High Grades, or other similarly sized/scaled/themed kits are my bread and butter in this hobby. That’s why I don’t get as much Real Grade kits as I initially intended and reserve any purchases for very notable or ‘event’ kits (and no, not event exclusive kits, you get the idea). It’s the same reason why it took me this long to get an RG Evangelion kit, especially now that I had a more tangible reason to pick and build one up.
When I decided to build the HG GQuuuuuuX in preparation for the series premiere in April, I already decided to following it up with an RG Evangelion Unit-01 and ride the whole Ikuto Yamashita hype train. There are several versions of the kit available and knowing me, I went and chose a Premium Bandai exclusive. This is supposedly the version from Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time which is still the same mold as any other RG EVA-01 and comes with the Spear of Cassius.
The last RG I built was the RG Crossbone Gundam back in 2020 when everyone was staying at home for reasons we’re all familiar with. As mentioned, I’ve decided not to build every single Real Grade kit except for the most notable ones, or variations that don’t have High Grade representations. I’m probably behind the latest engineering advances Real Grade kits have, but it also provides me a fresh build experience following consecutive High Grade builds.
As a sort of warm up for this kit, I decided to detail up my Revoltech EVA-01 (Rebuild of Evangelion) figure, which is basically cleaning up, putting panel lines, and applying a flat top coat. I am planning to do the same with the Revoltech EVA-01 Type F from Neon Genesis Evangalion: ANIMA whenever I don’t feel like continuing this build on a particular day.
Going back to the kit though, I managed to start with the internal frame of the torso. Fortunately, the complexity of the build is compensated by the amazing color separation so I don’t need to consider any additional painting outside of panel lines. I do like how they didn’t go the extra mile to make the kit look too organic with segmented details on the internal frame. One challenge I did have, for some reason, was working with the official decal sheet from Bandai. For some reason, they required to be soaked longer in water and they have a tendency to be peeled off when applied without a decal adhesive solution.
In any case, I didn’t set a timeline for completing this kit, but sometime in early April would be great.
