HG 1/144 Cherudim Gundam Part 1

Gray of the day
While preparing for the upcoming Chinese New Year celebration, some bits of free time can still be utilized for my personal hobby. ^^ I got two weeks of break from work, so cleaning up the house and waiting for the holidays to come really shouldn't be the only things I do when I'm at home. ^^ I can't do the earlier late at night when I'm usually more active (^^;) anyway. ^^

Adding another Gunpla to this month's to-do list - the first HG kit of this year for me: ^^ 1/144 Cherudim Gundam.


As mentioned in Part 1 of the review of its HCM-Pro equivalence, I'm not a big fan of Cherudim Gundam's design, particularly its ankle and feet design. ^^; Those hooves-like flat feet are not the kind of design I would like to have on a Gundam. ^^; I welcome unconventional design elements from time to time, but that doesn't mean all of them are good in my eyes. ^^;

Still, as mentioned in the said posting above, it's undeniable that Cherudim Gundam is packed with tons of gimmicks and cool features that makes it stands out pretty well among the four Gundams from Season Two of "Gundam Double O". ^^ You have seen pretty much all those features on the HCM-Pro version, which is a completed figure. Despite already having that action figure, I'm also interested in the Gunpla version - this HG kit. While it doesn't feature some of the really crazy articulation design elements as seen on the HCM-Pro version, this kit certainly doesn't lack that either. The usage of the same polycap system as HG 1/144 00 Gundam very much guarantees that. XD




Introduction of the kit on the sides of box.


Content.


Box art, with matching action pose from a completed kit on the manual. ^^



Front page and centerfold of the manual.


Runner A - Multi-color runner containing white, red and yellow parts for pretty much all components of the Gundam, plus clear parts mainly for the GN Shield Bits' display stand.


(Left) Very small yellow parts for the secondary fins, chest vents and thrusters.
(Right) Clear parts for the "Holoscreen" and targeting scope of the beam rifle will require a bit of painting.


Clear parts for the GN Shield Bits' display stand and GN Condenser scopes.


Runner B - Contains all gray parts for the kit.


(Left) A gray V-Fin ^^
(Right) One option left spread palm that is really appropriate for the beam rifle.


Parts of the GN Drive container to be mounted on the rear skirt armor are perhaps the biggest ones of all runners.


Runner C - Contains all dark green parts for the kit.



Nine one-piece parts for the GN Shield Bits that are completely identical to one another.


Polycap set PC-001.


Foil sticker sheet and a rather uncommon PET seal for the targeting scope's inner face.
Seemingly light pink in color, the result of the sticker after been attached to the clear part is bright red when seen from the front, as shown in many reviews on this kit. ^^


All the parts are separated from their runners.
Normally any painting or panel lining work will only start in Part 2 of the review series, but I'll make an exception for this kit. ^^ The work is pretty generic and simple anyway. ^^


All the GN Shield Bits' rear face and their muzzles will be painted gray.
A different color for the back of the parts would be a simple but appropriate upgrade for the sense of details I believe. ^^


The bottle paint used for the task is Tamiya Color Acrylic Paint Mini XF-53 Neutral Grey, which was recently used for 1/100 Zaku Warrior's missile pods.


All the painted are painted.


Apart from the muzzles, the little valleys on the parts' top are also painted.



Excessive paint around the parts are scratched away using a knife.



Added panel lines to all the parts as well.
The little valleys on the parts' top are "normal" details that has to be panel lined, however, after finishing the work, the ones applied to the rear side of the parts doesn't seem to be making much sense actually. ^^;
More parts to be painted in the next posting. ^^