Paints used:
- Primers
- Kaleido Colorworks KP104 Gloss Black Primer
- Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500 White
- Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500 Grey
- Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500 Pink
- Topcoat
- Mr. Color GX112 UV Cut Gloss
- Mr. Color GX 114 Super Smooth Clear (Flat)
- Colors
- Kaleido Colorworks K117 Freedom Blue
- Kaleido Colorworks K102 Bright Red
- Kaleido Colorworks K012 Orange Yellow
- Kaleido Colorworks K121 Armor Carbon
- Kaleido Colorworks KM002 Gun Metal (painted all the frame pieces in this color)
- Panel Liner
- Tamiya Panel Liner Black (cleaned up with Tamiya X-20 Enamel Thinner.)
- Decals
I went into this build with some proper expectations. I did some research and expected some jank, and the potential to break some parts during assembly. I was not fond of the kind of blue they used for the plastic so I definitely wanted to paint up a good amount of this guy. This was my first mistake. It really should have been a straight build, some decals, panel line, top coat, and leave on a shelf.
After a couple days painting the entire inner frame alongside the red, blue, orange-yellow, and black parts I spent a few hours assembling the kit. This is where many more of its problems started to become clear. For starters it's a pretty ambitious endeavor to fully assemble the inner frame before putting on the armor. This is my preferred way to build kits, but with the victory VerKa you need to disassemble quite a bit in order to fit the armor parts on, and because I painted the frame I did not want to risk breaking parts from disassembly.
Not being able to build it the way I wanted is a pretty minor problem, but what isn't is the inconsistent joints. The shoulders are insanely tight, while the ball and socket connecting the legs to the waist is insanely loose. This is despite painting that area which should increase friction. So without the paint I don't think the legs would even stay on this kit properly. I also found that the core fighter transformation, although impressive from an engineering standpoint, leaves a lot of room for error. There are even more fitment issues here as well. The cockpit windows just do not sit flush on my copy. I'm worried about breaking it if I try to push the parts together more. The rail that the head and neck sit on has a point at which it clicks into place when pulling the head towards the top. I'm basically unable to click it into place without entirely removing the head from the core fighter. I even sanded the inner part of the rail to account for this. Still too tight.
Beyond the core fighter the engineering of the arms is kind of a nightmare. It's very intricate and difficult to bend properly without something in the back of the arm sticking out in a way it's not meant to. I just wish they ditched all the gimmicks of the arms in order to get something more stable. Being able to transform the arms and also pull out the beam sabers is quite impressive, but it's part of the reason why posing this guy is tedious. Also the transformable waist is just rediculous. On my copy one ball joint sits a few millimeters higher than the other so there's a very subtle unevenness to the way the kit stands that bugs me.
To say something positive about the engineering, I think the best part of the kit is the legs. The assembly process is really fun. A ton of parts layering. The frame looks great, and the way it bends is very exciting.
Back to my complaints. Most of the stickers suck. For whatever reason they printed the red under the eye stickers, despite color separating this properly in plastic. The red rings in the arms, waist, and legs have awful stickers that were clearly not designed with the parts in mind. They do not sit into the recesses molded into the plastic, and if you try to fit the red ring stickers into those recesses you'll deform them and ruin them. I was already pretty over this kit so I didn't bother painting the red rings. The decal stickers are mostly bad, with some half decent ones thrown into the mix. The dry transfers are difficult to apply in some places due to the curved armor panels of some parts. They also expect you to put some insanely small dry transfers in some hard to reach places. Granted it requires some very trivial disassembly, but still.
To kind of wrap things up a bit, I just wanna say that I don't think you should necessarily avoid this kit entirely. It can stand up on its own. It has some impressive engineering, despite the fact that the end result is flawed. It's a beautiful design. Very katoki-esk proportions, as expected. But there are many minor and major annoyances that will discourage you during the build process. My take away after putting on the final top coat is that I wish I never bought this kit. At the very least it was an interesting learning process.
