Gundam Converge : G-P.A.R.T.S. G-Fighter

I have been meaning to write up this entry for quite some time, and with the recent reissue of these two miniatures in the Selection V set I figured I'd get this out of the way before posting up that review. This will be a closer look into two of the oddities of the Converge line, the two modular combat vehicles known as the G-Bull and the G-Sky. In the Gundam lore these craft are support units for the original RX-78-2 Gundam and can also combine with it.

The two figures were originally covered in the reviews for Converge 11 and Converge 12 respectively.

Converge 68: G-Bull (Converge 11, released in June 2013).

Converge 74: G-Sky (Converge 12, released in October 2013).

These two figures share a little feature which might be easy to overlook if you are not a Japanese speaker. The clue sits on the back of the box and I am sure it is most helpful anyone who can read it. For the rest of us, there are always flashes of enlightenment or stumbling on clues elsewhere. For me, the most obvious clue was the fact that Bandai shipped an extra mid-section piece in the G-Sky box, which indicated something was afoot. However, it was not until I found one of the two G-Fighter models from the FW Ultimate Operation figure line that I decided to give it a try. The FWUO figure will be making several appearances in these photos below for some comparisons.

The idea here is, to take the parts of which the G-Bull and the G-Sky are comprised, and rebuild them into the G-Fighter module. As I had no manual to follow while doing this, this took some fiddling about and random trial and error. Here we have the various parts with which to do the work:



Below you can see my first attempt to put together the G-Fighter. To the left is the FWUO G-Fighter which served as my prototype. It turned out a really simple and clean layout, very faithful to the larger model. However, it wasn't until a while later that I actually came across an official image of what the Converge G-Fighter was supposed to look like.

The first version of the G-Fighter that I put together, using the FWUO model as prototype.

The Bandai design is a lot chunkier, dropping the sleek fighter look for some resembling more of a battleship.





Whichever version of the G-Fighter you prefer to build, it does its part well and can be displayed without coming across as a mere gimmick. So much so, that I would consider using a second pair of figures to be able to display the G-Fighter together with the G-Bull and G-Sky simultaneously.