The arm unit of Hrairoo is quite complex and has many parts. These are just the parts for the upper arm.
These are the parts for the shoulder unit, particularly the right shoulder with the 'shark mouth' equipment.
And this is the 'shark mouth' XD Only the right shoulder is designed with such equipment, and it's used to mount the long blade rifle.
With the interior of the 'shark mouth' colored in grey, it sure looks more natural as being the mechanical part of the shoulder. I also painted the cannon-like nozzle in silver. I'm not sure if that's actually a hidden weapon of Hrairoo or something.
Here are the completed arms, with the beam cannons mounted. Looks cool, but the cannons sure decrease the articulation and flexibility of the arms, even though their joints can be moved in many angles.
The leg unit is probably the easiest to assemble among all the components. Also, the size definitely wins over other typical HGUC Gunplas, such as Advanced Hazel at the back.
Then again, as the parts are big, the splits between them show up more clearly as well. I applied quite some glue to patch the parts up.
Parts for the head. Surprisingly, the mono-eye is not molded in clear plastic as seen in most other Zeon Gunpla. Painting clear green on grey will be a challenge (not for me, since I just use the foil sticker :-) But then again, that might not be necessary at all...
... since the eye will be concealed within the helmet anyway. As shown by the green line, the only thing the eye can see is just the interior of the head.
(Top down) Front and rear skirt armor, each containing more parts than the leg o_0
These parts are for the tail of Hrairoo, which doubles as his 'third arm'. I painted the pipes on the folding arms in yellow, for the sack of consistency as the other pipes on Hrairoo are also in yellow. Now that I look at it, maybe silver would have been a better color?
Details inside the rear skirt armor. I was surprised at first for the 'generosity' of Bandai for giving parts for the details of these armor, but when I assembled them, I realized they actually served another purpose...
...these extra parts are actually intended to hold the new armor pieces for Hrairoo. Underneath them are the 'old armors' from the original Gaplant. So when the new ones are removed, you can convert Hrairoo right back to its predecessor.
Can't wait to try that out after this ^^
Parts for the body, which I believe to be exactly the same as the original Gaplant.
The weapons for Hrairoo include the long blade gun, and two beam sabers.
I'm not very happy with the design of the hand. The two sets of hand share the same base. So every time you want to switch between the hands, you need to detach and reattach the base as well.
Why can't Bandai just throw in an extra pair of base for the fans' convenience? X_X
As indicated by the manual, an extra part is included so that the long blade gun can mount two booster shields from Hazel Custom and Advanced Hazel to form a 'defensive rifle' (?). Actually you just need one Advanced Hazel for all the shields, since there are two in that model alone.
The completed body unit. The huge waist armor sure looks a bit too bulky for the body to handle XD
The completed Hrairoo, without the stickers on both his shoulder cannons yet.
You can see more pictures of Hrairoo in his Gallery (not complete yet).
I'm also planning Part 3, which is about the completed Hrairoo, along with the review on its MA mode. There'll also be Part 4, which is about converting it to Gaplant and his MA mode as well. Just stay tuned!
