Besides the PGU Nu Gundam, the MGSD Destiny has been one of my most anticipated kits of the year, and there’s a pretty wonky story about how I tried to acquire this kit. My dad and I went out one Saturday morning and had ideas about going to Gundam Planet, and I was eager to go since I knew the Destiny Gundam was in stock over there. Once we did our errands, my dad didn’t feel like going to New Jersey, so we decided to see if our local hobby stores had any, and we traveled… 2 hours going to 3 places that didn’t have it in stock. I asked my dad why didn’t we go to Gundam Planet, and he told me that he thought I said it wasn’t in stock, though I thought he clearly heard me say that that GP was the only place I knew for certain that had the MGSD, and had he known… we would’ve gone there. Kinda soured my entire day as we wasted time doing jack shit, but he felt guilty about it, and got the MGSD for me… from Gundam Planet (online).
Finishing up my HG Legend build, I immediately jumped into the MGSD Destiny, and my god are the Wings of Light freakin’ massive. The beam effect runners are the largest runners of the kit, and the main wing piece takes up half of the damn runner. Everything about this kit is very much MGSD—this is the best version of the Destiny that exists, the frame is state of the art, it’s so edgy and exaggerated you’d think this is a Chinese kit, and its shelf presence is immaculate for a stubby guy. Being my third kit of the line, there are not really any surprises from the Aerial or the Wing Zero, I’d even go as far to say the Destiny builds a bit simpler than either of them ever so slightly. The wings are indeed a highlight as they have a full inner frame, and again, those Wings of Light are fucking insane as the kit’s silhouette and volume is basically multiplied by 3. They’re huge, illuminate brightly, it’s the main selling point for the kit, I just wish it was easier to put in, because goddamn it is quite the pain to put on. All of Destiny’s weapons are here and look great, I just wish it came with Destiny’s iconic beam hands and maybe an included AB7, because I already used up a 2-pack for Destiny and Legend, meaning I’m running dry on them… again.
As you can probably tell, I actually did some hand painting on Destiny, the first time I’ve done it to an MGSD. I haven’t hand painted MGSD kits before as I know with the amount of surface detail there is for those that I’d go pretty nuts and lose my sanity hand painting them, but I thought Destiny needed some, and my dad said it out loud, so I got a plastered a bunch of Tamiya Metallic Grey and some red and metallic blue here and there. It got a bit hectic, but it definitely gave more detail to the Destiny. There was still an abundance of panel lining as ever, and as usual, if there are sticker decals included, I will use those sticker decals. Bandai’s improving their decal cutouts a lot where those small circle-and-pinstripe ones have a rounded outline versus the square shape that they’ve been doing for eons. You may notice that one annoying decal on the right shoulder that still has the square and is poking out of the plastic a bit, which shows they still cut corners but not cutting the corners for you. But once I decaled everything following the manual (they give you a lot of optional decals fyi), I gave the Gundam a flat coat, and it was time to pose!
Yeeaaaaahh posing the MGSD Destiny isn’t great. Theoretically it can stand by itself but no matter how much finagling I did, I wasn’t able to and resorted using an AB7 to get it standing upright. The shoulders, wings and weapon mounts clash with each other so much, that it’s so goddamn annoying just trying to get the pose I want. Eventually, you will get something, but it takes a good amount of effort to get there. The hands are not great either. You’d think having a nice big tab that the weapons can slot into would work, but they surprisingly don’t; the connection isn’t super stable. Once a weapon is in it will stay in, just try not to accidentally knock the Gundam where the crazy amount of rocking will cause the weapon to slip from its hands. The wings—as beautiful as they are—are very heavy and there’s not an optimal way to disconnect the main body from the backpack, so you either finagle with the kit fully loaded, or disconnect the wings which is a bit annoying as they’re securely fit in the backpack. Nevertheless, I was able to pull off all the poses I did want, and the pictures I took came out pretty flippin’ amazing. I still somehow got the Wings of Light to just barely fit my lightbox, and with a little bit of magic called photo editing, I was able to keep the background clean for most of the pictures.
Despite my gripes with the posing, this kit overall amazing. I remember being super stoked about the HGCE Destiny having Wings of Light included in the box, but the MGSD takes those effects to another level. The wings on this kit are so big, it even makes the Wing Zero’s look small in comparison. This line has truly filled a hole in my heart with the lack of true MG releases, and I’m so stoked about the upcoming MGSD Kshatriya. My dad, who didn’t get the hype about the line at first, now wants to collect them all (though that likely means he wants me to build it). Anyway, that’s about it. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time!
