Head
The head is “mostly” normal, but it has a few interesting quirks.
The first is that the vulcan cannons are molded into the back half of the head, rather than the front half. This makes painting them much easier:
The second is that it has a few more pieces than usual, all small, all finicky, and all fragile. One is this grey piece that wraps around the “mouth”, and adds a bit of extra color:
It also has two separate V-Fins. I ended up breaking one of them in two, but I was able to fix it with cement. Then, when I got both Fins assembled and in place, I added even more cement in hopes that it would all cure together. So far it seems to have worked:
And you know, it’s a pretty good looking head. The eyes seem particularly big and bold (or maybe it just looks that way after building the Exia and it’s tiny eye slits). I also like the double V-Fin. It looks regal and powerful without looking too ridiculous.
Arms
These are pretty simple, but they’re nice. Once again, we get a partial inner frame decked out in gold:
I particularly like how the wrist armor is so wide and geometric. It’s not what I usually think of when I think of SEED era designs, but I like being proven wrong:
Now for the shoulders. They’re not complicated per se, but they have some extra pieces that give them some nice color:
At this point, the body of the Strike Freedom is complete, albeit without the wings:
Even without them, I’m impressed with how this looks. It’s not that far off from the classic Gundam design, but it plays around with color and shape in some cool ways. It adds a lot of angles and tapering lines, and it’s willing to use red in places where you don’t normally see it.
Also, something about it feels … taller? I might have to do an actual height comparison with some other models.
Wings
Like with the Helios, the wings look like a complicated beast:
However, the assembly process is much simpler in comparison.
First off, let’s get a bit of terminology out of the away. The big, lighter blue pieces are what are known as Dragoons. They’re basically the Gundam SEED equivalent of funnels, which can detach from the wings and fly around on their own.
When it comes to assembling the wings, you’re basically taking a bunch of fairly thin (if very long) sections, and adding an extra bit that allows a Dragoon to clip on:
The smaller wing sections then get sandwiched between the larger ones to create a full wing section:
You build four sets of these wing sections, and then fit them together, two on each side:
It’s extremely easy, if not downright foolproof.
Once they’re attached, you can stack the wing sections behind each other to create a uniform, “at rest” look:
Or you can flip them all out and get one heck of a spread:
You might notice that one of the Dragoons on the right side of the model is loose, and almost dangling off. This is not a design flaw (at least I don’t think it is). Rather, the problem is that each Dragoon needs to be secured very carefully to the wing. If not, it won’t lock into place and stay secure. After taking this photo, I reattached it, at which point it stayed on without any issue.
Now that the whole thing is assembled, I guess we’re done with the build! Or we will be soon. I’m going to try to do a little bit of cleanup, and then I’ll be able to put the Strike Freedom through its paces. See you then.