As I continue to clear my backlog I felt it was time to work on the 2 RG Exia’s I bought along with the P-Bandai parts to make the Exia Repair. Working on both kits at the same time allows me to speed through the second kit fully aware of all of its issues. Also because the repair is meant to be weathered sanding doesn’t have to be as methodical.

The first thing I noticed about the RG Exia that no other review mentioned is just how tight it is. Considering how lean and how small a 1/144 is it really shouldn’t come as a surprise but still the tightness of some of the parts were even evident during snap fitting. These parts in question also weren’t the normal peg and hole type of tight, they were in small areas where there isn’t a quick and easy solution besides awkwardly sanding away at hard to get to areas.

To further differentiate the two builds I decided to use something I was saving for my next build which is GX metallics. The normal Mr. Color metallics have big specs of metallic pigments in them and result in a finish that look more glittery than a chrome like finish. The GX Mr. Color paints though are Gunze’s higher quality paints and with the metallic colors they produce a much better result. The problem with GX colors though is they just don’t over as many colors as the base Mr. Color brand, and since GX204 is the base blue I expected a more neutral blue. Unfortunately the blue was pretty bright so I painted a coat of Mr. Color clear blue over it to get the shade I was looking for.

I went back and forth painting both the repair and the normal Exia using similar paints for each even using a normal Mr. Color metallic for the post shading of the repair.

After detailed shading for the cloak, striping the chrome off the GN blade, as well as trying out some weathering techniques I didn’t have the chance to do before (like the pencil technique) I completed the repair.

During the final rebuilding of the repair I noticed that my fears of the tightness of the kit were even worse than I originally imagined. Paint scratching was pretty bad in certain areas especially the yellow fins and the GN drive, but being a weathered kit I was able to integrate them into to design easily. So when it was time to finish painting the normal Exia I went out of my way to mask off certain areas so that only bare plastic was left. These areas are hidden from sight (like the back of the GN drive) so they didn’t mess up the final look. Even taking those precautions putting the Exia back together was tense and a few times paint was on the verge of chipping off but it worked out well in the end.