It’s finally here in my hands—the HG Calibarn, deemed as the best High Grade by many, and I’m someone who’s built many HGs throughout the years, especially this year, and here are my final thoughts: it may be one of the best HGs of all time, but it isn’t the best, imo. The HG Moon Gundam, which is 5 years old at this point, still has a better build (no goddamn C-clips :D) and detail than the Calibarn and our fully painted HGs such as the Xi, Penelope and Nightingale still hold as my favorite HG builds ever. What I will say is that the Calibarn is the best HG:WFM kit by far and the best HG you can get under $30.
Sadly but expectedly, the build doesn’t come with any surprises, it builds exactly like the Aerial and Aerial Rebuild and boy do you have to remove the safety nubs on the v-fin. What does come as a surprise is the white plastic, something about it just felt a bit more premium than Aerial and Rebuild, but this becomes a problem later on. If you thought the arms were tight on both Aerials, well, Calibarn’s are even tighter, in a good way, while the legs are the same because of the dependency on C-clip joints. There are also just a bunch of stickers to put on, which gets real fucking annoying if you decide to put the green ones for the boosters of the broomstick as there are 16 of them, the placement is awkward and they don’t like to stick at times, but I used them as I didn’t want to bother painting it green because of the awkward placement. The broom itself is lovely, but it is too heavy for Calibarn to carry while standing, though it is still possible to have it stand on its own anyway. The shield is exactly the one from the Rebuild and it’s kinda boring to use as the shield, but using it for the Bit-On Form, really enhances the silhouette of Calibarn like a WHOLE lot, especially how it looks like it has wings now.
The real unfortunate part about this build is that I got COVID as soon as I started detailing Calibarn. Remember how I said there’s some problem with the premium feeling white plastic? Yeah, that’s because the paint and panel lining smudges like absolute shit. If I wanted to clean some excess paint right away, well I couldn’t or else it’ll just stick onto the plastic, meanwhile this wasn’t really a problem with literally any other white Gundam I’ve done this year. I used a new pen just for this kit, and JFC the lines smudge all the goddamn time. Anytime my fingers make contact with the lines, oops, I have to redo the damn line and clean off the smudges, which is a pain in the butt if I sanded the piece before. I have all of this trouble while I’m coughing like I have no tomorrow. It took me the entire week just to get the painting and panel lining done, while decaling was not a hassle if it weren’t for the fact that I got even sicker as time went on. But I got the decals done, I used a lot of flat topcoat as my can was dying and I wasn’t sure if the spray was working or not, and finally finished.
As much of a hassle it took to make the Calibarn shine, the end result is absolutely beautiful. It looked too white OOB, but with all of my added detail, it’s a goddamn work of art. It poses so well, every pose works in different angles, it is possible to have Calibarn ride the broomstick with a bit of cheating, it’s just glorious, it was worth the getting through the agony doing this while sick. That being said, I’m so done with model making right now. I just want to relax, recover, and see what I want to do next when I’m up for it again. But, I hope you enjoyed this write up, and I’ll catch you next time!
