I built so much of this model kit in Part 1 that I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough to talk about here in Part 2. But those fears turned out to be unfounded. We only have a few more body parts to assemble, but each one tells an intricate story.
Head
There are a few ways in which this head assembly is rather unique.
- Instead of having a front half and a back half, it has a “rear bottom half”, “rear top half”, and a front half. In other words, it is slightly more parts separated than usual
- The face mask is molded into the helmet, rather than being its own piece
Here’s the rear section, which for whatever reason reminds me a bit of Iron Mask:
Now here it is from the front. It still kind of reminds me of Iron Mask:
Finally, we add the camera decal, paint the vulcan cannons, and we’re done:
Is it just me, or does it look a little … derpy?
Let’s attach it to the body and see if it looks any better:
Maybe a little, but not really.
Keep in mind that this is what it is supposed to look like:
But even from a similar angle, the model just isn’t close (though it does look a little better here):
I think there are two problems:
- The proportions are all off. The chin isn’t as long, the eyes aren’t as tall, the camera sensor is too tall, and those little vents on each side of the face rest too low. And don’t forget its “ears” on the sides of its helm. They’re supposed to look like vents (or just ornamental flourishes), but instead they look like Wing Gundam’s elf ears if they were tucked back a little.
- It was a mistake to mold the face mask right into the helm. There’s no spacing between them, and thus no shading or shadows. It makes it look much more like a traditional action figure head.
Sadly, this happens sometimes with the heads of model kits. My guess is that, due to their intricacy and relatively small size, the head is among the hardest bits to try and recreate. Most of the time the designers get it right, but in cases like this (or the Real Grade Nu Gundam) it doesn’t quite work out.
Until I take some photos of the finished model, however, it remains to be seen whether this derpy head will be truly detrimental to its overall look. My gut tells me that as long as I keep it at the right angle(s), it should be fine.
The Arms
Shenlong is a rare example of a mobile suit with truly asymmetrical arms. Their construction is almost completely different, so it actually makes sense for us to talk about each one separately.
I originally wanted to start with the left arm, so that we could save the right arm (with the Dragon Fang) for last. But it turns out that it’s a lot harder to write about them that way. The best way to explain it is that it’s easier to describe the left arm in terms of what it does in absence of the Dragon Fang, rather than the other way around.
Shoulder Decals
I tried using the included shoulder decals, but they turned out to be even worse than [described](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=acPne1q3Ado&feature=emb_title). You know it's bad when your spouse - who usuallly tells you that your models look great - thinks they look ugly. I ended up removing them and replacing them with a paint job, but I chose to use a few photos featuring the decals just so you could see how bad they looked.Right Arm
Naturally, there are more here than usual, on account of the arm being extendable.
Speaking of which, let’s talk a bit about how that particular gimmick works. In his Youtube review, Mecha Gaikotsu described it as working essentially like an extra long arm with multiple segments and multiple joints.
I’d say that’s about 66% true. The arm is made out of multiple “blocks” that are constructed in much the same way as a “normal” forearm (in the sense each block contains joints sandwiched between two pieces of armor):
And it is true that these blocks are connected together via hinge joints that can both bend and rotate:
The difference is that the hinge joints aren’t constructed in the same way that they normally are. As you can see, they are simple, one piece hinges. They’re not the larger, wider, 3-4 piece assembly that’s typically used to create an elbow joint (speaking of which, Shenlong does still use one of those for its actual elbow):
Once the arm chain is complete, we first attach it to the shoulder. As you can see, there’s a huge gap in the shoulder armor to accommodate it:
Then we plug it in:
Next, we rotate the arm assembly so that the white armor is facing outward:
This was a bit tricky. The joints on mine were very stiff, to the point where I thought I would break something if I tried to do this rotation. But it just required a bit of extra pressure and some faith that it’d all work out.
Once rotated, we bend to create an L shape:
And then bend again, tucking the entire arm chain in between the shoulder armor:
If we look closely at the illustration of Shenlong, you’ll notice that this is actually how it is meant to work/look. This isn’t some compromise for the sake of the gimmick:
Once that section is in place, we can assemble the “regular” part of Shenlong’s arm, complete with its forearm and elbow joint:
We then attach this to the end of the chain, and voila:
This here is one of your best looks at just how bad the shoulder decals look. You can see the crinkles with the naked eye. If you slip up even a little bit trying to apply them, this is the result.
As for the actual arm, it does a pretty good job of looking normal. The question, though, is whether it will behave like normal. Just eyeballing it, I think it should, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Dragon Fang
This is made out of just four pieces, and it involves both some easy painting (see all the grey bits), as well as yet another eye decal.
Assembly is as simple as inserting the fangs:
And then closing the whole thing up:
Now we just attach it to the right arm to complete it:
(Here you can see the paint job I did to replace the decals. The clear gloss coat came out better than I expected, though it isn’t quite as metallic as I was initially aiming for)
While I’m confident the arm itself will operate as normal, I’m worried the Dragon Fang is going to get in the way and otherwise cause problems, especially when using the Beam Glaive.
Left Arm
When it comes to the left arm, the only thing that’s really the same is the shoulder armor, and even that’s not identical. Since there’s no extendable arm, we instead get a spacer block in its place:
Similarly, since the forearm isn’t equipped with a flame throwing dragon head, the armor is also different:
And that’s really all there is to it:
And with that, the Shenlong Gundam is complete:
Conclusion
This build felt a little bit modern and a little bit old school. It was deceptively simple: despite some excellent layering and color separation, some of the body parts are made out of surprisingly few pieces. It’s also about as good as any other modern kit about hiding seam lines whenever possible. And while it isn’t a polycap-less build, it only uses them where absolutely necessary.
There was a lot more painting required than I expect to see from a modern kit (though thankfully none of it was terribly difficult to deal with).
All in all, it was a quick and pleasant build, one where I felt like I was making actual progress every night. It felt a bit like a palette cleanser after some builds that, while successful in the end, weren’t particularly fun in the moment.
I’m very curious to see how this will fare while posing, but we’ll have to wait another day for that. See you then.
Other Thoughts
I didn’t notice it until it was smack dab in my face, but Shenlong reuses one of the runners from Sandrock. I only realized this once I saw the handles to Sandrock’s Shotels, as well as its special, angled holding hands:
It makes sense that it’d reuse this runner in order to reuse the joint pieces, though the manual also explicitly points out that you can use the angled holding hands to help with the Beam Glaive.