By Loran
It’s an incredibly well-known fact at this point that Master Grades and 1/100 scale kits in general just aren’t my forte. It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s more than I got into 1/144 scale first, plus that scale has more to offer that I like. But from time to time I make exceptions, be it for a display piece, a swank limited edition, or a “hey, it was cheap” purchase.
But this time I had a different goal. See, as a kid, I never got all five of the Gundams from Wing in the same style or scale. At least, not at once. So right now I’m working to get all of the Katoki Versions of the Wing Gundams, in Master Grade, one at a time. Here’s the obvious first, Wing Gundam.
…who is still being worked on right now. Not only is this the first Master Grade I’ve built in three and a half years, it’s also the first one I’ve properly glued and painted. As such, I’m out of my element here. I’ve also been extremely busy lately so I haven’t quite had the time to dedicate to this project.
This is the “Endless Waltz” version of the Wing Gundam, which is identical to the Version Katoki that was issued back in 2004. The only real difference between the two is the inclusion of two mounts for use with Action Bases, as demonstrated here. One works for MS mode, the other for bird mode. I’ll get into these in greater detail once I finish the entire kit.
My biggest frustration with this kit comes from the color distribution. This thing is tacky. The wings were probably the most time-consuming part of this kit and I still need to do some touch up work. It needs to be done in phases and there are just… so many colors. I was expecting the shoulders to be the hardest part, but I guess I was misled by the large size of the wings.
I’m not sure how I did it but I somehow managed to BS a light, metallic green for all of the transparent bits. I always hated how this was done, but I can see why. It allows for more customization options, but you need to be careful with what you paint it with if you use for paint if you want to retain some sense of translucency. I used a semi metallic green for the top and painted silver underneath. I think it looks great.
One thing I’m really not sure about this kit from a design standpoint is the knee joint. It just looks… off to me. I think that’s largely due to the transformation gimmick, but it looks incredibly unnatural to me. Well, as unnatural as a model of a giant robot can look, anyway…
I figured I would have a much different perspective on this kit if I made one entry while I was building it, and covered everything else once I have the whole thing completed. Despite some overcomplicated, tacky pieces, this has been proving to be a fun project, and I can’t wait until I have all five (or six… or seven) done.
