Big thanks to the chaps at Forbidden Planet for selling me this kit. This article is not sponsored, and I'm honestly quite surprised none of the staff recognise me after all the times I've been there. Yes, I know there's a one-way system and that you have to wait until a staff member calls you down to the basment! BLOODY LOCKDOWN! (But seriously readers, wear a mask and wash your hands, I'm only acting irritable over this for a goof.)
We're hopping over to another timeline today - the Cosmic Era. Now, I know a lot of fans are generally sour on Gundam Seed Destiny (usually Western more than Japanese fans from what I gather), but I have seen plenty of people at least agree that the mech designs are still pretty solid. So we can thankfully focus on that today, especially me seeing as I vividly remember this kit from my days playing one of the Dynasty Warriors Gundam games. Back then, I had no idea about anything in the series, but the winged Gundams like this one really stuck out to me. Still does, to be honest. After all, one of my favourite SD kits I've ever built is based on the Destiny Gundam.
Anyway, onto the High Grade.
Tons of different varied colours in this kit, especially on the A runner, natch. I look forward to seeing how they properly come together!
Body
I like how many colours we're already using in this kit. The light blue accents are a nice touch, particularly at this early stage in the kit.
Head
The eye sticker was (shock of all shocks) pretty annoying. Not to attach this time, but more to align correctly. I had to drag the sticker down with my tweezers while the part it was on inside the front white part to move them into a visible position, and that was easier said than done.
The v-fin was a little bit annoying too. The red part has to go onto the horns first before attaching it to the head, and the manual isn't too clear as to the angle it fits on. Hopefully my photo here shows the correct surface to face forward. If it's rotationally-symmetrical on the front, we're in trouble.
Shoulders
Arms
Looks pretty good thus far. But we need to get it up to full height now.
Legs
The upper joints were a little awkward to push in, given the sockets on top of the legs they're supposed to fit in. But you should be alright if you're sure the shaft is going straight into the socket on centre and avoid accidentally sliding the upper thigh armour off in the process.
Waist
Part C33 isn't the same on the front and the back - look at it from the front and you'll see a vertically-rectangular connector sticking out, which has a smaller, horizontal equivalent on the back.
That was quite a bit to do, but I like some of the articulation I'm seeing, such as the side-skirts being able to move from side-to-side. But it feels like there's a certain something missing. I wonder what that could-
Backpack
I'm gonna be displaying it with the wing effect parts attached later, but as of right now, this is pretty sweet. Nicely colourful and quite a solid build from what I'm seeing.
Weapons
There's a lot to build here, but apparently, a lot of it can attach to the back of the model for storage. We have a beam rifle...
...an Arondight Beam Sword...
...a long-range beam cannon...
...the white parts of the shoulders attach to make the beam boomerangs, but all that boils down to is pulling those off and attaching these effect parts to them...
...and aside from the separate beam shield effect, we have an ordinary shield.
And now the Palm Beam Cannon effect. I've been looking forward to this one!
It was around here that I found out the beam effect is very loose inside the hand, so I'm gonna attempt to thicken up the join with a light dab of PVA glue on the shaft and leave that to dry for now. I'll update this part of the blog as to whether or not the results worked out well.
In the meantime, I'll work on the wing effects to tie it all together. Let's get the Gundam itself into a good pose...
...yeah, that should do. Now let's unfurl the significantly less OP Moonlight Butterfly magnificent wing effects!
I like that you only need to hold the outer wings and move that to get the whole wing to open, since the inner part follows it as well. It's not as complex as the mechanism in the MG Epyon's wings, but it's a lot less stiff.
So all we need to do here is line up the tabs at the top and bottom of the effect parts with the slots on the bottom of the wings, make sure the middle parts line up as well and...
Bloomin' 'eck, that's a gorgeous wingspan! And it's pretty well-balanced as long as you get the posture down right! I'm still puzzled as to why the palm beam effect is such an unusably-loose fit out of the box, but as it stands, this is a brilliant kit. It'll certainly stand out among other High Grade kits, and the only thing I wish it included was a stand. I mean, come on - if the High Grade Zerachiel could have one, this one certainly could.
UPDATE:
Having given the PVA dab an hour or so to dry transparently, it fits securely enough now. Little bit annoying that I had to do that, but it works nonetheless.
Stay safe and keep clipping, folks!
The Good
+ Simple build for all that's going on
+ Lovely variety of colours with minimal use of colour-correcting stickers
+ Cool articulation
+ Holy shit, those wing effect parts!
The Bad
- Palm beam cannon effect part doesn't fit all that securely
- It really could have done with an included stand
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