Kotobukiya have some of the coolest mecha designs and licenses under their belt. They also have a rather bad rep for producing kits with half-assed engineering at a rather premium price-point. As a Super Robot Wars fan though, there’s really no other alternatives in terms of model kits, so sometimes…you just gotta suck it up. After years of procrastination and leveling up I’ve finally had the guts to take on a such a kit, and goddamn the salt was real.
If you’ve only ever built Bandai plamo kits…you have no idea how good you have it. Nonsensical seam lines, ultra tight pegs and poor colour separation are just some of the things that you should come to expect from Kotobukiya kits. It’s quite strange because sometimes they will go out of the way to mould parts to improve part separation, while at other times there’ll be parts moulded in the wrong colour completely. They also cheat by pre-painting certain pieces to give the impression that the kit looks better OOB, but more often that not this ends up being more work for the modeller as you’ll have to mask and repaint it anyway. Again, extremely strange as these kits are supposedly targeted at the experienced modeller. Although Kotobukiya has improved slightly in their recent kits, their engineering is still nowhere near Bandai’s level and pretty inconsistent from kit to kit, so be prepared for alot of seam filling, masking and modding in order to get a box accurate result.
Now onto the R-2 kit itself. Most of the work needed to be done are on the Hi-Zol launchers on the back, which have gigantic seams that need sealing. These seams also encompass the grey part of the launcher at the back, so you’ll need to shave some pegs/make some cuts in order to be able to paint these separately and then assemble afterwards. There are also a few places where parts are moulded in the wrong colour, such as the white part on the top, and the white/orange part at the cannon mount (strangely moulded completely in blue!) which need masking. Other than that, there’re some minor seams on the calves and the rifle, so overall, not THAT bad. Being so chunky though, don’t expect this kit to any fantastic poses, since both the arms/legs are only able at being 90 degrees at most.
You might notice in the pictures though that my final product looks rather banged up in certain areas. While I was putting him together I had a few accidents which I’ve decided to leave as I’m pretty over working on this guy. While I’m pretty happy with the paint job overall and the new flat coat mix that I tried out, there’s still overall room for improvement in my actual prep.
