1/100 TT Hongli MG Hi Nu Gundam Couple's Build - Part1

Tackling the Beast Together!

My fiance, Melissa, and I both received a TT Hongli MG Hi-Nu knock-off model for Christmas last year and while we were a little disappointed that the models were bootlegs, we of course didn't turn them away.  We're taking this as a learning experience and a teaching experience.  We get to learn just how good (bad?) these knock-offs are and we had an opportunity to teach a couple friends about the importance of research and the dangers of deceptive eBay dealers.

We started the project on Monday and will continue on our days off together.

Here they are in all their glory, two ripped off MG Hi-Nu Gund- I mean FIGHTERS from TT Hongli.  The first thing we noticed about these kits:

The poor condition of the very flimsy box...

The sides were completely crinkled up.

The underside being that beat up had me worried about damage to the kits!  Especially because of the notoriously cheap plastic.

The corners are all about as bad as this one.  A couple corners I had to tape up, just to keep the boxes together until we got to building them.  I won't be using this box as storage for this kit.  My Hi Nu will most likely end up in the same box as my MG Nu Gundam.

Upon opening the box... there was this... strange... chemically? smell.  I can't describe it, it wasn't wholly unpleasant, not something that I enjoyed either... The box and plastic just smelled funny and that goes for all the TT Hongli kits that I was given and I'm told they were from different vendors, so I'm not sure if it's TT Hongli's smell or the warehouse they were kept in or what... 

Anyway, things seem to be intact.

I guess they get by being so cheap because they don't use so many bags... 4-6 runners per bag!

The manual for the Hi-Nu Fighter...  More on this thing in another post.

No dry transfer decals?  Nope, they have stickers, plus stickers, and the foil stickers.  The dry transfers have been re-printed twice, though.  Once as these very glossy clear stickers...

And again as water slides.  They are printed on blue paper and TT put a smooth yellow paper over the top to prevent damage...  The decals are the only thing packaged well in the entire kit!

Upon opening and inspecting the runners, I noticed right away the clear parts are FULL of bubbles!

Not just little ones, big bubbles!  This made me worry about the non-clear parts.  Where would the bubbles be lurking?  In the joints, under stress, with thin weak plastic?  Not cool!

This was the most significant flash I found, luckily it was just on the runner.  If I see more, I'll take a pic and put it up.

AH-HAH!  Thin plastic!  You can see through it!

And there it is a bubble right next to the connecting peg on the left piece... Not very re-assuring.

And the backpack cover snapped in half when I snipped it from the runner.  I'm not sure if it was already cracked or if the stress of being cut did it in.  Either way, it's annoying but expected from this kit.

Missa, got all of her runners set up at her desk, in alphabetical order, all tucked away in the cubbies on her new desk that she is very proud to have built herself.

I had less room to work with because of the massive amount of stuff on my desks (I'll have to take pictures of my work station set up again soon, it's new and improved).  But I did pile them in alphabetical order...

This runner gave us trouble during set up though.

One part is labeled as K...

The top part is labeled R.
K... L... M... N... O... P... Q... R
Kinda far away in the alphabet.  I blame Bandai on this one, though!

Snip!  Separated!

Since we are building this the MISSA WAY, I won't be using boxes to keep parts separated.  We are just building the kit once section at a time and taking it nice and slow, 'cause she can't keep up with me unless I stop to paint and panel line things...

Upon building the first step, we knew there would be issues with parts fit!  Again, expected.

The torso would just NOT go together all the way.

Decent detail on the little pilot though, surprising considering how shallow the panel lines are on the rest of the kit.

The cockpit hatch has foil stickers for the inner section.  They are supposed to be the same color as the torso's gray armor.  They aren't, so I mixed up some Model Master Silver Chrome and some Testor's Flat Gray (both enamel) and got a near perfect match.

As soon as this dries, I'll scrape off the edges to smooth the paint edges out.

And we got the torso all done on the first day.

Cockpit only opens a little, I'm not sure how Amuro gets in and out of this MS.  Again, I blame Bandai...

So, this build is going okay.  Yes, the parts fit is bad, it smelled funny, and the plastic is cheap.  But they were free! and cheap for the buyer.  Can't complain, really it is a bootleg, we weren't expecting a perfect copy of a Bandai kit.  Some things we noticed:

-The parts were easier to snip from the runners due to softer plastic.

-The poly-caps seem to be made of stiffer plastic, although Melissa says she'd have to chew on them to be sure :-P.  I found out she's been chewing on spare poly-caps from her Gunpla...  odd for sure, I know.

-Over all the plastic looks glossier than Bandai plastic

-The parts fit, as we've seen, is bad

- The moving parts in the torso are VERY tight.

So, that's it for now.  More on this kit next week!

Until Next Time:  Happy Building!