I originally bought this kit at Wal-Mart on a whim. Ages ago I tried my hand at rebuilding the V-fin to make it stronger and sharper at the same time. Back then I tried gooping SGT over a wire core and carving a V-Fin out of it… (I destroyed the original V-fin in the process.) I also planned to replace the elbows with Wave T-Shaft double joints, but was rather disappointed to find they wouldn’t be able to hold up the rifles. (Or so I thought.) In December of 2004 I decided to finish this project as a “Model in a Month”. I wound up completing all the goals I’d set so long ago, plus a few others, like providing paintable resin wings and improved feathers, and adjusting the model’s pose.
The project wound up taking over 200 hours and lasted nine months. So from the perspective of it being a “quick project” it was a complete disaster. I also regret not having used more of that time to work on other projects which are to my mind more worthy of the commitment. (In particular, I wish I hadn’t spent so much time on something with a V-Fin. I like Gundams as much as the next guy but I like variety, too.) However, I had fun with this project and I think I did some very nice work.
The original concept for this project was that it was to be a Christmas tree ornament – I crafted a crude mock-up of the concept when I first displayed the finished model at Otakon 2005, but I’ve since been able to display the model in its proper surroundings. (Oh, how often as a child I heard the tale of the wise men seeking the messiah in Bethlehem, when the angel descended from heaven, firing its twin buster rifles at MO-3 to provide a beacon to light their way…) When it came time to design the markings I had some fun with those. I wanted to do a bit of a parody of the sort of FIX-style markings that are so overused these days. The core ideas in this case are that everything is labelled (often two or three times), so there’s “Leg Unit Type 0” and “Knee Unit Type 0” and “Thigh Unit Type 0” and “Foot Unit Type 0”, and that the robot is also plastered with stylized markings which read “L1 Spacom”. I felt that space was traditionally to be used for the robot’s affiliation, but “Colony Liberation Organization” didn’t do it for me. “L1 Spacom” is short for “Lagrange Point 1 Space Command” – which doesn’t exist in Gundam Wing, of course. Then for fun I made some of the markings wrong, contradictory, or otherwise inconsistent, and invented an overwrought acronym expansion of “Spacom” in true Gundam style. (Anyone who’s been keeping up with Seed will know what I mean about overwrought acronyms…) And then, since this is a robot with bird wings and all, I added in a few “Tweet” and “Pretty Bird” markings. All in all it was fun to goof on so much Gundam stuff all in one project.
Photos
Diorama
Holy cow your 1/144 Wing Zero is really great! I’ve been working on one myself, but nowhere near 200 hours like you!
Jeremy | 2015-06-08 | Reply
I don’t know if sinking 200 hours into one project is always a good thing. :) Actually finishing my Wing Zero led me to take a serious look at how I was spending my model-making time, what projects I was spending my time on, etc. And more recently I’ve tried to focus more on finding ways to do the work more efficiently. I think a lot of it just comes down to confidence with the tools and materials, and of course that comes with practice… Which is perhaps another reason why putting major time into one project might not be a good thing; you might ultimately learn more if you spend the same time dealing with a variety of projects and challenges.
But I’m glad you like my Zero. I like it, too. I think it turned out pretty well.
tetsujin | 2015-06-15 | Reply