To use a bit of therapy speak, I have big feelings about this build:
On one hand, I think it ultimately came out looking pretty good. I still admit that I made mistakes and mishaps during construction, but it also seems that I was right that the brightness of the lighbox would help mask them.
On the other hand, I felt extremely unmotivated to start this photoshoot (that’s why this post is so late).
Dual wielding guns is one of the preeminent examples of the Rule of Cool, but it turns out that unless you’re doing some John Woo-style scenes (which isn’t at all characteristic of the Airmaster), it isn’t a very interesting subject for photography. There are only so many stances and poses you can do before they all start to feel samey.
So consider this a “quality over quantity” post (for some definition of quality)
I should also note that the wrist joints on this model were also extremely loose, and while I know how to fix that, I still found it extremely dispiriting. The one time I finally found some motivation, I had to add glue to the ball joints and wait for them to dry. By the time they were ready, I felt deflated, and I wouldn’t get back to the shoot until several days later.
Here’s an attempt at recreating a pose from the show, where Airmaster transforms into mobile suit mode upside down:
But yeah, this is all I’ve got. Now we move on to the transformation.
Transformation
This was the other, possibly bigger demotivator. I don’t think the transformation looks nearly as good in person as it does on TV, and that left my feeling really down. But first, let’s look at the process, and then we’ll talk about the result.
This model isn’t a Partsformer, in the sense that you don’t have to replace any parts to make it transform, but you do have to remove a few. Specifically, you have to take off the head (including the neck joint), and the white armor on the chest:
Then you flip the wings up and out:
And then the whole chest rotates upward to get the wings parallel with the rest of the body:
Then you flip the nosecone forward:
And flip the lower torso 180 degrees a la Wing Gundam:
Next, clamp down the feet and (slightly) reposition the legs:
Underneath, we have to remove a bit of armor from the rear skirt to expose the Action Base peg:
Finally, we attach the guns to the slots on the side of each arm:
And here it is:
So what exactly is the problem here? Take a look at this still from Gundam X:
Notice how the arms and shoudlers are drawn undetailed and grey, and they look like they’re positioned far back. You can do this in animation, because you can make it look however you want.
But you can’t really do that with a model kit:
The shoulders are clearly visible, and it’s almost impossible to keep them perfectly straight and flush with the body while posing. The animators can make the transformed mobile suit look more like a “natural” fighter craft on screen, but in real life you can’t as easily hide the fact that this is a robot that’s been folded and twisted like a pretzel.
Or consider this illustration instead:
The upper legs are drawn to look shorter and/or contracted, thus pulling the lower part of the leg closer to the body. This makes them look much more like thrusters in the back of a fighter jet.
On the model, however, you can only pull the legs in so close, and no matter what you do, they very clearly look like a pair of robot legs dangling off the back:
This is a problem with a lot of transformation modes (including Wing Gundam’s), so I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I think my love of Gundam X blinded me to the possibility that this could be an issue here.
So yeah, this photoshoot was so very underwhelming. The only fun I had was taking these shots of the Airmaster alongside the GX:
Conclusion
I don’t think this is a bad High Grade. I simply think it suffers from the same problem as a lot of transformable mecha, which is that in animation you can get away with shortcuts and artistic license that you simply can’t pull off with a physical model.
Similarly, I also think Airmaster suffers from the fact that it’s the type of mobile suit that works better in motion. It’s fun to see it zip around and quickly transform on screen, both of which are extremely difficult things to replicate in real space.
It might have helped to include some effect parts ala a Robot Spirits action figure, but that’s about it. There’s no amount of engineering that’s going to get you out of this jam.
Best thing to do here is to put it on the shelf with the other Gundam X models and move on to the next build.