Last year, during one of my first Gunpla streams—which starting this week will be every Friday from 20h London Time—some cool guys joined the chat and invited me into this great group, the Gunpla Builders Association. Since then, I’ve chatted with members of the group, shared my work with them and seen how easily their skill outclasses mine.
The GBA has a few monthly multi-streams, where a group of Gunpla builders take to Twitch together to build models under a specific theme, using a multi-stream site to share everyone’s build with the audience at the same time.
This month’s theme was Char Clones, the models built being those used by Char Aznable from the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, its sequels and related material in the Universal Century continuity, and those piloted by the many Masked Men from all other Gundam timelines, such as Gundam Wing’s Zechs Merquise and Gundam 00’s Mr. Bushido—no, I’m not making that name up, it’s that dumb!
It was a pleasant surprise because earlier this month I acquired a couple of Char mobile suit gunplay kits, the Sazabi from the film Char’s Counterattack and the Gelgoog Commander Type from the original series. I won’t lie, the size of the Sazabi’s box intimidated me so I applied to the stream with the Gelgoog.
It was a blast building this mech, I particularly loved how the joints in arms and legs have pistons, making it look like a work of proper engineering. It’s also been such a long while since I built a Master Grade in one sitting, this model taking about the same as the Freedom V2 I built oh so many months ago, about 6 hours in total. Don’t worry, I won’t put you through such a long video, since I’ve done what I did with the other builds before it, sped things up and added some nice background music—mostly because I used my personal playlist during the stream and most of it is under copyright.
This video is just the build, but it’s not the only thing I’m planning for this mech. I loathe the salmon colour on this model, and I’m not a big fan of the crimson for the chest and waist. So my plan is to give it a new coat of paint using the vibrant red colour you’d expect in a Char mobile suit and following the design of the Sinanju from Gundam Unicorn, I’ll add some gold and silver highlights to the interior frame, which I will also paint to give it a black metallic texture, that way the other highlight colours will really stand out.
So far don’t have any plans for physical modifications to the model, though I do have to fix a piece that came broken in the box. It’s an easy fix, of course, but it still annoyed me to see that broken shard.
I can’t promise I will be broadcasting the painting as I don’t really have things set-up that way, with my painting kit in the living room for its great ventilation. But I will most definitely show you the end result if I can’t broadcast the priming and painting process.
As for new builds, this Friday I’m beginning work on the Mega Size RX-78-2 aka the Original Gundam. It’s a massive kit, and some of the pieces barely fir in the palm of my hand, so it looks like it’ll be a model that’ll take more than a single night of work.
Hope you enjoy this Gelgoog build and the new ones to follow!
