#gm-iii

[athena-gundampla]

YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR DESTINY toki no mukô YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR FUTURE yami no mukô WE CAN SHARE THE HAPPINESS sagashite yuku Yurushi aeru sono hi wo

Yume to iu kaze ni michikarete Ayamachi no fune ni yurareteku WE BELONG TO EARTH ikite yukeru no nara Itsuka mata modoreru hi ga aru

Ah MEBIUSU no wakara hiki yoserarete Ikutsu mono deai kurikaesu BEYOND THE TIME

[athena-gundampla]

you can change your destiny toki no mukō

you can change your future yami no mukō

we can share the happiness sagashite yuku

yurushi aeru sono hi wo...

[athena-gundampla]

HGUC 1/144 E.F.S.F Mass-Produced Mobile Suit RGM-86R "GM-III" [Axis Shock Image Color]

The GM collection grows! This Axis Shock Image GM-III was one of the exclusive kits I was lucky enough to find at the Gundam Base World Tour pop-up last week. It's a gloss metallic injection reprint of the old 2011 GM-III kit for ZZ Gundam, featuring special shiny sticker-decals with the Londo Bell logo, and a sort of sepia filter recolour to recreate the lighting in the final scene of the CCA movie, when all the mobile suits try to push back Axis.

The GM-III represented a full upgrade to the original GM, as compared to the minor improvements of the GM-II. It features design elements and technology from the Mk-II Gundam, as a more economical mass-production version of that platform, complete with the veriners and dual-beam saber mount on the backpack (directly borrowed from the Mk-II mould).

The GM-III shares a lot of kit design from the GM-II and Nemo kits, with almost identical inner frame parts, the same set of hand options, and a lot of other shared parts in the armour and colour separation. This meant colour correction was roughly the same, although I had to make allowances for the metallic gloss colour scheme. I used a metallic gloss red paint and a darkened grey to colour-correct all of the thruster sections, including the smaller Mk-II style ones on the legs (which were pretty tricky), and mixed my own metallic green for the thrusters on the front of the legs, as I knew that the included stickers would not hold up to the task.

I also added grey paint for the grey sections on the bottom of the legs, the insides of the ankle and knee joints, the neck, and the rear of the shield, and did my usual weathering on all of the grey parts with metallic drybrushing and pigment powder. Anoyyingly i also had to colour correct the missiles in the hip-mounted launchers, which I feel couldv'e easily had an extra part to avoid this. I carefully matte-coated these grey elements, but didn't coat the rest of the kit to better preserve the gloss metalic finish.

After building I did come back and add a little sponge chipping to some of the hard edges to give it a more damaged look, but I feel that it would've looked impressive either way.

This kit comes with quite a few nice extras. Apart from the two closed fists, two open fists, two open hands and one right-pistol grip that is standard for this era, alongside the same beam rifle as the Nemo and GM-II, there's an older 0079-style shield (identical to the GM-III), removeable shoulder-mounted missile pods, and larger hip-mounted missile launchers, with missiles the size of real-life fighter jet armaments (when compared at 1/144 scale). There's also two short beam saber effects, in the older trans-light pink (although for some reason the manual shows the longer dark pink effect parts in the product photos).

There's also a really nice set of sticker-decals with a sparkly finish to help them look as though they're glowing and sparkling with the rest of the kit. I didn't end up using all of them, and I mixed in a few of my other decals which I had to carefully cover in pigment powder to tie them to the rest of the kit, but they really help make the kit look more complete.

The shoulder-mounted missile pods connect using a hidden polycap, and can easily be switched between an open and closed hatch display. You can also remove the cap for the hip-mounted missile launchers, revealing the missiles ready to be fired.

The kit is fairly sturdy, despite the lack of topcoating and the use of polycaps, although it is a bit of a surprise to go back to dealing with polycaps after building so many newer kits. The hip connection can be a little weak at the thigh, causing the legs to fall off when posing, and the wrist polycap is especially loose, so it pays to be careful when adjusting weapon poses.

If I did have a major complaint about the articulation, it'd be that the shoulder mounted missile pods clash with the backpack beam saber mounts, making posing the shoulders a little awkward. It can at least hold the box-art pose of the suit asssiting in the Axis Shock event, so it doesn't lack articulation to a concerning degree at least.

Overall this was a really enjoyable build. I especially liked how the gloss metalic plastic looked, both for photography and on display. It's certainly a kit that stands out, and I highly reccomend it if you find it at a future Gundam Base pop-up.

Please reblog, it helps more people see my posts.

[timthew]

Nouvel GM-III, Gundam Sentinel pg233