Depends on the kit. I'm looking at my Nu Gundam Ver. Ka, to put on the HWS armor, I need to take it apart in a few places: outside of the legs, front skirts, chest vents. It's the leg plates that bug me because of how they move for the pyschoframe gimmick.
Yeah, guess I need to pay more attention when building kits that I know are variants - I didn't expect them to just leave THE WRONG PILOT in the kit by the same number and the only difference is the plate runner. Aside from that, this kit's been a blast to build even if I'll only manage the core Gundam tonight. It's super tight and aside from the wonky knee transformation not having the shins lock in properly (I can fudge it well enough), it's a rock solid model. And getting Marcenas painted up and inserted in the seat was a snap so everything's back to being hunky dory.
I might have to get the Unit 2. I finished building this guy yesterday and he could use an opponent (and I'm not sure I want to go through the trouble of getting the Efreet) I usually don't use marking stickers, but I figure it's a pretty big part of the design.
I do find I can get MGs apart alright. I had to basically deconstruct the whole Unicorn when I put the shiney chrome tape inside thepsychoframe. So are you going to leave one leg off at the knee? Yknow, for final battle accuracy?
I didn't pay Hadlen a lot of money just to display a Master Grade without half a leg! Also, I've completed the core gundam, its backpack, the extra ammo (for the rear skirt), and its massive FUCK YOU cannon (a.k.a. the Beam Magnum). Gotta say as awesome and freakin' HUGE that the gun is, especially with the unique split-beam effect from the Revolving Launcher, I'm shocked at how poorly the whole thing is designed. The single tab inside the palm of the hand simply isn't enough to reliably secure the handle, the adjustible ammo clip gimmick dearly needed a locking mechanism (turn the gun downward and it opens up), and trying to use the secondary grip is more trouble than it's worth. And the backpack / Armed Armor XC piggybacking on the transformation joints for the Unicorn's beam sabers is a neat idea...but the anchor hinges pop out way too easily and the lack of a connective system to hold the "fin" in place for Unicorn mode is questionable. However, the use of silver stickers under the translucent bits of the Psychoframe look rather impressive. Great kit, but I do feel the complexity is a little too much without proper reinforcement having been incorporated. I have heard that the MG Unicorn was somewhat floppy, but the only joint that's really been troublesome is the center latch on the back torso which engages the ab crunch, because it comes undone way too easily and it's a pain to get to without removing the backpack first. All I've got left is the Shield/Armed Armor DE and the marking stickers.
The first MG Unicorn was hit or miss, but the OVA version (which was used for the Banshee) is more solid. The gun is pretty awful on all versions, though. And yeah, sounds like the Norn has that issue exclusives always have where the new parts don't feel as high quality as the original kit. I'm excited for the RG to see how solid those parts are.
Yeah, the backpack in particular is a bunch of thin plates with small pegs piggybacking on the two joints that were only meant to hold the beam sabers (the sabers are still on those joints as well, just detached from the actual rotation joints). Also not a fan of the "center" horn on the Banshee - not only does it seem stupid in a functional sense (why would you put a giant horn in front of the MAIN CAMERA in Destroy mode?) but in Unicorn mode, the center horn is supposed to fit flush with the main splitting horn. I can't use the actual hinged horn because the center horn will not fit flush with it - the solid cast horn is the only option (I still use the hinged horn for Destroy Mode). This, however, still requires removing the center horn anyway, and that has a sticker on it which is already slightly white on the edges - why they couldn't just use a single piece to cover it (it's larger than the front of the cockpit seat that locks the pilot in) is beyond me.
After two years rotting in a pile of plastic near some cows, the Banebriatedshee/The Drunk Banshee stands complete (sans stickers) The shield/Armed Armor DE takes second place in "giant hillariously oversized shields" in the collection - second only to the massive tumor that is the shield of the Delta Gundam Kai because at least the MG Banshee Norn can hold the damn thing up (and its more than just a shield). It is of course far more stable when plugged in the back. Also finally managed to get a good two-hand rifle pose. Oddly enough, the adapter piece needed to attach the Armed Armor DE Shield to the back actually helps keep the shield stable when attached to the arm, as the support arm that allows the shield to swivel around was not designed to handle the weight of the larger shield (with the unenhanced shield it's fine), but with the adapter left on, it braces against the forearm.
Anyone know of a good paint that fluoresces under blacklight? I want to try making the glowy version of Black Panther's suit with the Marvel Legend figure. A paint pen would be aces, actually.
Fan fucking tastic. The gimmick with the revolving launcher essentially has you stick a unique beam saber into the bottom hole, to which you attach the special effect part. Because Bandai likes stacking parts like idiots, this now means I can't ever have the Launching Revolver on the gun WITHOUT the effect part because I have to glue the stick back together with the cover in place or else I can't put the cover on. The thing got jammed in the hole and snapped in half. So now I can't ever display it with the four circles - not that big a deal - but it's just the icing on a relatively shitty day (parents decided to go on the fucking ATKINS DIET and refuse to let me not participate, so I'm hunger striking in retaliation.) Now I gotta glue this shit back together, oh boy.
Aw man, that sucks. Hopefully it's a simple fix. Anything labelled fluorescent will do, just make sure it goes over white paint for maximum glow.
It's a "fix" in that the beam effect mounting is now permanently equipped, so I can't have the Beam Magnum on its own without removing the whole Revolving Launcher at the same time. Not the end of the world since I was probably just going to have the beam effect part displayed more often than not because it's freaking awesome, but I am disapointed that such a thing could happen. Not the first time in recent memory either that a gimmick has actually caused damage to a kit because Bandai apparently doesn't test these things (I.E. my Beargguy's snapped elbow). Anyway, I took some better pics: It was during the swap into Unicorn mode - and thus wanting to remove the beam hilt from the gun - that the damn thing snapped. Thankfully, the thing isn't too hard to remove so the Revolving Launcher barrel is sitting off to the side with the hilt glued back in place. Also, the shield transformation sucks. The Armed Armor crap on top of it actually is functionally sound, but the fold out translucent "X" in the core of the shield is just horribly made. The two halves of the "X" just do not work well and the shield tends to seperate into halves more often than not because the things won't fan out evenly.
Although I prefer the HG, I will be fine with getting GN flag and Musurao in either 1/144, 1/100 HG, MG, Re/100 or whatever as long as they are plastic kits. The base kit Efreet Custom is excellent, great details and proportions and very solid kit, unlike Bawoo and Hamma Hamma who are wobbly and have difficult supporting their own weights. Schneid should be good too if you can get past the single color heat daggers.
The Flags are those really gangly, thin-limbed suits from 00, right? (I only managed to get through two and a half eps of 00)
Yes. The Char Clone piloted one, which became the basis for the Overflags...and it got really silly with Char putting a GN Drive on his (which made it insanely dangerous to pilot) for the sole purpose of defeating a Gundam with a Flag. Exia Repair was the result so he kinda failed. Then in 00 S2, he really gets into the whole 'honorable Samurai' thing and has whole suits custom built for him that look like Samurai...his final one being the Susanowo, and guess what head it had under its helmet (hint: the head of a Flag) Not to be confused with the AEU Enact, which are the ones with the taller heads and curved spinny shields - the one that Exia absolutely wrecks in the first episode.
I put some nail polish on the hip ball joints for the Flag years ago and fixed the problem. Will reapply the polish if the joints got loosen again. but, yup, the joints use ABS material and are way less durable than the modern soft PS plastic used in the HG inner frame.
Well, I just figured out that the decals for the Banshee Norn are in fact waterslides. Never gotten them in a kit like this before, so hopefully sticker number 1 doesn't have that crease I put in when trying to peel it off before realizing what the numbered points on the back were about.
Sorry to hear about some parts errors with the Norn, user errors happen in retooled kits, but sucks about the manufactured error. On the same note of user error, I just found out the fun way for the Origins Gouf that I used the wrong ankle joints. the parts I used by mistake were from the Zaku kit (it uses some of the same parts). After some angled tugging, I made the swap for the ones made for the Gouf. they just tilt out ward more so the feet have a wider, centered tilt. And I built the torso. A side note, that big handled tool is a WAVE brand part seperater. I used it to take the crotch piece off because I forgot to attach the power cable.
