Gunpla Build - High Grade Pale Rider Space Type (Clear Color)

So my first clear Gunpla was a success. But that was just a simple Haropla. What would a clear High Grade model look like? Let’s find out:

This is the Pale Rider Space Type from Gundam Side Stories: Missing Link

Missing Link is both a Playstation 3 game and a corresponding manga adaptation, the latter of which is cannon (at least according to the Gundam Wiki). I’m not going to go into details on them, since I haven’t played/read them.

All I’ll say is that it reminds me of the Blue Destiny games. These are all side stories that are not widely available (at least not internationally), yet their mobile suits get a relatively outsized amount of attention. They have plenty of model kits, they make cameos in the Build subfranchise, and the Pale Rider even showed up on the initial roster of the now-defunct shooter Gundam Evolution:

About the Mobile Suit

Here is what the Gundam Wiki has on the Pale Rider:

Following its successful mass production of mobile suits, the Earth Federation Forces began working on various modification plans as well as next-generation units. One of the machines created was a prototype, next-generation unit given the model number of 'RX-80'. This machine incorporated the latest technologies introduced during the One Year War, resulting in high performance and adaptability to a wide range of equipment. However, its development costs were high, dooming any possibility of mass production and seemingly consigning it to being a data collection unit.

The RX-80 was later acquired by a mysterious official named Grave, who wanted a high-performance machine for the special "HADES (Hyper Animosity Detect Estimate System)" based on the EXAM System. With the HADES' core unit installed in its head, the mobile suit was given the code name "Pale Rider", derived from the name of the fourth and final horseman of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The name also has a second meaning: since the HADES forcefully takes control of the mobile suit when activated, with the pilot serving as little more than a biological component, the mobile suit controls the pilot, rather than the other way around. Hence the mobile suit was the "Rider", rather than the horse.

While the Pale Rider is a powerful machine, this came at the cost of shorter operating time. It served as the core mobile suit of Grave's "Pale Rider Project" and was deployed on various black-ops missions.

This is another way in which Missing Link and the Blue Destiny games are related - the Pale Rider and its HADES System are basically the evil counterpart to the EXAM-equipped Blue Destiny Units.

About the Pale Rider Space Type

As far as I can tell, the Pale Rider Space Type is just the regular Pale Rider with some extra thrusters and fuel tanks, as well as a massive chaingun. This is the version that this kit is based on.

About the Visual Design

I like it! It’s as if the GM Sniper II and the Gundam Mk II had a baby. And between its visual design and its color scheme, it definitely gives off a strong “spec ops” vibe.

I also love how the beam sabers are just strapped to the side skirts. It’s such a simple and obvious place to put them, but it’s not something you see a lot in the UC timeline.

About the Model Kit

The clear green Haropla was such a short and sweet built - and with so few clear parts - that it didn’t give me a real feel for what its like to build a clear kit. That wasn’t the case this time around.

I think I’ve made mention of this before, but - with the exception of beam saber blades (which are soft and bendable) - clear Gunpla parts are usually made out of an extremely hard, brittle plastic. It’s hell on nippers, and it marks up extremely easily.

Thankfully, most kits will have very few clear parts, but what if you had a kit that was made almost entirely out of this stuff? That’s what we’re dealing with here.

In retrospect, this should have been obvious to me before the build, but in reality it didn’t dawn on me until I was finally looking all the runners. The good news is that my current nippers aren’t spring loaded, so there’s no way they’re going to break on this brittle plastic. But as for the matter of cleaning up nub marks and the like, let’s just say I did what I could, without risking breaking any of my other tools.

A few more observations about these parts:

  • All of the weapons, as well as the kit's partial inner frame, are all molded in opaque grey plastic that has a nice a gunmetal finish. It's almost as fancy as the metal finish on the Metal Hajiroboshi's inner frame.
  • This kit comes with a sizeable sheet of color correcting stickers: Now to be clear, these are all the stickers that come with the original model. You don't need to use all, or even any of them on this clear version. Yet I still ended up using a few, just to see whether they'd look good against the clear plastic.
    • You're supposed to choose between some of these stickers, based on whether or not you want it to look like it has the HADES System active or not. I ended up mixing and matching them.

Sloppy Shop

In general, the folks who build Gunpla that are used in promotional photos do a phenomenal job at making them look immaculate. But once you've been in this hobby for long enough, you'll start to notice that even these pros are not perfect.

If you look closely, sometimes you can see all sorts of places where the paint or panel lines are just a little bit off (especially in the instructions for older HGUC kits circa the early 2000's).

That being said, I don't think I've ever seen a mistake in any promotional photo that's quite as bad as the way the yellow Beam Rifle lens sticker looks in the Premium Bandai listing for this kit:

It's crinkled. It's uneven. It's just bad. Even I think I can do a better job than that.

(Side Note - it's also interesting that they even used a sticker for this lens in the first place. Usually that's either a separate piece of colored plastic, or you have to paint the lens yourself.

Build Notes

The Pale Rider is depicted as having a GM-like face visor. But it turns out that underneath, it actually has a pair of Gundam eyes:

It also has a very Gundam-y Beam Rifle, and it’s model number begins with RX. So … is it technically a Gundam? Or is it something in between?

Eh, that’s a question for another time. Back to the build: you can can choose between green or red eyes - as well as a green or red face visor - based on whether or not you want the HADES System active. I went with green because I thought it paired better with the blue plastic used on the body.

The only other thing of note was the stickers. They (mostly) went on without fuss, save for the ones that go on the knees. Those need to be tucked in and folded in such a way that it’s tough to get them lined up just right, but I did my best.

And as it turns out, I think the stickers look good here. Not only do they add some nice bits of color, but it turns out that the model looks nice with a bit of opaque color to contrast with all the clear plastic.

Everything else went pretty smooth. There were a few nasty nub marks here and there, but I think I did an okay job cleaning them up. And there was nothing else about the assembly that stood out as being particularly unique or striking.

So How Does a Clear High Grade Look?

Now we find ourselves back to our original question. How does a clear High Grade look?

We know that a clear Haropla looks pretty great. And I’ve heard folks say that they like the look of clear Master Grades, since you can see through the clear parts to view the inner frame within.

But what about a High Grade? After all, they usually only have a partial inner frame - and some don’t even have that - while the rest of the interior is hollow.

The answer is that it depends. Specifically, it largely depends on the lighting. Here’s the Pale Rider outside of the lightbox, under normal interior lighting:

That’s … not great. It’s a bit opaque, though not enough to really see all the surface details. And it’s a bit clear, but not enough to really pop. It’s in an awful middle ground.

Let’s throw it in the lightbox with a black background (since this is a space type mobile suit):

This is a little better. We can start to see through the clear parts more easily. But it turns out that my camera does not like trying to focus on a clear Gunpla on a black background, so I gave up on this idea pretty quickly.

Now let’s fall back to the good old fashioned white background:

That’s … pretty good! It’s so bright you can see right through the plastic. It’s like the someone put the Pale Rider through an X-Ray machine.

And lo, it turns out that the partial inner frame doesn’t look all that partial. The only part of the body that looks very obviously hollow are the shoulders, and while they don’t look too great, it’s not bad enough to bring down the overall look.

Having said that, it’s interesting how the dark blue plastic isn’t really see-through at all. I don’t think that’s intentional: the same would probably be true of any dark color. And I think it works in this model’s favor. The chest is the second-most hollow body part (behind the shoulders), so we’re spared having to see that. Plus, having some areas that are more opaque helps break things up.

Alright, let’s throw some weapons on there:

The shield is supposed to have a big blue sticker, but I’m glad I left if off. I like being able to see through it.

Here is my best attempt at applying the sticker to the Beam Rifle. Do you think I did better than in the P-Bandai listing?

The Gundam-style Beam Rifle really adds a lot to the look of this thing. It’s a little more squared off than the usual Gundam rifle, and looks like a proper heavy weapon:

Looking around the back, I like the little thrusters coming out of the back of the legs:

I’m less keen on the fuel tanks. They’re entirely hollow, and while that’s not super noticeable from the front, you can’t help but see it from the rear.

The kit comes with this GM-style machine gun, which in fact is its default weapon in Gundam Evolution. I’m not a fan of this particular gun, but I do like that it’s made with a nice metallic finish:

And now for the beam sabers:

This is one of those High Grades that includes Master Grade-sized beam effect parts. I personally find them to be a bit too long, but I think this particular model manages to pull it off well enough:

Gatling Gun

Last but not least, the Pale Rider Space Type comes with a massive Gatling Gun. Unfortunately, it’s a pain in the butt. The instructions tell you to remove the backpack in order to thread the ammo belt behind the fuel tanks:

And if you want to mount the gun, you have to carefully and bend and position the ammo belt in just the right way, otherwise the gun will just pop off:

It doesn’t even look good mounted like that, so let’s just equip it:

It actually holds the gun rather comfortably, and can even move it up and down a bit.

Is it a cool weapon? Absolutely. Is it too much of a pain to be worth fiddling around with? Yeah, probably.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the Pale Rider is a cool looking mobile suit. And I’m convinced that, under the right lighting conditions, clear models can look pretty good.

But I’m still not 100% sold on them. I think I need to build at least one more, preferably one with a lighter color scheme. Hopefully that will give me a better idea of how they look in a more “traditional” color set.

But that will have to be for another time …