Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Review: HG RX-104ff Penelope "Gundoom" Gundam (Model Comprehend)

This is my first blog on Gunpla so please bear with me as I am starting to refine my page and my photography skills.

A little info about myself. I started with plastic model kits when I was very young about 6 our 7 years old and aside from a few breaks from the hobby this has been one of my favorite past times.

Okay enough about me. Let me introduce the Model Comprehend RX 104 ff Penelope Gundoom.

The box
The box is big. Very big. Almost Perfect Grade in size. The box contains 3 styropor partitions that are there to protect the sizeable wing parts of the ff unit. Here it is compared to a MG Zaku-II .

The Penelope is primarily a 1:144 scale plastic model kit. Here it is.compared to the Hi-nu Vrabe and the Build Burning Gundam. Obviously, it is a lot bigger than  those two.

The Rivals. Xi and Penelope
MG and an "HG"
The only comparable kit I have in the same scale and same size is the Xi Gundoom, the rival unit of the Penelope.

The Xi is slightly shorter than the Penelope. So you can have a sense of scale, here is another picture of the Xi compared to a 1:100 MG Shenlong Gundam.

The Penelope and the Xi are strange kits. They are 1:144 scale kits that have inner frames. Their inner frames aren't as intricate as a true master grade or a real grade but close. The same goes for the detail of the armor not quite MG but definitely nowhere near an HG

The Odysseus Gundam is basically the nude version of the Penelope. But since the title isn't Odysseus Gundam let's focus on the fully dressed Penelope.

The Penelope is bulky. I thought the EX-S Gundam was bulky but this takes it to another level of impractical. It's so impractical that its cool.  To be honest I wasn't the biggest fan of the organic like design of the Xi and Penelope but it grew.on me.

From the externals of the Penelope let's now discuss the internals, the inner frame to be specific. In its current configuration the Penelope has reduced mobility. Due to the weight of the ff armor it is a challenge to pose the Model kit without it losing balance and falling down. Even with an Action base the Penelope cannot pose its legs without it falling back down. The upper body isn't doing great either. The arm's range of movement is pretty limited to moving the arms side ways and bending the arms forward. Overall, it is not that poseable.

Be careful with the action base
Issues:
*In its Odysseus form the neck joint is loose.(adding the whole armor would elminate head movement permanently ... so the issue resolved itself)

* those really tiny ankle joints hurt the poseability. Its really hard to make the Penelope stand up straight

*the action base connector to the kit just brokefor no apparent reason. I.dont know if its vecause of the weight of the kit or because.of the plastic.be careful when moving it.

*the leg connectors want to slip out. Its because of the legs weight. I'm currently considering applying super glue to them but this would reduce leg movement as well.

* its too heavy. I admit. The ff armor despite looking cool is too heavy for its own good.

Final thoughts:

*plastic quality is good. Still not bandai quality but about 7.5 -8 out of 10

*very unique design

*lacks poseability

*armor is too heavy.

This is a perfect example of Form versus Function. Very cool design but impractical. Lets hope that the mechanicore version of this is better.

2 comments:

  1. very in agreement with the review, we will see how practical is the design in the upcoming Hathaway's Flash movies to debut.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi. I bought this years ago and put it in my backlog. However, opening it today I found theres no manual. Do you still have it? Can you scan it or even take pictures of it for me?

    ReplyDelete