The chonk monster is finished and ready to throw its weight around
How Does it Look?
Really good!
While it is true that the Gustav Karl doesn’t have a ton of surface detail, it still feels pretty intricate. It’s got lots of blocky, geometric shapes layered on top of one another, so it still feels sufficiently complex and intricate. Would I like it if there was just a little more detail? Yes, but I’m not disappointed with what we get.
Then there is the matter of the color scheme. The Earth Federation mecha in Gundam Unicorn arguably suffer from being too monochrome, over-relying on greys and blues, without adding enough additional colors to break them up.
The Gustav Karl bucks the trend by adding some bright white and red. Is it realistic to include these colors on a military mecha? Not at all. But does it make it look more visually interesting? Absolutely.
Lastly, I think the size and heft of this mobile suit really work in its favor. One of the reasons why I don’t really like the Jegan is that it’s supposed to be this brand new, next generation replacement to the GM, but it doesn’t really feel like much of an advancement. What does it really have over the GM beyond some extra weapons?
Contrast this with the Gustav Karl, which is “GM, but bigger and bulkier and far more intimidating”. That may not seem like a lot, but I think it absolutely is. As much as I love the GM, some GM variants are admittedly these puny, boxy looking robots that hardly resembly a threat.
But the Gustav Karl looks like a mobile suit that won’t (or can’t!) be pushed around. It has a sense of presence that’s hard to quantify, but easy to notice.
How Does it Pose?
Speaking of the Jegan, the HG Gustav Karl’s biggest problem is that its Jegan-style Beam Rifle just doesn’t cut it. It’s just way too small for a mecha of this size:
How am I supposed to take this thing seriously on the battlefield when it’s wielding a firearm that looks like a pistol in its hands?
I mean, I guess it’s similar to how puny the GM’s Beam Spray Rifle looks, but I’d like to do better than that. Let’s bust out the System Weapons Kits and put together some better gear.
Here it is with the “Prototype Beam Rifle”:
That looks so much better. It looks tough, but more importantly, it’s a much better size:
The only (slight) problem with it is that you need to use one of the special holding hands from the System Weapon Kit in order for it to fit; if you use the stock holding hand from the model, it’s big chunky wrist gets in the way of the butt of the gun.
Now here it is with a Beam Gatling Gun:
I don’t like this one quite as much, but it’s still pretty good. I like the idea that the Gustav Karl is so big that it can wield a minigun-stye weapon with ease:
Either way, they’re both better than the Jegan rifle; if you’re ever interested in building this for yourself, see if you can scrounge up a (bigger) replacement weapon of your own. I don’t think you’ll be sorry.
Here’s some basic poses with the Beam Saber.
Another thing I love about this model is the shield. It’s on a combination of a hinge and a ball joint, and together they give it quite a bit of range. And because it isn’t attached to the arm, you can pose them independently, which is really helpful sometimes.
Here is the last smattering of action poses I had left over:
Comparison to the Messer
I talked about this during the build, but to reiterate - the Messer is bigger than the Gustav Karl, but only barely so.
As you can see in the side by side comparison below, they’re pretty much the same height from the legs down. The Messer’s chest is just a little bit bigger, which is what really gives it its slight height advantage.
But then, because the Messer’s head slopes down, their eyes end up being at the same level:
I know these two mobile suits both came from the Hathaway’s Flash novel (and thus were ostensibly designed to be foes), so it shouldn’t be surprising that they pair up so well. But keep in mind that these two designs are different than the ones from the novels, yet the folks behind these redesigns still made sure they work well together:
From There to Here
Looking back at what I wrote about the Messer at the time, I did a poor job of capturing just how bad that build went.
I mentioned the broken arm, but I didn’t say anything about the fact that the shield mount started to break as well. I also said nothing about the fact that all these broken parts were caused by a combination of low quality clear coat and bad spraypainting technique, or how this also caused a lot of surface damage (this is the real reason why my Messer is covered in weathering compound. I had to hide the places where the paint ate away at the plastic).
Maybe I didn’t mention these things because I was too embarrassed. Maybe it’s because most of them didn’t impact the overall look of the model. But I definitely remember having a lot of negative emotions once it was done, and while I didn’t look up to the sky and swear to the gods that next time things would be different, but I did started making changes.
For example - I began the Messer build in late spring, and by midsummer I was starting to experiment with Mr. Super Clear matte spray. The results were so good that I switched to using it permanently (and developed new, better spraying techniques to minimize waste and get the most out of each can).
By the fall I started getting more serious about using waterslide decals, and by winter I was using better tools. By the time 2023 rolled around, I was in a different place as a builder. I’m not going to say that every build since then has been perfect, but I do think I got into good groove, where I’m able to deliver a baseline level of quality without many egregious mistakes.
And yeah, I probably still would have gotten there without or without the Messer, but I also think that that build helped accelerate the process.
And all of this improvement culminated in the Gustav Karl. Is it perfect? No. But I love looking at it. There are so many cool little things to take in and admire, and there’s nothing about the finished result that I hate or am embarrassed by. It’s exactly what I need it to be, and no less.
Or to put this all another way, when I look at these two models side by side, I see progress and improvement. I see that all the time and effort I put into this hobby has not been for naught. I see that you really can learn from your mistakes if you want to, and that all that grief and disappointment can lead to something better. That’s pretty gratifying.
Conclusion
I’m in love with this Gunpla. It looks great, it was fun to play around with, and it’s sheer size gives it such a commanding presence on the shelf. I’ve been hankering to build it for a while now, and I’m glad I finally got around to doing it. Suffice to say it surpassed expectations.