MG RX-0 Unicorn Gundam (deactivated mode)

December 01, 2014

MG RX-0 Unicorn Gundam (deactivated mode)

With the recent conclusion of the Gundam Unicorn OVA this kit shouldn't need much introduction.

Suit Lore

The Unicorn Gundam was a revolutionary mobile suit design developed during the UC Project as an Anti-Newtype weapon. The Unicorn has psycoframe material integrated into it's entire internal frame; this material increases the responsiveness of the mobile suit to incredible levels. A capable pilot is able to essentially using the Unicorn as an extension of their own body, and in some cases appears to react so quickly that it appears that the suit acts according to it's own will. An example of this occurs about 30 minutes into the 2nd OVA when Banager Links sorties against Full Frontal's Sinanju for the first time. As Full Frontal closes in for an attack the Unicorn dodges a blow and Bananger remarks "You dodged him for me?" indicating his confusion. Along side the full psychoframe the Unicorn also featured the NT-D (Newtype Destroyer) system; this system unlocks the Unicorn's full potential for a limited time period (to protect the pilot).

The Unicorn Gundam was completed at the Granada facility alongside the Banshee; at which point the Vist Foundation took control of the project and thus started the events of the Unicorn OVA.

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Hit the bump for the full photo shoot.

Kit Talk

This particular kit has a very long history with me. This is the very first Unicorn I purchased and probably the 3rd or 4th kit I built after getting back into the hobby in 2011. At the time I was still a very inexperienced modeler and the finicky nature of this kit drove me crazy. So much so that when I finished the kit I couldn't stand it any more and I sold it to fellow builder Eric (Urban Viking). Almost two years later Eric contacted me out of the blue, he was moving and needed to clear out his backlog of kits quickly. In that backlog was my Unicorn still in the same condition I had sent it to him in. I agreed to purchase his backlog and the Unicorn came back into my possession. The kit sat around on my shelves for about another year and a half before I started working on it again...

I did a few very very minor mods to this kit including rescribing the panel lines on the chest, shoulders, front skirts and fore arms using the BMC .15 and .2mm chisels. The scribing isn't 100% symmetrical as you can see some slight thickness differences in the panel lines on the front skirts. But It's a pretty significant step up from the first Unicorn I painted.

Decals are primarily from Bandai's MG Unicorn ver. Ka decal set (very happy they reprinted these!), I also used decals from: the Nu Gundam ver Ka, the Deathscythe EW and DX-06 Unicorn Gundam Decal sheet.

A neat feature of Bandai's high quality decal prints is the minute detail they feature just look at the lettering here.

Under the AE logo there are two lines of text; the top line says " Anaheim Electronics" and the line beneath that says "Full Psycho Frame Prototype Mobile Suit".

I finally incorporated the Armed Armor DE into a kit. I have been talking about using it for a while, but never got around to installing it. Just like the Banshee Norn the Unicorn can wear the Armed Armor DE on it's back to supplement it's mobility.

I decided to go with the deactivated psycoframe look on this model because I hadn't seen a MG painted with it before. Although from what I can tell from the OVA and the wiki the deactivate psycoframe material has a medium to dark grey color with some metallic like shine to it. Based on this I mixed up a gun metal type color out of silver, black and a pinch of neutral grey. I did not paint the entire psychoframe material with this color so for that and other reasons I won't be transforming this kit. The visible psycoframe parts I did paint like the shield fins should give you an idea of how it would look throughout.