The completed build of the HG Xi Gundam. Airbrushed, preshaded and hand-painted by my dad. Assembled, panel lined, decaled and the (not-mine) color scheme by me.
Like the other massive HGs I’ve built, this has a been a great kit from start to finish. It’s hella expensive for what it is, but it is a lot sturdier than the HG Penelope and overall the better looking kit, if you make that chest blue instead of the goddamn white.
When I first saw the new HG Xi Gundam and how it looked in the anime, I fucking hated it. Well, I still do, even if it fits the look of being an alien, antagonistic mobile suit and that it was the original original design of the Xi. All my life I knew that had a blue chest and looked gigantic because of L E G. So I had the mission to revert the color choices of the Xi back to what I knew it was, and my god the look is everything I imagined what the perfect Xi Gundam would look like.
The things I reverted back from the anime colors to Katoki/Fujita colors was all the white pieces of the chest into blue, the blue hand armor into white and the white hands into black, because oh my god who thought it would be a good idea to leave the inside part of the hands shallow and white.
However, my dad and I went creative with the color scheme. The white parts are dual-tone, just like how RGs are, made one of the shield parts into blue (instead of red from the other designs) and my dad went haywire on the extra gray and red painting you see all over the kit. The red dashes and the gray is actually the same thing he did with the Penelope, if you see in the last pictures.
Overall, I love how this ended up. The blue seriously makes a difference and is objectively superior and nobody can change my mind. Frick you Bandai and Sunrise for going all white on the Xi Gundam, I will never forgive you
