Gunpla, Gunpla Everywhere

So for the next build I figure after the complexity of a Real Grade kit,  something a little less taxing is in order, and this new kit of the Leo from Gundam Wing looks just the ticket.

One of the most recent crop of Gunpla kits, this represents several firsts: The fist time Gundam Wings main antagonist “grunt” mobile suit –  the Leo – gets a kit of its own (most surprising 23 years after the show first aired) and it’s the first kit in the “Gunpla Evolution Project” re-design. What this means is that whereas on most Gundam kits parts for one section of a build can be found either on different sprues or on vastly different parts of one sprue, here Bandai have gone back to the drawing board and reworked how they tool things.

Here, take a look at this picture of the sprue containing the main armour plates for the body, limbs & head:

What they have done is redesign the layout so that all the parts for each component are on separate runners on the sprue, arranged in a logical fashion – Legs at the bottom, side by side, arms on the outside, torso at the top with miscellaneous elements (the shield for example) on a runner above that. and this is echoed on the other sprues in  the kit as well. What this should mean is that when you start work on a component you won;t need to keep jumping around a sprue, and in theory could cut all the pieces off of one runner instead of doing it as you go, knowing that all the pieces you have cut are needed for the element you are working on.

This also shows signs of increased efficiency on the part of Bandai – The Leo kit comes in a box a good third shallower than the 1/144 Hg kits I’m used to building, and the sprues seem to have far less “dead space” around them. It probably also helps that the Leo is a “grunt” kit, which most folks will  probably use as a troop builder so they ant to keep construction relatively streamlined and simple.

I guess we will see eitherway 🙂