While putting off the final photo shoots of the AGE-2’s I have been working on a SD HI Nu Gundam, my first ever SD. I really disliked the look of the old SD’s back in the day but ever since the Wing ver.ka SD I have noticed how much better built they are, and once I saw the Hi Nu I thought since I own no other version of that kit that getting that one would be a good first try.

I bought this “used” off Amazon and one of the effect parts broke but that was easily fixable and even gave me the chance to see how epoxy glue would fare in comparison to plastic cement or super glue. Out of the box this kit was pretty impressive and if you plan on just building it OOB I highly recommend it but if you actually want it to look good you will have to put a lot of work into it and for me that’s what makes this so disappointing.

I did a lot of this kit from filling in all the gaps and seamlines, to even adding metal parts and extra fin funnel effects parts. I don’t know why but I really wanted to elevate this kit.

Everything seemed to move pretty smoothly until it was painting time. I noticed when looking up pictures of SD HI Nu’s 75% of them were a combination of the HG Hi Nu and the SD, using the arms, legs, and backpack from the HG. At first I thought this was only for detail and proportions but I see now it could also just be for increasing the ease of the build. I had to mask almost every piece multiple times and even then there was so much bleed over that touch ups had to be done everywhere.

Finally the kit was painting and lined but as I was putting it together that’s when everything fell apart as the tight-fitting joints chipped away at the paint in various areas from the elbows, to the funnels opening joints, to their connections to the backpack. I tried to do what touch ups I could and lost all motivation to add the metal parts or the decals.

I should have stopped there but at that moment I felt like all that work I did was starting to go to waste so I tried to fix it and realized that I would basically have to strip, sand down, and repaint certain joints. Once I urged myself to do it while transferring my parts in the sink a piece of the fin funnel fell down the drain and with it this build.

I am a little worried at the moment that this whole experience is so demotivating that I might stay away from Gunpla for a while I guess I will have to see if I can jump back into it quickly and forget about this mess.