MS-07H Gouf Flying Test Type

Here it is... the kit that started my path down the road of vintage Gunpla builds. This was a chance encounter if there ever was one - while browsing a secondhand store in LA's Little Tokyo on a trip, there were randomly two original MSV kits and this was one of them. The wonderfully hand painted box art and the great nose art style decals were an instant incentive to give this kit a go (not to mention the tiny bottle of cement packaged with the kit). 

Being that most of my Gunpla experience at the time consisted of HGs, a kit with no polycaps or ball joints was quite a shock. Also, the amount of filler required on the build was pretty extreme, especially around the legs and forearms.

The standard finger-barrel hands were replaced with leftover HG hands and it was given a Zaku's rifle and Gouf's sword - the kit hands are absolutely the worst part, they look less like Gouf gun fingers and more like a box with tubes coming out of them - at the time I did not have the skill to rework them completely either. The power pipes which had a deep misaligned mold line running down them were replaced by coil springs with a wire running inside to hold the shape.

The kit was hand painted with Tamiya paints, as at the time I had just discovered the joys of Ma.K style hand painting. The old decals were augmented with a few leftovers from other kits.

While this is my earliest and most simple vintage Gunpla build (it's the only one where no modifications to improve stance or proportion was made), it is importantly simply because it taught me that vintage kits require a ton of work, but can have a ton of potential if treated with a little patience and understanding. At the end of the day, MSV just rocks!