Gunpla, Gunpla Everywhere

As mentioned some better shots of the completed Leo.

I have to say this kit blew me away for almost the exact opposite  reasons I was so impressed by the RG RX-78-2 kit; The parts count is low (literally 2 main sprues and a sprue of rubber joint gaps), the build simple but logical, and the end mech is  a perfect “troop  builder” that that perfectly capture the blank, impersonal, tank-like nature of the suit as  depicted in Gundam Wing.

Not bad for less than a tenner 😉

Right, so that’s the main suit complete, and that took  less than 90 minutes. Still got the weapons to go, but I am incredibly impressed with how this kit went together. The layout of the sprues was logical & well thought out, and made getting pieces clipped out in batches very intuitive.

I’ll look to get the equipment built next followed by some better pictures once I get the light box setup, hopefully showing off the dynamism of this kit.

Later folks 😉

So thought I’d set a challenge for myself and try to build this kit over the course of Hobby Night Live. As it stands the legs are don, and despite a comparatively small part count they do have an impressive bend in the knee…

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 🙂

So that’s this first attempt at a Real Grade build completed. Overall I quite enjoyed this, even if at times the fiddliness of some of the components could be infuriating.

Now  I have not applied any decals, used any liner markers or applied any paint. This is quite literally The minimum result you get from building this kit, and I for one am somewhat impressed. I would suggest though that if you’ve never built a Gunpla kit before stating with something from the High Grade line instead…

Take a look at the gallery below, let me know what you think, and I’ll be back at the weekend to go over the next (far, far less complicated) build.

Cheers 😉

It’s been a few weeks since I did anymore to this kit, but I really wanted to get this build cleared as it has been sitting around for a while so whilst Warren & co were nattering away in this weeks XLBS I decided to sit down and plow on through.

The next stage was construction of the arms:

So the first shot there is the “skeleton” for the arms as it comes on the frame. as you can see, each one is cast as a single piece, but once clipped away it is fully articulated. In fact, there are pieces that you pull off either to reattach later (like the fists) or are used for completely different assemblies (more on that later)…

So that’s the right arm (the left is an exact mirror), and it comes in at over 20 separate pieces. I do recommend having a file on hand as some of the panels are reliant on extremely precise fits (and on the externally facing panels it just helps it look a bit nicer 😉 )

A little more work building the head (itself another 15 pieces) and here we have the RX-78-2 Gundam complete in all it’s glory. Now I’ve not applied any decals or used any panel-lining, but I dig it.

We’re not done though, oh no. Next up is constructing the Gundam’s sizeable and iconic arsenal. Once that’s done I’ll see if I can’t get some nicer pictures uploaded with the lightbox, maybe use a stand to get some action poses in 🙂

So this is where the RX-78-2 currently stands after a few  weeks of on-and-off construction, inc. at least one bout of swearing & packing the whole kit up as one panel fell out of my fingers and went AWOL (since found on one of the runners on my pc desk frame – couldn’t do that again…).

Overall I’m digging it. It is a tad more delicate compared to other kits, and the sheer number of pieces you need just for each leg seems mind boggling but the effect of subtly different coloured plastics works really well, and the internal skeleton – created by some crazed alchemy in articulated pieces directly on the frames – is staggeringly well-jointed. Just look at how that leg bends: panels shift along struts around the bend in the knee joints.

At this point that just leaves the head, arms and equipment to go. With a bit of luck that’ll be a couple more weeks work at most. And after that? Well I have some other kits but I’m thinking something out of this recent delivery may be  on the docket. Maybe the two RX-9 (G) kits for a dose of the grittiness of The 08th MS Team?

This is the first kit released in the Real Grade (or RG) series of 1/144 kits realizing the most iconic mecha from across the storied history of the Gundam franchise in a more complex and detailed form than the “standard” High Grade (HG) kits, incorporating elements from the larger 1/100 and 1/60 scale kits in a smaller, more affordable but still premium package.

Being the first in the line it is only reasonable that Bandai started with the original, the iconic RX-78-2 from Mobile Suit Gundam. First impressions are good – The RG packaging is generally slicker and more modern in style than most GunPla kits, featuring an enlarged headshot of the mecha in question along with a full body shot of the suit at rest. You get the usual product shots around the sides but then inside rather than a simple card tray holding the sprues you instead get a glossy black finish on the outer edges, with some associated imagery relating to the specific mech  you will be building. Nifty.

On the sprues themselves you have the now typical array of seeming alchemy as several sprues contain elements cast using differing plastics, some containing translucents, rubbery and hard plastics on a single runner. Overall fairly impressive, although the instruction manual seems more than a tad daunting at first glance given the sheer volume of parts, but lets give it ago shall we?