With the end of the school year upon me, I haven’t had as much time for Gunpla as I would like. But, no need to fret; I’ve been keeping with a pretty decent schedule on my Crossbone X-1 kit. Turns out I was wrong about the release date of the kit: it was 2006, not 2007. Funny that I thought that, considering I got my Harrison Custom F91 in 2007. Ah well. As far as the whole “Ver Ka” practice goes, the kit’s tiny little decals haven’t proven to be as bad as I expected them to be, but trust me, the worst is yet to come…
So far, a lot of the kit’s construction is actually shared with F91. This isn’t all that surprising, as the “no polycap” structure was still in its infancy, and Bandai likes to cut corners whenever possible when it comes to similar suits, so it was a logical choice. It’s also possible Bandai wasn’t expecting a Crossbone kit to do very well, sales-wise. This is somewhat reinforced by the fact that the mold gates clearly indicate plans for X-2 and possibly even X-3 kits, neither of which ever happened. A shame, because I love the design of X-2.
When I was constructing the torso, I was incredibly confused by the lack of any cockpit. Then I remembered, “oh, that’s right, this suit has a Core Fighter”. Oops. I haven’t started that part yet (and trust me, it’ll be an adventure), but I love how it works on this suit. It’s similar to the Core Landers from G-Gundam, and is a hell of a lot more practical. I can’t wait to get to use this thing in full.
There are two different chest pieces for the cockpit, but I only have one so far. There’s this one, the standard version with the Crossbone Vanguard emblem, and the X-1 Kai version with the Jolly Roger. I’ll show that one when the kit is fully completed. Also, for whatever reason, I could NOT get the waterslide decal to adhere to the chest. I actually had to resort to a dry transfer for this. I hate using those. They’re so tricky and can be unreliable. Still, it looks better than the sticker would have.
The head proved to be a slight irritation. For reasons I’m not entirely sure of, the faceplate can open to reveal a face closer to some of the suits used by the CB’s main forces. Unfortunately, that plate is rather fragile, and I actually cracked it while assembling. It was an easy fix, but I certainly panicked for a few minutes.
The arms don’t have many surprises, and I’ll give a better analysis of the articulation with the finished product, but I need to talk about the part distribution here. The circles on the shoulders aren’t molded in yellow. Nope, they need to be painted. I could have used a sticker, but that would have looked awful. I guess this was the cost of a smaller Master Grade.
In spite of a few hiccups here and there, this has proven to be an enjoyable project thus far. The decals haven’t proven as awful as I initially expected, and so far, it’s been giving me plenty of experience. I should hopefully have this one done around Christmas so I can start on Nu ver Ka, which, by the way, will be hitting US retailers fairly soon! Make sure to ask FPNYC about getting one for yourself!