RG GN-001RE Exia Repair

Lore:

The GN-001RE is the "repaired" version of the GN-001. Following the climatic battle at the end of Gundam 00 season one Exia is left critically damaged. During the four year time skip Exia's pilot manages to perform ramshackle repairs on the unit by recovering components lost during the battle as well as salvaging and integrating components from other units including a replacement right optic from a MSJ-06IIE Tieren.

Kit Talk:

The P-Bandai kit required to transform the standard Exia into the Repair version is extremely basic. It only consists of about 15 parts, and does not include waterslides or other replacement decals. At about $30 it's a very difficult purchase to recommend to most considering the actual RG Exia costs about $25. That being said, the base RG Exia is a great model, and I was very pleasantly surprised by the design of the kit during the build.

I typically spend time on Google images looking for examples of finished models from other builders. When looking up this kit it was not able to find many examples of completed and painted RG Exia Repairs.

My goal for this model was very similar to the MG version I completed in March 2012. I wanted to push the damage on this kit further than the stock for to emphasize that it endured significant wear in battle over the course of 4 years without being properly repaired. But, at the same time I wanted the wear and tear to be more stylized and less realistic than 'traditional' scale modeling. I achieved this by using a variety of tools to scrape and notch the hard edges of ths kit. I then added and removed paint to emphasis the pot marks and gouges. I shaded the folds on the cape with greens and greys, to emphasize the dimension of the material. Once the kit was topcoated I desaturated the base colors using a heavy filter. 

Overall I'm happy with the final product. I am disappointed that some cracking has started to occur on the backs of both lower legs, however considering the theme of build, they don't really look out of place either.

If you're interested in picking up this or other kits consider purchasing through the Amazon links on my site. Every purchase you make helps me out tremendously and doesn't cost you a dime!

Hit the bump for the complete shoot!



Photos:

360:

Details:

Action poses:

Unlike the standard Exia with it's seven sword system the Repair's options are a bit more limited.