| 1/144 MBF-P02 Gundam Astray Red Frame
Series: 1/144 Title: MBF-P02 Gundam Astray Red Frame Release Date: 08/2002 Suggested Price: ¥ 300 No. of Parts: 28 + 6 polycaps Plastic colors: white, gray, black, red-brown Gimmicks: simple construction
Contributor: Demon-elf Date: February 5, 2005 I had bought this kit for $5 at a local store. I’ve had plenty of experience with other Gundam models, so I expected the usual standard construction of a non-High Grade kit. Well, this kit surprised me. It was very simple. Do not confuse this with the High Grade kit.
The head is comprised of three pieces, the front, the back, and the trade mark head-V. The head is molded in white, which means you’ll have to paint t to look correct. The head V is already red, so it doesn’t require paint. All of it is finely molded, though, so if you detail it, it is easy to do.
The torso requires paint to look correct. The shoulders are put into the torso before closing it. Including the shoulders, the torso is comprised of 10 pieces. The main torso (front and back) the backpack, a chest piece, the front and back hip pieces, and two pieces for each shoulder. Again, finely molded, with great detail, but requires paint to ret it to look right. The front part of the torso is molded in gray, while the back is molded in red, which is why it requires paint, just for the two parts to match.
There are four pieces to each arm. At first, the main part of the arm seems to suffer from one-sided molding, which is a chronic part of SD kits, but thanks to clever use of the remaining three parts, that actually isn’t a problem. A part goes near the shoulder. There’s another part that goes across the back of the hand. And if you look at the pictures from the manga, the white part on the forearm is a separate piece. My only problem is that it has no elbows. None. That makes the poses look a little goofy, because to have it in a guarding stance, you have to have the arm turned completely around.
The legs are three pieces. The legs are two, and the foot is one. The leg is again finely molded, but is only in white, so again, you have to paint it to make it look correct. With the legs being only two pieces each, as you can guess, this leaves no pieces to have a knee joint with. So no knees. But with missing elbows, missing knees is not a problem. The problem I have is the feet. The feet have no bottom. They are cup-shaped, and no bottom. This fact makes action poses extremely goofy looking.
This kit comes with a beam riffle and a shield, with the beam sabers MIA. The shield suffers from one-sided molding. But that’s okay, seeing as it’s only one of the last two pieces I have yet to cover in this review. My problem? It’s a very dark color, a reddish-brown. Which means, to get it to look right will take some effort. The white parts are a pain. The other parts that required paint were at least white, making it easy to fix. The beam riffle looks pretty good for being one piece. It also fits perfectly into the hand. It is also nicely detailed.
This kit is simple. In fact, it seems overly simple. But, what can I saw, it’s only $3. This kit is completely identical in every way to the cheap blue frame. Just change red to blue and reddish brown to bluish brown. , but I’m complaining. It may have been simple, but for the price tag, I bought 4 and did a little display as a joke, with a green one and a purple one with the blue and red ones, as a Legend of Zelda-Four Swords joke. In conclusion, this kit may be too simple for you, but if you’re just starting out in model building, it may be perfect for you. Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars <<back to Gundam |
