Unicorn Gundam - Bandai - Perfect Grade 1/60 Scale

[DocRob]

"...and now for something completely different" like the Monty Pythons would have put it. This will be my first venture into the world of Gundam and I have to admit, I have near to no idea about the background and the anime, they were shown in.
I was fascinated about the huge Gundam machines and their engineering as a kit and decided, I want to build one. I chose the Unicorn, because of it´s cool looks, the availability of a pre designed LED kit from Kosmos and the two face character of the Unicorn, plain white, with all hatches and ports closed and showing the glowing red psycho frame with everything opened up. 

There is a lot of terminology involved with these kits. Perfect Grade means, it´s the highest grade of detailing in the Bandai range and the scale is 1/60. Highest grade of detailing means also an absurd part count manufactured in different colors and materials, mainly ABS and some vinyl like stuff. The so called Psycho Frame is a red transparent layer under the white armor, which distributes the lights emitted from the LED´s. 

The kits are fully articulated, which obviously adds to the complexity of the build. There is no glue needed, and the parts are designed to intersect in many ways, which can be finger bleeding tedious, especially with correcting errors.

The manuals are only Japanese and it is recommended to use a translator with camera function, to get the grips.

 The kit:



The Kosmos LED set:



...and that´s how the Unicorn is supposed to look:



Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

Nice intro Rob. This is going to be a different build from your usual MFH kits. 

With the way Bandai kits go together, be careful if you do any test fitting. As they're primarily press fit, separating the parts needs care as the pins are fairly tight and can break off. There are dedicated tools for separating the parts but you can also do it with a thicker bladed hobby knife.

The Unicorn Gundam is the primary mecha from the series Gundam Unicorn and is a prototype. There are 2 additional variants, the second called Banshee in black with gold and the third is the Phenix which shows up in the sequel. 

Carl

[DocRob]

42 minutes ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Nice intro Rob. This is going to be a different build from your usual MFH kits. 

With the way Bandai kits go together, be careful if you do any test fitting. As they're primarily press fit, separating the parts needs care as the pins are fairly tight and can break off. There are dedicated tools for separating the parts but you can also do it with a thicker bladed hobby knife.

The Unicorn Gundam is the primary mecha from the series Gundam Unicorn and is a prototype. There are 2 additional variants, the second called Banshee in black with gold and the third is the Phenix which shows up in the sequel. 

Thank you Carl, it´s indeed a completely different breed than a MFH kit. I powered myself through the BT52 build for some bad weather weeks and needed a bit of a change, therefore the Unicorn kit, which I longed to build since a while.
I hear you about the fit and you are absolutely right. It pays to read the tiny diagrams in the manual very thoroughly, as it is not always easy to determine the orientation of parts (guess how I knew ) I have no separator tool and use a blade and sometimes a screwdriver to pry the parts apart.
I saw the variants of the Unicorn, but liked the original design better.

Cheers Rob 

[DocRob]

Next was the installation of the LED system from Kosmos. After looking closely into both manuals, it looked to me, that the Kosmos LED set is made very similar than the original Bandai one. That meant, I could follow the Unicorns instructions for these steps. The LED´s for torso, head, legs and arms are already connected, so testing is easy. 
I installed the main hub on top of the cockpit and fiddled the appropriate wires into the wire routing channels, the torso backside looked like this when finished:



Next, all got covered up:



Here are pics from the front of the finished torso with all panels closed (Unicorn mode) and all panels opened (Destroy mode):





After finishing the torso, it took me more than 10 minutes to only pick the sprues for the next section, which are the legs:



Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

Lots of sprues there Rob. Very familiar with that pile. I haven't looked closely at this kit but on the more recent ones, the instructions will tell you when you can get rid of the sprues as all the parts are used on the build. 

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Lots of sprues there Rob. Very familiar with that pile. I haven't looked closely at this kit but on the more recent ones, the instructions will tell you when you can get rid of the sprues as all the parts are used on the build. 

I think that´s not the case here Carl. The manual tells you which sprues you need for the next step, but other ways, I have to relay onto my sharp eyes to get rid of used up sprues.

Cheers Rob

[Count0]

On 4/15/2026 at 7:05 AM, BlrwestSiR said:

With the way Bandai kits go together, be careful if you do any test fitting. As they're primarily press fit, separating the parts needs care as the pins are fairly tight and can break off.

One trick I am aware of with this is cut the pins shorter so you can test fit but get them apart easier. Of course, this option requires you to glue the parts together later for final assemble as the pins no longer give the required friction fit. I am inclined to glue stuff together as much as possible because my small Gundams tend to fall apart... And years of habit.

I started a Gundam as a palette cleanser after a big project last year but it

got bogged down with all the pre-painting. Look's like this model will avoid that.

[BlrwestSiR]

5 minutes ago, Count0 said:

One trick I am aware of with this is cut the pins shorter so you can test fit but get them apart easier. Of course, this option requires you to glue the parts together later for final assemble as the pins no longer give the required friction fit. I am inclined to glue stuff together as much as possible because my small Gundams tend to fall apart... And years of habit.

I started a Gundam as a palette cleanser after a big project last year but it

got bogged down with all the pre-painting. Look's like this model will avoid that.

I've done that a few times but I almost always glue my kits together anyways. 

The Real Grade, Master Grade and Perfect Grade kits tend to have great colour separation in their parts breakdown. So much less masking ,if any which simplifies painting. For example the most recent Gundam I worked on I haven't had to mask anything. 

 Still a fair bit of painting though.