Advanced Hazel

Another post I saved as a draft but forgot to post. Tardy, tardy.

Well here it is. I gotta say... I love this kit. It starts off pretty simple but once you put the "Advanced" parts on it becomes... more advanced?! haha

Anyway one of this things I liked about this kit is that you can build just the stock Hazel without any improvements. All the parts are there. Then you can 'add' on the "Advanced" parts making it into a different machine... and what a machine it is! If you decide to use the sub-arm unit the way that I have here this kit suddenly becomes quite a piece of work!

One thing that surprised me was the shield boosters. You get two different shield boosters. Essentially you end up making 3 different shields. The shield boosters are supposed to be attached to the backpack but I decided to combine them both on the left arm. I don't know. Just felt like experimenting I guess. I mean shields are supposed to be on the arms right?

Another thing that I thought was usual was how the two shield boosters are actually different colours. I spent a lot of time looking for an extra navy shield or an extra white one but they don't exist. One shield booster of each colour. Don't know why that is but there's probably some reason for it in the story.

I wanted to try and get a fully armed thing going but the only way to connect the shields to the arm is by a shield connection piece that attaches to the arm. It's not possible to just plug the shield peg into the arm slot. There is an arm slot but there are no shield pegs so I made one using a piece of a leftover sprue. It doesn't fit perfectly but it's good enough. Thats how the normal shield is attached to the right arm.

Two of the extra weapons are from some Kotobukiya weapons packages that I picked up randomly during one of my many shopping trips. The other is the beam pistol from the O Gundam. He's not using it.

The sub arm unit is very good at grasping all different types of weapons. Actually it got me to thinking that ALL hands should be made similar to this because it's so damn effective. I had a lot of problems with the standard HG 'half' hands because they split apart quite easily and cant hold some weapons that have larger/wider handles. Even with regular weapons they split apart easy so I used tape on both of them to keep them in place until I'm ready to do the real work on this kit.

Which brings me to another good point about this kit. You get a lot of hands. Like 5 different kinds. The manual has them X'ed out because they were made for the Hazel Custom (white one) but that doesn't mean you cant use them.

The manual also has the standard V-fin and head parts X'ed out but you can still use those two and just keep the configuration that you like. It's not difficult to change between the two at all. We're not talking MG Exia to MG Exia Repair type of stuff. Not by a long shot. You can change between the two in less than a minute. No kidding.

The kit itself has a lot panel lines and a lot of little details that will come out well when it's time to paint. Especially on the shield boosters. There's a lot going on there and with a bit of work it could look really nice.

I like the boxy legs myself with all the intakes and thrusters. It looks strong and strudy and it is. Overall range of movement is pretty good but when you have the 'heels' to the feet the ankle joint movement goes to practically nothing.

I used all the foil stickers on this because I liked the contrast and the completed look it gave the kit (even though I didn't even spend the time to remove the nubs properly. It looks fine from a distance.)

The pedestal. Cheap sake.

I use two types of pliers. One to remove pieces from the sprues and the other to remove sprues from the pieces (if that makes any sense.) I cut the useless parts of the sprue off to minimize the amount of plastic in the box. Makes things simpler for me. I don't thought the "useless" parts away though. I keep them in case I want to mod another kit later.

Backpack is simple and probably looks better with the shield boosters attached. Without the shield attachment unit the backpack itself is quite round and compact. I like it! It's a very unique and functional design.

Experimenting with a new photo location in my room.
Four guns and three shields? It's like a one unit battalion!
One of my favourite things about this suit is the head. No eyes. But the long sensor on top of the head has an unobstructed view of everything above and behind it. Kind of gives the impression that with a good targeting system this machine could hit 4 targets at once quite easily.

18.1 meters tall!

Last shot. All white background. I don't really like the fluorescent lighting im using. I have some options as far as that goes though. I prefer the more subdued lighting in the first couple of shots but it makes it harder to see the details. I hope I'll have figured something out by the time I'm ready to take the final shots.

Summary - Advanced Hazel is a great kit and I spent more that I should have on it (it was a souvenir from a trip with some friends) but you know what... it was totally worth it. I love this thing. Every aspect of it. One of the first mobile suits that I ever really liked was the Mark 2 Titans and building this kit made me realize just how much I love the Titans colour scheme. I don't plan on doing a recolour of this. Titans all the way! 5 out of 5.