Gunpla Build - High Grade RX78-2 Gundam Revive Part 2

We continue the build by moving on to the lower half of the body.

Skirt Armor

Here are all the parts to the waist and skirt armor:

The waist on the Grandaddy Gundam uses enough different colors to necessitate a surprisingly high number of pieces.

Let’s talk a little bit about this thing right here:

I’m not sure what this is called exactly. Is it a crotch arrow? Is that a good descriptor? Let’s go with that.

So the crotch arrow. I was going to paint it, and in fact tried doing so. However, I didn’t get very far before giving up on the idea. The problem, as always, is that yellow paint sucks. I don’t know why, but it always ends up being more viscous than other kinds of paint. It slid off the raised section that makes up the arrow and pooled right below. I didn’t want to waste hours slowly applying multiple tiny coats of paint just to make it look right, so I wiped it all off and slapped on this decal.

It looks better than I feared it would. True, I accidentally introduced a few wrinkles into the decal, but after applying some topcoat they’re largely invisible.

The Behavior or Different Colors of Paint

I find that different colors of paint behave in different ways. My guess is that this is due in part to needing to use slightly different ingredients and compounds to generate certain colors. Here is a short list of some of the most notably poor (and well!) behaving hues:

Yellow – The worst. If you dilute it, it gets too viscous. If you don’t, then it tends to look all crusty when it dries. It gets overpowered by other colors, it stains plastic more easily than anything else, except maybe ...
Red – Also highly prone to staining. Goes on smooth, but is extremely unstable (meaning you can get noticeably different shades of red based simply on how much water you use to dilute it). This becomes a problem when you have to do touchup work on a later day, and you can't quite match the original shade. It gets even worse when you need to mix it with another color. Red also tends to have shinier, stickier finish than other colors once it dries.
Sterling Silver – Tends to be extremely viscous and peels off easily, even after it dries. You need to leave it alone and clearcoat it as soon as you can, lest you find yourself needing to repaint again and again (and again).
Black – Straight black dilutes perfectly, goes on smooth, dries extremely fast, and doesn’t tend to be runny. The best color to work with bar none.

Here on the back plate, a bit of panel lining gives it a sense of parts separation:

Let’s put it all together now:

Not much to say here. It certainly looks the part, and the inner frame parts are quite large and sturdy.

Legs

At this point in the build, I am no longer surprised at the fact that, once again, there are more opportunities for painting and detailing than I originally assumed. From here on out, I’m just going to take it as a given.

Here is a (carefuly organized) photo of all the parts and pieces for both legs and both feet (minus a few polycaps):

That is quite a mighty pile of parts!

Let’s look at all the detailing. I got a new color of paint for this build, a metallic copper:

*Yes yes, that’s Martha Stewart paint. Don’t judge me.*

I saw another builder use a similar color on one of their Master Grade models, and I thought it looked really sharp. The first place I used it is on these inner frame parts here:

These will eventually be covered by these round caps:

The leg armor has a number of decent panel lines. I ended up using grey paint, rather than a black marker, thinking that the grey look less harsh against the white plastic:

In hindsight, it looks roughly the same. Ah well.

Moving down, I painted these vent things on the front leg armor:

This is one of the only bits of color separation on the entire leg, which is why it was so important to get it right.

These pieces here are essentially an inner frame for the feet:

I brought out all my metallic paints – including my new copper paint – and dolled these up to try and simulate a sense of part separation.

As for the feet themselves, each one is a single piece of rigid plastic, as it typical of High Grades:

That said, they have a ton of detail on the bottom:

I waffled on whether or not to paint the inside of the thrusters blue (so as to match the backpack thrusters). It was a tight space, and it took me multiple attempts to get it to look as good as it does in that picture (which is not to say it looks good. It’s … passable).

Rounding them out are the tops of the feet, as well as the ankle guards:

Now to put it all together. First, the feet:

Now the legs. This is perfect example of what Bandai means when they say this kit has a “partial inner frame”:

As you can see, this is a fairly intricate, double jointed inner frame section. It gives the leg excellent articulation.

However, this frame section is shorter than the full length of the leg. It is just long enough to give the knee that double bend, and no longer. In other words, a partial inner frame.

*If you look at the photo above, and this photo here, you can suss out how (not) far the frame plugs into the leg*

Here now is the leg and foot fully assembled:

As you can see, I was very generous with the copper paint. I also re-painted the inner frame with a mix of glossy black paint, grey paint, and way too much glitter paint. The finish is less than ideal, though I suppose it could be worse.

Comparison to Real Grade

Let’s look at the lower halves of these two kits to compare and contrast:

My observations, in no particular order:

The Real Grade’s crotch arrow is made via color accurate plastic parts, rather than a decal. It definitely looks better.
There is an incredible amount of detail on the Real Grade, far more than I remember there being. It’s kind of nuts to think I built this as my second ever kit.
The High Grade is a bit more narrow and a bit taller in size.
The knee vents on the High Grade are quite a bit larger than on the Real Grade.

The parts separation on the Real Grade makes the seamlines look intentional, which is a clever way of handwaving them away.

As you can see, my decision to use all that copper paint was not arbitrary. I was thinking precisely of those metallic decals on the Real Grade. Of course, I think the paint looks much better - those decals have been on the verge of peeling off for seven years, and it isn’t a great look.

Apologies for the blurry photo, but if you squint your eyes and tilt your head, you can see that whereas the High Grade uses just one piece for its foot¹, the Real Grade uses three separately articulated pieces:
Here is a better photo showing off the difference:

Conclusion

We are almost done here. All that is left are the arms and the weapons. I can’t wait! (well, I mean, I can, because patience and all. Still exciting!)

Though with panel lining, that one piece looks like two. ^[return]