Also, editorial comment: I hate when people claim that it is perfectly all right to build amodel and leave it as the molded colors. You aren't fooling anyone unless you are eleven and looking for a neat toy.
MG Char's Rick-Dom review/build-up
Okay, to begin I have to say I was wandering around TDC after I'd finished the EZ8 and both GM C types when I ducked into the local hobby shop. (who now know me by name; this being the only english they DO know...) They have a great selection of platic models from aircraft to armor to anime. They also stock airsoft guns, though I'm sure we aren't allowed to have them.
Right away I saw the enormous Rick-Dom box and figured since I was a self-proclaimed GM lover I'd try something different. Go me.
Upon returning to the barracks and opening the box I surveyed the damage.
WHAT YOU GET: 16 runners, molded in different colors and in clear. No surprise here, Bandai rocks with their injection molding system. No excess flash, no bad molds, everything was crisp Bandai quality.
You get a sprue of PC (poly caps) and a small tan sprue devoted to a figure in Char's likeness. One entire sprue is for the two halves of the beam bazooka, mainly because this thing is massive. I'm talking: longer than the Dom is tall, and the Dom towers over my GMs.
The molded colors are red, light red, an almost olive red and black. Clear and tan for the sensors and Char, of course. So, canon aside, the colors sucked. I mean, what a better way to make yourself a huge battlefield target than running about with a red mobile suit. So the colors had to go. Initially I built an arm, got sick of the red and busted out the Tamiya Olive drab 2 and the Tamiya Desert Sand. On went the sort of splashed camo effect, which looked awesome on the arm. Convinced this was the way to go, I replicated this over the rest of the parts still attached to the sprues. Big mistake. While it looks good on paper, when assembled the splashes of green and tan aren't smooth enough and rather too random even for camo. Out came the paint thinner and away went the paint. Next out with Academy's Panzer Grey and Camo Paint Systems Sand. This worked well, the dull grey working with the sand to make a flat color scheme that would work in combat and still give the Dom a classy anime style look. Okay, assemble the rest of the model.
ASSEMBLY: Straightforward Bandai japanese instruction manual. Lots of color shots and some black and white lineart. I almost didn't want to toss it into the trash can, but I knew from expireince that keeping these things was just a fire hazard, as I never once looked back over them. Parts fit is excellent, but as a modeller knows, test fitting is good and putty is your friend. Even though you can get away with not using putty, the seam lines still show, and unless you try to pull it off as a panel line, you are screwed.
Head: Again, easy stuff here. Bandai packs an amazing amount of detail into each piece while keeping construction so easy said eleven year old can do it. Something notable, the actual 'head' armor snaps over the inner detail piece to make the full head. While this is great and dandy to show off the details, the head armor comes off if you move it around. I glued mine in place, seeing as I would be moving the model from location to location more than I would show anyone the actual details.
Arms: For a newer Master Grade, the arms were almost too simple. joint, bicep, forearm hands. While the arm is double jointed, the design still keeps it from bending a full 90 degrees like most modern GM or Gundam kits, i.e. the 08th MS Team MG kits. I will say that the individual fingers is nice, and the slot for the weapon to go when held is an engineering win.
Legs: Huge. Monsterous. Bulbous. Dinosauric in nature. The footprint of the Dom drawfs the TORSO of most GMs. Wow. I spent a lot of time actually just looking at the comparison between a GM and a Dom's leg. Anyway, suffice to say this is where most of the kit's plastic ends up. You build the innner structure, the armor, the three engine boosters and the foot.
Torso: I am in love with this design, as it is the only kit sans the Gundam MK II PG that allows for waist flexibility I have built. What happens is you build the pelvic section, build a 'core block' and the two go together with a ball joint. Then the upper torso goes on over the 'core block' via another ball joint. How cool is that? Now my Dom and arch his back, slump, or bend to the side as if to avoid an ill-meaning bazooka round.
Gimmicks/weapons: You get a buttload of weapons. The apallingly huge beam bazooka, the normal bazooka, the 120mm machinegun and the heat saber. Of course, being the realist I am, I ditched the heat saber for the idea that mecha shouldn't ever have melee battle with midieval-esque weapons. At most maybe club each other with their dry weapons.
You also get the Char figure, who paints up nicely, though still looks like the anime character rather than the humanized version, like my MG GM Custom's South Burning.
In the end, I had to give my Dom desert type the beam bazooka. It was just too cool to pass up. It's resting on his shoulder like he's had a long day on the range.
Mods: Nothing drastic. Instead of the silly clear plastic window they give you for the visor in the head I cut out a cross shaped bit of mesh from a IDF M60 and glued it in place. I think mesh works better since it won't scratch, won't break or shatter in combat. And it looks cool.
Finishing: To finish this guy I weather and dry brushed as usual, but caught sight of the spackle I'd bought for the 'Ditched GM' dio I gave to Brungardt a few weeks back. I still had a gratuitous amount of the stuff left, and with some dark brown Academy paint, I had realistic looking mud, which I slathered over the feet and lower legs. For good measure I put some sparingly around the torso and shoulders. I sat back and looked him over. He might have just wadded through a riverbed, maybe? He did seem a bit too muddy to be in the desert, though he could have been engaged with Russian forces from the mecha vs. tanks thread from the HAB... no comment on that.
IMAGES
Generous splotches of mud. Maybe too much for a mech this size, but impressive to everyone who has seen it.
Side view of the huge-ocity that is the beam bazooka.
"You wanna fuck with me, pal?"
