Moscow Gunpla Geek: 1/60 PG Unicorn Gundam + LED kit. Building torso, head and backpack.

As soon as this beauty was announced back in September I knew I was going to get it. The hefty price did had me worried, and I was considering getting LEDs later, especially since it wasn't a P-Bandai exclusive and these were going to be available later. In the end I decided to get LEDs too, since I wasn't happy with the perspective of disassembling half of the kit to get it installed later.

(Warning: lots of images.)

I pre-ordered both and was quite happy that I did that when I found that Bandai underestimated the demand for not only for LED set, but for the kit itself and that pretty much most vendors had enough stock only to fulfill the preorders. Finally after what seemed ages of waiting, in late December a huge box from HLJ has arrived, with the kit and the LED set.

The kit comes in a box that's about the same size as the previous PG — Strike Freedom. LED set comes in much smaller box, that contains the control box, wires and... lots of air. I was thinking of postponing the build till summer, when I'll be able paint the kit without any problems (I only have access to spray cans at the moment, and these are not something you'd use indoors), and in the hindsight, that would have been the correct decision. But I was too eager to build it right here and then and started pretty much right away.

The kit design would be familiar to anyone who built one of the numerous RX-0 Master Grade kits, but Bandai learned their mistakes with MG RX-0 design and improved the key areas. The torso frame is pretty much completely made up of the pink psychoframe plastic. But first of all, we build the pilot seat:

I did rather lousy job handpainting the cockpit version of Banagher, but he's not that visible, while inside so... Also, note the difference in size of the pilot figures. Not sure which one is accurate. The standing figure is 2,6cm high, which makes Banagher 156cm high. Sitting one is close to 2cm if it was standing, guess it's the one that's not up to scale.

These are the parts that make the core of the torso. The two-part cockpit similar to MG Unicorn and Sinanju, the U-like rocker to allow the the torso to lean sideways, the torso base with extension mechanism and a polycap, inside the plastic case that will hold the rocker axle. Note the different color of caps on the rocker – the brighter one is plastic, darker is is a polycap.

The polycap case is inserted from below into the torso base, the rocker is inserted from above. Then you connect them with the lock-axle. The polycap holder can slide up and down and this is what allows the torso extension in Destroy mode.

Then you slide the front of the cockpit onto the rockers' polycaps and snap on the rear part of the cockpit.

The torso core is nearly complete. Now to add three more parts: the two gray parts for outer panels of the torso base, and the cockpit mask.

Now, onto the arm joints. This is a rather complex joint, and this is where PG is quite different from the MG kit. The joint is also designed to hold the LED wiring (I will show this with the final assembly of the kit). Here's what we need to build the right joint: the joint housing (upper left), joint lock (middle left), joint cover (lower left), joint arms (two parts right top), joint axle (right middle) and the polycap/plastic rings.

First we insert the polycap/plastic rings into the joint arms and put these on the axle. Note that the plastic rings are on the outside:

Then you slide on the joint cover...

...then insert the finished joint into the housing...

... and slide the locking part onto the housing from below:

Then after completing the arm joint for the other side we will have all the necessary to build the upper torso frame:

This is another thing where Bandai addressed the issue that the MG kit has - the sliding parts of the torso on MG has only one guiding rail. With the weight of the arm, this cause the torso part that slides out in during transformation to become lose in Destroy mode. Here we not only have two guiding rails, but the sliding part is secured around them, On MG this part is just inserted from above and is held only by the outer armor above it.

So after we attach the arm joints to the collar-piece frame. Now we can attach it to the torso base. Manual also says to add the first part of the white armor, which goes under the cockpit hatch, but I didn't attach it, since it was possible to do it later.

Then we start assembling and attaching the chest psychoframe pieces. The two smaller parts make up the joint for the armor flap that opens in the Destroy mode:

Then we assemble the psychoframe for the top of the torso. The two smaller parts here make up the pegs, that slide out in Destroy mode. When transforming the kit into Unicorn mode they split apart, with the back part sliding down into the torso along the back.

With these parts installed all but one phsychoframe part for torso are in place:

Here's a couple of shots showing the mechanic behind these pegs. When you push it back, it splits, and the back parts starts sliding down:

And here's the peg completely closed:

Now onto the armor parts. Here's the biggest great thing about this kit. It's pretty much completely undergated:

There are some places where the gates are on the facing parts, because it's just impossible to do it everywhere, but everywhere where possible, the parts are undergated. And even for most of the non-undergated parts, the gates are located in such a manner that these are not in the plain view.

Now, let's get to adding the outer armor! You can also see the plastic bag with the torso LED set in the back.

First come the peg armor parts and the armor part that I mentioned earlier:

Then the chest flaps and the side parts:

Next comes the top armor piece with the last piece of the psychoframe. This is where we meet something new that only PG Unicorn has. The two small flaps here are for the new "Unchained"mode. This is a mode when even more psychoframe is exposed.

Final two assemblies are the cockpit hatch and back of the torso. Back of the hold the flap that will lock the lower torso extension mechanism. Also note the hole right above the flap. We will need that later.

But we're not going to attach them yet, because now we start the tricky part – the LED wiring.

The torso piece consists of two parts, one with 5 LEDs that comes the on top of the torso, and another one with 2 more LEDs that will go under the cockpit. It also sprouts crazy amount of wires, because every other LED piece will be connected to this one.

First we slap the bigger, 5 LED unit on top of the cockpit with side with a single LED down:

Then you tuck the leftmost and rightmost double wires in the special holders and insert the second LED unit in the compartment under the cockpit with side with circuit board up. After that you tuck the loose double wire that comes out of 2nd LED unit and tuck it into the holder in the back of the gray armor piece:

Pushing the wires inside the holders is one hell of the job. Unlike triple wires, these are glued together. The wire insulation is a hard one and if you press too much you can damage it, but there's a thing that can help. Note the big plastic piece on the right, in the background behind the torso. This is a part separator that comes with the LED set. This is for those who want to wire an already built kit. The long part of the blade is perfect for pushing the wires in the holder, just make sure you press with the whole blade — this will help spread the pressure on the wire.

With all that done, we're left with 4 lose connectors. Now we need to tuck in the wires for the arms - these are the two that come from the sides of the top LED unit. These go through holders on the back and into another holder on each side:

Now it's turn of the triple-wired male connector seen in the middle of the image above. This one goes in the middle holder, right below it, and then is fixed in place by the outer armor part. Remember I said to note the hole about the flap? We need to put this triple wire and the double wire that is tucked to the left of it through this hole like that:

Less of a mess, eh? The two wires on each side are of course for the arms. Top triple-wire will go to the head LED. The bottom wire will power the LED unit units in the pelvis, skirts and legs. The double wire in the middle of the back is for the backpack and triple wire will connect the suit to the control box.

This is where we add the top armor with the collar. The triple wire goes inside the collar. This piece is locked in place with the white backpiece. The final step is attaching the neck connector. This one is locked on two pegs in the top armor psychoframe part. But first, we need to tuck the triple wire for the head inside the neck connector. Since the wires are not glued together, it's rather simple – just move the wires through the cutout one at a time. But we need to make sure that the "pocket"on the connector is facing forward, towards the neck. After that it just takes a snap to lock the neck in place.

Torso is mostly complete. It's missing two armor pieces on the back, on each side, but these are attached only after we connect the wired arms. Now onto the head.

First we build a simple frame out of these pieces and a polycap (that one's missing here)

With that done, we need to build the top of the head...

...and here are two small wings with more psychoframe for the Unchained mode.

These are inserted in the slits in the top of the head from below.

The design of the head is similar to the MG. Next piece is the movable main camera housing that will hold the V-fin, and the faceplate:

Then comes the faceplate. Her, if you build the kit without LEDs you have two options, you can either use separate green foil stickers #3 and #4 on the outside of the green eye-piece, or single #2 that goes on the inner side of the eye-piece:

Knowing that sometimes the light does shine through the parts, I painted the mask of eye-piece (black part) with the black gundam marker. After the facemask we need to build side covers.

Here's one of the changes from the MG design – these are connected to the head frame via ball joint.

Then face guard for the Unicorn mode:

Final piece for the head: the V-fin. It's parts are painted on the runner, and small metallic beads in the middle of each part are magnets, that helps the V-fin stay shut in the Unicorn mode.

Now we have all the pieces for the head:

First we need to insert the LED unit into the faceplate and this is where I had an issue. Manual displayed three wires neatly soldered to a small patch in the middle of the circuit board. The actual LED unit had them soldered even across the top of the board.

Top of the mask just didn't have enough space for the wires, and if I tried to jam them there, I risked tearing the wire. I checked the manual and saw that I can safely cut out the bits of plastic making more space for the wires:

This wasn't enough, so I cut some more plastic...

...and it fits:

Now, let's start assembling the head. The wire goes around the top of the head and to the back.

Add the top of the head and the back cover. It took me a while to find a proper position for the back cover, until I found the best way to align it - by round cut-outs for the holes on the sides of the head frame.

Now slide the main camera cover from the top, until it clicks, slide it forward and snap the facemask on it from below. Fold the V-fin into Unicorn mode and snap it in place.

After that we need to slide the V-fin/facemask back, move the head up and snap on the face cover. Now we need to connect the head to the torso. For that we need to remove the cover from the back of the head, put the head onto the ball joint, connect the wires in the back of the head and put the cover back. The last step is to attach the sides of the head in place.

Now let's wrap it up by making a backpack. First we'll need lots of psychoframe parts.

These make up two big parts. Then we build the 4 nozzles:

And connect all these together.

Now we we will need a lot of armor parts. While cutting these off the runner I found the largest gate I've ever seen. Check the top of the blue part in the middle below.

Now we have all the outer parts ready. Looks like I jumped the gun by attaching the lower nozzles — these get in the way of attaching the lower covers.

Now that's better.

The top of the cover holds polycaps for the shield connector and the beam saber swivels. After putting it in place, we attach the covers for the side nozzles and the backpack is mostly complete. Now we only need a couple of beam sabers and swivels to hold these: