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The Hi-Nu Gundam is a really cool variation of the RX-93 Nu Gundam.
I really like the feather look of the striped funnels, and the
exaggerated proportions. I bought this kit a few years ago when
I didn't know much about resin kits. It's what I call a Taiwan
recast, probably of a convention only kit (which ended up being
the B-Club full action version). A "Taiwan recast" is
a kit cast in polyester (rather than polyurethane "hi cast")
resin, often refered to as cold cast. This material is very difficult
to work with, it's hard and brittle (fragile!), making cutting
and sanding nearly impossible (parts had to be sawed off of the
sprues). The recaster also assembled some sections before recasting
them (and not particularly well, I should note), simplifying construction
and leaving me with some pretty crooked assemblies. The original
kit was full action, this is not (you can see where the recaster
whited out parts of the instructions explaining joint assembly).
And the small details are soft, worn out, broken, or just plain
missing. All in all, a pretty crappy starting point requiring
lots of work. I didn't have a digital camera at the time, so don't
have many pictures of the model under construction.
A note about recasts: I personally don't have a problem with
buying recasts if the kit is no longer available (convention only
or otherwise out of production), though I of course prefer original
kits. They're cheaper than original kits as well. But for god's
sake stay away from polyester kits! If you see a recast that costs
about half as much as it should (I wish I was so lucky in this
case), it's almost certainly polyester. Don't buy it, unless you
absolutely must have that kit and can't find a good casting. If
you do, you're in for a lot of headaches. They tend to be either
orange/yellow-ish, or pale greenish-white in color, and a little
rough or sticky to the touch (if you've dealt with good resin,
you'll know the difference instantly if you examine the parts).
Don't say I didn't warn you!
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Construction
I won't bore you with the details of parts cleanup, it sucked.
A few parts were totally unusable (shattered!). I stole the hands
from a Master Grade GP-01 FB. The large head spikes were converted
from spikes nabbed from my MG Gundam Mk-II (thanks for the extras
Bandai!), extended with polyester putty and sharpened a bit. The
small spikes were cut from sheet plastic. The shield mount was
scratchbuilt from sheet plastic. All verniers were replaced with
Wave option parts. Springs were added behind the knees, and I
built new fins for the funnel mounts from sheet plastic and brass
rod. Finally, I ground away the eyes with routing bit in my dremel,
and replaced them with Wave H-Eyes backed with silver.
Since the kit was to be fixed pose, I fiddled (and
imagined) a lot, trying to figure out a pose. Once I had something
in mind, I started drilling and pinning, a necessity for a kit
of this size and fragile nature. Basically I drilled holes in
each part where they would attach, and inserted brass pins to
strengthen the joint (get used to doing this if you're building
resin kits). Drill the holes slightly oversized to give some flexibility
when gluing the parts. The skirt armors were attached with small
springs, though I'm not sure why. Everything was glued with 5
minute epoxy for a very strong bond. All of this was done after
painting. Since I went with a flying pose, I left out one of the
underskirt verniers and drilled a hole for the stand.
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Painting
The kit was primed with thick coats of Krylon primer (hoping to
smooth the surface as much as I could). I used Testors acrylics
for the final painting. Preshading was done with a dark sea blue,
painting around the edges, recesses, and panel lines.leaving the
rest of the surface gray. I then gradually sprayed semi-gloss
white over the center of the white areas, working my way towards
the edges. The gradient came out pretty nicely since I basically
got a 3 color shading (white to dark white to blueish white).
I did my best to leave the areas to be painted blue untouched.
Then I masked off white as needed in preperation for the blue
parts. Believe it or not, most of the masking was done with rubber
cement! It covers well, peels off without taking any paint, and
I had some laying around. :)
Blue parts were sprayed with the same technique. The color was
based on Model Master French Blue, lightened with some white.I
really like the color scheme, and the blue turned out great. After
the blue was done, I gave it a few coats of clear gloss. I spent
a long time doing panel lines and detailing with washes of dark
gray enamel, doing my best to cover up imperfections in the parts.
Mechanical details were painted with my usual gunmetal (black
and silver acrylic). I colored the springs on the knees with a
black Sharpie permanent marker (don't ask).
The display stand came from a craft store, with the mounting
rod cut from a chrome plated rod from the hardware store. I epoxied
it into a hole in the stand, and the model just plugs into the
rod (it's not glued). Despite it's fragility, this model actually
survived a 6.8 earthquake, thanks to the stand! I came home and
found it had rotated on the mount, was upsideown, and the only
damage was a broken head spike. Whew!
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