New Gundam project: Heavy Arms!

So with the 1/144 Wing Gundam now complete I've found myself revisiting Gundam Wing in other ways. The OVA follow up the original series Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz introduced re-designed versions of the major Mobile suits that had featured in the series. All of these Endless Walts versions received 1/100 scale version models of them, even if the original version never got one. The Gundam Heavy Arms is one such example of this. There never was a 1/100 scale version of the original TV show design of the Heavy Arms, but there is a 1/100 scale version of the Endless Waltz variant. Well, I've become inspired to convert the 1/100 scale Endless Waltz Heavy Arms Custom into something resembling the TV Show version of the original Heavy Arms.

Time to bring Ole' Painless out.

So we can see a comparison of the Endless Waltz version on the right, known as Heavy Arms Custom Kai, and the original mobile suit Heavy Arms as it appeared in the Gundam Wing TV show.  There's numerous details that I will need to address and a couple that I'm choosing to not deal with because I like the way they look on the 1/100 scale Heavy Arms Custom model. First really noticeable difference is the weaponry. The Heavy Arms Custom is equipped with 2 Duel Gatling cannons while the Heavy Arms is armed with a single gatling cannon mounted on a shield. The large yellow... erm... antennae? Those big yellow things on the shoulders. Those need to be replaced bu the single micro-missile launchers of the tv version.

And finally, there's the machine guns on the head of the mobile suit. The Custom version has the machine guns mounted on the cheeks while the standard version as them on the sides of the head. I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do about those. Add gun barrels, and cover the helmet mounted ones? Add the ones in the head? Leave them as the they are out of the Custom kit? I think I'm going to keep the check mounted guns from the Endless Waltz version.