1/100 Duel Assault Shroud Part 6

Proportion altering design
A look at the Assault Shroud armor set for 1/100 Duel Gundam.



All the extra parts.



Leg armors


A portion of the armors' interior that has some gold and silver detailing, done in Part 3.



Shoulder armors.


Sitting on top of the right shoulder armor, the railgun has a very wide movement range since there's no obstruction around it.


Except for display, there's not much function for the missile pod on the left shoulder armor really. ^^;


The triangular marking on the missile pod's cover is a piece of foil sticker.


Forearm armors.


Body and waist armors.


Before assembling the parts, the pins connecting the light blue abdomen part to the black chest piece is painted in black to make them consistent with the part they are attached to.
The interior of the skirt armors are painted in black using Gundam Marker to show more depth for the two components.



The backpack attachment with extra thrusters is the largest component among all the new armor parts.
Equipping Duel Gundam with the various new parts:


The frontal leg armor slides into its dedicated slots near the knee.


Attaching the side armor that will not only cover the side portion of the leg, but locking the entire leg armor in plce as well.



Insert the pin of the forearm armor into the slot that is used to hold the shield, before sliding the black wrist portion onto it.



Slide the shoulder armors into the gray slots.


The body armor is being held by two protruding points near the shoulder joints.



Insert the front and rear skirt armors into their respective spots on the waist.



Attach the rear armor to the backpack.



A different type of mount piece is needed to let the armored up Duel Gundam to use its original shield.
Done with equipping Duel Gundam with its extra armors. The entire process is not too difficult actually. Beside pins that go into polycaps and dedicated slots on Duel Gundam itself to accept the extra parts, many of them are designed to integrate with each another, allowing them to be firm when attached to the model, but not affecting the look when they are off. The leg, forearm and chest armors are good examples of this. I think this is a very good design feature of this model.

More images of Duel Gundam Assault Shroud:

















While a more conventional-looking image for Duel Gundam is achieved with the extra armors - inclusion of the front and rear skirt armors plus ankle guards, the overall proportion becomes more off balance in my opinion. The original shoulder armors of Duel Gundam always seem oversized in proportion to its body in my opinion. The new armors just make the shoulders even larger. The size of the body increases with its extra armor as well, but not enough to match the proportion of the shoulder armors I think. The look is not too obvious from the front, but the top view of the model will show how broad the shoulder become, but not so much for the chest. The chest seems to be given inadequate protection as compared to the shoulder.

I still like Duel Gundam in this form of course. It's definitely an upgrade for the unit, even though there are some limitations to the articulation with all the new parts, as you would expect. Personally, I would choose to display Duel Gundam in this armored form, since none of the extra parts is too heavy for the model to handle and would pose a risk of exhausting the joints the parts are connected to. An example with that weakness is Master Grade Crossbone Gundam Full Cloth. Apart from the more "complete" look for Duel Gundam, it would seem quite a waste not to put on all the armors. Also, since I'm storing the model back in its box after completing it, not separating the armors is a way to save space too, so that some other models can also reside in the same box. ^^;

The last posting for Duel Gundam, featuring action poses in its Assault Shroud form is next.