RG RX-78 Gundam

Back in July I finally decided to delve into the world of Real Grades, starting from the granddaddy of them all, the original Gundam. As with the first generation of anything, it does have some weird design issues:

You’re meant to thread the arm connection through the shoulders, but it’s not entirely obvious at first because the gap the arm connection is supposed to go through is smaller than the connection itself.
The manipulators are terrible at holding the beam rifle, even with the peg.
The action base connector just doesn’t hold up the kit at all.

Thankfully these concerns were fixed in later RG kits, giving fixed hands for weapons and an action base connector which actually works. Other than that, it truly is an engineering marvel that packs MG detail into the 1/144 scale. although if I had a to make a choice I’d either buy another RG and build the Ver3.0 MG over this, because it’s essentially the same kit upscaled to 1/100 with a better frame.

Painting

The RX-78-2 is the only RG kit AFAIK that has tri tone panels, and while it’s a bit of extra work, it looks really good.

Paints listed are Gunze Mr Hobby Acrylics.

White – Base coat Navy Blue (100%), followed by layered White (100%) for shading effect

Greyish White – Base coat Neutral Grey (100%), followed by White (90%) + Neutral Grey (10%) for highlights.

Brownish White – Base coat Sail Colour (100%), followed by White (100%) for shading.

Blue – Cobalt Blue (60%) + Bright Blue (30%) + White (10%) + drop of Fluro Pink base coat. White is added in to the mixture for highlights.

Light Blue – Violet (70%) + White (30%) base coat. White is added into the mixture for highlights.

Red – Base coat of black (100%), followed by White (100%) post shade. A coat of Shine Red (60%) + Red Madder (40%) is then applied. White and some orange is added into the mixture for highlights.

Dark Red – Maroon (100%), white is added for highlights.

Yellow – Orange (100%) base coat, followed by White (100%) post shade. A coat of Orange Yellow (60%) + Yellow (40%) is then applied. White is added into the mixture for highlights.

Backpack Grey – Neutral Grey (70%) + Black (30%) base coat, followed by Neutral Grey (90%) + Black (10%) for shading.

Waterslide decals from Samueldecal.