Built, panel lined and decaled by me. Painted by my dad.
After four months since taking it out of the box, the Solomon Physalis sees itself in completion, and itās not like the kit was that time consuming to do, it was just a challenge to get it done because my dad would be doing other things causing his own, unfinished kit collect dust. Meanwhile, Iāve done at least 8 kits in the mean time, but itās finally done. Thank fuck.
Following up my WIP post I made back in April, my thoughts about the Solomon Physalis have surely deteriorated over time. For as lovely the inner frame assembles, building the armor brought the fitting issues that was strangely lacking in the inner frame, primarily when connecting pieces onto the silver bits, which they canāt fit for shit without scraping the connections a bit. Even when fitted in comes the problem of staying flush with all the moving gimmicks the armor pieces have. Everything becomes very heavy, in which the not-so-tight joints start becoming a big hindrance, especially the torso, where it has to bear so much goddamn weight. But donāt worry, it gets worse, with the shield and the nuke launcher weighing at least half of the mobile suit each, that the kit becomes severely front heavy. If rested on the foot, the shield can be set in place and the kit can stand without toppling over, but man, itās just fucking barely. Assembling the bazooka is also a bit of a pain with the electronics inside, and itās not like Iām even using the gimmicks because the batteries, which donāt come included, are not common at all. I probably couldāve gotten them on eBay and have them in time for completion.
Anyway, by the time I complete snap building the kit on April 17, thatās where the kit goes on into detailing limbo for 3 months. It takes about a month or so to get my dad to panel line the kit, in which midway he makes me do the rest, and then another month to do his hand painting. Again, itās not like heās struggling to do any of this, heās struggling to find time and motivation to do so. But hey, his detail hand painting is still leagues above what I can do ;-;
I was in charge for doing the decals, and this is where my opinion starts to sour even more. Now, they are very durable and definitely add more flair to the spectacle the Solomon Physalis is already is, but it has this very strange problem where it just does not want to slide off the goddamn sheet. The decal could be as wet as it could be, soaking water for minutes, but itās like you manually have to crack the adhesion out of the sheet, and itās sometimes still too stubborn to get out, and in those cases it has already dried the fuck up, causing the decal to be a pain in the ass to maneuver on the kit. I have no clue how I had more trouble doing the decals on this than the Bandai slides on the Sazabi Ver.Ka, and I historically hate Bandai water slides. Maybe it was sheet material that was used, ācause it definitely felt cheap compared to Delpi Decal and even Bandai.
Getting the kit reassembled, ready to pose it up and take photos of the Physalis, I was definitely feeling burnt out. It looks absolutely stunning, but at what cost? I feel like the kit could go haywire in any wrong move I make with the bazooka and shield equipped, the torso has gotten so loose itās starting to wear down the legs, this kit has essentially become a brick, and not a stable one at that. Now I could definitely just fix the issue, just gluing the torso in place, but now that also requires a bunch of disassembly to get to that joint, and I donāt want to do that either. This is not my kit, so why is so bulk of the process my problem?
Anyway, thatās my experience with the Solomon Physalis following its inner frame build. Itās undeniably sexy and is engineered in a way that fuels a growing anti-Bandai sentiment, but the level of engineering does too much for its own good. Itās great what Solomon achieved with this kit, they just need a bit more polish to truly be a so called Bandai ākiller.ā Thanks for reading, and Iāll see you in the next one.
