there.

But when they’re the only hands in the box, that’s when they become a liability. Because if you’re going to do action poses, that means you’re going to be moving those fingers around. And if you’re moving the fingers around, they’re likely to pop out.

On my particular model, the right hand was mostly okay, but the fingers on the left hand wouldn’t stay together no matter how careful I was. It’s not super obvious in my photos, but the problem is that the fingers have tiny little ball joints that plug into extremely shallow sockets on the hand. It’s not a deep or secure enough connection.

So I got the bright idea to try and use some tools to make the sockets deeper. That made it worse, as it also made them wider. Too wide, in fact, which in turn meant that the fingers popped out even more.

Ultimately I had to super glue them in place. All the other knuckles still work, so it has some range, but it’s still limited in what it can do. I’m fine with that, given that the left hand is going to spend most of its time hidden behind the shield. But this is the kind of crap I don’t expect to have to deal with on a Master Grade.

(Side note - It’s interesting that, despite all of its mechanical and technical intricacies, the Master Grade Zeta Gundam Ver. Ka does not use these hands at all, but rather uses rigid, High Grade-esque hands (and then just gives you a bunch so that you have options. Is this because Hajime Katoki and his Ver. Ka engineering team understood that these super articulated hands aren’t worth it?)

Effect Parts

Here are all the clear effect parts for use with all the new guns:

As you can see, you’re supposed to paint one of them to look like a shell flying out from a puff of smoke.

I wish more kits would come with effect parts like this. Even if they’re not very fancy, they can add a lot to action poses. At least I think they will; I honestly haven’t used many parts like this. I’ll guess we’ll have to see.

Finished

I can’t believe I just finished two Master Grades in a calendar year. I don’t know why it took me over a decade to get to this point, and it’s not something to be particularly proud, but I’m still going to say I’m proud of myself 😁.

Next post, we’ll put this one through its paces.