Musha Gundam Evolution

One super insane mecha that took me damn long to finish due to exams and work, and also a bit of small little problems a bit here and there to be done with fine tuning, The Musha Gundam!!! Based on Shin Musha Gundam from the Gundam Musou design by Hajime Katoki(if im not mistaken), its adjusted to my own personal look instead. My first heavily Customized Master Grade, almost a scratchbuild for the first time, so not too bad. I always thought of [RX-78-2 OYW version] as [Version 2.0], as the arms movement have been improved dramatically, but only that THE LEGS ARE THE SAME AS [VER1.5] DAMMIT!!! That's why you don't see any dynamic poses at all due to low flexibility at the legs. So, it is more of a [Ver 1.5+] instead, and the new official [Ver 2.0] is coming out (only that it looks a little... comicy...)--> My bad, it's actually the special One Year War edition I got, but still rather cheesed off about it. Why in the world would a manufacturer use a current model which is already of much better specs, but change one portion to the older version which is totally unbelievable. Enough of the talk, let's get down to business:

A very samurai look, thanks to the Musha Gundam and Shin Musha designs. thick plastic sheets for the 'ears' and thin plastic sheets on its edges for detailing with the gold color.(the white 'strike through' appeared suddenly, so I will have to do something on it). The rear armor on the head is done with layers of thin plastic sheets put on top of each other to get the layered effect like on Shin Musha.

Shoulder pads done with plastic sheets stuck together, and the design is based heavily on the Shin Musha design, but made it bigger to give it a more armored look. Pipes are done with the long plastic parts from the sprues from the kit. I used the corners as they are bent and easier to shape the bending pipes all over.(for the 'battle damaged' area on the gold detail, its actually a problem with the cement, so i need to do something to it...) The gold details are used with the thinner plastic sheets.

Quite a lot of changes are done to the whole upper body. The upper torso had details on the front chest with thin plastic sheets to break the black color and to copy the Shin Musha design, except I don't have the Musha logo. For the upper chest, there are thick plastic sheets cut to small sizes to make it go along with the golden pipes. The golden pipes are again done with the plastic sprues.

I have made RX-78-2 shed off some weight at the stomach, making it skinnier to make the overall proportions better. Without the adjustment, it looked very fat and bulky, and I doubt any samurai will look good being fat and unhealthy. (fit is in, fat is out)

Another remake is done with the skirt armors. For the front and rear skirt armor, thick plastic sheets were originally done with removing the connecting pins and cementing thick plastic sheet on top of the skirt armor. The excess areas had more thick plastic sheets stuck on to make the overall thickness uniform. At the side of the armor, thin plastic sheet is stuck on to cover it up and details carved on with the whole armor. The gold details are also done with thick plastic sheets to break the red color monotony in the whole lower torso area.

For the side skirt armor, a similar method is done by sticking on thick plastic sheet on top and more to fill up the excess area, and the sides covered with the thin plastic sheets. For its left skirt armor, I had to dig a whole so the sword sheath can be inserted in together on the whole. (simple and ingenious idea, didn't know how did I think of that surprisingly)

Another area with mass customization. The shin armor was based on the Shin Musha design, using layered thick plastic sheets together. For the 'Vernian Thrusters' I originally thought of doing Shin Musha's design, but later could only do the original Musha design, and ended up doing my own design (sad, but no choice man). I made it bigger so the overall heavily armored design is done. In order to get the 'Vernian Thrusters' on, I had to file quite a large part of the calf away to make it even and cement it on.

The sword is the Red Frame's Gebrera Straight, except I removed the protruding area to make it look more traditional. The sword sheath was also done with a similar fashion. The color was purposely made brighter as it will bring out the effect of focusing more attention on the sheath to see if people can tell that it is Red Frame's.