A good friend of mine is interested in collecting some Gundam models... but he doesn't like the idea of them just being in their pre-colored plastics. So, I'm going to help out by painting them. This is the first model up:
Bandai makes a veritable ton of these very articulate and poseable models in a variety of grades and scales... something that we both had to educate ourselves on in order to make a better selection. Master Grade applies specifically to the 1:100 scale, and is a measure of complexity, model articulation, and poseability of the model. It's in the mail, and I can't wait to get my mitts on it.
There will be a little bit of conversion work to be done, involving an upgrade kit that supplies more feathers. The end result will look like this:
We still have yet to discuss color scheme. The only solid decision made on that front is that he does not like the default mostly-white scheme, and we've been in discussion about some possibilities. I'll see about making some mock-ups to send his way to help finalize the scheme.
One of the intriguing bits about this is that (outside of the extra feathers upgrade kit) it involves no glue. All the pieces are snap-on, several involving ball-socket joints.
I'll post pictures occasionally to keep you all updated on progress. :)