my gunpla may be boxed up, but the memories still remain...it's the titular 00 Gundam from Gundam 00, in its powered-up 00 Raiser form! i'll be honest here, the 00 is easily my least favorite of all the gundams that setsuna pilots. something about the design just doesn't hit with me the way that qan[t] and exia do. maybe it's the lack of shiny pretty GN cables, maybe it's the simplified design philosophy compared to the gundams of season 1 and the movie, maybe it's the colors...i dunno! i do just find it kind of funny that the titular gundam of my favorite gundam show is probably the one i care about the least. ain't that just the way.
this one got kind of long so it goes under the cut!
speaking of the colors: that, at least, was something i could try and fix! i've never really been a big fan of the white/blue/yellow/red/green color scheme that Main Character Gundams tend to borrow from the rx-78-2, and i'm especially not a big fan of how it looks on the 00. i went with a metallic green tamiya spray on every piece of red and yellow plastic on this kit aside from the v-fin, which i just hit with some primer so it'd end up a nice light grey.
it worked out technically very well, but i was kind of hoping that my metallic green spray would be closer to the color of my metallic green marker, which is a lot bluer in tone and would've probably looked better against all that blue and white. still, i'm happy with what i got.
the build itself was a super fun time. i used to be so scared of building real grades, now i can't get enough of 'em! i ended up with only one major complaint: the 00 backpack-to-back pegs cannot support the added weight of the 0 raiser attachment without constantly falling out of the holes. i ended up just gluing the backpack to 00's back so i wouldn't drive myself crazy during the posing process.
also, as you can see, i used the stickers provided by this kit rather than waterslide decals, and so this is another case of "man, i really wish i'd had waterslide decals instead". compare these stickers to the ones on my epyon or qan[T] and it really does just make a world of difference. ah well. there's always the next RG!
oh my god i almost forgot to mention that this kit came with pilot figures. look at my itty bitty guys
i find it so funny that they put one of the figures in that completely anonymizing pilot suit as, like, spoiler prevention...i guess...? just in case you somehow really wanted it to be a surprise when you learn who pilots the 0 raiser...??? i have no idea. it makes me laugh every time i think about it.
