Gunpla: The RMS-106 Hi-Zack in Master Grade

 

It's been 6ish years since I started modelling and writing about Gunpla on a frequent basis on this blog. It's never been a regular thing, but it always was a thing, especially if we count the 30 Minutes Missions stuff. And as with Transformers of late, I find myself a little bored. So, I thought, fuck it, try a cheap Master Grade as a change of pace. Inflation has meant that the value proposition has actually started to change in relation to the newest High Grades, and hopefully the larger scale makes for a different build experience. Was it? And was it any good? Ummmm.... Well, let me waffle about the design a bit before talking about the actual model.

I gave a reasonable summary of the Hi-Zack way back when I talked about the HG, and my opinion hasn't changed much in the time since. There's no compelling in universe reason why the Federation and especially the Titans, should be using this machine, and doubly so in these colours. I do like the Hi-Zack though, and for much the same reasons as I like the GM III. It looks like an aggressively overbuilt bombtruck of a thing, a design upgraded and upgunned beyond it's original specifications. I find it's flaws interesting, and it's daft place in the canon to be compelling. It's space fascism repackaged and upgraded for a new generation to fight. Possibly the most self-reverential choice a sequel could make at the time, in what would become typical for the franchise. Every Gundam series gets it's Zaku clone in it's starter kit, it's scènes à faire. And those that don't have actual Zakus instead. The Hi-Zack is the first from that template. It's just that it's got a lot of the same components. It's machine gun is literally the same as the old one, maybe not the best choice TBH, but it's been modernised with a new sensor. The heat hawk returns, but bigger, and the leg missile pods have been upgraded and moved to a waist mount. More Freddie design elements have came in via a beam rifle, beam saber, chest vents, and a forearm shield with storage for energy packs. This also leads to the most baffling thing about the Hi-Zack, it's inability to wield two beam weapons at once. That really should not have been a problem, and there's been various attempts to smooth that one out over the years, with a lot more GMs and such carrying machine guns, a better pre-production version, etc. But you have options there. There are circumstances where you don't want beam weapons, a big axe has the advantage of being a big axe, and so on.

Now, I built this kit over several weeks. Its big, fancy, and probably not worth rushing. I'd build a limb or two over a week, as while not necessarily intricate, it was time-consuming. If only due to it's bulk. As such, I've been rather back & forth and up & down with this kit, as I encountered the bits that have aged poorly. And made some dumbass mistakes. This has a 2004 copyright and feels like a big polycap High Grade, with some very HG flaws. I did not expect stickers to colour correct the toes, the right plastic colour for it is right there. Nor a waterslide decal for the monoeye. I was not pleased to see the axe was moulded in one colour only, but at least its an ignorable grey. The plastic in general is prone to cut marks, being suspiciously similar to older HGs, and I had trouble with basically everywhere. Maybe I should swallow my pride and try sanding sticks?  Moving onto the more luxurious elements worthy of the title Mastergrade: the distinctive yellow cabling. These are made with rubbery bits, with individual plastic rings, and are generally a ball ache. I lost two rings because I am a muppet, but even if there were spares, these are inherently a nuisance to prepare. Meanwhile, the articulated fingers are nice, but have the inevitable issue with actually holding things. On the positive side, I did like how the legs go together, and the accessory count, even with that there's some awkwardness with the implementation. If you want to stow the axe for example, you have to use the missile pods, while the machine gun lacks a spare drum, but the beam rifle has three energy packs. It's not bad. And it's entirely possible for a kit to be rough around the edges and still be fun, especially if it's got a lotta guns. See the Zaku I. But this honestly this was more tiresome than therapeutic a lot of the time. The kit, much like the Hi-Zack itself, is simply outdated.

Having completed the kit, and still not having found the missing rings, I opted for a weathering job to downplay my mistakes, like an actual glue mishap on the left hand. I also painted the monoeye, which moves incidentally.  Normally this is the point where I start to feel better about a troubled project, but then realised another component had gone astray, and I wasn't having a great day in the first place. Its was a bit of cabling for the upper thigh, and not immediately obvious, but another annoyance atop of a series of annoyances. Soooo, I don't think I'm a fan of Mastergrades, at least of this vintage. Not for relaxation or therapeutic purposes.

That's a downer.

Warhammer 40K: Introducing Project Legs Eleven

So here's the thing, despite some reservations, I ordered one of those 11^th edition Armageddon boxes. I hope to have it today. I could easily blame the FOMO, (new previews and rules every day!) but truthfully I needed something to do. You might also argue that a loss leader starter box that will probably take me months to finish probably isn't a bad deal. There's a lot of new Orks in it, and I'm not opposed to having a paper rulebook either. That just leaves the marines, and I had considered just flogging these on eBay, I think I'll paint some of them too. As Crimson Fists.

You may not have heard of the Crimson Fists, because they are basically the snobbish hipster's beakie chapter. Turning up occasionally to please those in the know, they were on the cover of the very first WH40k rulebook, and featured in the very first scenarios, against Orks. It went badly for them, because they accidentally blew up their own fortress monastery with an air defense missile, trying to fend off an Orkish invasion. That was a tragic accident, apparently, and I will now allow the reader to take a leisurely 5 minutes to laugh about that one. 

We good? OK, let's continue.

As a result, the Crimson Fists are mainly known for being very few in number, and having an intense hatred of Orks. Oh, and having red hands. As an Ork player, such folks amuse me as foes. And they present a potentially interesting change of pace as a modeling project. I'll see how a few feel to paint, and if I don't vibe with it I'll move the rest on. The Ork angle meanwhile is more straightforward. Their presence in the starter box bodes well for rules support, although my existing army is quite complete. Unless the codex does something notably unexpected, the new stuff here is pretty much all I want. What I expect any new Ork codex to do is give me a lot of busy work as the Boyz, Grots, and Nobz kits get refreshed, likely reflecting the example set by this launch box. It has been stated that Rokkit Launchas etc for basic Boyz aren't going anywhere, but at time of writing, I strongly suspect that I'm gonna need to rebase a few things and such. This will be dull, so having marines as a palette cleanser won't hurt.

So, I'm gonna take my time here, and be a bit more relaxed about this as a project. I'm not forcing myself to do weekly updates, but it will likely be that if things go well. I’ve still got a  modest buffer of articles, so there’s no real reason to hurry. But I am planning on the following rough steps.

Stage 1: Gretchin and New Box Smell 
It's been a hot minute since I actually painted Orks, so a gentle warm-up won't hurt. If only to discover which paints need replacing. I'll probably dry-fit a few models too, as I'll probably want to play the game soonish. Does anyone know what's happening with runtherds BTW?

Stage 2: Shinys and Maintenance - Early July
Here I pick either one of the Ork vehicles, or one or two of the characters to work on. If anything is broken, I'll fix it then, as well as modernise my army lists etc.

Stage 3: Ongoing Alternations - July/August
Having got back into the groove, I putting the more basic marines into rotation, aiming for one unit at a time. I want to avoid burnout and take my time. I will most likely batchpaint the Boyz, but that's potentially a slog that my brain would rebel against, so I gotta pace myself. If something performs well on the table though, it's probably jumping the queue.

Stage 4: Blingy Beakies and the Book - September
Assuming things like the Intercessors went OK, I now move onto the more elaborate marines. These get quite fancy, and fancy it's not something I normally do, so I want to work up to that. Otherwise, if I didn't like the beakies? The Landspeeder might get looted, and the remaining bits go on sale. By this point the ork codex will likely be imminent and any rebasing or retooling etc that needs doing can be done at this stage.

Wish me luck.

Gunpla: The Wing Gundam Entry Grade

 Now for something a bit more basic. Bandai has for a while now been producing Entry Grade releases. Kits for absolute beginners, to get them started. Loss leaders, basically. These do however tend to be very interesting to established Gunpla fans however, as these tend to be very cheap, technologically impressive builds which compare favourably with High Grades in general, and indeed other iterations of the same mobile suits. No need for tools or glue, no polycaps, and largely ideal colour accuracy. I think if they did the Zaku II in this style it would be impossible to keep in stock . They have instead kept Entry Grade as relatively simple actual Gundams, often with accessories omitted. The Wing Gundam is a recent addition to this line, possibly the most recognisable example to western fans. It comes from Gundam Wing, or more formally New Mobile Report Gundam Wing, the first series really make an impact in anglophone countries, and I've featured models from the series on this blog a few times.

First off, the obligatory context and biography paragraph. While the Wing Gundam might be assumed to be the protagonist mech of it's series, and it certainly was positioned that way, it's treatment within the series doesn't support that. It was intercepted on its approach to Earth, and so it's pilot made repeated attempts to destroy it, and himself, for fear of it being captured by the enemy. Eventually said pilot, one Heero Yuy, gets over that, but still ends up destroying it in response to a Trump style threat. It is then rebuilt by a foe, as a gift no less, subsequently outmatched by newer robots, and abandoned. It's final act was to be used in a desperate but successful attempt to get somebody to move out of the way of a big laser, a footnote in someone else's unrequited love story, but not a terrible way to go. It probably doesn't help that Heero was arguably more dangerous than the machine he piloted, and he subsequently acquired the Wing Zero, an almost total upgrade, except for that nasty habit of causing insanity. It also doesn't help, to paraphrase a friend, "that it's not the Tallgeese". But, on its own merits, what is the Wing like? A gun that flies with a somewhat unconvincing bird mode. It's buster rifle could melt whole squads of Leos in one go, and it was agile in the air. Said gun however had only a three shot capacity, and it's other weapons were unremarkable. As such, it was a machine that was mainly good for acts of terrorism, or airstrikes. Which amount to the same thing, of course.

As a build, the Wing punches above it's weight, but the budget is felt. It does have some immediate flaws, but not anything you'd consider unacceptable in a full HG that has a lot of white. It looks great immediately after assembly. You'd need a bit of black for the shoulders for example, and the inside of the shield is the wrong colour, but who cares? A flaw typical of the range is the absence of a beam saber, but no great loss. What is less acceptable is how the buster rifle is one colour when so much attention was paid to the body. Your mileage may vary on that; these aren’t necessarily difficult colours to add, nor obnoxious by their absence, but they are absent.  Meanwhile, the mecha feels light, is visibly hollow in places, and is loose in it's joints. Not fatally so, not unforgivably so, but not great. Can it transform? Yes, it can, but the instructions don't mention it. Possibly because the loose joint issues are quite noticeable and there's no securing tabs to hold things together. I decided against photographing that because it isn't worth the hassle.

For this build I opted for basic techniques such as panel-lining in grey with occasional paint applications. I experimented with gundam-markers and some conceptually similar paint pens by Posca. You can get some pretty decent colours that way, but I should mention that I have a medically recognised condition called “being cack-handed”, so things didn’t come out super-great. This why I go so hard on the dry-brushing and inking with other stuff, mistakes only help with that. I think I got something vaguely passable, but my paints just seem to hate gunpla plastic…. I ended up using a big black marker in places. Frankly, I shouldn't have bothered. Not everything has to succeed to be usefully, creatively speaking, I feel I made it worse in trying to fix it. And then trying to fix the fix.

If you’re a beginner, happily give this a go, but if you’re a perfectionist, I advise caution.

Plamo: The 30 Minutes Missions Levinix Type A

 

OK, so here's something I picked up as a slight change of pace, that didn't quite vibe with me, and didn't come out quite right... so it it got pushed back on the schedule.

 

The Levinix Type A is based off the Spinatio, meaning that it's a lithe and flexible mecha once completed, and comes with five hand options for easier posing. It's main selling point is the substantial use of translucent plastic in it's accessories: a big shield, a quartet of knives, and two revolvers with bayonets attached. Notably they haven't tried to just reinvent the beam saber here, it's more like glass, probably/hopefully bulletproof glass in the case in the shield. The design of the knives and their leg holsters is something I like a lot; there's maybe an Attack on Titan influence with that. I'd probably point to the Spinatio Ninja type as it's main influence though, otherwise it's a bit generic-protagonist-prototype with a hint of psycho-frame. Maybe it's got a bit of Syd Mead with the head, but that could just be the white of the Type A version. As you may have gathered by now, I would grow not to like the shield and bayonet revolvers once built. Neither seems proportioned quite right, the revolvers especially, and with translucent pieces this big, you can have cutmark issues easily. The shield needed a hand grip too, because it bumps into the shoulder armour as is. While not critically flawed or anything, the revolvers and shield feel a bit first draft. Or just off another machine entirely. So off they came.

Deciding to make the best of a bad job, I rebuilt the shoulders without armour and re-imagined the model as a knife fighter. I also tried to keep the bright and colourful nature of the kit, so I tried to be more restrained with the weathering, applying ink with a tiny brush. It's still more messy than I wanted, but nothing stains more easily than this shade of white, so OK I suppose. Funny story, I did think about getting the black variant, but choose the white as it was more outside of my military green comfort zone and less of a nuisance to tidy up. Maybe not the best choice now I think if it. Also used here is one of those new AK paint pens, an aluminum one, to pick out a few details. The tip isn't small enough for panel lining unfortunately, but there seems potential there as an alternative to Gundammarkers. As a finishing touch, I attempted to paint the codpiece magenta, to break up the white. And, frankly, that bit looks too much like a heart to be accidental. Not with this many blades...

 

I'm not especially happy with how this turned out. I wasn't aiming for "dirty knife weirdo" when I ordered this or put it together. But if that's a valid outcome, I suppose it isn't terrible.