april fools! the trick today is that there is no trick!! it's gunpla time babey!!!!!
finished in january of this year, this is by far the most extensive custom recolor i've ever done, representing a variant (...kinda? it's complicated) of the reborns gundam from an extensive gundam 00 AU that me and my best friend have been writing together for close to four years now. this gundam is piloted by lyle dylandy in our AU (again, it's complicated), and is known as the A1 Gundam, pronounced "Eye Gundam". if you've played ai the somnium files i'm sure you know all about the amount of symbolism that can be gleaned from the various english and japanese homophones of the word eye. picture them in your mind at your leisure.
the rest is going under the cut because i'm very proud of this one and refuse to shut up about it!
i've always liked the reborns' design in all aspects except for 1) the overcluttered silhouette from the cannon-mode transformation gimmick and 2) the mcdonalds-ass red and yellow color scheme. with the power of a lot of paint and Collaborative Fan Fiction, i got to fix both of those problems at the same time! what a wonderful world we all live in.
in terms of the kit itself, A1 here is a recolor of the HG Reborns that's also been modified to have no backpack (and thus no transformation mode), some alternate hands swapped in (borrowed from the robot spirits ELS qan[t] figure), and a custom GN Feathers part (actually made for the RG exia but altered to fit this kit, shockingly inexpensive, ordered off ebay). the colors used were tamiya coral blue and pearl green sprays for the armor, a metallic green gundam marker/green sharpie combo for the clear green parts on the chest and head, and a bright green archival ink pen for the panel lines.
the build beneath all those colors and modifications was nothing special - your typical late 2000s too-many-polycaps high grade. one of my completely unrealistic gunpla pipe dreams (we all have those, right?) is that someday we get a master grade reborns. that'll both make this design really stand out and also provide me with a teeny tiny pilot figure of ribbons almark. are you listening, bandai. are you out there. do me a solid on this one. i need that malevolent twink bastard really small and in my house ASAP
