Bandai’s
1/100 Gundam Wing Altron Review and Photos
Here’s my Review of the 1/100 Gundam Wing Altron. Maybe not the most popular kit, but it can be
a lot of fun. It’s also the first Gundam
model I have seriously worked on (other than 144 snaps). I'll be putting some pics
up on my website fairly soon to go with this article. Prior to Gundam, I have about 25 years of
model experience. I am a glue-putty-paint modeler, so some surface issues such
as knit lines don't bother me. I am much
more interested in overall fit and finish so I don't kill a couple weeks
waiting for putty or white out to dry.
Since I came from the AMT/ERTL Star Trek (shudders with horror)
background, I was initially very impressed with the Gundam kits (the parts
actually fit together and panel lines actually match up). So, coming from that background, here goes
(please feel free to comment;):
Overall: The plastic captures the shape and proportions, to my
eye, very well. 
Especially
looking to the Wufei/Treize duel in the second to
last episode, Altron is well captured. There are a few detail problems (lack of, not
incorrect), which I'll go into later. Like other GW kits, color molding is
fairly accurate with a few exceptions.
To be accurate with the T.V. appearance, gray parts should be
white. Also, the base parts of the Altron shield should be on the red sprue, not the green
sprue. Since I was planning on painting
the kit, the in-color molding isn't an issue to me. A chromed sprue with gold
tinting on one side is provided for the V fin, dragon fangs and jaws, the Altron shield top and chest trim. One sided--gee, thanks Bandai. This makes it impossible to look good, since
from most views the non-tinted sides are visible. Of course, highly visible sprue scars (the
base plastic is black under the chrome) are also sprinkled in. This is
especially true with the dragon fangs and V fin. Stickers are provided for the fangs, but look
like crap. That sprue was dumped into
the EZ Off pronto. Detail and molding are fine.
There are a lot of fine panel lines (not going to comment on "too
many lines" issue; personal taste).
The parts are flash free, and there are few noticeable surface flaws IF
you plan on painting. If you do not
paint, then you'll notice all the knit lines in practically every part. The worst detail areas are the inside of hip
armor skirts, which are fairly rough and undetailed. This can be spruced (get it--"sprue"ced) up with strip
styrene to form an internal framework.
There are a number of areas that are “hollow”, such as the fangs, the
head fins etc, 
that can be
filled in with sheet styrene or putty to improve them. PV cap coverage is great
to poor. The knee PVs
are well hidden, as are the other leg/torso PVs. The dragon fangs and arms are a mix that
unfortunately doesn't work well. The
worst PV implementation is in the twin beam cannon--just butt ugly. More on the problems later.
Arms: I suspect the extra
cost for this kit is due to the dragon arms.
It is not money well spent. If
you build this kit from the box, the dragon heads are hollow shells attached to
floppy arm segments that will obey only gravity, not your
posing desires. Starting at the shoulder there are the huge shoulder guards,
the left one mounting the superfluous shield.
Under the shields are dragon arms (which is why
the guards are so huge). The upper
1" section joins to the torso, and has a
Before and after shoulder shots
The upper 1" section is joined to the next 1" section
by a PLASTIC link. This link allows the
arm to fold up or extend straight out, in theory. In practice, the link creates a
plastic-on-plastic joint that will either wear out quickly, or just be loose to
begin with. In Bandai's defense, a PV
link would probably sag if the dragon arm was fully extended. A simple fix from Bandai would be PV rings to
insert between the plastic pegs and plastic receiver. A simple fix at home (thanks to Probe) is to
use layers of Teflon tape to tighten the plastic peg-receiver joint. Not only will the Teflon tape tighten the
joint, it will prevent the plastic parts from wearing out. After I get done with most of my kit backlog,
I am going to tear the left arm apart and Teflon the link joints. After the 2
top arm sections, there is a short PV jointed section which connects the
extending parts to the forearm. The
forearm is where the dragon heads are mounted.
From the top and sides, these appear fine. Unfortunately, when the dragon head is stowed
and folded along the forearm, the empty, undetailed
head underside is in plain view.
I fixed this using Milliput putty (it
is WAY too deep to use a plastic solvent putty). I filled in the dragon nose first, using my
wetted finger to round out the upper jaw shape.
The area beside and behind the lower jaw was filled flush to match the
TV appearance. A side benefit is you can
use the putty to completely hide the lower jaw hinge PV.
The Empty Head! Note sink
holes, obvious snap-together joints
The Full Head: assembled,
filled and primed
Once the arm is completed, and assuming it isn't floppy, it
looks pretty cool. The shoulder guards
hide the extension sections well, so the arms look normal folded up. Full extension if you rotate the shoulder
guard is around 5", which for this scale is impressive. Filling in the
dragon head and the floppy plastic link are big detractors, but relatively easy
to fix.
Legs: The feet buildup
cleanly, with major subassemblies divided along color break lines. This is especially important if you want to
paint the kit, since red and white simply are a pain to work with on the same
part. The fit of the parts is tight
enough to require paint removal for assembly, and no putty. The only tricky parts here are the heels and
soles. If you do glue, putty &
paint, the red heel halves need to be assembled trapping the white foot body in
between. I painted the foot white first,
glued & puttied the heels, then masked and painted the heel. With luck and good masking, Altron should be stepping out in those fashionably red
heels in high style. The foot soles have
a poor mating surface, which results in a fair amount of work to make
decent. This is typical of the 1/100 GW
kits I have seen-- the mating surfaces on the foot soles are slightly concave,
leaving a nice canyon right down the middle.
The good news is nobody sees the soles, so let your anal-retentiveness
be your guide. The calves are straightforward; the 2 halves trap the ankle and
lower knee PV caps. My sample only
required putty to cover sprue scars.
When the foot is popped into the calf, the ball & socket joint is
clearly visible from head on. I know
this isn't a MG kit, but Bandai really didn't try too hard here at all. A little sheet styrene could be used to mask
off the socket without killing flexibility.
The kneecap "claw" things fit on cleanly. I suggest leaving them off until after
painting, since getting in between the claws with a spray can or airbrush is
not terribly practical. Of course you
were just kidding about BRUSH painting, weren't you? The knee blocks and upper
legs are practically identical to the other GW 1/100 kits. The knee blocks cover the PV caps nicely, and
have decent flexibility. The knees can
bend up to ~75°, but due to Altron's incredibly
top-heavy design, don't expect to use much of it. Even without extending the
dragon arms, this guy is not capable of too many poses that won't cause a
face/butt plant. The hip armor is also
typical; independent front skirts on ball sockets, independent hinged side
plates and a fixed rear plate. The fixed
rear plate is not a real problem, as it is angled out enough for most upper leg
poses. My sample has somewhat floppy
knee joints (upper and lower), which compounds the posing problem. Teflon tape here is a must.
Twin Beam Cannon: More fricken'
weapons?! Head gattling
cannons, beam trident, crushing dragon heads that belch Leo-melting fire, and Wufei needs a near buster
cannon? Sounds good to me! But not the way Bandai did it. The twin beam stinger is made up of 3
segments mounted to a pivot box. This
allows the stinger to either fold back on itself when stowed or to pop up over Altron's head.
Unfortunately, all the PV joints are fully exposed--it looks like crap.
Crappy PV joints
This is fixable by using sheet styrene to box in the PV
caps. Of all the mods
I did to the kit, this was the biggest pain, since the PV boxes have to be
built with the stinger totally assembled.
Not a heck of a lot of room to work with, but the
finished results below justify it.
Finished stinger: PV
joints covered, primed and ready to paint
Weapons: Altron is probably the most
lethal GW mech at all ranges, having a serious weapon
to bear at long, medium or short range.
All of the cannons benefit from drilling out the barrels; the trickiest
to do are the twin beam cannons, which can shred at the split tip if not
drilled carefully.
Twin Beam cannons. Left
is drilled out.
Altron's
signature hand weapon is the double bladed beam trident. Bandai's implementation, a la J.E.D., is the
"Beam Spork". The grotesquely mal-formed
plastic wad only resembles its animated counterpart in one way: it has three
points. the
basic shape of the trident is wrong in the width of the blades, the angles of
the blades and the proportions of the blades.
Other than that, the are dead on. After some
major surgery to trim down all the blades, lengthen the center prong and
re-shape the side prongs, it looks OK.
The unmodified and reshaped “Spork”
Another Altron oddity is that the beam
parts of the weapon (and the eyes) are made of solid plastic, not the normal
clear green found in other GW kits. This
is easy enough to fix with a nice metallic green paint.
Miscellaneous: The head of the kit is one of the real strong
points. It captures the menace of Altron, is well detailed, and paints up great. The big wing
binders are OK, and act as counterbalances when the arms are out.
For the money, this is a good kit. For some reason, this kit is more expensive
than the standard 1/100 GW kit. The main
gimmick, the dragon arms, are poorly executed out of the box, but can be fixed
up with some work. If you are looking
for a great kit out of box, this ain't it. If you want something that builds up with
some work into a really nice kit, you are a Wufei
fanatic or you are in need of somebody to put your TallGeese II against, this
is definitely worth getting.
Ratings (for
unmodified kit):
Value: 7
Ease of
build: 9
Execution of
overall design: 9
Detail: HG
Gimmick
execution: 5
Weapons: 3
My Altron Gallery (I‘m a modeler, not a photographer!):
Altron w/Trident Death
from the Dark Looking up Rear Fangs
Out Double Fang Strike Altron w/Trident 2 Dragon Strike Altron Fangs Double Fang Out 2
