The assembly of the inner frame gives me the rough scale of how big this scale model turns out to be . The wonderful thing about joining up the limbs and torso pieces is that they can be disassembled for future purposes such as painting , transportation , posing(unlikely) etc.
I was fascinated with the big long sword that comes with this kit which is part of the reason I got this kit out of so many choices . The sword is probably shown in one of the side anime of the Gundam Seed Series and I have never seen it in action before . The sword can be folded backward but it does not seem to fit into any part of the IWSP system nor any other parts of the mecha itself other than carry it in the gundam's hands ....
Feet Assembly
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The One gripe I have for these feet is that they can though the assembly seem very flexible, it is really only a 1 direction thingy : tilting the toes upward , no downwards . That's already some limitation in pose already .
Hands
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The hands are at MG best , movable thumb , index finger and the rest of the fingers as a whole . Only 1 plane of movement here . Only the Perfect Grade features the full movement of a real hand I think . I'm so getting those . . .
Still , the seperation of hand guard and the hand itself is a boon for painting .
Leg Assembly
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Pretty sturdy legs I must say . 2 ball joints for the ankle to allow a teenee weenee bit more movement than the classic common HG single ball joint feet to leg. The biggest gimmick IMHO is the thigh armour plate inner frame assembly . The front plate sorts of slide "open" from the hind plate when the leg is bend at the knee .
The headless warrior
I must apologized as I am now skipping forward through the details of waist , chest , shoulders and arms assembly as I am practically losing patience . I am so tempted to see how all these actually turns out and man the number of parts are quite a killer.
Although I have organized them over and over countless times , hundreds are still hundreds (ok , sorry I exaggerated here) . It is tough trying to spray paint and saving paint at the same time .
Still I'm far from being done . There is only like 2 weeks left till 2009 is over and I really doubt I will be able to finish this kit by this year .
The chain gun shield + beam boomerang attachment
Kudos to the kit designer. The chain gun shield seems quite overwhelming in terms of size (it is nearly up to the shoulder of the gundam's height itself in length and pretty bulky ) . But the strike gundam hold up the gun with ease . It is really unlike any of the HG Kits that I have gotten before this . I must say it is even better than that of the MG RX-78 kit that I've got before this.
