From Mobile Suit Gundam, the original Gundam series,
I acquired an old Blau Blo kit.
About three months after the end of the Gundam broadcast,
Director Yoshiyuki Tomino's (not yet known as Yoshiyuki Tomino at the time)
next project, the legendary Ideon, would begin,
and in that work, the enemy faction Buff Clan had weapons called
"heavy mobile mecha,"
and while Blau Blo is a mobile armor that appears in Gundam,
it's often said to have the look of a heavy mobile mecha.
In Mobile Suit Gundam's
Episode 8 "Battlefield is Wasteland" (a personal favorite episode)
the reconnaissance plane Luggun also
has a look like a Buff Clan unit.
Because its size is small, it doesn't fall into the heavy mobile mecha classification.
Just to note,
the name Luggun comes from
reconnaissance machine → see → look,
with a voiced consonant added and an "n" at the end,
and the bee-like native creature "Bazin" that appears in Ideon
comes from bee with a voiced consonant and "n" added → Bazin,
so it follows the same naming rule as Luggun.
The color separation on the sprues is gray and purple, two colors,
and the ones I haven't used or haven't assembled yet are
parts that seal the holes when left and right separate,
and rod-shaped parts for fixing
the mega particle turrets on top and bottom in a fixed position,
the tips of the mega particle cannons on the left and right arms,
and also a 1/550 Gundam.
Gundam plastic model mobile suit scales include
1/144, 1/100, and 1/60,
but the reason the scale for mobile armors (except Zackrello) became 1/550
is said to be because it was reverse-calculated from the kit size of Blau Blo.
It's done.
A Blau Blo in Gunga Rub color.
↑This is an image from the Sunrise official website.
Don't mind the pose that looks like a bear ASCII art.
I fill with putty the side panel's
pattern lines that look like salmon slices.
↑Like this
Everyone's favorite (according to my survey) GSI Creos
Mr. Surfacer, but in addition to the spray can version,
there's also a brush-on type,
and this is essentially thinned putty,
so it hides small gaps and other imperfections.
As will appear later, topcoat spray also
hides paint irregularities and other flaws,
so together they hide fourteen kinds of flaws.
We're living in a good age.
After painting in orange and masking,
I paint in black and then peel off the tape.
The bumps characteristic of heavy mobile mecha,
but in the setting drawing for Gunga Rub
this part is the same pink as the body,
but I deliberately made it orange like Zig Mack and Galbo Jick
based on the color of the old 1/600 Gunga Rub
that Aoshima used to release.
Ideón plastic models were initially released on "box scale,"
a system where to unify the price (and box size),
the model's scale was individually varied,
but later, like Gundam plastic models, they were re-released
in a unified 1/600 scale.
For Gunga Rub, the box scale is 1/1200, but
with Dog Mack it was an awkward 1/610,
and honestly, calling it 1/600 wouldn't have been noticeable.
However, the 1/600 Dog Mack compared to the 1/610
has new sculpting and different articulation ranges,
so they're not just reissuing the same thing with a different box. Impressive!
The left arm's mega particle turret is carved down like this…
I glue on plastic sheet and fill gaps with putty,
drill semi-holes and made it a quintuple launcher.
I wished I could make the holes bigger,
but with semi-holes, this is the limit of material thickness.
Making through-holes and gluing cup-shaped parts individually from the back
would be the correct approach,
but I got cold feet since this is material I can't redo.
There was a slight gap,
so I filled it with brush-on surfacer—essentially thinned putty.
The right arm is modified into a combat claw.
I embedded a polycap part.
↑This is originally
a detail-up part for representing a cylindrical tank, but
I fixed the polycap's companion part,
↑and made it like this.
The claw part is made by gluing stacked plastic sheet
and sanding it down.
Making a movable version isn't impossible,
but it takes an abnormal amount of work, so this time it's fixed.
The claw will be fixed slightly more open,
but as in the image above,
I made it so "if it were to move, it would mesh perfectly."
↑Like this.
At this stage it's temporary,
and ultimately I fixed it slightly more open.
I first airbrushed this hole area black,
then applied round masking tape,
and painted in pink and purple.
Where the round holes and tape misaligned, it was noticeable,
so I corrected it with a very fine brush.
This pink and purple are made by mixing paints,
so I can only reproduce what I have in my mixing bottle.
That said, purple is Mr. Color No. 67 Basic Purple,
and pink is No. 63 Basic Pink,
with Mr. Color No. 2 Basic Black mixed in—
just a two-color mix, so reproducibility is high.
↑These are the left and right booster parts, but
the gluing area is too small.
↑Inevitably, gaps form.
Trimming parts before gluing to eliminate gaps is easy,
but the next step is fitting into the same inner diameter as the circle,
so I can't do any trimming that would reduce the circle's inner diameter.
One method is to apply styrene-based adhesive to the gap and press with your finger,
but the fitting dimensional tolerance turned out to be smaller than expected,
so I dealt with it by filling with putty.
I'm not writing out everything, but
there are many such detailed corrections forced upon me.
Rather, with modern Gundam plastic models that don't need
pre-washing to remove mold release from the sprues,
have zero flash, have perfect part-to-part fit,
require no adhesive for assembly, and at that quality are clearly
too cheap (※), the super technology is
abnormally good in the best way.
※At official price!Death to resellers
I applied topcoat.
Lacquer, not water-based.
The inside of the left and right body is painted in a thin purple color.
This is MS Purple from the Gundam Color line,
one of the brands of Mr. Color,
the purple of the Dom itself.
The left side in the image above is given a panel line wash in dark purple enamel paint.
It seems that applying panel line wash with thinned enamel paint
penetrates more smoothly after topcoat (lacquer),
so I apply a light coat before washing.
Blau Blo has an official function where it separates left and right,
and in the Gundam anime there's a scene where just the right half separates and flees,
but there's no function here to sandwich an enemy unit
and generate a gel barrier that damages not the body but the pilot's brain.
Incidentally, the unit in the center is a Gm from Gundam
modified with sixth-civilization interpretation (→here).
But this pose, entirely by coincidence,
looks like nothing but all-range missile barrage,
which is ominous.
On the lacquer purple + topcoat part,
I paint pink enamel color into the existing panel lines,
and when I wipe with a cotton swab soaked in enamel thinner, it looks like this.
Enamel paint/thinner doesn't damage a lacquer-painted surface,
but if it touches an unpainted area, plastic can crack in the worst case.
Nowadays, for people who say
"I do snap-assembly without paint, but I want to panel line wash,"
there are alcohol-based pen-type panel line wash-specific paints available.
We're living in a good age.
The base—I was bothered by large gaps between parts,
so I just filled with putty and haven't painted it yet.
The front part of the right arm claw and left arm launcher
are painted in pale green.
This is also not a color in the setting drawing,
but in the 1/600 and 1/1200 Gunga Rub box art
this part is green, so I followed that.
The claw outline was vague, so
I dry-brushed it slightly to make the outline visible.
In the Gunga Rub setting drawing,
the claw appears to have the two-claw side on the bottom
(or it might just look that way because the wrist is rotated),
but in the plastic model box art, both 1/1200 and 1/600
have the two-claw side on top.
Since I made it poly-cap style, it can rotate either way.
The specified color for Blau Blo's mega particle cannon protrusion
was pale green,
so I matched the claw and launcher color to that.
↑Color instruction from the manual
When I went to the model shop, Mr. Color
pale green was out of stock,
so I used Gaia Color pale green instead.
It looked like a small amount, but it had very high viscosity
and required considerable thinning, so it actually felt like more.
The AT-07 in the product number is for Armored Trooper,
meaning it's a color for a specific part of a specific Votoms (Patlabor-like) model.
Though the name sounds similar, it has nothing to do with Pallzens.
For the all-range wired attack expression,
the kit includes lead wires,
and on all four points I extended them about 1cm more than the manual instructions.
In the anime depiction, they extend hundreds of meters,
so this is nothing.
To truly call it an all-range attack, you need to get behind the enemy at least.
You might think, why not buy separate lead wire of the same outer diameter
and make it longer? But
if the plan is to draw out lead wire built into the body,
this length is the limit regardless.
The body and turret have
two separate holes and protrusions (besides the lead wire) that click together,
so if I skip installing the lead wire and separate the body and turret,
inserting lead wires of any length into each
would remove any length restrictions.
The pose from the box art of "1/1200 Anti-Ideon Heavy Mobile Mecha
Dalum Zuba Custom Gunga Rub"
The back is like this
In the box-scale model lineup, the first three in model number order are
1
I acquired an old Blau Blo kit.
About three months after the end of the Gundam broadcast,
Director Yoshiyuki Tomino's (not yet known as Yoshiyuki Tomino at the time)
next project, the legendary Ideon, would begin,
and in that work, the enemy faction Buff Clan had weapons called
"heavy mobile mecha,"
and while Blau Blo is a mobile armor that appears in Gundam,
it's often said to have the look of a heavy mobile mecha.
In Mobile Suit Gundam's
Episode 8 "Battlefield is Wasteland" (a personal favorite episode)
the reconnaissance plane Luggun also
has a look like a Buff Clan unit.
Because its size is small, it doesn't fall into the heavy mobile mecha classification.
Just to note,
the name Luggun comes from
reconnaissance machine → see → look,
with a voiced consonant added and an "n" at the end,
and the bee-like native creature "Bazin" that appears in Ideon
comes from bee with a voiced consonant and "n" added → Bazin,
so it follows the same naming rule as Luggun.
The color separation on the sprues is gray and purple, two colors,
and the ones I haven't used or haven't assembled yet are
parts that seal the holes when left and right separate,
and rod-shaped parts for fixing
the mega particle turrets on top and bottom in a fixed position,
the tips of the mega particle cannons on the left and right arms,
and also a 1/550 Gundam.
Gundam plastic model mobile suit scales include
1/144, 1/100, and 1/60,
but the reason the scale for mobile armors (except Zackrello) became 1/550
is said to be because it was reverse-calculated from the kit size of Blau Blo.
It's done.
A Blau Blo in Gunga Rub color.
↑This is an image from the Sunrise official website.
I fill with putty the side panel's
pattern lines that look like salmon slices.
↑Like this
Everyone's favorite (according to my survey) GSI Creos
Mr. Surfacer, but in addition to the spray can version,
there's also a brush-on type,
and this is essentially thinned putty,
so it hides small gaps and other imperfections.
As will appear later, topcoat spray also
hides paint irregularities and other flaws,
so together they hide fourteen kinds of flaws.
We're living in a good age.
After painting in orange and masking,
I paint in black and then peel off the tape.
The bumps characteristic of heavy mobile mecha,
but in the setting drawing for Gunga Rub
this part is the same pink as the body,
but I deliberately made it orange like Zig Mack and Galbo Jick
based on the color of the old 1/600 Gunga Rub
that Aoshima used to release.
Ideón plastic models were initially released on "box scale,"
a system where to unify the price (and box size),
the model's scale was individually varied,
but later, like Gundam plastic models, they were re-released
in a unified 1/600 scale.
For Gunga Rub, the box scale is 1/1200, but
with Dog Mack it was an awkward 1/610,
and honestly, calling it 1/600 wouldn't have been noticeable.
However, the 1/600 Dog Mack compared to the 1/610
has new sculpting and different articulation ranges,
so they're not just reissuing the same thing with a different box. Impressive!
The left arm's mega particle turret is carved down like this…
I glue on plastic sheet and fill gaps with putty,
drill semi-holes and made it a quintuple launcher.
I wished I could make the holes bigger,
but with semi-holes, this is the limit of material thickness.
Making through-holes and gluing cup-shaped parts individually from the back
would be the correct approach,
but I got cold feet since this is material I can't redo.
There was a slight gap,
so I filled it with brush-on surfacer—essentially thinned putty.
The right arm is modified into a combat claw.
I embedded a polycap part.
↑This is originally
a detail-up part for representing a cylindrical tank, but
I fixed the polycap's companion part,
↑and made it like this.
The claw part is made by gluing stacked plastic sheet
and sanding it down.
Making a movable version isn't impossible,
but it takes an abnormal amount of work, so this time it's fixed.
The claw will be fixed slightly more open,
but as in the image above,
I made it so "if it were to move, it would mesh perfectly."
↑Like this.
At this stage it's temporary,
and ultimately I fixed it slightly more open.
I first airbrushed this hole area black,
then applied round masking tape,
and painted in pink and purple.
Where the round holes and tape misaligned, it was noticeable,
so I corrected it with a very fine brush.
This pink and purple are made by mixing paints,
so I can only reproduce what I have in my mixing bottle.
That said, purple is Mr. Color No. 67 Basic Purple,
and pink is No. 63 Basic Pink,
with Mr. Color No. 2 Basic Black mixed in—
just a two-color mix, so reproducibility is high.
↑These are the left and right booster parts, but
the gluing area is too small.
↑Inevitably, gaps form.
Trimming parts before gluing to eliminate gaps is easy,
but the next step is fitting into the same inner diameter as the circle,
so I can't do any trimming that would reduce the circle's inner diameter.
One method is to apply styrene-based adhesive to the gap and press with your finger,
but the fitting dimensional tolerance turned out to be smaller than expected,
so I dealt with it by filling with putty.
I'm not writing out everything, but
there are many such detailed corrections forced upon me.
Rather, with modern Gundam plastic models that don't need
pre-washing to remove mold release from the sprues,
have zero flash, have perfect part-to-part fit,
require no adhesive for assembly, and at that quality are clearly
too cheap (※), the super technology is
abnormally good in the best way.
※At official price!
I applied topcoat.
Lacquer, not water-based.
The inside of the left and right body is painted in a thin purple color.
This is MS Purple from the Gundam Color line,
one of the brands of Mr. Color,
the purple of the Dom itself.
The left side in the image above is given a panel line wash in dark purple enamel paint.
It seems that applying panel line wash with thinned enamel paint
penetrates more smoothly after topcoat (lacquer),
so I apply a light coat before washing.
Blau Blo has an official function where it separates left and right,
and in the Gundam anime there's a scene where just the right half separates and flees,
but there's no function here to sandwich an enemy unit
and generate a gel barrier that damages not the body but the pilot's brain.
Incidentally, the unit in the center is a Gm from Gundam
But this pose, entirely by coincidence,
looks like nothing but all-range missile barrage,
which is ominous.
On the lacquer purple + topcoat part,
I paint pink enamel color into the existing panel lines,
and when I wipe with a cotton swab soaked in enamel thinner, it looks like this.
Enamel paint/thinner doesn't damage a lacquer-painted surface,
but if it touches an unpainted area, plastic can crack in the worst case.
Nowadays, for people who say
"I do snap-assembly without paint, but I want to panel line wash,"
there are alcohol-based pen-type panel line wash-specific paints available.
We're living in a good age.
The base—I was bothered by large gaps between parts,
so I just filled with putty and haven't painted it yet.
The front part of the right arm claw and left arm launcher
are painted in pale green.
This is also not a color in the setting drawing,
but in the 1/600 and 1/1200 Gunga Rub box art
this part is green, so I followed that.
The claw outline was vague, so
I dry-brushed it slightly to make the outline visible.
In the Gunga Rub setting drawing,
the claw appears to have the two-claw side on the bottom
(or it might just look that way because the wrist is rotated),
but in the plastic model box art, both 1/1200 and 1/600
have the two-claw side on top.
Since I made it poly-cap style, it can rotate either way.
The specified color for Blau Blo's mega particle cannon protrusion
was pale green,
so I matched the claw and launcher color to that.
↑Color instruction from the manual
When I went to the model shop, Mr. Color
pale green was out of stock,
so I used Gaia Color pale green instead.
It looked like a small amount, but it had very high viscosity
and required considerable thinning, so it actually felt like more.
The AT-07 in the product number is for Armored Trooper,
meaning it's a color for a specific part of a specific Votoms (Patlabor-like) model.
Though the name sounds similar, it has nothing to do with Pallzens.
For the all-range wired attack expression,
the kit includes lead wires,
and on all four points I extended them about 1cm more than the manual instructions.
In the anime depiction, they extend hundreds of meters,
so this is nothing.
To truly call it an all-range attack, you need to get behind the enemy at least.
You might think, why not buy separate lead wire of the same outer diameter
and make it longer? But
if the plan is to draw out lead wire built into the body,
this length is the limit regardless.
The body and turret have
two separate holes and protrusions (besides the lead wire) that click together,
so if I skip installing the lead wire and separate the body and turret,
inserting lead wires of any length into each
would remove any length restrictions.
The pose from the box art of "1/1200 Anti-Ideon Heavy Mobile Mecha
Dalum Zuba Custom Gunga Rub"
The back is like this
In the box-scale model lineup, the first three in model number order are
1
Related Products on Amazon
* Amazon affiliate links — prices may vary