(HG) Gundam Astray Gold Frame Amatsu Mina

The HG Gundam Astray Gold Frame Amatsu Mina (phew, what a mouthful!) is the first gundam model kit that I ever built. One year, two of my friends got together to give me this model kit for my birthday. Although I had never expressed any interest in building gunpla before this point, they knew that I was really excited by all things giant robot and that I am a creative individual, so it was honestly a rather inspired present all things considered. Needless to say, since then I have been hooked on all things model kit!

I had no idea what I was doing

As I was unprepared to receive my first ever plastic model kit, I needed to go out and buy some tools. I took myself to the nearest hardware shop and picked up a set of wire clippers to cut the pieces off of the runner. These clippers were the only tool that I used to build this model, and it shows; in the image above, you should be able to see many visible nubs where I was not able to get a cut flush with the piece.

That said, although I was mostly flying blind, I found the building experience to be relatively painless. This is surely a testament to Bandai’s excellent instructions, which were almost as easy to follow as the lego sets that I was used to building!

I have considered going back to this model and cleaning it up, but I’ve decided that I would rather preserve it as a record of how far my skills have developed.