Gunpla Chronicles OVA 1 - Misc

I decided to build a few more … miscellaneous items before getting to the mobile suit itself.

Figurines

OK, so I didn’t really build these things - I just cut them out. This isn’t my first time getting a figurine in a model kit, but it is the first time I got two. The second one, not shown here, is sitting down, and I’m going to embarrass myself by revealing that at first I didn’t understand what it was for. More on that later.

Stand

The Proto Zero comes with a stand. I’ve never seen a kit come with its own stand, I wondered whether all Master Grades did. A quick bit of research reveals that no, they certainly do not.

So why does this one have it? After doing even more research and reading some reviews, my guess is that this is actually one of the simpler, and maybe even smaller Master Grade kits to come out in recent years. If that is the case, then it makes sense that they would throw in an extra like this to make up the difference.

I will say that while it is nice to have, this isn’t an Action Base. It cannot move in any direction, but instead remains in one position for good. I have no idea whether it will lift the kit up off the ground, or whether its feet will touch the bottom. I just hope if allows for some cool action poses.

Chest

Now we finally move on to working on the mobile suit itself. The manual starts with the chest, so I began there too.

This wasn’t as hard to build as I expected, though that doesn’t mean it was easy. The inner frame is made of two large pieces, with several small parts sandwiched between them, including the cockpit and a socket joint. Keeping all these inner pieces in place as I tried to snap things together was tricky, and I ended up picking parts up off the floor more than once.

It was in building the cockpit that I figured out what the second figurine is for; you can actually put it in the seat and have it “pilot” the mobile suit. I find this way more interesting than it actually is.

With the frame done, it was time for the chest armor. Surprisingly, it is made of only a handful of pieces, though like the shield, some of them are fairly intricate.

The most interesting (but still stupid) part of the chest is the green crystal. It is actually layered atop of two other pieces; when assembled, it looks a lot like Iron Man’s arc reactor. Also of note is that there is a grey sticker laid atop the bottom piece. Since both this and the middle piece are ring shaped, my guess is that the decal prevents you from seeing through into the chest cavity.

I suffered my first broken piece of the build. Atop the chest are two machine guns nested within hidden compartments. The covers for these guns are on a hinge, but you have to lift them up a bit before you can swing the piece on the hinge. I didn’t realize that at first, and suffered a nice clean break. Thankfully super glue saved the day, and if I’m really careful, I can still open it like normal.

Painting

I used a bit less paint on the chest, and it worked out well. Really well. It still looks fully treated, but so far there is no discoloration or weirdness. If I can keep up this level of quality, I’ll be in good shape for the rest of this build.

Other Thoughts

• Here is a comparison of the chest next to a 1/144th scale RX78-2:

  

  It’s … barely bigger in size. I’m not going to read too much into this, because the Proto Zero’s skirt armor and shoulder armor are particularly large, and I think these pieces will look much larger when put together.

* By building the stand, I eliminated one whole runner from my pile. That alone made it worthwhile to get it out of the way, as it makes it much easier to sort for pieces. * I sprayed the inner frame of the chest with Testor’s paint. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to do so in case it was ever exposed. Judging from what I’ve seen, it probably won’t be. * My wife got me a pair of tiny scissors to use in cutting out the dry decals. They work way better than either a hobby knife or a standard pair of scissors, and thankfully I got them early enough in the build process to put them to real use.

Here is a link to a few additional photos from this part of the build.