I was really uneasy about this one prior to the photoshoot, but in the end it won me over:
My unease stemmed from the dragon fangs. In the lineart, they’re tucked up inside the Wolf and Tiger pauldrons, so the actual dragon head is roughly level with the fist:
But that’s only due to animation magic. In real life there’s no empty space up in there, so fangs dangle much further down, well past the rest of the arm.
Visually I don’t think that looks as nice, and functionally I feared that they would be more likely to get in the way. But no, it turns out you can just move them out of the way when you need to 😉.
With that non-problem out of the way, another, actual problem appears, which is that while the articulation isn’t terrible, it also isn’t quite good enough for a martial arts fighter.
That doesn’t mean you can’t get good action shots at it, but simply that you have to rely on its special gimmicks rather than basic punches and kicks.
For example, here’s a cool shot where it’s trapping a Leo’s arm in its leg claw and cutting off its hand:
And here’s one where it uses its fangs to stop two opponents dead in their tracks:
The Art of Selling
I don't often pose two models attacking, but I can see myself doing it more and more going forward. And if I do, I need to do a better job at selling. It doesn't look great if a mobile suit is getting punched or kicked and it's just ...standing there. I need to pose them better, so it looks like they're taking the impact of the blow.I promise I'll work on getting better at that, though no promises on how long that will take.
I’m not sure if the dragon fangs are meant to block bladed weapons, but why the hell not?
Intermission - Beam Effect Parts
I’ve been jonesing for more effect parts to use in my photo shoots, and thankfully I found these:
There are just two minor problems: one is that these are 1⁄100 scale, and the other is that they’re all clear.
The first problem is easy to fix. A 1⁄100 scale effect part on a 1⁄144 scale model just makes the attack look more epic.
The second problem was … also surpisingly easy to fix. It turns out that a mixture of Pledge and food coloring is good enough to infuse these things with wonderful color:
I mean, just look at this:
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s use some of these parts with Jiyan Altron.
It’s going to take some more practice to really use these properly, but already they’re adding some nice extra oomph to these shots.
I think now it’s time to equip Wolf Ken and Tiger Ken:
This doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in the show. The animal heads attach to a pistol grip-shaped accessory which Jiyan then holds in its hands. You can see it very clearly in the photo below:
This means you have to be very careful with your angles, so as to obscure this little “detail”. It’s not always easy - I though this photo was perfect, but I just noticed that you can still see the bottom of the grip on Wolf Ken:
The other problem is that the dragon arms are connected to the pauldrons, so when the latter are equipped, the former just dangle around, looking like vesitgal limbs.
Remember though that Gunpla is Freedom, and you can always take them off.
These effect parts are actually beam saber blades for a Master Grade, but they work well as energy blasts here.
Lets Fight!
This was a sad reminder that my High Grade Maxter is in bad shape. It’s got a broken V-Fin as well as a broken arm:
Posing-wise, there just isn’t much that I can do with it anymore:
Now this is a great fight. Jiyan Altron against its very obvious inspiration:
But this was also kind of sad in a way, because it made me realized that Dragon Gundam is so much more natural at pulling off fighting poses. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that actually, yes, the dragon arms do get in the way, and they do make a lot of poses look unnatural.
And finally, let’s pitch a battle against an actual Build Divers rival:
I believe that AGE-II Magnum beats Jiyan Altron in the show, but in this case we’ll flip the tables and give it a win:
Arms!
On a Gunpla Discord, someone dared me to add as many extend-o arms as possible. Arms from the Shenlong, Altron, Dragon Gundam, etc. This is my best effort:
Later, someone pointed out that if I removed the wings, I could add even more arms. I may try that eventually, but right now I think I’m okay.
Conclusion
While I do think the dragon arms get in the way, overall I think this is a great model. It’s a very unique and stylized custom design, and with all its gimmicks it’s very versatile as well. You know it must be doing something right when you post your photos in the chat and people start wishing that they’d make a Master Grade of it.
A Note on Photos
I took over 50 shots of this thing, and at the time I was quite proud of myself. But since then I’m feeling less than pleased with my work.
For all the photos I took, there are so many more I should have. I should have taken more shots of the mobile suit fights, and more shots of Jiyan doing aerial attacks (so I can show off its wings).
At this point I have too many other builds to get through, so I’m not going to go back and take more. But there’s a part of me that really wants to, and I have to figure out what to do about that. If I start taking 80+ photos for each Gunpla, which would undoubtedly have to occur over the course of multiple days (or even weeks), I’ll be down to a build a month if I’m lucky. There’s got to be a balance between putting a model though every possible pace, and not giving it the love it deserves. Perhaps one day I’ll figure out where it is.