Pictures first, Text second..
What a silly name..
One of my more adventurous kits and my favourite so far. I never intended to own this kit as the asking price was to high and the actual kit itself doesn’t quite appeal to me. I had originally purchased the Perfect Grade 1/60 GP01 and when I received the parcel, I opened it and to my surprise this kit was wrongly sent instead. So instead of forking out a huge amount of money in freight and coupled with the fact this kit is far more expensive than the one I had purchased, I kept it. Mwahahaa.
As I had never intended to own this MS I wasn’t prepared for it, for the GP01 I had custom parts and decals and some kind of plan as to how I wanted it to look. With the GN 0000 I had to make it up as I went.
I would have to say I was kinda disappointed with some features of this kit. While you do get a shite load of kit, the Suit itself and the Raiser is a helluva lot of parts, but.. I was disappointed with the lack of details moulded in to the Inner Frame for such a new kit, my MG Red Astray has loads of details moulded in to the parts which aloud me to paint them in. For me, personally if I had build this thing straight up without any customization I wouldn’t be overly happy with the lack of details. Also the build was rather simple, the building of this kit has nothing on my old Perfect Grade RX-178 MK II and that kit is many years older.
I decided to add thrusters to this kit as I luuuuuv thrusters, for me they add so much to a suit and the fact this kit appears to use fairy dust and flashy lights to maneuver just wasn’t good enough. I tried to add as much little details like pipes and a shite load of bolts and mesh to this kit as I could, because like I said earlier, the Inner Frame is pretty plain. Plus I love G-System Kits and I took inspiration from their more detailed kits.
I did manage to create many hurdles for myself during this build and learnt a few things:
- Accidentally grabbed the wrong can of paint and sprayed some white parts with gun metal instead of flat top coat (I don’t have any white paint). So I had to respray with blue instead.
- The kit when I finally put everything together (but not quite finished) fell from a shelf almost 6 foot high onto my desk and onto the floor, fortunately nothing broke, only some bits of armor and a couple of thrusters fell off. I was sooooooooooooo lucky as he is quite heavy.
- I didn’t install the very important rubber bits on the legs that attach to the feet properly, which aloud the kit to wobble quite a bit. I had installed them about 4 mm to far down so the feet weren’t attached securely. This caused him to fall from the shelf. So to correct that I had to pull off the armor that I had glued on plus a few pipes and parts in order to make the changes Yikes!
- Wasted a lot of pipe trying to get the right bends.
- Finally learnt that I should sand back imperfections like nub marks and things so I can have a much better finish, prior to and including this kit I only used a sharp knife to cut the nubs off and tidy them up….
Yes there are only 4 decals used as the kit has been handled and pulled apart and rebuild so many times I just can’t be bothered right now to pull him apart so I can place more decals on him. Some of the paint where I handle him a lot is starting to wear thin, so maybe a job for the future.
Ok so here is a quicky at what I did and used.
MODICATIONS:
Legs: Most of the changes were just swapping the bottom armor pieces around, if you look at stock pictures you can see which ones I moved. Only one piece I had to create a new join and some kind of floor for it, as that piece had the thruster attached and I needed the thruster to point out and sit away from the leg. Other than that just a little bit of cutting and trimming to expose a little more inner frame and I think I left off some smaller bits of armor.
Feet: just loads of trimming on the white piece and I sperated the heel armor and left off some armor pieces.
Waist: Nothing other than leaving off 2 bits of armor.
Torso: The armor that goes on the end of the shoulder part of the torso, I trimmed the inside of them alot and swapped the sides they should be on, so they stick up and not down.
Arms: Just trimming and the 2 hoses you see.
Backpack: I used one part from the Raiser and just filled in the gaps with polysterene (only about 3 pieces), really basic mod but it looks fantastic. Also I used the armor parts from the feet that I didnt use and made them into the little thruster housings under the GN drives (resourseful hey) I just had to make a floor outa polysterene so I could attach the thrusters. Also more trimming and cutting here and there.
Head: I left off the top piece of armor as the inner frame looked pretty good sticking out and also the little pixy ears were left off to.
BLING:
Pipes: were a $3.99 AUD pack of 3 alluminium modelers tubing. <== so much cheap for so much bling. For all the straight parts I drilled a little hole, just part way into the armor as a seat for the pipe and just added glue. For all the curved bits of armor I just made sure the ends of the pipe were obscured by armor and just glued them down.
Bolts/Studs: 2 sizes, I used like 60 in total, both large and small 2.8mm and 1.8mm I got these from Mechaskunk, his shop is closed atm so HQOparts on eBay has them.
Thrusters: 2 sizes, I splashed out and got the titanium coated ones. HQOparts has them in different sizes and the large ones come in a pack of 2 with up for 5 parts to make each thruster, they look soo good. I also bought the Unicorn – metal pack which has 8 of the small ones. I also used some baffles for the base of the thrusters (the silver parts) I purchased them from Mechaskunk.
Metal Sheets: Just some modellers (alluminium?) metal sheet that is thin enough to cut with a good pair of scissors. I only used around 5 small cuttings.
PAINT:
Tamiya Spray cans:
French Blue, Gun Metal, Mica Red and Flat coat.
I painted the inner frame in assembled parts; Feet, legs, waist, torso, arms, shoulders, head and backpack. All were assembled as per the list and I layed them all out close together inside the lid of the box the kit came in. I did a very quick pass over each piece at 90 degree angles (so I ended up walking around them in a circle spraying every 90 degrees), just four quick bursts of paint. 30 minutes later I recoated, 60 minutes later I flipped them over and repeated. If you are unsure, it only takes about 1 second (if that) to pass over just nice and quick so there is no chance of the paint running, the quicker the passes and the more recoats the better. The coverage was perfect and the effert was almost Nil. (cheating maybe?)
The white parts I just used the Flat coat… it works.. (My crap hole local hobbystore doesnt have any white paint).
The blue and red armor I did the same thing, spraying lots of light coats at 90 degree angles and when I went to flip them I moved them to a clean section of cardboard so there was no chance of them sticking and marking the paint, infact, now that I think about it, if I did the underside first then flipped them right way up that would reduse the change of sticking and marking.
That just about covers how a Lazy ass gundam builder like me, built this kit. nice and lazy like.. There was more effort in ‘planning’ than actual ‘doing’.
i love this action figure