Oh man, this kit is awesome.
I apologize for the lack of updates, as I’ve been rather busy over the past few days. There’s a lot more to this kit than you can see, so assembly and painting has been taking a bit longer than anticipated. However, this kit, even in an unfinished state, has one hell of a presence. The kit stands incredibly tall, and no, that’s not a crack about Katoki and the gigantic legs his designs have.
First off, I’m going to give an update regarding the LED unit, and how to put it in. I managed to finally find some batteries for the kit, but I had to go to Radio Shack in order to find the right size. Not only that, they cost me six bucks for a battery! And each unit requires TWO! I certainly regretting not getting that huge bulk battery pack from Amazon before they changed their shipping policy for tiny stuff like that…
When installing the LED Unit, make sure to have the switch against the back of the plate it goes into. Otherwise, it’ll just switch on or off every time you insert it into the body. Hopefully this won’t make things too annoying once I have the backpack done.
And there it is! It’s pretty awesome, but I’m not sure if it was worth the extra $25 investment…
As to be expected from any Ver Ka design, this thing is COVERED with decals. I think I spent about three hours on the legs alone. Some of them feel sort of unnecessary, too, like the one on the side of the leg. To make the kit’s decals look more interesting, you receive a single Ra Cailum decal, or one split into two. The one split into two is used so you can have it look all cool when the Nu goes into destroy mode.
Also, you have to feel for Astonaige and the Ra Cailum’s mechanics… can you imagine being the poor sap who has to repaint all those decals after Amuro comes home from battle?
The Destroy Mode is… pretty awesome, and not as difficult to put it into as I initially thought! Some parts are a bit stiff, and you need to make sure you have all the needed flaps extended, otherwise you’re probably going to break something. It’s one hell of a presentation, though, mostly thanks to the silver stickers behind each of the green parts.
Unfortunately a lot of parts have to be taken off, too, and I actually forgot a couple for these pictures. Whoops.
The articulation is nice and smooth, thanks to a lot of the joints being based around circle pieces instead of your more traditional “double-jointed rectangles”. It holds its poses pretty well, too. It’s amazing how far the Ver Kas have come from the stiffness of the old Gundam Ver Ka about ten years ago.
While it’s been taking awhile, the Nu Gundam has been progressing pretty smoothly. Don’t worry, you’ll see the finished product by the end of the week. I promise it’s gonna be awesome! Make sure to look for yours at FPNYC!