Project 1 : Galaxy Empress Nobell part 1

I had already started kitbashing one of the 2 Gundam Nobell kits I had a friend bring back from Tokyo. At the time I really wasn't thinking grand enough, so you can imagine how fired up I got when my local club (Gunpla Ottawa) announced a contest.

'God Save the Queen' was our theme, and we had the better part of 4 months before Victoria Day weekend when our entries would be due.
It took me until the night before contest day to finish it, and I'm going to show you what I did, and how, as best I can.

The original Nobell (Berserker Mode) kit, straight built.

As you can see in the picture here, it's a pretty good rendition of the Mobile Suit from the anime. The reason I chose it was primarily because of the vastly different proportions; most Mobile Suits have decidedly male aspect to them because they are simply heavy looking machines. But a unit like the Nobell has a very female appearance, and that fit the contest theme perfectly.

 As I said before, I had already started kitbashing this model, so I felt I had a good start. Here's a list of what I intended to do;

• Rebuild the back of the head and get rid of that awful hair
• Do away with the ridiculous bow on the chest and build it up more without giving it boobs or something equally absurd (besides, it's been done to death already and is hardly original)
• Flare the shoulders out somehow
• Give it less dainty feet
• Give it a real backpack

After two big modifications and adding a real backpack!

 As you can see here, I've skipped a few steps that should have been documented in photos, but I had no idea I'd be making a blog about this new hobby later on, so you'll have to forgive me. 

 ANYway, I managed to apply the feet from a Duel Gundam but not without some difficulty; the ball on the upper ankle of the Blu's foot was far too big for the Nobell's socket, so I cut both off, and grafted the ball from Nobell's ankle joint onto the Blu's ankle stump. To reinforce the connection, I drilled a small hole into the ball and another into the peg the ball would sit on, then cut a very short length of paperclip, and glued it into the ball with normal super glue. The reason? The paperclip is metal and regular model cement would not have gripped it at all.

 Once the metal pin was in place, I connected peg and ball together and used model cement to fuse the plastic surfaces together. This way, the metal pin connecting both would help give it rigidity when twisted or turned. After checking that everything fit, I repeated the process for the other foot.

 The shoulders were a little stroke of luck; I very badly wanted to bulk up the Nobell's shoulders and give them a more regal appearance, and was even prepared to scratch build them if need be, but after looking at other models that I wasn't satisfied with, I came upon the Raphael from 00 Gundam (Awakening of the Trailblazer). 

 It came with 2 sets of Bits: one closed, and one open and articulated. I disassembled one of the closed Bits and to my surprise, the negative space inside each half was almost big enough for the Nobell's tiny shoulders!

 I set about cutting and filing until I could (very snugly) slip each half onto the Nobell's shoulders and they would not pop off. Once I was sure I had modified each one the same way so that they matched positions perfectly, I added generous amounts of plastic cement and waited, smugly pleased with myself.

 The backpack I originally wanted to use was enormous (as you can see in the second photo) and rightly so; I was creating a royal Mobile Suit after all! However, with the new shoulders in place, Nobell's arm movement was much more limited, but I was willing to make the sacrifice.

 The Head was my next issue to tackle..

 Stay tuned for part two!