1/100 Gundam Virtue Part 14

99% completed Gundam Nadleeh
It's time for Gundam Nadleeh to take the limelight after all the focus on Gundam Virtue in the past few postings. ^^ That means Gundam Virtue would have to purge all its armors first. ^^



First components off are the back pack and rear skirt armor.


The two grips of the GN Drive cone can now be retracted.


A few parts in front of the body are removed: chest armor, secondary V-Fin covers, front skirt and abdomen armors.


(Left) Gundam Virtue's shoulder blocks are separated and removed.
(Right) No more thick armors in the way, Gundam Nadleeh's shoulder blocks are pushed back into its body (see Part 10).


The shoulder and forearm armors are detached.


Progress of Gundam Virtue's crazy slim-down program XD
The adapter part for Action Base 1 is not removed from the hip after the previous posting to save myself from the trouble of attaching/removing it between ground/midair action poses. ^^


The leg and foot armors are removed (See Part 9 on how they are assembled onto the leg).


Comparison between the "naked" and armored legs. ^^
A tiny bit of height is lost when the foot armors are removed because they are the parts touching the surface instead of Gundam Nadleeh's sole.


The removed leg armors.
It's a good design to have the armors still being able to connect with one another to avoid some storage issues. ^^


With armors removed for both legs.
The thighs which are among the smaller-sized components noted in Part 11 seem to be much larger in proportion as compared to the legs now. ^^


Two GN Stripe parts are attached to their respective slots on the neck joint.


And the rest of hair parts are for the head. ^^


The mask, V-Fin, top forehead part and rear helmet pieces are removed.


The two largest GN Stripe parts are to be connected to the back of the head, with the gray piece acting as the connector.


The instruction in the manual says the two GN Stripe parts should be held down using fingers before locking their position with the gray connector, which is really easier said than done because the GN Stripe parts tend to fall off when you're reaching for the gray piece. ^^;
I find it a lot easier if the gray part is reattached to the helmet first, leaving just enough room for the GN Stripe parts to slide in before locking them down in the end. ^^
The cropped image on the left is from Hobby Search.


The ones on the neck joint might not be that obvious in effect, but the ones on the back of the head definitely look like hair parts. ^^
With a silky shiny look too XD


The last two GN Stripe parts are connected to the slots near the mask.


It's great to see that the painted areas on top of the head matches the molded color of the GN Stripe parts. ^^ The effect is definitely better than the initial fluorescent pink version. ^^;


Done for the head's configuration, which can be regarded as part of the kit's assembly if you follow the instruction manual. ^^


With the head connected to the neck joint.


The hinge design on the base of the rear GN Stripe parts allows them to become windswept hair at your will XD
More images of Gundam Nadleeh:










Closeups on the details:















As with Seravee Gundam's hidden form Seraphim Gundam, I'm not a fan of Gundam Nadleeh. ^^; I think the armor separation gimmick is pretty cool, and I like how the gimmick is executed on this 1/100 scale kit, plus all the line and painted details as well. Then again, separating my appreciation for the Gunpla version from the actual mechanical design, I don't really like Gundam Nadleeh itself. ^^; It's too thin and too "white" to look menacing in my opinion - everything opposite of Gundam Virtue I suppose. ^^;

By the way, looking back, I didn't replace Gundam Virtue's V-Fin on Gundam Nadleeh it seems. ^^; It's still the larger type, which surprisingly doesn't look out of place on Gundam Nadleeh's head that has a few parts removed. I think I'll keep it that way till the end of the entire review series. ^^

A look at some of the articulation features "enabled" for Gundam Nadleeh with all of Gundam Virtue's armors removed now: ^^


With no rear skirt armor to restrict its movement now, lateral movement is made possible for the waist. ^^


With both skirt armors gone, 180-degree bend (90 degrees to the front and back) for the hip joint is possible as well.



OK but not that great for the kneeling pose. ^^;


While the skirt armors are no more, the waist still poses a limit on how much the thigh can be stretched upward in front. ^^;


Not accommodating Gundam Virtue's shoulder blocks anymore, Gundam Nadleeh's shoulder joints can be expanded for its application in articulation: forward flip for the shoulders and arms to bend to the front. ^^
Supposedly a more agile unit as compared to Gundam Virtue, all the extra articulation designs make sense for Gundam Nadleeh. That's true for this Gunpla version, perhaps more so than its anime counterpart, since in that fictitious world, size or weight issues that are unavoidable on a Gunpla kit can be added/disregarded at the story's discretion. ^^; When action is involved, everything goes. ^^


Lining up all the armor components and parts.
Even though there are many parts involved, most can be assembled without attaching them to the Gundam itself, so messy storage can be avoided. ^^


The rear skirt armor can be connected to the waist armor to form a single waist-body block. ^^


The leg armor is still the larger among all of them. ^^
A look at some action poses from Gundam Nadleeh in the next posting. ^^