Snapbuilt: MG Unicorn Gundam part 4

RX-0 Unicorn Gundam "Ver.Ka"
Bandai's 1:100 Master Grade No.102
~ Snapbuilt and Kit Review Part IV ~

good day everyone. welcome to the fourth part of this kit review. finally, i had the time the other day to finish snap-building the white armors of my Unicorn Gundam. here's my Unicorn looking at his white armors. hehehe. btw, i also added some review on the knee articulations. ^^,

hope you guys like it. and enjoy reading it. ^^,

W h i t e A r m o r

first 2 photos shows the location of the cockpit. third photo is the finished waist part. looks cool huh? fourth photo is the finished torso. i can tell that this kit will look great once it's finished. ^^, (giggles)

next row shows the finished torso and the arms. somehow i find the upper arm so thin for the forearm. sixth photo shows the back side with the attached backpack. looks nice. ^^, (giggles again) hehehe.

then lastly the finished 'horse-hooves' looking feet. it doesn't look like it when its in Unicorn mode. but wait till you see it in NT-D mode. it really does look like a horse-hooves. somehow it has a resemblance of a horse feet when you see it in side view. i have a feeling that Katoki integrated some horse design on its feet. oh well, you guys be the judge of it next time i post the final review. ^^,

finally, here's my finished RX-0 UNICORN GUNDAM

K n e e A r t i c u l a t i o n s
~ elaborated explanation ~

ok, i decided to make an additional review on the leg / knee articulation after i snap-build the leg part. studying how we can add some modification so that we can bend the knee more with its armor on. first we see the white armors touching the back side of the thigh when the knee is bended. i encircled the part with blue color. this can be seen in both modes -- Unicorn and NT-D. i was thinking at first maybe that's the only 'hindrance' that stopping the knees to bend more. maybe if we can modify it or cut it, it can bend more. so i decided to strip the white armors again to verify it. and here's what i've encountered so far:

to my dismay, i found out that part of the leg ABS internal frame are blocking the movement of the knee. it stops to that certain point once the ABS part touches the cylindrical part of the knee joint. i encircled that with blue circle. so i'm thinking once again, maybe if we cut that out, maybe the knees can bend freely. so i move out 'that' specific ABS part to expose the knee joint again. only to see that on the knee joint itself, there's a part at the back that stopping the knees to swivel. more like the 'brake pad' for the knee. check the blue circle for the knee joint. and the red circle showing the 'brake pad'.

now i wonder, if we cut that out does that mean the knees can bend more? actually, i doubt that. because there's still some hindrance stopping the knees to bend. if you check the last 2 photos with the blue circle, the back side of the knee joint with the cylinder mold, i encircled the parts where we need to modify first in order the knees to bend more. before we modify the rest such as the ABS internal frame and the white armors.

here's some photos showing the bended knee with and without its white armor.

seriously, i'm not bothered at all with the articulation problems on this kit. but i don't want also to be hypocrite too for not wanting this kit to have Master Grade Ver.2.0 joints. but i guess, in reality we can't have both. i'm just happy having this kits for its design and complexity. it's really a challenge building this one. and i also like the transformation too. ^^,

next: Lights, Camera, A C T I O N !

Thanks for looking. ^^,

Snapbuilt: MG Unicorn Gundam part 3

RX-0 Unicorn Gundam "Ver.Ka"
Bandai's 1:100 Master Grade No.102
~ Snapbuilt and Kit Review Part III ~

good day everyone. here's the third part review for the Master Grade Kit #102 RX-0 Unicorn Gundam. i just finished snapbuilding the whole kit with the white armors last night. hope i can shoot some photos of it to upload it this evening. ^^,

ok, here's the last part review for the Unicorn's internal Psyco Frame.

P s y c o F r a m e S n a p B u i l d i n g
~ some things worth noticing ~

here's both profile shots of the internal frame of Unicorn Gundam in its Unicorn mode and NT-D Destroy mode. the NT-D Destroy mode shows the expanded internal frame. it's not that obvious though compared to when its have the white armor parts. but so far i can say that i like the details of this frame work. the bad part is it doesn't have the articulations of the recent Version 2 internal frame (e.g. MG Char's Zaku II ver.2). but when it comes to design, this one's rock! ^^, after building it, i fully understand Bandai statement saying this is the first comprehensive internal frame for an MG kit. imagine an internal frame that expands and with some mechanism to help expands other parts simultaneosly in sequence. esp the leg / knee part. how cool is that? ^^,

here's some close-up shots of the internal Psyco Frame. look how gorgeous it is. first encircled photo shows the location of the cockpit. sorry if i forgot to take some photo of the opened cockpit. i'll post it next time. i also wonder how the Unicorn Gundam's internal frame will look like if it has a Perfect Grade kit counterpart? ^^,

A r t i c u l a t i o n s

hmmm... ok, this is the sad part on this kit. articulation-wise, it's really not that good. i think the Version 1.5 MG kits is a lot better than this new kit. though the elbow, knee and ankle sports double-joints, it's really really limited when it comes to posing. though you can still do some decent pose but to imitate some pose from the Gundam animes, it cannot. the first 2 photos shows the famous Dalong pose. plus my maxed out arm spread with bended elbow. in my honest opinion, that's the maxed out pose that you can do with this kit. unless ofcourse you modify all the double joints and cut some parts of the frame and the white armors maybe it can. i might do that in the future when i'm ready to mod and paint my kits. but for now, i'm happy with it. looks like all "Ver.Ka" kits suffers some posability in favor of the design. look for example the RX-78-2 Ver.Ka. the designs and look are great but somehow lacks the posability that the RX-78-2 Ver.1.5 have. to think that the Ver.Ka is more recent than the Ver.1.5 kit. but in fairness with Unicorn, i can say that i'm happy with it. i love the looks of it. and i don't regret buying 3 kits of it. hehehe. ^^,

to be specific on the joints, i encircled all the things worth noticing on the kit joints. the 2 photos showing the circled shoulder joint, that's the maximum movement that you can do with the shoulder. next is the double joint feature on the ankle. it's not your typical polycap joints. this one made of two ABS joint connectors. it's rigid yet it's stable. somehow i missed polycap joints...

and lastly, the pelvic joints. it's the same pelvic joints from the Ver.2 MG kits. though it doesn't compensate the lack of posability in the other joint areas. but all in all, like i said earlier, i'm happy with this kit. ;)

Thanks for looking. ^^,