Update (10/30/2009) : Just finished building this kit, finished shots of the Rick Dias can be found here.
This just arrived yesterday for me from the post office. Bandai's Rick Dias in 1/100 Master Grade scale. When I was introduced to Gundam in 2005, via the Zeta Gundam Series in Animax, I never really was into the Gundam's design. I thought that it was too flashy, the Rick Dias however I came to like immediately.
The Rick Dias was AEUG's default mobile suit and this red color scheme was the one used by Char Aznable when he carried the alias of Quattro Bajeena - pilot of the AEUG. As Char/Quattro transitioned to the Hyaku Shiki the AEUG eventually adopted this color scheme for all of its Rick Dias.
Maybe they were out to scare the enemy into thinking that there was a whole squadron of Char Aznable's flying out there? Realistically of course I'd rather believe that Sunrise did this in order to reduce on anime production costs by reusing cells since during the initial episodes they had a lot of scenes with Char's Rick Dias in it.
Am excited to build this but right now I have to finish the 1/72 VF-25G Messiah that I'm working on. Will probably get to work too in translating the manual into English before I build it.
Here's a shot of the open box. The first thing that greets you is a glossy cardboard cover featuring the Rick Dias that covers the entire box and acts as a secondary cover. The box itself is quite huge, coming in a dimension of 30 x 40 x 9 cm.
Shot of the open box with top cover removed showing the parts.
Color Guide for the 1/100 Rick Dias
If you are planning to airbrush your Rick Dias, I posted below the translation of the Color Guide for the Rick Dias. I think there is a bit of typo graphical error on the 4th part. Wherein it translates that the color of the inner gray of the mecha parts is Midnight blue. That color sure doesn't look like a midnight blue to me.
The "kurei" part above actually translates to "clay" which is what the bazooka is called.
The Master Grade Rick Dias has this symbol in some of the instruction panels. This is because you are given the option to assemble the Rick Dias as a Quattro Bajeena variant (thrusters) or a Generic variant (vanes). The instruction boxes with this symbol is for the generic/cannon fodder variant.Check out a translation of the general symbols found in a Bandai model kit's manual here.
Parts List
Here's a translation of the parts list of the Rick Dias as found in the manual that you can use as a reference and so that you don't make a mistake as to the purpose of the part when coloring or assembling.
Build update on the Rick Dias can be found here, here and here.
