MSN-001A1 Delta Plus

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Raoul Kunz
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MSN-001A1 Delta Plus

Post by Raoul Kunz »

Now for something completely different:

I suppose The first legitimate question is: what is a "Delta Plus" and what the he** is a "MSN-001A1 Delta plus"?!?!?

Unhelpful answer: of course it's a Mobile Suit! . . . .

OK maybe I should give a minimal background to this whole kit:
It's a space superiority transformable strike fighter from the Gundam Universal Century timeline, which is a hyper elaborated and fairly complex timeline spanning some 30 "in-universe" years and chronicles what is essentially a third world war and it's many political ramifications following it's conclusion between the Earth Federation (not as nice as it sounds, it's an insanely corrupt world-government) and the Principality of Zeon (not related to "Zion" or "Zionism"), a nation made up of space colonies placed at the Lagrange Points in the Earth Sphere with some completely legitimate grievances with the Federation... but those manifest themself in a revanchist streak a mile wide.
Suffice to say they end up in a state of war in UC 0079 (Universal Century, sometime in the 2100s after establishment of the Lagrange colonies) and since the use of fusion reactors generate a cloud of "Minovsky particles" which limit sensor reach so ~10km once dispersed, combat ever so convenient falls to carrier groups, strike fighters (in human form since they are oh-so-manoeuvrable and a ball with tons of thrusters just wouldn't be as cool) and groups of battleships (read: WWII in the Pacific in space! ) so of course it's ace pilots and custom paint jobs! :lol:

Basically it's mechs in space. If you want to see how this looks in animation => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OBgqm3iDyo

The Delta Plus is a rather later development following the One Year War and the First and Second Neo-Zeon War and based on the overly complicated and therefore not mass produced Zeta Gundam from 0087, much less complicated and more suited to at least limited production (interestingly the transformable mech really never caught on in the Gundam Universe because it has a sense of realism in spite of being what it is and the whole thing is simply unnecessary complicated, horribly expensive and a maintenance nightmare, think variable geometry aircraft in even worse).
It's still overly complex and expensive and therefore never goes beyond limited production and use as a strike fighter because of it's higher payload capacity - it's essentially what the the Henschel Tiger is when compared to the Porsche Tiger: still complicated just not as extreme :lol: .


So what is in the box, now that I have spammed everyone with the history of a fictional universe?
First: the box itself is nice with the Delta Plus destroying an enemy MS.
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Next up is the instructions, which, while being exclusively Japanese, are really nice and leave no questions... at least when you know Gundam history anyway so the unreadable blurbs are not much of a loss.
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Next is a ton of beautifully detailed and moulded castings which come both in plastic (multicoloured...on one casting that is...) and ABS for the multiple joints to keep them mobile... after all it's a mobile suit dohohohoho :roll: .
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Clear parts for the Blades of the two beam sabres (of course you want to go close quarters! ;) ) =>
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And three 1:100 scaled figures, one for Minerva Zabi (female lead), one for Riddhe Marcenas (not the male lead but an important player) and a generic pilot suited...err...pilot ;) .
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So that's it for my my relaxation project from the GB blog.


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Raoul G. Kunz
Last edited by Raoul Kunz on 13 Sep 2015, 10:36, edited 3 times in total.
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John Everett
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Re: MSN-001A1 Delta Plus

Post by John Everett »

I do like all the crazy colors they use in casting the sprues. But I've never been sure about the colors of the finished vehicles. Will you go for glossy bold colors or dull nebulous tones?
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Re: MSN-001A1 Delta Plus

Post by Raoul Kunz »

I think I'll go with some variation of the "actual" ( :lol: ) colours. Subdued dark tones - it makes at least remotely sense in near earth space to have the "night fighter" look...without the night fighter camo because there are very few places on this kit big enough to develop some pattern :lol: ...
So it will be dark greys, dark blues, dark darks! :lol:


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Re: MSN-001A1 Delta Plus

Post by Raoul Kunz »

It has a head! ;)

This took forever because of the kind of plastic that Bandai uses...
Without a base it takes no acrylic colours, or at least refuses it to remain. So far slightly annoying but have I'll to give it a bas-coat anyway.
As it turns out nothing aside from Tamiya base-coat actually remains on the plastic -_-.

I personally have the suspicion that Bandei is of the opinion that you don't need top paint the kit, it's moulded in colour already anyway! :? :roll:
Why the hell would I buy a 40€ kit and not paint it?! :roll:
Oh and without a proper hardcore base-coat oil destroys the plastic.... :roll:

Anyway - the head =>
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With decals from a F-4 Phantom jet-fighter and a M3A1 Stuart, though it's kind of strangely prude for this kind of motive in that she has no nipples :roll: ;) .


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Re: MSN-001A1 Delta Plus

Post by Philipp Gross »

Naughty :P

I guess I'm the only one who has a faint idea why an aircraft would need a head? :lol:

Nice work Raoul! Very much looking forward to see it completed, especially since I only have very vague ideas of how it will look in the end :lol:

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Re: MSN-001A1 Delta Plus

Post by Raoul Kunz »

I guess I'm the only one who has a faint idea why an aircraft would need a head? :lol:
Errr.... to mount it's twin 30mm vulcan guns and it's (suspiciously eye-like) optical sensors? . . . . . . . no that's really no reason... because it's a Mech! And it needs to be of proper anthropomorphic shape! :lol: :lol: :lol:
As to the eventual look... it will probably look like a grey and dark blue Zeta Gundam, duh! :lol:


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Re: MSN-001A1 Delta Plus

Post by Raoul Kunz »

Holy Human Pressure Cookers Batman! :lol: This was a horribly fiddly build of the torso!

Seriously, Bandai is insane.
The whole torso construction hinges in something of a "backbone", mounting the cockpit on the "sternum" and generally follows an unnerving amount of human physiology but it's just wrong enough not to be human... and it was annoying...especially since it all needs to be painted and aged before putting the whole thing together... :lol:

Instead of describing the steps I'll give you a photographic survey of the process ;) .
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Phew, let's hope the rest slightly less insanely structured...oh of course it's because the potential transformation, but there is one thing I won't do... these would ruin the paintjob, which is hard enough to force on a kit which really, REALLY doens't want to be painted...

Also note the fact that the EFSF (EarthFederationSpaceForce) logo on the chest is not a decal....it a bloody STICKER! ...somehow fitting it in worked just about as great as you could expect... :? .

Also²: 1:100 figures ware just too small! :lol: And they still come out big when zoomed damnit! :lol: :lol:

As with the StuGs: I actually enjoy this build, it's just a ton of little annoyances ;). Also.... these are really close ups... of course it looks like cra....not good, never trust your eyes when they tell you it looks fin in 1:1 :roll: :lol: !



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Re: MSN-001A1 Delta Plus

Post by Chris Smith »

I like the weathering even if I have no idea what this is actually supposed to look like :D

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Re: MSN-001A1 Delta Plus

Post by Philipp Gross »

Chris Smith wrote:I like the weathering even if I have no idea what this is actually supposed to look like :D

Chris
My thoughts exactly :lol:

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Re: MSN-001A1 Delta Plus

Post by Steve Hutchinson »

Hi Raoul

You are persistent and brave to show the irritating build, and it does look good too :D

I guess you can vamp it up with the excessive carbon scoring from combat/flight ;)

Everything is looking right, as I guess there really isn't a massive amount of reference photos that can be used
to say it should be this that or the other :lol:

Keep at it, Raoul, it's getting there, even if it does eventually look ""human" :roll:

Nice one

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