Hey, guys! Here’s my first finished project of 2018 – HGGT Gundam Ground Type-S!
Following my Barbatos build, which took nearly 7 months to complete, I wanted to take it easy for a while. Original idea was to pick up one of my snapped HGs and complete in a week or two. This was somewhere in mid-January. As you might have guessed – I’m writing this on March 2nd – the plan failed. Well, kind of. The kit itself has been ready for a while, I just couldn’t get around to posting it.
Kit Talk
HGGT Gundam Ground Type-S was the first HG I built. You might remember it from some of my tutorials, like Gunpla Disassembly and Removing Seam Lines. Learning and writing tutorials were actually the main reasons why I picked up some HGs back in mid-2017.
Before GT-S, I’ve only built MGs and Full Mechanics kits. While I didn’t expect much from an HG, this kit was a welcome surprise.
The Good
There is a lot to like about this kit. First off, it looks quite badass, having the same grunt suit vibe as the original Ground Type. I really like the blocky designs of early UC, especially the crazy Thunderbolt variants. Big backpack with the sub-arms is definitely a highlight, though I wish they had some articulation, rather than being a single piece. Speaking of, articulation is really good, with double joints allowing a wide range of poses. You can easily make it stand on one leg, holding up a high kick for hours. Bruce Lee would approve.
Kit also includes a bunch of extras, like the beam javelin, bunch of extra hand options and a ton of leftover parts from GM runners.
While they’re sold separately, Bandai’s set of water slides also deserves some praise, as they blended in perfectly. Most edges became completely invisible after a single layer of flat coat.
The Ugly
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though. Ground Type-S definitely has some downsides.
Chief among them is a ton of seam lines. Personally I didn’t mind is as much, as it gave me a great opportunity to practice various removal techniques (and write a tutorial on them). Still, some of them were a nightmare to remove – especially the joints. Vinyl covers might look decent on MG FA Thunderbolt Ver.Ka, since you actually get the cover material separately. Molded in plastic on HGs, they look rather bad and require you to rescribe the texture after seam removal.
Lack of V-fin is a hit and miss. It makes for an interesting head design for sure, but EFSF logo molded on the forehead is somewhat meh. As you can see, I removed it. Personally I think the head looks much better without it.
Color scheme is a matter of taste, obviously, but I didn’t care for the original mix of blue, mustard yellow and violet gray. I opted for a darker blue with a hint of green, more vibrant yellow and two tones of dark gray instead. Here’s a small comparison (OOB images courtesy of dalong.net):
Other Notes
As I mentioned at the beginning, this project took way longer than expected. Couple reasons for it.
First off, those tricky seam lines I already wrote about set me back a couple of days. Getting sick also set me back by a week or so. Mostly though, it was due to me changing philosophy mid-build. Initially I wanted to take it easy, but as the time passed I decided to step it up and try some new things. These included a ton of reverse wash on various detail areas (including the eyes), painting beam effects with a slight gradient, as well as diorama base, which eventually got scrapped.
Beam effects turned out somewhat alright, though I’m not entirely happy with them. The gradient doesn’t really show up on pictures all that well either. Overall, I’ll need to work on this technique in the future.
Nautical diorama base was a major time sink. I planned to have the kit flying over water, throwing up some waves – classic anime scene. Sadly, initial results didn’t turn out as well as I hoped. Eventually I decided to scrap the idea, at least for now. With the upcoming Comic Con Warsaw – and first ever Gunpla contest in Poland – I couldn’t really spare the time to rework it.
Anyway, enough of my rambling, let’s look at some more pictures! And – in the spirit of trying new things – there’s a 360 showcase video at the bottom of the post.
