The All Exia Project Part 2

To rekindle the bloodline
A whole wave of comments poured in for the prelude to my All Exia Project last night ^^;

Exia is one of my favorite Gundam of all. Its face which is designed without the air vent as seen on most other conventional Gundams make it look very fierce, and the sense got a level up for it being a unit that wields seven swords. The HG version is a huge attraction to me ever since its release years ago, as it minimizes the usage of polycap and relies on ABS for its joints.

Why getting the 1/100 scale version is out of the question I believe. The details and articulation is unmatched even for the same series from Season 2 even though they are out more recently. I would go into the details when I started assembling the actual model.

Why getting so many? Because I didn't expect Astraea, Avalanche Exia and Astraea Type F to be released in the first place. ^^; I'll just treat them as MG Zaku II Ver. 2.0 variations - same frame, different design, buy when I really can't resist them ^^;

Might be disappointing to some, this All Exia Project is NOT about getting every Gunplas of Exia out there. So some of you are counting all the other Exia releases I didn't get to really make it "All Exia", but that's really not my plan at all.


Manuals for 1/100 Exia, Avalanche Exia and Astraea.
This so-called All Exia project of mine is about pre-assembly work on all similar or identical parts for the five kits shown last night. :)

That's why 1/100 Astraea is in. I love its really white appearance, and its added details for parts like the shoulder and beam launcher. Then again, I won't go into details until I focus on that kit specifically.

That's why Astraea Type F is not in as well. I never like its flaming red appearance, but even if I do have this 1/100 Gunpla, it won't be in the plan, because it has many identical parts with Exia and Astraea, but in different colors that require different treatment. And that's the opposite for my HG 1/144 00 Gundam, it's not in the project either - the same color scheme as Exia and Astraea, but o common parts.

Also, if you're thinking that I'm doing all five kits in one go, then a huge NO as well. ^^; For the record, I would never do that for any Gunplas I have. I would rather keep them untouched in their boxes rather than doing so many in one go. I'll only pick the parts that need extensive painting, which are repeated for all the kits as well, so that when I go for each of them, I won't feel sien (bored) for doing the same thing again and again.

What about BB Senshi Sangokuden Shiba-I Sazabi, or 1/100 Astray Red Frame, or MG Destiny I'm working on right now? Are them being omitted?

Of course not. You will find in the last review for the first two work-in-progress Gunplas that I have completed the painting for all parts. Right now, I'm just keeping them in their boxes while I wait for a really enjoyable time to finally assemble them. I'm not the type of modelers that could build one arm, and build another leg two weeks later. ^^; The best part of Gunpla-ing for me is the final assembly, and I must have the best feng-shui time to do it XD

Basically, it just means that I'm too busy with my other work right now, and on daily basis, I can just do some painting on bit and pieces of the parts of the different Gunplas. But to actually build any of them and take photos, not yet. ^^;

Work in progress report on MG Destiny will be ongoing as well. ^^

There are quite a lot of parts involved for my All Exia Project. I'll talk about the parts selected in this and the next review.

1/100 Exia, Avalanche Exia and Astraea first, before moving on to the HG and BB Senshi versions.


One of the few identical runner for all three 1/100s
Clear parts




Painted the opposite face of the clear parts in clear green using highlighter, which is super-hard to dry. Since the opposite face won't be touched ever again when put onto the model, it doesn't matter if it's going to take forever to dry. But I do think that I will need to paint some edges of it again before the final assembly, because the color might get rubbed off here and there.

Highlighter is good for painting clear part because the color is very beautiful, and you get to retain the quality of the clear part as well. I was thinking of using Metallic Green from my BB Senshi Sangokuden Set for this task, as the color looks good on the completed FG, but for retaining the transparent quality of the clear parts, I decided to use highlighter instead.

GN Sword




Astraea's GNS word is shorter and smaller than Exia's, but all three of them presented the same task to undertake: should I or should I not paint the blade portion in silver? Separating the different layers of the blade looks so cool for the HCM-Pro version, but I'm not sure if I can get the same effect or not, especially when I'm not using spray can.

I'll think about this again. ^^;




Still regarding the GN sword, for Exia and Avalanche Exia, some painting needs to be done for the shield as well. Painting the round "barrel" on the face is a must (if you're keeping to the manual), but the back is molded entirely in blue, so if I count that into the paint job, then there's really plenty of stuff to paint. ^^;

Not too easy too, since there's a very steep narrow drain that surround the main body of the shield, how to reach the bottom of that drain may be an issue.

Helmet & face



3 kits, but 4 sets of helmets? o_O

Yup, that's right. Courtesy of Bandai's lack of planning in the runners for Exia, you get repeated parts from 1/100 Exia that are not required for Astraea. The helmet is just one of them. Instead of throwing them away, I'll make some effort to paint it so that my Astraea get an Exia-type head conversion later on. ^^

Some inconsistency regarding the paint scheme for the heads of the three Gunplas:


While all three of them: Exia, Avalanche Exia and Astraea has GN stripes on top of their head, they are all in different colors - light blue for Exia, gray for Avalanche Exia and unpainted for Astraea.

Same thing for the face as well. Exia has unpainted cheek, while Avalanche Exia and Astraea has gray ones.

I'll paint the parts in a more consistent style to establish a close relationship between each of them.




For the HG 1/144 scale version, the same parts as the 1/100 scale are chosen: the helmet, face, GN Sword and clear parts. The way the parts are separated are very much the same. For these few components, only the helmet would seem different, as it has less parts molded as compared to its bigger scale equivalences.


The clear parts are being treated in the same method as 1/100 Exia.


For BB Senshi Exia, the parts are molded in a very different way as compared to the normal scale version, and painting them would be very different from the rest as well. So I only chose the GN Sword for this project.

A gathering of all the parts selected for Part 1:





I believe you would now have a much cleared idea of what this All Exia Project of mine is about. ^^

More parts to be included in Part 3.