Upper Torso
This model goes out of its way to include a big hunk of light blue plastic just to create this little bit of color separation:
It’s wild to see this from the same model kit line that went out of its way to make the legs of the Dijeh out of as few parts as possible. My guess is that since most of the engineering work was already done for the original Jesta, they had the luxury to get fancy with the Jesta Cannon.
I wish I had more to say about the upper torso, but compared to the lower body it feels like a bit of a letdown. It looks quite plain in comparison. Plus, the backpack is pretty weird. Despite being extremely tall, it only has two tiny thrusters. I thought the Jesta was supposed to be able to keep up with the Unicorn Gundam:
Ah well. At least it looks decent once attached to the rest of the body:
Differences with standard Jesta
The Jesta Cannon has a piece of grey armor running along the top of the chest. On the OG Jesta, this is instead dark blue. Other than that, I can't see any other differences.Extra Piece Count
I don't think there are any extras left over from the chest.Arms
Usually the arms are the most boring part of a build, but not this time. Each arm has some unique features for us to take a look at.
On the right arm, the Jesta Cannon stores multiple extra clips for its rifle:
On the left arm, we get a shield. It’s thick, narrow, and it attaches in such a way that you’re not going to easily pull it off:
Is it actually supposed to be fixed to the arm? I’m not entirely sure, but it’s an interesting idea.
On a final note, those light grey hexagons on the shoulder armor are color separated plastic, which was a huge relief.
Differences with standard Jesta
- The shoulder armor is dark blue on the standard Jesta, and it doesn't have the little armor hexagons.
- There is no shield on the left arm. Instead it has a holster for its beam saber.
Extra Piece Count
We get enough parts for one shoulder, and what I believe is the bottom of the wrist armor. We don't get the parts for the beam saber holster.
Hands
Similar to the High Grade GM Custom, we get seven different holding hands:
And these are the fancy kinds, where the closed fist hands are made out of three pieces for some reason.
We also get four extra, unused backing pieces:
In every other instance we’ve seen so far, the standard Jesta uses a blue piece where the Jesta Cannon uses grey - but when it comes to the holding hands, the situation is reversed.
Head
This was a dream to work on. There aren’t many pieces, but they’re all large, highly detailed, and easy to paint.
You might notice that I painted the inside of the head in metallic silver, in hopes that it would look good once the clear orange visor was place in front. It turns out my hunch was correct:
Not the visor looks shiny and reflective, and you can’t really peer through to see the plastic behind it.
The head reminds me a lot of the GM Sniper II. It has the same antenna, and they both look a lot like a SWAT helmet.
There were no extra parts for the head, as it appears to be identical on both mobile suits.
Conclusion
And with that, we’re done! I’ll leave you with a little teaser image before we take it for a test spin:
Trust me, this is going to be a good one.