It’s now October, which means all the Halloween shenanigans and what not. I previously teased wanting to do something Halloween-related, at least in name and so I’m building the HGUC Phantom Gundam. But before going further, yes, you’ve read that right. It’s not a double build, nor a dual build, and we’re even skipping a triple build as this is a quadruple build. Let me quickly explain.
If you’ve read any of my previous posts regarding this topic, then you should be aware that as much I all for using replacement parts for complicated transforming designs, especially for stability, I’m not the biggest fan of the hassle in doing so. That’s why I really like the approach they did with the Macross HG kits with the Shortcut Change feature, so as not to make the disassembly and reassembly as cumbersome as those for Gunpla.
Which means there are transforming kits that still require cumbersome disassembly and reassembly. This includes any HG iteration of the Zeta Gundam or its derivatives. The same is also true for the Phantom Gundam to which I’d normally just get two. Unfortunately, the Phantom Light gimmick for this kit also requires a good amount of disassembly. So, I decided to ultimately get four copies of the kit: a pair in standard MS and MA modes and another pair when the Phantom Light feature is active.
I started this “quad-build” with both in MS mode and immediately went to address those parts requiring paint. This is mostly on the head unit and rear waist armor. Unlike modern HG kits, like those from The Witch from Mercury where the head units are really color-accurate, the HGUC Phantom Gundam requires some painting. The challenge is that since this guy is already small for Universal Century MS standards, it means the kit in 1/144 scale is even smaller. That’s why I wanted to finish those from the start and while I didn’t do the best job, I’m good with the finish I did. Following that, I’m now doing the masking needed to paint the rear waist armor, and I’m targeting to complete both sets in MS and MA modes so that I don’t have any more significant painting left to do.
Hopefully, I can finish all four kits this month and yes, I’m still not done with the HG Gundam Calibarn because I had a little setback with that kit. More details on a separate post.
