It’s odd to want a certain kit after only seeing it for less than a minute, but I have a weak spot for Mobile Suits with tons of guns. Being a sucker for kits that offered lots of accessories, I was hard pressed to pass this release when I saw it at a local hobby shop. In truth, I also needed something to pass the time while I eagerly awaited for the HGBF Dom R35 to arrive from Amazon.

The Leopard da Vinci appeared in the last episode of Gundam Build Fighters Try, offering the protagonist a friendly challenge while they are in a smorgasbord of Gunplas flying around the room doing whatever their builder’s heart desires. This Gunpla was piloted by Akira Suga. Suga’s team previously fought the main character’s team in a heated battle that they ultimately lost, but not before dealing out great amount of damage. The Leopard da Vinci was built afterwards and showcased in the last episode of the series.

Mobile Suit Design

The MS itself has a quite bland appearance. Its limbs and body part offer no extraordinary details nor does the MS itself offer any gimmicks. The body mainly contains teal and white colouring with yellow, red and black offering highlights and grey on its inner parts and backpack.

The kit is very light on stickers, the most prominent ones being a red sticker on the center of the chest, which I’d hoped for a red plastic piece, and small grey ones on the sides of the head for its head cannons. The lack of eye popping details is, however, made up by the fact that this kit comes with loads of accessories.

Build Process

Building the kit is quite easy due to its simple shape. The lack of details in its design also means that there are very little panel lines that needs to be looked after. In fact, much of the time spent on this kit is not actually on the MS itself but on its accessories, and even those are simple to assemble.

Articulation

For all its simple and some times boring design, the Leopard da Vinci makes up for it by having some of the greatest articulation of the HG line. The lack of any exorbitant aromour pieces means that its limbs can move freely with out any collision issues hindering it. The head is on a double ball joint and benefits from it fully, rotating and tilting in all directions freely. Both elbow and knee are double joints, allowing them to pull off full 180 degrees bend, stopped not by the limitation of the joints, but rather the limbs cannot go any further without shedding its armour. On this rare occasion, the hands has an extra joint at the base of the palm that allows to hand to pivot back and forth.

All the single ladies!

The leg attachment at the hip allows the kit to pull off almost a full split with the side skirts offering up only minimal resistance.

All in all, there are very few kits in the HG line that has this amount of articulation. Most poses a builder can think of will be able to be achieved by the Leopard da Vinci.

Accessories

While the Leopard da Vinci might not be the most eye catching MS by itself, this changes a bit after all the accessories are added on. The kit comes with a Beam rifle with an under-slung beam shotgun. Other than this all, the rest of the weapons comes in pairs, this includes:

Beam Gatling guns

Twin beam cannons

Missile launchers

The beam Gatlings are attached to articulating arms that themselves attached to the backpack. These weapons have flip up grips for the hands to hold. The missile launchers and beam cannons are attached to peg holes on the shoulders and the legs.

The backpack contains four peg holes in total allowing two extra items to be attached while the beam Gatlings are on there as well. Two panels with pegs are provided as well so the holes can be covered up if they are not in use.

Personal Modifications

On this particular kit, nothing major was done except using red paint to colour the center of the chest instead of using the sticker. Other than the standard panel lining, I used Testor’s Dulcote to give it a matte finish. Lastly, I used a side skirt item taken from a GM Sniper K9 that looks like an ammo pouch to plug up one on the holes on the backpack since one of the beam Gatlings was transferred to another kit.

Final Verdict

While the Leopard da Vinci will not be the most noticeable MS on your shelf, the kit itself is of excellent quality and is extremely playable, making it more of a toy than a display only model kit. The accessories and peg holes around the body and backpack allows for major modification if the builder desires it, while the simple building process is an attractive option to beginners to hone their craft.

As for the price, Amazon currently sells this figure for about $27 which includes tax and shipping, though I paid a more premium price when it was bought from a local hobby shop. At the end of the day, this kit is a satisfying build, but does not offer much else other than its large amount of accessories.

TL;DR

Pros

Easy to build.

Lots of accessories.

Room for further modifications.

Simple design lends to great articulation.

Cons

Bland design.

Center chest colour comes from sticker instead of plastic piece.