This last weekend was the April “Those Gundam Guys” Build Gathering (yes, we have a name now). Earlier in the month Gamerabaenre and Angel went and got the Dengeki Hobby issue with the GM Wagtail conversion kit in it. They were nice enough to pick me up a copy. Last week I visited the Robot4Less store for the first time and picked up the HGUC RGM-79C GM Ka kit that goes with it.

Believe it or not I didn’t take this kit to the build gathering, even though the guys were planning a 0083-era GM group build of sorts that would culminate in a large diorama of a Zeon remnant base about to be swarmed by a herd of assorted GMs. But I was going to stick to my plans and work on sanding seams on my Valkyrie and maybe start up the little Tamiya 1/48 Sherman tank I wanted to build as an exercise in weathering.

Meanwhile everybody at my table at the build gathering was excited about their Wagtails and GMs and I thought about it. I had the Wagtail and I had a snapped powered GM I had picked up at the great Gunpla giveaway a year or so ago at Gam’s house. But my third GM kit was a cold-districts type and just didn’t fit.

Well, after having a beer at the gathering and wasting some time dodging Grover (I don’t know if I was extra stressed out or Grover was extra hyper or both but AAAHHHHH!!! I had to get up and move around) I polled the group and eight of us went to Robot4Less. While I was there I figured I was just around the corner from my house where I could pick up my Wagtail and there I was in a Gunpla store with an especially good selection of HGUC kits, a need for a GM and a 21% discount. Now I ask you, what would any sane man do at a time like that???

We all decided we’d have a cheap dinner and spend our money on Gunpla! I narrowed my choices down to a Blue Destiny Unit 1, a GM Quel and a Zaku F2. I ruled out the Blue Destiny pretty quickly just because it was a one-off unit. I debated the F2. It would be kind of cool to have a mixed group and the EFSF was operating Zakus at the time but I went with the Quel. I had seen one painted in regular EFSF colors in one of the earlier AOZ issues and it looked good.

We got back to the build gathering after dropping by my house for the Wagtail. I settled in and joined the GM snap-off. I built my entire wagtail. With the Wagtail I’m going for an in-between Wagtail, I’m not using all of the parts, namely the shoulders and lower legs. I’m going for a look similar to the specially designed GM Ka in Dengeki, but I’m not going to kill myself scratch building every detail, I just want the feel of it.

I worked until dinner on it and then came back and worked some more. Once I finished it, I kind of looked around for a bit. I had brought my blu ray of Evangelion 2.22 to watch and by this time of night usually we’re drinking and playing Rock Band, but several of us were on a mission to make this GM build happen so I opened up the Quel and got the legs and torso done by the time I packed it up around 2 a.m. This was definitely the most Gunpla I had snapped in one day and it was a really nice break from all the detailing and decal rendering I had been doing for the last couple months with my Valkyrie.

Sunday I finished snapping the Quel. We’ll see if I get back to the Valk or just tear through these GMs for stress relief.

Funaka's GM Team