This may be unpopular, but I've found that there are certain kits you can get on Amazon or Ebay way cheaper than on Newtype or Usagundamstore. Mainly because of that monstrous shipping fee for the latter two (unless you stack, in which case cool), whereas Amazon and Ebay usually ship for free.
I feel like it says more about me when a High Grade made for easy assembly and simple details takes more than a day. To be fair, I was busy most of the day driving between three counties on farm errands for most of the day. Also I gave the cement more time to dry before sanding and polishing. Edit: I should have mentioned it in my previous post, but I dried some cement over the ball joint for the ankle armor because it was ridiculously loose. Adding Gunship Gray to the entrenched panel gaps, underlayer of the abdomen and the molded surface details like those 'spike studs' on the knees breaks up the Leo's natural monochromatic design. Plus it blends with the sprocket joint covers on the feet and mounting bracket for the shield.
Nothing like going totally insane with how bad circa '99 construction manuals are and deciding to build two legs of a PG kit in drag just to cope with the insanity. I'm so spoiled on modern manuals. Make all your sub assemblies first, then mash together into the finished part. But the PG manual? Build this, build that, snap it together. Then on the bottom fucking corner it goes "HUR DON'T FORGT THIS 5 PIECE SUB ASSEMBLY BEFORE YOU MASH IT ALL TOGETHER. No wonder why I fucked my first one up when I was young. That being said even this old ass PG has enough details on it for me to appreciate. I forgot just how there are just enough delightful panel lines are on this thing, especially the legs. It's a good mix between the detailed line art and clean anime aesthetic. Articulation is still great, though so far the hip articulation is actually more limited than the Zaku 2.0s. With the PG Unleashed Granpda, I'm certain they'll do a Char's Zaku II. I'll just get that instead of a new green Zaku.
Thanks for the answer, I think aI get your point ! I actually had the Moon Gundam in mind being a perfect counter example of what I said ! But I felt like most of HGs are not that ambitious, and Penelope seems on another level (from price to size). Actually, over the 21 gunpla I built, I only 2 are HG, plus the HG Soryumaru above (plamo, not gunpla). One Grimoire Red Beret (a crazy fun figure) and the G40, I adore it, but it can't be compared with anything else I think. That's why I can be naive about that line. About the Origin Granddaddy, I almost ordered it, but I don't know how to explain it, it looks too much like a RG without being one to my taste, so I took the recent Zaku II that look a perfect balance between simplicity and efficiency. I think I'll build that one pretty soon. Indeed, but in the end, if you take some time on your HG, I'm sure you do the same to the other more intricate grades to improve them as well, making them bigger projects.
i'll say. i JUST began learning how to do a weathering job, beginning with this 1/48 TAMIYA M1A2 about a month ago now, and i've been modelling since my early-teens about 25+ years ago...
Normally I work from the head down on any kit but the wiring on the head terrifies me. Got some clear orange to really so justice to the heat hawk and I love how the sun is catching this.
Man, credit where due - I don't think I would be able to work up the nerve to kitbash a Pale Rider into something.
I bought a spare Space and Ground PR expressly for kitbash purposes. And technically, I still have a complete base PR since I only built the Ground equipment to swap around with the Space. Just haven't found the right project....like all my other part donor kits.
Meh, it was a $30 kit I didn’t really like and Pale Riders have only gotten easier to obtain in various forms the last few years. The K9 Sniper and EZ-SR I culled for bits will both cost you more these days
I only just recently found out about this so unfortunately I'll probably have to wait until April or later before its in stock somewhere after all the Preorders are filled. Do you guys think that this kit with its multiple frames will be the most durable kit to date?
I dunno, maybe. There are a few kit out there that are built like f***ing bricks, and all of those swingy panels could fall off, but maybe.
Part of me is still dubious about PG Unleashed. The inner frame thing of old RG kits never lasted that long and while this is bigger in scale...I mean I'm gonna get it but I'm still wary. That being said you really shouldn't be banging your kits around anyways. Not the right kind of plastic to be bashing up against other things.
MGs were doing inner frames way before RGs and they were fine. Existing PGs are usually quite solid as well. The problem with RGs was not that they used frames, but that the frame was very poor and relied on the scattershot solidity of the pre-assembled style joints that most RGs have abandoned in favour of frames you build yourself.
The Sinanju was fine if it was assembled by someone who actually knew how to put a kit together. I think it was Squee who took the video of himself shaking the kit like a dog with a chewtoy and it not budging
No, it wasn't. It is well-documented how poor that kit was, I had to glue several parts because posing the kit caused pieces to fall off. The difference between shaking it and pieces naturally working themselves apart because of poor design is that it's not the actual grip strength of the connections so much as it is the anchor points being poorly placed. The collar pieces will never fall out from shaking, but if you try to turn the head and accidentally bump them with your finger it takes almost no force to fulcrum them off from their poor connections. Also, aside from being unstable, it just sucks, even if it worked as intended. The shield connection is shit, the shoulders are garbage and limit posability because they use frame pieces undersized for the body and the armour prevents any useful outward movement, and the weight distribution compared to the joint strengths are all over the place. The waist is simply not designed to hold up as much mass as the upper body has, it wiggles and falls and might as well be immobile. The Sinanju was so bad it forced Bandai to re-evaluate even using pre-made frames at all. The Unicorn, by contrast, features only a partially pre-built frame, and the Tallgeese doesn't even use its few pre-built pieces for the frame at all. (IIRC it's the thrusters and part of the knee slider) I still have the RG Sinanju, but it just sits collecting dust because any time I touch it I'm reminded of why I hate it. I just bought the Titanium finish high grade and painted the gold by hand, and am so much more satisfied with it. It can actually be posed.
I should've clarified. Yeah, I don't mean inner frames in general, but rather the RG style pre-built ones. Unless I'm mistaken the PG Unleashed does have a pre-built internal frame too? Unless the internal frame is more a long the lines of HiRM...at least the Astrays, I'll be more optimistic about it. Just been burned by all my old RGs. And yeah...RG Sinanju is pretty garbo. A total shame as I love the Sinanju.
