MG Gundam Barbatos

 ASW-G-08 Gundam Barbatos. 

The main mobile suit in Mobile Suit Gundam IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS.

When I first saw the anime, I was awed by the first episode. The animation and the music were great, but the mobile suit was what really got me. 

The show itself started as a regular Gundam show. Standard futuristic warfare with lots of political drama. The actions seem to be okay, showing the awful side of the war while a lone giant mecha dominates the warzone.

Then Barbatos arrives. Like a demon who was awakened from its slumber, seeking to vent out its anger and dominance, I was awestruck by the brutal power it showed with a single strike of its mace. As it stood up, gazing down at its enemies while protecting its allies, I was left speechless at its magnificent display of raw power. 

As the show moved on, the Barbatos showed its brutality and savageness and I fell in love with it. 

Like usual fanboy, I went and bought the available model kits. Unfortunately, the HG and 1/100 scale model did not do its justice. HG felt meh and best and the 1/100 scale kit looked okay, but it felt off. It looked goofy, and that savageness from the show was not there. 

Then the Master Grade came. 

And my god what a kit this is. 

The slim waist to broad shoulder. Tall legs to slender arms. The proportions are spot on. Even just standing still, this kit looks like a demon as it should be. 

Starting from the box art, it shows that famouse scene from the first episode. The art is nice and it represents the mobile suit well. 

The kit came with two stickers. One foil stickers for the eye and lens of the gun and one large sheet of real type stickers. Once again, I wish Bandai would just put water slide decals but for $50 for this awesome, highly packed kit, I'll take it. 

One thing that stood out from the runners was this runner. It's silver-plated (I think) and instead of the usual ugly silver color, it looked really nice. In fact, I didn't paint this and left it as it is on my finished kit. 

The same cannot be said about the gold part. It's the usual puke yellow. At least the pink clear is nice. 

The instruction manual. 

It is well laid out and easy to follow. 

The build was the typical Bandai affair. Parts came out of its sprues easy, and they were easy to clean. Some parts on the gun were a bit loose, but nothing a simple glue can't fix. It has the usual armor cast-off part, so I thought, it was going to be loose, but all armor pieces fit in without any issues. If I had to pick one bad side, it would be that the foot is a bit loose, and the shoulder armor is hard to take off. That's about it.

 Here is the fully built kit, with the included stickers applied. This is what it would look like as an out of box build. 

As you can see, it looks really nice. The kit poses well too. It has an extra gimmick on its wrist so it can hold the weapons in awesome poses. It also has extra articulation on its neck so he can look up higher. This was probably there so he can make charging poses. 

Here are some dynamic pose shots. 

For this kit, I bought water slide decals from Delphi Decals. Here is a side by side comparison between the included sticker and the Delphi water slide decals. As you can see, the Dephi Decals has some extra designs. 

I painted this kit using Mr. Color Lacquer paint mostly. I used Mr. Super Clear top coat to seal the paint, but it reactivated my Alclad primer, making a mess out of the smooth paint job. There is a high risk of damaging the Bandai plastic when stripping Lacquer paint, so I weathered it to hide the mistake. 

The weathering is done using oil paint, Tamiya Weathering Master. The paint scape was done by usual acrylic paint on the sponge stick method. 

Here is the finished kit. Let me show you the frame first, as it is one of the core design of this mobile suit. 

I think the shading came out well. 

Here are the pictures with the armor on. 

As usual with Bandai, The kit was able to pose well, even after painting. I saw some scraping on the backpack's gimmick, but it is barely noticeable. 

Here is some action poses. 

Bandai did a great job with this kit. Unlike the previous 1/100 kit, the proportion is right. It looks brutal and savage and it has enough articulation and gimmicks to pose this kit in such a way too.  For the price, it packs lots of stuff inside the box. The build was enjoyable, and the painting was fun. Posing this kit was fun too and it looks great on camera. 

I highly recommend this kit.