#rx-78-2

[perfect-immortal-machinegirl]

[alphamecha-mkii]

Sayla Mass & Gundam by toweling3

[caterpie]

Gundam vs. Hello Kitty (2020)

[arcadebroke]

[tinyreploid]

Based on a dream i had last night… rx78 emerging from the fiery pits of hell looking for prey. The Zaku must be vigilant and still.
I have no idea what it even means but it was an interesting dream for sure.

[gundamnet]

[ephemeral-builds]

Very simple build this week - the Best Mecha Collection RX-78-2 (REVIVAL Ver.). This is basically an updated re-release of one of the original gunpla kits. It's not a great build in itself, but it's a fantastic bit of history.

While it's not labelled as such, this is basically an Entry Grade kit. It's got the same simple runners. The same touch-gates. The same surprising color accuracy without any stickers. As such, it's a very quick build.

One of the things that makes this kit so much fun is all the little nostalgic/historic asides in the instructions. Little reminders of what it was like to build gunpla way back in the day.

While I didn't actually get into gunpla until fairly recently - I did build plastic models way back in the '80s and I can certainly remember some of those anecdotes.

The build is super, super simple. It's all very hollow with no hint of an inner-frame at all. Very simple joints with very limited articulation. Hardly any surface detail. Very little panel-lining.

But it's got that same, surprising Entry Grade color accuracy. There's no stickers at all. Everything you're seeing on the head up there is color-accurate plastic. Even that little, yellow 'v' on the crotch is separate plastic.

Every time I build one of these EG-ish kits I find myself wondering why they can't manage this level of color-accuracy in HG kits.

Unsurprisingly there's not a lot of accessories in this kit.

We get a shield, a beam rifle, a beamsaber, and an extra beamsaber hilt. That extra hilt is for use with a beamsaber effect part - but one is not included with this kit. That's probably fine... I've certainly got plenty of spare saber effects from all my other kits... But it still feels a little weird to get that empty hilt without anything to put in there.

Also - the beamsaber is completely unpainted. Just solid white. The pink you see up there is from a fluorescent pink paint marker.

Clearly the proportions and shapes are a little wonky on this kit. The shield is shaped weird. The beam rifle is tiny. The whole robot is recognizably "Gundam" - but not actually even remotely accurate. It's got the same kind of janky charm as the classic first Gundam series. It's very reminiscent of some of the old off-spec animation.

The articulation and posability is pretty terrible. There's some halfway decent ankle and knee bends... But the hips are so limited that you can't really do anything with it. The arms and shoulders are a little better, but not much. There's absolutely no flex at the waist. You're simply not going to get anything real dynamic out of this thing.

Here you can see the difference between the included baton beamsaber and an effect part... And, honestly, the effect part doesn't look right. This kit is so janky and misproportioned that the effect just looks out of place.

It's also worth noting that the two saber hilts in the backpack are fixed in place. They can't be removed without some kind of modification.

You can really get a sense of how weirdly proportioned this kit is in the 360-spin. It's so adorably janky.

It's also worth noting that the camera on the back of the head is hand-painted. It's not at all color-accurate out of the box.

This is such a weird kit... It's a whole lot of fun, but not for any of the reasons that I typically enjoy a kit. The build itself is almost an afterthought. The articulation is barely existent. The model is completely off-spec. But there's some real charm despite (or maybe because of?) those shortcomings.

I don't think I can say this is a good kit. The build is even simpler and less-satisfying than the EG kits I've built. But it's a delightful addition to my collection. It feels like some kind of historic artifact I've unearthed. I'd love to see a similar release of a Zaku II.

[reversemoon255]

RX-78-2 Gundam (GQuuuuuux Version)

My thirteenth RX, and probably the most visually striking. I actually really like a lot of elements of this design. I think a lot of it is it blends its reds, blues, and yellows into the design in a more natural and organic way than standard incarnations. Adding gray to the knees and forearms also breaks up the white in a nice way. It does look like it's wearing sneakers, though. It even has its serial number backwards on its soles.

The Good: Having built quite a few RXs at this point, there are a few uniqueties to this guy when it comes to the build, such as the torso, head, and hips. Apart from having a more interesting sculpt, there are quite a few additions to the posability that I find interesting, such as the way the neck works, and the torso having a ball on the yellow segments and a separate one for the arms to help them more more naturally forward. It's very easy to get this guy in a good pose.

The Bad: There are some issues with hip articulation, mostly because the yellow armor caps are attached to the front of the joints. You have to move them in weird ways to get the legs to swing forward. Also, I stressed the bullet belts pulling them off of runner, so be careful.

The Details: So most of my additions here were panel lining and black paint to bring out a lot of the inherent details, as normal. I did add some silver to the head, joints, thrusters, and shield, metallic blue to the extra cameras in the head, metallic green to the shoulders, and yellow to the thighs.

Overall, I don't know if it's my favorite RX, but it's up there. I always like when a redesign is willing to take risks, and this one does and ended up very fun for it. A great addition to the collection.