Post by Gane on Oct 20, 2010 14:24:40 GMT 8
HG 1/144 GPB X-80 Beginning Gundam
Gundpla Builders Beginning G 001
GPB-X80 Beginning Gundam
Technical Details: Scale Size:
Height: 19 meters 13.194 cm
Weight: 47.8 tons
Armaments: Beam Saber, Beam Rifle, Beam Vulcan and Shield
Prologue
Produced by Bandai in celebration of its 30th anniversary making Gundam model kits, it is aimed at revitalizing the spirit and satisfaction of building Gundam kits.
GPB-X80 Beginning Gundam is the first kit in the Gundpla Builders Beginning G series and probably just to be on the safe side of things, they made the kit in 1/144 scale. One reason I can think of is the idea that at this scale new and older modelers can enjoy building the kit with little knowledge and effort without having to bust out their wallets. If Bandai came out with 1/100 kits in this series, chances are it will either bomb or break even.
Personally it wasn’t really an attractive design especially when you don’t see it in action. But I guess the first episode reeled me in. Based on the prototype recolors posted all over the net, most of the kits coming out in this series are from the High Grade Universal Century kits of the same scale of 1/144.
Box Cover
First thing you’ll notice is the different take on the HG line, the box is mostly in Blue with the typical information and photos of the finished model, special features of the kit and the anime/timeline it comes from. Gone are the CG action pose on the box top, replaced with an illustrated Gundam with the Bandai Hobby Center building in the background as depicted in the 3 part anime.
Parts
Not as plentiful as the RG RX-78-2 kit, this kit comes with 206 plastic parts with 15 unused parts from the Polycaps Tree. All parts are molded in colored plastic although having the all the colored parts in the correct colored tree is a different matter altogether. Some painting is required for accuracy. The sticker is quite useful specially if you don’t want to paint some parts specially those that require a specific combination of paints to achieve.
The Gundam
It was an easy build and although I was thinking of making a MG feature on the knee area, the size makes it difficult to fit everything else without affecting something else. For those who have seen my 1/100 Exia, I modded it to have the knee separated from the leg section which was a common feature in most MG kits. A few months later the MG Exia was unveiled.
So far the only modding I managed to apply is the additional degrees in the fold of his arms, the pointed antenna made of flexible plastic similar to the beam sabers, open the “handle” at the top of the Beam Rifle and independent front and rear skirts. You may want to skip splitting the skirts if you don’t mind seeing his “gonads”.
There two discrepancies you will notice from the model compared to the anime version; first is the neck section, this is vague and you can hardly verify its accuracy since it’s not really clear whether he has a rounded or a square neck. The second is his yellow plate facing forward on top of the chest area, it’s either too forward or the neck collar is too short. You decide whether to keep it or repair it. I chose to move the yellow panel a couple of millimeters inward.
The best and most anime accurate mod I can think of is the one in November Hobby Japan. If you have time and less shaky hands, go for it… after all it’s not the least of your worries with this kit.
Articulation wise, Beginning Gundam has all the available joints to make him pose those shown in the anime and the box cover except for one part, his torso. It can’t bend back or forward although you can rotate the torso from the waist. His arms can fold to reach the Beam Sabers behind him without any surgery.
The Bad
Not really, but it depends on how you see it because you can’t really achieve the accuracy shown in the anime with a straight out of the box build without having to do some priming, painting and adjustments.
You will need to prime 4 plastic parts to achieve a good paint adhesion and avoid the underlying colored plastic to be visible. The Beam Rifle, extra hand holding 3 Beam Sabers and ankle triangles must be masked before priming before applying white paint. If you’re feeling lazy, you can cut enough white parts on the decal sheet to cover all the white parts on the Beam Rifle. You can also use White Gundam Marker on the yellow ankle triangles; with enough patience you can achieve accuracy after a lot of repeated application. The extra hand will require priming, since you will have rough time applying acrylic paint on it.
The closest I could get to obtain the correct blue is from my stock of acrylic paint for general purposes. It’s a little darker than the blue plastic, but you can mix a drop or two of white to achieve the right hue.
You can never wash this kit enough. I had to resort to scribing some panel lines deeper because the plastic is way too slippery. I have noted the parts that you may have trouble applying panel lines either by Gundam Marker or the good old capillary action.
Conclusion
For new Gundam modelers, this kit is an easy build without any fit problem. Although painting is required, most parts have their designated sticker to cover them up. If you’re not in any hurry to finish this kit, you can think of ways to improve its looks or just copy the Hobby Japan mod.
I had to resort to using the stickers for health reasons, I got too sensitive to fumes over the weekend and paint fume is giving me headaches. Although I did manage capillary action panel lining on both Beginning Gundam and RG RX-78-2…
Bandai could have moved some parts to lessen the necessity to paint the kit especially when you really want to grab new modelers into the Gundam scene.
Beginning Gundam does not occupy too much space and he does stand taller than RX-78-2 because of the 1 meter difference (.694 cm, highest part not head height) so you will still enjoy posing and playing (if you must) with it with all the articulation available.
Personally I don’t think painting him anything other than flats or gloss is necessary since Beginning Gundam is suppose to be built out of the box by Hal (Haru in some translation) Irei in the anime, a novice modeler.
Pros:
- Kit is accurate to some degree to the animated version (will delve into this later),
- Kits details are crisp and in most parts have easily removable mold seam lines,
- Contains 206 parts including polycaps, minus 15 polycaps that are not used in this kit.
Cons:
- Will need painting in some parts to accurately depict the kit in the anime,
- Blue sticker don't really compare right to the blue plastic but passable,
- Helmet halves have tiny gaps on the "ear" areas,
- Some discrepancies in the pictures depicting the chest and neck area compared to the mold.
As the anime has to be made a few months to a year before the model kit is released, there are slight differences in the build so you can't really make an accurate comparison with the anime except the fact that most details like sprue trees and manual are obviously similar.
I hope you enjoy the pictures below, sorry I can't get them anymore clearer than these... and I removed the stand thru Photoshop for those who are wondering...
Imitating the box top pose
Imitating some manual photo poses (sorry forgot to edit in the reference photos)
In your face shot, that's not green fart; that's the blurred out Gundam Stand I got from Qan T... ;D
Some photoshoping involved before I crash my old PC... ;D
Surprisingly though it didn't crash...
BTW OVA 2 is now available...
Coming Really Soon
Gundpla Builders Beginning G 001
GPB-X80 Beginning Gundam
Technical Details: Scale Size:
Height: 19 meters 13.194 cm
Weight: 47.8 tons
Armaments: Beam Saber, Beam Rifle, Beam Vulcan and Shield
Prologue
Produced by Bandai in celebration of its 30th anniversary making Gundam model kits, it is aimed at revitalizing the spirit and satisfaction of building Gundam kits.
GPB-X80 Beginning Gundam is the first kit in the Gundpla Builders Beginning G series and probably just to be on the safe side of things, they made the kit in 1/144 scale. One reason I can think of is the idea that at this scale new and older modelers can enjoy building the kit with little knowledge and effort without having to bust out their wallets. If Bandai came out with 1/100 kits in this series, chances are it will either bomb or break even.
Personally it wasn’t really an attractive design especially when you don’t see it in action. But I guess the first episode reeled me in. Based on the prototype recolors posted all over the net, most of the kits coming out in this series are from the High Grade Universal Century kits of the same scale of 1/144.
Box Cover
First thing you’ll notice is the different take on the HG line, the box is mostly in Blue with the typical information and photos of the finished model, special features of the kit and the anime/timeline it comes from. Gone are the CG action pose on the box top, replaced with an illustrated Gundam with the Bandai Hobby Center building in the background as depicted in the 3 part anime.
Parts
Not as plentiful as the RG RX-78-2 kit, this kit comes with 206 plastic parts with 15 unused parts from the Polycaps Tree. All parts are molded in colored plastic although having the all the colored parts in the correct colored tree is a different matter altogether. Some painting is required for accuracy. The sticker is quite useful specially if you don’t want to paint some parts specially those that require a specific combination of paints to achieve.
The Gundam
It was an easy build and although I was thinking of making a MG feature on the knee area, the size makes it difficult to fit everything else without affecting something else. For those who have seen my 1/100 Exia, I modded it to have the knee separated from the leg section which was a common feature in most MG kits. A few months later the MG Exia was unveiled.
So far the only modding I managed to apply is the additional degrees in the fold of his arms, the pointed antenna made of flexible plastic similar to the beam sabers, open the “handle” at the top of the Beam Rifle and independent front and rear skirts. You may want to skip splitting the skirts if you don’t mind seeing his “gonads”.
There two discrepancies you will notice from the model compared to the anime version; first is the neck section, this is vague and you can hardly verify its accuracy since it’s not really clear whether he has a rounded or a square neck. The second is his yellow plate facing forward on top of the chest area, it’s either too forward or the neck collar is too short. You decide whether to keep it or repair it. I chose to move the yellow panel a couple of millimeters inward.
The best and most anime accurate mod I can think of is the one in November Hobby Japan. If you have time and less shaky hands, go for it… after all it’s not the least of your worries with this kit.
Articulation wise, Beginning Gundam has all the available joints to make him pose those shown in the anime and the box cover except for one part, his torso. It can’t bend back or forward although you can rotate the torso from the waist. His arms can fold to reach the Beam Sabers behind him without any surgery.
The Bad
Not really, but it depends on how you see it because you can’t really achieve the accuracy shown in the anime with a straight out of the box build without having to do some priming, painting and adjustments.
You will need to prime 4 plastic parts to achieve a good paint adhesion and avoid the underlying colored plastic to be visible. The Beam Rifle, extra hand holding 3 Beam Sabers and ankle triangles must be masked before priming before applying white paint. If you’re feeling lazy, you can cut enough white parts on the decal sheet to cover all the white parts on the Beam Rifle. You can also use White Gundam Marker on the yellow ankle triangles; with enough patience you can achieve accuracy after a lot of repeated application. The extra hand will require priming, since you will have rough time applying acrylic paint on it.
The closest I could get to obtain the correct blue is from my stock of acrylic paint for general purposes. It’s a little darker than the blue plastic, but you can mix a drop or two of white to achieve the right hue.
You can never wash this kit enough. I had to resort to scribing some panel lines deeper because the plastic is way too slippery. I have noted the parts that you may have trouble applying panel lines either by Gundam Marker or the good old capillary action.
Conclusion
For new Gundam modelers, this kit is an easy build without any fit problem. Although painting is required, most parts have their designated sticker to cover them up. If you’re not in any hurry to finish this kit, you can think of ways to improve its looks or just copy the Hobby Japan mod.
I had to resort to using the stickers for health reasons, I got too sensitive to fumes over the weekend and paint fume is giving me headaches. Although I did manage capillary action panel lining on both Beginning Gundam and RG RX-78-2…
Bandai could have moved some parts to lessen the necessity to paint the kit especially when you really want to grab new modelers into the Gundam scene.
Beginning Gundam does not occupy too much space and he does stand taller than RX-78-2 because of the 1 meter difference (.694 cm, highest part not head height) so you will still enjoy posing and playing (if you must) with it with all the articulation available.
Personally I don’t think painting him anything other than flats or gloss is necessary since Beginning Gundam is suppose to be built out of the box by Hal (Haru in some translation) Irei in the anime, a novice modeler.
Pros:
- Kit is accurate to some degree to the animated version (will delve into this later),
- Kits details are crisp and in most parts have easily removable mold seam lines,
- Contains 206 parts including polycaps, minus 15 polycaps that are not used in this kit.
Cons:
- Will need painting in some parts to accurately depict the kit in the anime,
- Blue sticker don't really compare right to the blue plastic but passable,
- Helmet halves have tiny gaps on the "ear" areas,
- Some discrepancies in the pictures depicting the chest and neck area compared to the mold.
As the anime has to be made a few months to a year before the model kit is released, there are slight differences in the build so you can't really make an accurate comparison with the anime except the fact that most details like sprue trees and manual are obviously similar.
I hope you enjoy the pictures below, sorry I can't get them anymore clearer than these... and I removed the stand thru Photoshop for those who are wondering...
Imitating the box top pose
Imitating some manual photo poses (sorry forgot to edit in the reference photos)
In your face shot, that's not green fart; that's the blurred out Gundam Stand I got from Qan T... ;D
Some photoshoping involved before I crash my old PC... ;D
Surprisingly though it didn't crash...
BTW OVA 2 is now available...
Coming Really Soon
keeping the site active as a place to dump info for easier backtracking.