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HGUC Gouf
Mobile Suit Gundam
[The Organization of Zion]
Mass Production Land Battle Type Mobile Suit
MS-07B

Gouf


1:144 scale
Bandai HGUC Plastic Injection Kit 		List Price: 800yen
Paid Price: $35 (about $US4.5)
4 runners of plastic parts (1 blue + 1 purplish blue + 1 grey + 1 multi-colored)
72 plastic parts
Poly cap parts
1 sheet of decal

<<Data>>
Height: 18.2m
Weight: 58.5t
Total Weight: 75.4t
Generator Output: 1034kw
Thruster General Output: 40700kg
Material: Super Hard Steel Alloy
Armaments: Heat Rod
Heat Saber
75mm Five Chambered Machine Gun
Sept 23, 2001

Okay...

  • It was eons ago when I first started this project. What I did was cutting the dress armors apart and adding joints to them. The waist was rebuilt using styrene as a core, and adding a joint in the middle so it could move.
  • I didn't have a clear idea of what I am going to do to the kit by then. May be kind of Kondo-ish, but not too sure.

Remodeling... START!

  • The Gouf has been sitting on my desk for over a year, and I have been thinking about what I should do about it. Now I have decided to do some radical changes to it. I will go through the changes quickly.
  • Chest: I've added volume to the top and bottom of the chest armor. I used styrene sheets at the bottem first, which turns out to be quite difficult as the shape is irregular, so I've changed the strategy to use Mori Mori instead at the top. This gives a more nostelgic image of the Gouf, I think.
  • Waist: Wow! MoriMoriMania! The waist is completely resculpted with Mori Mori, making it bulkier, and it's longer than the original as well.
  • Dress Armor: Separated, then reattached so they are movable. The rear dress armor is newly built using styrene sheets, making it much bigger than the original.
 Feb 17, 2003 - Mar 03, 2003

Legs

  • I'm not very happy with the hip joint. The original opening for the ball joint is too large and visible from the outside (arrow A).
  • Moreover, I don't think the legs should join the body at such a low position. The joint was made this way as its dress armor were immobile. If the joint is at a higher position, it would seriously affect the posibility of the kit. Since I have added joints to the dress armor, there is no such limitation anymore, therefore I've replaced the original joint with a Wave small ball joint, at a higher position (arrow B).
  • I have also beefed up the leg a little bit with Mori Mori (arrow C). Seems everybody's doing this to their Gouf.
April 05, 2003
  • You can see the ball joint clearly in this picture. The surroundings are filled with Mori Mori. It needs some more work to smooth them down.
  • The front of the lower leg has been reshaped with Mori Mori as well. Why? Cause I like it! ;)
  • By the way, the front of the leg is widened by 0.8mm using styrene sheets (see the white line running down the middle?). The back of the leg is widened by only 0.5mm, however.
  • See the mold at the side of the leg with the little wire? Ain't it cute? What is it, you asking? Well, it's supposed to be the cover of the power pipe inlet (as if it's a Zaku without the power pipe).


Now that the right side is nearly complete, I will start working on the left side.

Some thoughts. I've rediscovered polyester putty. I used to have a tube of Tamiya polyester putty, and I've used only half of it. Well, it sucks! That thing is rough and difficult to sculpt. I thought I would never use polyester putty again! In fact, I've partly given up using putty to sculpt things. If you've noticed, my HGUC Gundam is remodeled entirely using styrene. Wow! That's why it took so long! I use epoxy putty putty occassionly, while not entirely unusable, that thing is expensive, and not too easy to use either. Yes, you can shape it like clay, but that thing is almost impossible to sand and polish! Not too good, but much better than Tamiya polyester putty. One day, I picked up a tube of Mori Mori out of curiosity. Hey, you notice all those modelers in the Japanese hobby magazines use Mori Mori? Yeah. So I tried it out. Not cheap, but more affordable than epoxy. And Wow! It works like a charm! Hardens gradually, easy to cut and sculpt after half an hour, workable for the following whole hour. (This depends on the weather. If it is a hot and dry day, it could never last that long.) That's plenty of time, and it's great, I'm telling you. You can mix a load of Mori Mori and apply it to tons of kits at one time, go to dinner, then come back and it's still workable. (Again, don't do this on a hot day.) After it hardens, it's very easy to sand. Great! Another trick is to add thinner to Mori Mori. It becomes a paste and you can kind of 'paint' it over rough surfaces and make them smooth and shiny shiny! Damn, I love Mori Mori! It rocks!

Through all my last projects, I always make both left and right parts in one go. I never work with one side only. That's because I used to work with styrene sheets. When using styrene to remodel, you have to make both sides together to make sure they measure the same. If you cut all the pieces for one side first and build that side, it is close to impossible to make another piece that measures exactly like the first one. While this is also true for polyester putty, putty is much easier to control than styrene, so I feel pretty comfortable this time making only one side first.

I'm not saying I'm completely giving up styrene. Styrene has an edge over polyester putty over a lot of things. For example, when you have to build things that have regular shapes, like rectangluar or cubic, only fools will use putty. When building large structures, it is also much easier to build a core with styrene first, then add the surface details with putty.
Standard profile shot on 8th May 2003. Modifications to both sides are now in sync.
  • Structure of the head:
  • The lower half of the head has been separated from its base carefully with a knife. A large hole is opened in the middle of a minus mold and put over the base (left). A light crystal would be put on the minus mold later so it becomes a movable mono-eye.
  • Notice the lower half of the head (middle). The inside has been detailed with some battle ship parts from Pit-Road. These are subtle details you can see after the model has been completed.
  • Panel lines have been added to the upper half of the head according to Kondo's design.



Standard profile shot on 22nd June 2003. You can already get an impression of how the kit will look like. The kit has been primed once so I can see the errors easily and fix them. A new backpack has also been built. The building of the backpack is documented here.
  • The Shield:
  • The inside of the shield looks unrealistic. Styrene pipes and Mori Mori has been used to add details to it (A and B).
  • To make the details in sync, the lower part of the shield has been given the same treatment (C)
  • The problem of doing all this is, the shield gets heavier than it can be. The model tilts to the left side slightly if the shield is not attached with care. @%@#^$
  • A new antenna has been carefully crafted with styrene sheet. I stick it to the head permanently.
  • There is a potential problem with this... the antenna is really thin, especially at the tip, and could be broken easily.
  • It would be better if the antenna is casted in resin, but I don't know how to do it. sigh...
  • Since I am anal-retentive on details, the inside of the shoulder is of course being worked on. A thruster is added using Kotobukiya's Tank Nozzle. The other side is a little hook like structure made with copper rods.
  • An extra armor plate has been added to the elbow. The elbow has been rounded with a file, adding curves to it, eliminating the Kotoki-ish image.
  • The anal-retentive freak of course has to add more details to the inside of the knee armor. These are made with copper rods, flexible wires, battle ship parts, and epoxy putty. I kind of want to replicate the feeling of those old Kondo resin kits here, but adding realistic mechanical details seems to be difficult.


Bang Bang Bang! Shoot em up!!!!!!!!!


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    Reference:
  • [1] Hobby Japan Special Issue - Gundam Weapons One Year War Special Edition (1500 yen)
  • [2] Hobby Japan Special Issue - Gundam Weapons 6 (1500 yen)
  • [3] Gundam Crossover Notebook I presented by Kazuhisa Kondo [Mediaworks] (1600 yen)
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