Finishing the HG GM Guard Custom
Strap in, ladies and gents, because we're about to finish the Guard Custom (which in my head I keep calling the Shield custom, for reasons that are about to become obvious) from just the torso. If you recall, I started the guard custom when I went to a local meetup for the first time in the city I moved to, which you can read about HERE. I got through the torso and didn't take a lot of pics because I was having fun enjoying the moment with my fellow builders. But now, on to the rest of this kit!
One thing to note is theres a lot of flat wide surfaces, and some had slight areas that needed to be sanded down with some faint lines running across them. So even if you didn't touch it and there was no nub, inspect every piece and every surface! This time I'm just doing a straight build, with
1.Cut far end of all the gates of a piece to release it
2.Cut close to but not perfectly flush to remove gates
3.Knife work to get a flat nubless surface, erring on the side of leaving slightly more
4.600 grit to make sure its smooth
5.1500 grit to remove sandpaper lines (sometimes up to 2500 if needed
As I'm not painting or anything I just used my hands, no gloves. Yeah I definitely left some fingerprints/skin oils here and there, but they'll was right off.
Anyways, First things first, we'll check the date on the sprues. We dont really need to, as this kit was released in July 2018, so.... It can't be that old, but hey its good to check.
December 2018, good, so no time traveling shennanigans here. Now lets get this head build. The head has some interesting parts. The glass visor with gating directly on the part facing out shows just how well 2500 sandpaper can smooth out and reshine to a glass-like polish. The tiny little red stickers can be a pain (yes this HG is stickers, we'll get to more on that later) but they look solid and add some color. and the guard custom has a neat moveable blue headset with actual antenna! (I prefer antenna to the classic V a lot of gundam have). With that sorted we get a skirt together (both legs rock back or forth together, the pegs are linked) and we're cruising right along with some major parts pretty quickly!
Now we can move on to some major articulation points, arms! you can see left is an assembled arm, and right is one not assembled yet. The joints were semi loose for me, at the end I went back and thickened a few up to make them hold better, especially the arm holding that massive shield you'll see in a bit. The forearms have a black armor pad on them that the dagger guard goes into - the little black piece with two points on it is actually the guard of the dagger, and the kit pretends the hilt is in that black rectangle piece. This does mean he can just use the beam dagger blades while strapped to his forearm and holding the gun!
Of course, next is the legs! Be careful if you're doing this, I almost cut off a nub on the foot off that you absolutely need because of the instruction angles, but that back peg seemed like it really should be there so i checked and there was a hole for it, so I kept it. Always trust your instincts.
As with the arms, you can see an assembled next to an unassembled, and poor my guard begging me to attach his other foot. One thing to note is the knee stickers. I felt the head stickers and the blue knee stickers were fine, but I hate the black one at the bottom, around a vent (you can see one stickered and one not stickered side by side below). Its got cuts in all the corners and folds around a raised rectangle, and I just generally don't like it. It looks fine from far away, but I'll probably end up just masking around it and painting it black (and then painting the vents inside instead of putting the orange stickers it came with on the vents).
But with the legs together, the shield is a quick 4 pieces, the gun 2 pieces, theres 1 extra gun hand besides the two closed dagger hands, and then the daggers are a handle, that guard piece we mentioned earlier from the forearm, and then the clear red effect. They went together real quick, and then we get to the fun part, posing. NOTE: that shield is a lot of plastic for a High Grade arm, filled with polycaps and simple ball joints. It will sag down, and the back of the hand will pop off. I took thin cement and build up layers slowly around the joints, by making a quick fit then disconnecting and letting it dry, to make the joints and hand tight enough to hold things how I wanted. Be sure to not let it dry together unless you never want to move it again, i just slathered with glue, popped in, popped out (so the glue didn't just pool in the female joint, it instead was pushed to the walls) and then let em dry separately) a few coats did it. A lot of people swear by nail polish, I just havent gotten around to trying it, from what I hear thats probably better.
But there he is, the RGM-79HC Guard Custom (1/144, High grade). I just did the most basic color stickers, theres TONS of little accents and stuff for the shield to make it look pretty (check out some photos online or in the manual). I just knew I was probably gonna paint those knees, so was holding off on any more stickers for now, and didn't panel line at all. It still looks good! I may give a quick update after I do a quick wash and paint, then gloss coat then panel line/stickers then matte coat. Till next time!
One thing to note is theres a lot of flat wide surfaces, and some had slight areas that needed to be sanded down with some faint lines running across them. So even if you didn't touch it and there was no nub, inspect every piece and every surface! This time I'm just doing a straight build, with
1.Cut far end of all the gates of a piece to release it
2.Cut close to but not perfectly flush to remove gates
3.Knife work to get a flat nubless surface, erring on the side of leaving slightly more
4.600 grit to make sure its smooth
5.1500 grit to remove sandpaper lines (sometimes up to 2500 if needed
As I'm not painting or anything I just used my hands, no gloves. Yeah I definitely left some fingerprints/skin oils here and there, but they'll was right off.
Anyways, First things first, we'll check the date on the sprues. We dont really need to, as this kit was released in July 2018, so.... It can't be that old, but hey its good to check.
December 2018, good, so no time traveling shennanigans here. Now lets get this head build. The head has some interesting parts. The glass visor with gating directly on the part facing out shows just how well 2500 sandpaper can smooth out and reshine to a glass-like polish. The tiny little red stickers can be a pain (yes this HG is stickers, we'll get to more on that later) but they look solid and add some color. and the guard custom has a neat moveable blue headset with actual antenna! (I prefer antenna to the classic V a lot of gundam have). With that sorted we get a skirt together (both legs rock back or forth together, the pegs are linked) and we're cruising right along with some major parts pretty quickly!
Now we can move on to some major articulation points, arms! you can see left is an assembled arm, and right is one not assembled yet. The joints were semi loose for me, at the end I went back and thickened a few up to make them hold better, especially the arm holding that massive shield you'll see in a bit. The forearms have a black armor pad on them that the dagger guard goes into - the little black piece with two points on it is actually the guard of the dagger, and the kit pretends the hilt is in that black rectangle piece. This does mean he can just use the beam dagger blades while strapped to his forearm and holding the gun!
Of course, next is the legs! Be careful if you're doing this, I almost cut off a nub on the foot off that you absolutely need because of the instruction angles, but that back peg seemed like it really should be there so i checked and there was a hole for it, so I kept it. Always trust your instincts.
As with the arms, you can see an assembled next to an unassembled, and poor my guard begging me to attach his other foot. One thing to note is the knee stickers. I felt the head stickers and the blue knee stickers were fine, but I hate the black one at the bottom, around a vent (you can see one stickered and one not stickered side by side below). Its got cuts in all the corners and folds around a raised rectangle, and I just generally don't like it. It looks fine from far away, but I'll probably end up just masking around it and painting it black (and then painting the vents inside instead of putting the orange stickers it came with on the vents).
But with the legs together, the shield is a quick 4 pieces, the gun 2 pieces, theres 1 extra gun hand besides the two closed dagger hands, and then the daggers are a handle, that guard piece we mentioned earlier from the forearm, and then the clear red effect. They went together real quick, and then we get to the fun part, posing. NOTE: that shield is a lot of plastic for a High Grade arm, filled with polycaps and simple ball joints. It will sag down, and the back of the hand will pop off. I took thin cement and build up layers slowly around the joints, by making a quick fit then disconnecting and letting it dry, to make the joints and hand tight enough to hold things how I wanted. Be sure to not let it dry together unless you never want to move it again, i just slathered with glue, popped in, popped out (so the glue didn't just pool in the female joint, it instead was pushed to the walls) and then let em dry separately) a few coats did it. A lot of people swear by nail polish, I just havent gotten around to trying it, from what I hear thats probably better.
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