Tag: Gundam

It’s always a little bittersweet reaching the end of a model build, especially a fun one that goes well like this one has.

We’re at the last steps in the instruction manual for what some could consider to be the miscellaneous pieces — the various weapons and the shield itself.

The weapons themselves are almost always easy to get through, since there are few pieces and they’re made of ABS plastic, which is really forgiving of stress marks — sometimes you can just scrape off excess with your thumbnail, so there’s not a lot of clean-up to do on them.

However, these weapons have multiple modes available, so there’s moving pieces and I had to pause when I saw this in the manual:

Luckily there were no issues and no parts were broken, so we’re already winning.

If I have one recommendation for anyone getting into building models like this, it’s to paint the weapons on these. It’s good practice to get a feel for how to paint on something that isn’t critical to the gundam’s appearance, but it’ll really enhance the overall look of the model.

Even if you don’t want to do any painting on the model itself, I would strongly suggest painting the weapons, since they are by far the weakest looking pieces. You can have a gundam model that looks fantastic out of the box, but the weapons themselves always look like cheesy plastic and really detract from the overall appearance of the model, so I always paint them no matter what.

You don’t even need to do any weathering or advanced techniques either — just a simple gunmetal coating is enough to enhance their appearance, but at the same time, weapons are the perfect way to practice those techniques if you decide to take a stab at it.

This particular model comes with a bazooka and rifle that have some movement to them. It’s a nice extra element for these weapons that can usually just be plain, static pieces, but one of my concerns is that these could easily wear with too many movements and pieces would no longer hold in place.

The shield itself also features a transformation mode to match the rest of the model, going from a compact shield to an extended shield with a star-pattern thing going on. It looks really cool when it’s extended like this and I think I’ll keep it that way no matter what.

After completing the weapons and shield, it was time to transform this guy into his Destroy Mode, which involves removing some pieces to manipulate them

In true gundam fashion, nearly the entirety of the model came apart during this process and I nearly rebuilt it a second time while trying to get everything into the proper transformation mode, but the process was worth it.

The model looks a lot better this way and I think this will probably be it’s display style on the shelf.

All that’s really left to do on this model are the decals, which I might stretch out over a couple of weeks as I start a new model build. While I love decals, I can only concentrate so much for so long before I start getting sloppy, so I’ve found it beneficial to always set a time limit and come back at a later date to ensure the best quality application.

I’ll have pictures when that’s completed, but for now this is the effective end of the build. Absent a couple of hiccups here and there, I’ve really enjoyed putting this guy together. It’s definitely the best Real Grade I’ve assembled by far and Bandai really knocked the piece design out of the park with this one.

I’m not sure if you can find one of these anymore, and I’m not sure if it’s identical to the normal RG Unicorn Gundam, but if it is, I highly recommend this one to builders.

I got way too used to how smooth this model was going. I couldn’t believe it, a Real Grade model that didn’t want to fall apart if you looked at it wrong? Where the pieces actually stayed together?!

Alas, the dream is over. The Real Grade just couldn’t hold out any longer and finally revealed its weaknesses.

If there was any portion of the model where I thought I’d encounter any major issues, it was going to be the waist. After I completed it without too much trouble, I thought I was home free.

I started on the torso (or Chest Unit, as Bandai calls it) for the Unicorn Gundam, which also includes the internal frame pieces for both arms.

I completed the first arm without incident and I was humming happily along and listening to something from Bach on KUSC when it finally happened: the other arm had an issue with two of the pieces staying together.

Those two pieces you see in the picture, G6 & G7, would not stay together. At first I thought that maybe I’d left some excess sprue material on one or both, or on the piece they connect through, but I disassembled everything and didn’t see anything after inspecting them.

I decided to put those two pieces together on their own to see how they’d fit without the other pieces, but right after squeezing them together, they began pushing each other apart.

At last, the model couldn’t take it any longer and finally admitted it was a true Real Grade after all.

I shook my head, but any disappointment I may have felt immediately faded away as Howard Shore’s Concerning Hobbits came on the radio. It’s always a pleasant surprise when the classical station plays something from a movie score, and KUSC these days is especially fond of Howard Shore’s The Lord of the Rings music.

I’m not complaining.

It was quickly followed-up by Holst’s Mercury, The Winged Messenger, and I was in a great mood as I pressed on, hoping that the arm piece was the only flaw in what up to this point had been an exceptional model building experience.

Luckily, all the other pieces fit together fine and stayed together, but the moment I tried to manipulate that one arm, the affected piece fell out.

The rest of the torso went by without incident as KUSC played it’s “Saturday Morning Cartoons” program. This episode focused on the pipe organ and its versatility across all genres of music. It’s fantastic at establishing ominous moods, but just as easily occupies the opposite end of the spectrum as playful music at amusement parks and in cartoons. And of course, who can forget its inextricable link to baseball.

As I was wrapping up for the day, I attached the torso to the rest of the body and discovered that the Real Grade wasn’t finished coming into its own.

I was trying to get it to stand straight and take its picture, but I just could not get the waist piece to appear straight. It was tilted to the side. I made some minor adjustments to the legs and one of the gold pieces fell off.

I was putting that back on and straightening everything out when one of the skirt pieces on the waist fell off. It took forever to get that back on without anything else falling off, and now the model was even more off kilter than it was when I started.

I was 10 minutes into something that should’ve taken a few seconds and finally gave up. I got it into good enough shape, snapped the pics, and quickly put it back in its box.

It’s safe to say the seal has been broken on this one. I was walking on cloud nine, but I quickly fell back down to earth and realized that no matter what, a Real Grade is gonna Real Grade.

It’s a shame because I was always looking forward to my next session, but after today I’m wondering what other issues are going to arise and what compromises I’ll need to make with it when it’s finally completed.

I’ve all but given up on getting nice action poses with Real Grades and I don’t even buy stands for them anymore — it’s not worth the trouble, especially as pieces continually fall off as you try to move joints to get it to look just right. You kind of just get it to standup straight and maybe hold a weapon without it falling out of the hand and call it a success.

I had high hopes for this one, and maybe it will prove that its issues are minor, but I’m not holding out any great hopes.

I finally got back to the model this week with the intent of completing the other leg and the waist. It had been a couple of weeks since I had the chance to work on it, and I completely forgot all the stuff I learned on the other leg, so it didn’t got faster.

Just as with the other leg, I was really vibing with this Real Grade kit, which is unusual for me, because me and Real Grades just do not get along without considerable friction.

Actually, friction is the wrong word — RG’s tend to never want to stay together for me and fall apart if you look at them the wrong way.

But the legs are solid and have a satisfying feel in hand. I’m not afraid pieces are going to fly off into the ether if I dare to manipulate the limbs as designed.

After the leg was done, I switched the radio from classical KUSC to AM 570 and Game 2 of the World Series. I was still riding the high off Freddie Freeman’s grand slam last night and I was really hoping the Dodgers could take Game 2 before going to New York for three games.

As Rick Monday provided his analysis of tonight’s pitchers, I started in on the Gundam waist (or “Waist Unit” as Bandai likes to call it in the manual).

When it comes to Bandai Gundam models, this is typically the part I hate the most, no matter the grade. The waists provide the main connection interface for the torso and legs, sure, but they have these skirt flaps that connect via a ball & socket connection that is always prone to issues.

_{It’s never this easy}

The main issue is that the ball parts are ABS plastic with very thin stems, so trying to connect them to the sockets on the flaps is a challenge, because if you try to force them on, the stem can break. But without forcing it, the connection isn’t set, so the flap can easily fall off (especially when you’re connecting four other flaps the exact same way, along with the legs themselves).

Oh, and the ball part of the connection is on a hinge and moves up and down while you’re trying to connect it. And you have to do this six times, all while trying not to pop-off any of the other pieces you’ve already connected while fighting to get the current one in place.

Again, not my favorite part of any Gundam build and this one was no exception.

The Dodgers were well into the 3rd inning and Tommy Edman had just hit a home run by the time I finished wrestling with the waist unit pieces to get it assembled without breaking anything.

This seemed like a natural stopping point, especially after the typical frustration of assembling the waist piece, so I connected the legs and called it a day.

Next up will be the Chest piece, which will likely be a full session on its own. I’m looking forward to seeing if the great experiences assembling the legs continues with the chest.