Get ready to Rambaaaaaaaaaa (Ral)! The HG Bugu
Greetings, gunpla fans! Today we have a treat, the Bugu of Ramba Ral. The orange and white test type of this is a pbandai kit that looks sooooo good (those of you keeping track will recall I've built a lot of orange suits recently, from the ground type to the Heine Destiny to the powered GM), but its so much more expensive for just a color change that if I ever want it its easier to just get another one of these and paint it. And by "one of these" I mean:
Just look at those pesky ball units trying to get their hand on early Zeon Mobile suit tech! They do have good reason though. This is the suit that lead the first ever MS battle between feddies and Zeon, and did so to a crushing victory. Sporting the custom blue paint job Ramba Ral always sports, it also had a shield, Heat Hawk, and a machine gun. The box art picture the battle I mentioned, depicted in the Origin series, where Ramba leads the tri stars and Char against the early and ineffective guncanons in the battle of Mare Smythii to recover a defecting Dr. Minovsky.
The suit was developed from the YMS-03 WAFF, with extra focus on maneuverability, and was the first real "combat ready" suit. The iconic zeon exterior piping really helped with this. But as with many high performance prototypes, it wasn't easy to produce, so they scaled back the performance for the mass produced Zaku 1.
Ramba Ral himself is an interesting figure. The "Blue Giant", "Great Blue Star", or "Blue Nova", he's a member of a rather prominent Zeon family who barely lost out to the Zabi's. In the original series, he's a dedicated and VERY capable soldier, especially in geurrilla hit and run tactics who almost beat white base, but was more felled by Zeon's infighting than anything else. He's an older, experienced and respected soldier who does his job, who the other soldier types respect and the higher brass try and use, and Sayla remembered fondly. In Origin you get more backstory on a younger, more idealistic Ramba Ral, and I just like him even more, even though it changes some details and makes it so his participation in the original series wouldn't have happened. But lets not delve TOOO much into that backstory.
The suit is a cool blue Zeon suit, and a major stepping point in MS history. The kit is pretty solid as well:
A good selection of sprues, a limited amount of stickers, mostly unit markings (I mean, the suit is two colors....), a not tooo overly done high grade. I've also narrowed down to using 600/1000/1500/2000 for the sandpaper grades. I like 400 for removing but its often TOO rough, and I do keep some 3k to really polish something that should shine or clear parts, but these thin strips are basically it for most of the kit, and I can bend the ends to soak them in water to wetsand.
I flew through the chest without thinking, so here is the inside with neck articulation and the piece in front of the manual. The chest doesn't flex like the later Zaku IIs, and is actually a tad smaller, not noticably, but if you place them side by side you'll see its just a hair. The backpack has two thrusters and even though theres a ball join, they're super fixed, you're not angling them any amount.
Heres the chest and lower jaw with all its cables and the backpack on, and then with the head on top, which is just one black cylinder for the eye and then one helmet piece on top (and of course the antenna and whatnot, but not a front and back or anything, just two big pieces. It also came with a non commander head, I guess if you wanted to make a grunt suit, but these were high performance suits only given out to aces, so..... commander head it is. Notice it's got the head turn gimmick, where instead of manually determining where they eye looks, if you turn the head left it looks left, and right it looks right (you can adjust the "zero" if you take the head off).
A little skirt action, then its time to celebrate with a Heine Westenfluss colored cupcake I picked up, the others which would go to some friends stopping over tomorrow.
That sugar gave me enough energy to finish the arms, seen exploded and assembled. Standard HG fair, not all the motion you want, but enough. Then the Bugu gently caresses his soon to be free Heat Hawk, but it was time to finish today, and with things planned the rest of the week, I wouldn't get time to finish until the weekend.
Which I'll also inclue in this one post!
The weekend was another monthly build night for the club. With no particular theme (an officer of the club has sadly recently passed and this was to be the last one at this location so they were trying to organize new spots), this one wasn't as big of a blowout of people bringing kits to show off and big raffles, but there were still plenty of people. Some guys had rigged a console in the back to play video games, we streamed the first two episodes of the Mandalorian and some random other stuff, everyone was building away, pizza and wings were delivered, and we even has a small group walk to the plaza nearby for bubble tea. I had a ton of fun, even though for this one i could only stay for a few hours, so I didn't build much myself. Heres a few kits people brought to show off anyway, or had finished early in the day and moved on to another kit.
Oh, by the way, this is my travel kit. The bottom of a wet pallette for catching nubs, parts, and sanding dust, and then a variety of tools in a plastic organizer fits really handy in a messenger bag (I also managed to bring a small water cup to wet sand, further cutting down dust).
Another thing that got a little attention was my mini boxes! I upgraded my technique by using heavy (300 gsm)paper with a semigloss shine, so it looked and felt like the real box. People kept wondering about them and said they loved them, but i'm no closer to deciding on which size I like better. (click here if the mp4 below isn't great: https://i.imgur.com/Kd61NFz.mp4)
But back to some legs. You get the idea by now, nothing special here.
But at least with them assembled we get to do the Bugu Bugaloo! Look and him dance! Both photos are only balanced on one foot, with the other in the air! and of course he's got to do a mean mug pose before the official photoshoot.
Now we're in the home stretch. After this its just photos and videos, so lets get the final thoughts out of the way. There accessories are limited - 2 holding hands, one trigger hand, one splayed hand. An on and an off Hawk, a pretty neat machine gun, and a shield that is both grabbed and wrist mounted for stability. It does make sense with this early prototype though.
The posability is exactly what you'd expect, no more, no less. I would like the inner knee to be covered up more though, when bent up or down I see more of the curver inner gray than I'd like. The armor is great, the head is iconic, as are the shoulders. Its pretty true to its limited appearances.
Its not a "must get", but its got enough appeal for some people to just get it for the looks. The importance in gundam history, the character of Ramba Ral, the blue "almost Zaku" to kinda round out the zaku colors without resorting to a gouf, the early shield, these are added benefits that might tip people over the edge, and there didn't seem to be loose joints or hidden negatives to turn anyone off if you like what you see.
Link to video below: https://i.imgur.com/kJXJ5Sk.mp4
Just look at those pesky ball units trying to get their hand on early Zeon Mobile suit tech! They do have good reason though. This is the suit that lead the first ever MS battle between feddies and Zeon, and did so to a crushing victory. Sporting the custom blue paint job Ramba Ral always sports, it also had a shield, Heat Hawk, and a machine gun. The box art picture the battle I mentioned, depicted in the Origin series, where Ramba leads the tri stars and Char against the early and ineffective guncanons in the battle of Mare Smythii to recover a defecting Dr. Minovsky.
The suit was developed from the YMS-03 WAFF, with extra focus on maneuverability, and was the first real "combat ready" suit. The iconic zeon exterior piping really helped with this. But as with many high performance prototypes, it wasn't easy to produce, so they scaled back the performance for the mass produced Zaku 1.
Ramba Ral himself is an interesting figure. The "Blue Giant", "Great Blue Star", or "Blue Nova", he's a member of a rather prominent Zeon family who barely lost out to the Zabi's. In the original series, he's a dedicated and VERY capable soldier, especially in geurrilla hit and run tactics who almost beat white base, but was more felled by Zeon's infighting than anything else. He's an older, experienced and respected soldier who does his job, who the other soldier types respect and the higher brass try and use, and Sayla remembered fondly. In Origin you get more backstory on a younger, more idealistic Ramba Ral, and I just like him even more, even though it changes some details and makes it so his participation in the original series wouldn't have happened. But lets not delve TOOO much into that backstory.
The suit is a cool blue Zeon suit, and a major stepping point in MS history. The kit is pretty solid as well:
I flew through the chest without thinking, so here is the inside with neck articulation and the piece in front of the manual. The chest doesn't flex like the later Zaku IIs, and is actually a tad smaller, not noticably, but if you place them side by side you'll see its just a hair. The backpack has two thrusters and even though theres a ball join, they're super fixed, you're not angling them any amount.
Heres the chest and lower jaw with all its cables and the backpack on, and then with the head on top, which is just one black cylinder for the eye and then one helmet piece on top (and of course the antenna and whatnot, but not a front and back or anything, just two big pieces. It also came with a non commander head, I guess if you wanted to make a grunt suit, but these were high performance suits only given out to aces, so..... commander head it is. Notice it's got the head turn gimmick, where instead of manually determining where they eye looks, if you turn the head left it looks left, and right it looks right (you can adjust the "zero" if you take the head off).
A little skirt action, then its time to celebrate with a Heine Westenfluss colored cupcake I picked up, the others which would go to some friends stopping over tomorrow.
Which I'll also inclue in this one post!
The weekend was another monthly build night for the club. With no particular theme (an officer of the club has sadly recently passed and this was to be the last one at this location so they were trying to organize new spots), this one wasn't as big of a blowout of people bringing kits to show off and big raffles, but there were still plenty of people. Some guys had rigged a console in the back to play video games, we streamed the first two episodes of the Mandalorian and some random other stuff, everyone was building away, pizza and wings were delivered, and we even has a small group walk to the plaza nearby for bubble tea. I had a ton of fun, even though for this one i could only stay for a few hours, so I didn't build much myself. Heres a few kits people brought to show off anyway, or had finished early in the day and moved on to another kit.
Oh, by the way, this is my travel kit. The bottom of a wet pallette for catching nubs, parts, and sanding dust, and then a variety of tools in a plastic organizer fits really handy in a messenger bag (I also managed to bring a small water cup to wet sand, further cutting down dust).
Another thing that got a little attention was my mini boxes! I upgraded my technique by using heavy (300 gsm)paper with a semigloss shine, so it looked and felt like the real box. People kept wondering about them and said they loved them, but i'm no closer to deciding on which size I like better. (click here if the mp4 below isn't great: https://i.imgur.com/Kd61NFz.mp4)
But back to some legs. You get the idea by now, nothing special here.
Now we're in the home stretch. After this its just photos and videos, so lets get the final thoughts out of the way. There accessories are limited - 2 holding hands, one trigger hand, one splayed hand. An on and an off Hawk, a pretty neat machine gun, and a shield that is both grabbed and wrist mounted for stability. It does make sense with this early prototype though.
The posability is exactly what you'd expect, no more, no less. I would like the inner knee to be covered up more though, when bent up or down I see more of the curver inner gray than I'd like. The armor is great, the head is iconic, as are the shoulders. Its pretty true to its limited appearances.
Its not a "must get", but its got enough appeal for some people to just get it for the looks. The importance in gundam history, the character of Ramba Ral, the blue "almost Zaku" to kinda round out the zaku colors without resorting to a gouf, the early shield, these are added benefits that might tip people over the edge, and there didn't seem to be loose joints or hidden negatives to turn anyone off if you like what you see.
Link to video below: https://i.imgur.com/kJXJ5Sk.mp4
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