08.02.07» Sources, Concepts & Initial Building

The Tallgeese is one of my favorite suits from Gundam Wing. Maybe it's the Romanesque look or that it doesn't look like the other Gundams. But I love that stoic look of this mobile suit. The HG 1/00 kit suffers from all the usual HG wing kit problems. Loose joints, ugly joints, poorly articulated joints, (basically bad joints) and it could use some added detail to make it really pop. With this particular kit I could make one of 3 different versions of the Tallgeese as seen in the series and Endless Waltz movie. Since the original is my favorite, I'll be doing that one.

I'll be making a lot of small changes to the kit such as added detail and joint replacements/fixes. First I removed the plastic under the collar of the head so that I can tilt the head downward more and show some piston internals under the back of the head. I also increased the height of the head crest by about 60% by layering thin strips of styrene on top, sanding down the sides then using SGT to fill the gaps. The torso was split and a ball joint was added to improve mid-waist posability. The knee joints were detailed and a few leftover parts (red) from my Rick Dias killed in the front detail gap.

For the feet I added detail and a thruster to the sole and added pistons that go from the front of the feet to the lower leg. The pistons are attached in the foot using a ring magnet and metal bearing. I also cut out the shoulder joints from the side of the chest and fashioned new ones using the shoulder joints of an old MG Zaku kit I use for spare parts. I replaced the barrel of the dobergun with brass tubing and added details here and there. It's still a work in progress but will have a camera mounted above the new trigger grip and a grenade launcher attached under the barrel.

08.05.07 » Binder Mod

The binders on the back of the shoulders needed some kind of mod to make them not hit eachother when in a dynamic pose. At first I contemplated making a balljoint or an angled rod into the current polycap. Instead I figured out that I can merely cut the 2 outer parts of the joint cover from the back of the shoulder, glue them to the joint box, slice off a small part of that box and in the end I had a very simple plastic on plastic joint using only what was already there. (peg and hole) Later I'll need to thicken the peg, possibly with some CA to strengthen the joint. Here's some pics:

09.14.07 » Rest of InProgs

Here's the last of the inprogs I promised to post up. The last pics just show what isn't easy to see once the kit is done. The forst few show the arm joint mods. I basically used some rectangular tube with one thin side removed for the lower arm joint and some detailed rectangular rod for the upper. A leftover MG kit screw on each joint was screwed into a pre-drilled hole. This makes the joint nice and tight. I had to remove the upper parts of the forearms earlier in order to be able to add the screw in later. This hides the screw nicely as well. The top of the joint was later pined and glued into the upper arm (bicep).