HGGTO 1/144 E.F.S.F Mass-Produced Mobile Suit RGM-79LV "GM Night Seeker II"
We continue working through the backlog with our next Mobile Suit Variations R design, the GM Night Seeker II. The original Night Seeker was a conversion of 12 original production RGM-79s for nocturnal Earth-based operations, however the Night Seeker II is a dedicated design based on the RGM-79L GM Light Armour that recieved its own production run, with 88 units between conversions and dedicated builds. The Night Seeker II features a special thruster configuration with variable arm-like binders that allow it to be used in high altitude descent operations, as well as special optic upgrades and auxillary sensors for target designation in heavy Minovsky Particle density situations.
The GM Night Seeker II is one of several variations on the GM Light Armour developed towards the end of the One Year War, alongside the GM Sniper Custom and GM Intercept Custom.
Most of the HGGTO GM variants are based on the same base set of runners (regardless of their in-universe provenance), and as such this kit shares a lot of its parts with the GM Cannon [Space Assault Type]. It's just as well colour separated, with the only real colour correction requried being the fire-retardant red coating and hold highlight for the various thrusters. Technically, the Gundam: The Origin designs don't feature this detail (nor do most of the modern interpretations of the classic UC designs), but I like to include it anyway for a pop of extra colour. I did end up painting the communication fin on the alternate head option rather than using the foil colour-correction sticker as well.
For the weathering, I tried to take advantage of the various shades of grey included in the kit. There's a sort of warm brown-ish grey for the body, backpack, and head accessories, which I weathered with a copper drybrush and pigment powder, a normal classic grey for the inner frame that got my usual metallic weathering, and a more blue-ish colour and an almost black used for the feet and custom beam gun, which just got a dark gunmetal drybrush and titanium pigment powder. I added some heat discolouration to the barrels of all the weapons, and plenty of soot discolouration around the 6 thrusters.
There's a pretty hefty sticker decal sheet, which was a little annoying to go through but really helps tie this kit in with the HGGTO line. Some of the larger thin striping stickers were pretty finnicky, and I found that the large one for the right leg didn't really want to go on neatly and was pretty poorly designed. However I do like the final effect overall. Just like with the GM Cannon Space Assault, the decal designs call back to the original Kunio Okawara illustration.
There are a lot of nice accessories for this kit. There are two head options - one with the nocturnal operations "goggle" attachment, and one more classic GM head (with the forehead vulcans excluded to allow for the optics upgrade). There's a communications pod with a large antennae and comms fin for the "normal" head, and a "marking pod" auxillary sensor for the "night-ops" head, although you can realistically add either of the accessories to either of the heads as they have a universal attachment.
There are 3 weapons - the 100mm machine gun (technically the same as the one used by the Ground Type GM, but with a GTO redesign); the custom beam gun with an improved range compared to the beam spray gun to support the Night Seeker's reconnaisance role, and the classic beam spray gun that is part of the C-runner for all of the GTO GM kits. The custom beam gun has a great design, almost resembling a silenced pistol that a spy would carry. The kit has a few extra hand options, including two open hand options, two open fist options, and two pistol grip options that let the kit dual-wield.
There's also a single beam saber, stored in the traditional beam saber mount on the backpack. There are two beam saber effects as well as a few spare beam saber hilts found in the kit (due to a few redundant pieces created by the re-used runners), but the beam saber hilt for this kit has been redesigned with a unique grip design and comes on its own dedicated runner.
Just like the other HGGTO GM kits there's some excellent poseability, although I found that the polycaps in this kit were a little loose-feeling, and I found that the wrist ball joint was particularly succeptible to falling apart. You can still get some super dynamic poses from this kit however. The extra "binder thrusters" are nicely poseable, and you can also pose the chest thrusters on individual ball joints. The front-skirt is a single unit, resembling the original GM design, rather than the updated separated design used in the GM Missile Pod and GM Cannon Space Assault, but it can swing up and forward so that it doesn't limit hip articulation.
Overall, this was a super unique looking build. I love the look of the nocturnal operations optics, and the design has some great colouration and shelf-presence. There are now only two HGGTO GMs remaining, and only 5 HG GM-line kits remaining in total, so backlog progress seems to be good! I'm hoping to have the rest of the HGGTO kits done by the end of the month.
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