Gunpla Review Journal!!
So. After building the Wing EW Ver Ka. I was finding myself really enjoying the design of the Wing Gundam, so I decided to pick up the
Wing TV Ver Real Grade
So, as you may see in the photo, I put a lot more effort into the build of this kit than i usually do.
I decided to brush down the entire inner frame with a brass metallic, in order to make it feel really regal, as the wing gundam should. and i tried my best to avoid stickers, even reverse washing the eyes with black enamel paint. The articulation on this thing is actually amazing to be honest. It's super solid, the super long skirts barely get in the way because they're on a hinge joint as well as a ball joint. The kit is just so multifaceted. especially with those updated wings. It really lives up to it's namesake. The gimmicks in the weapons are great too. the buster rifle with it's actual ammunition packs, and the shield with it's droop snoot ejecting beam saber with an awesome gimmick. The Bird mode does as well as it can with how the wing gundam is designed though. The buster rifle makes it really long, and the wings do a lot of the heavy lifting. the Talons on the arms are the only thing that kind of get in the way here though.
8/10
after having built quite a few complicated kits, I decided I should step back for a little bit and enjoy some simple builds. And since hobby lobby often does 40% off sales, I decided to pick up the cheapest thing in the store
2. The Entry Grade RX-78-2 Gundam
This kit is actually super simple and great for beginners, at least if they don't want to play with it. It's incredibly cheap and that shows in the joints. Usually in something like the Leo, or any 30MM or any Lfrith style kits, the tolerances on the plastic on plastic joints would be tight enough to hold up to some play. But in Entry Grades i've found, the plastic is so soft, and so loose in its tolerances, that the joints warp out and just become flaccid. Aesthetically, this kit isn't terrible. If you're planning to fully paint this kit, I'm sure it would tighten up, and I might to be honest. The one I got came with a whole lot of weapons and accessories. Which my mark ii is currently weilding the gundam hammer from. Not amazing, but it's nice that it's included.
5/10
I often check Target for any new or clearance transformers toys and I stumbled upon the HG Immortal Justice from the Seed Freedom movie, which I had just watched and absolutely loved (you guys should go watch it, you don't even need to watch seed destiny to really get it, it's literally a redo of destiny's plot but if it was good).
3. Immortal Justice
This kit is a masterpiece. I love the colors on this kit, I love the articulation and the silhouette is super muscular, more similar to a furai rather than a typical gundam, and its awesome. Being only 25 dollars with such amazing articulation and interesting gimmicks, it's a steal. I painted the grey parts with some vallejo gunmetal and I think I elevated the look a whole ton that way. It comes with a whole lot of beautiful effect parts for the shield rocket, the shin lasers and for the beam boomerangs. The rifle has a surprising amount of detail and color separation. I really really love how the pack kind of flares out with the wings. Much more than I liked the rising freedom gundam. Also the torso had a kind of weird ratcheting feeling to it that I love. The only things I don't super like about this kit are some little detail parts on the waist that tend to fall off, but if you have cement it's no problem. And I'm not a huge fan of the bulbous shape of the backpack and the shield. Strangely the backpack has a cockpit, but when it transforms its completely upside down?? That's about it though.
9/10
So I bought this one a while ago for a fully custom painting project, and because I love Chuck Keith in the OVA I got the
4. GM Cannon II
So this one is really cool. It's a bulky version of the gm custom with chobam armor and a gun cannon backpack. It's like all my favorite songs on one record. I expected this kit to share a lot more with the gm custom than it actually did. The only things that seem similar or identical are the limb joints, the shield and the guns, and that's it. The armor is completely new, the feet are new (which was surprising to me) a new head. The most welcome surprise was the movable rear skirts, which not even the gm custom had. So far its a great kit. There will be another update with a more in depth review in the future once I have painted it. Keith will be proud of me
6/10
Okay so this one is a purchase I'm not super proud of. I really like the witch from mercury line of model kits, and I've never purchased from p bandai before, but I was late to the races on the lfrith jiu. And the tiger fist was so cool, so I restored to aliexpress. I think it would be really funny if I just called this one 1/144 HG Model kit because that's what the box and the manual say but idk.
5. Gundam Lfrith Jiu
okay, so I've kind of learned my lesson with buying from China, the runners were full of voids and warped plastic, the runners said they were made of ABS and the manual said Polystyrene so I'm not sure which to trust. The stickers were kind of terrible. Unfortunately I already bought a bootleg SDEX hello kitty for a friend's Christmas present so.
Okay, enough dogging on the Chinese manufacturing. This design is so fucking cool. It's a lavender and white robot with a huge white and blue robot arm. The muted purple tones on the body make the design feel really premium and not toylike. I painted the inside of the body's shell unit with black enamels and then highlighted the grooves with chrome. I think it really makes the details pop out through the misty clear blue parts. Okay. So it's super cool, and it's a decently solid build, because it's mostly built on the base of the lfrith, but the attachment of the tiger fist a little bit awkward, the low quality molding on the parts lends the hard points for attaching the tiger fist aren't as tight or secure as I'd like them to be unfortunately, but the phalanges themselves on the tiger fist, are really decent, they don't have articulation on any of the distal phalanges, but it gets you most of the poses you could ask for.
7/10
