Gunpla Review: 1/144 HGBF Cross Bone Gundam Maoh · 3:38pm Oct 21st, 2015
After the Arios, this felt like a much more straightforward build. Mind you, it still comes with its challenges: small stickers and long stickers. Boy, are there lots of these long, reflective stickers. Miss their alignment just a little and it throws the whole image out of whack, but hit the target and it looks fantastic.
The stickers do leave little in the way of painting opportunities, and with the darker grey plastic and blue the Crossbone Maoh gives an entirely different image from those of my other Gunpla.
The Crossbone Maoh has an excellent variety of accessories, including the pirate-themed pistol and sabre. These look very plain in white plastic, though, so I used some gold and blue paint to make them look even more piratical. The zambuster rifle is a fairly easy combination, and the extra-angle holding hand for it is appreciated -- as are the pair of peace sign hands. Take that, Nobell! The variety of ranged and bladed weapons gives me the impression that Mao was focused on offensive and long-reaching power. Contrasted with the Full Cloth's armour, beam markers, shields, and boxing glove I-Fields and you get the idea of possible contrast.
The Crossbone Moah's articulation is great, and with little weight on its back, it is extremely well balanced, making for the opportunity for some nice kicking poses -- and why not, when it comes with the heat daggers (what I'd be willing to call 'kick-blades)' for its feet.
Overall I get a great impression of this little model. It seems to have playability more akin to that of a toy than to a model, but you get the pleasure of putting it together first. One thing I am puzzled about is the small polycap sheet, when there are more polycaps on the B-runner. I always associated the size of the polycap sheet with the difficulty and intricacy of the build. Now I now that is not necessarily true.
I recommend this kit highly to beginners and up, as long as you enjoy stickering. Build time was between 4.5 and 5 hours. Happy building!
Tools used: Baby nippers, angled tweezers, file (and the other end for smoothing the stickers)
Markers used: Gold, silver, blue, green
