That's been improved over the years, but yes, old goldf plastic had a tendency to dissolve or break easily. There are MIB figures that have turned into dust and fragments that you can just see through the window.
And clear high grades too ?? Like whatre you trying to show off? Poly caps ??? Even real grades have barely a frame worth to show off and the clear coloured pieces make it hard to see.
>Like whatre you trying to show off? Poly caps ???
💀💀💀 bruh we need a clean up on aisle HG over here.
I do like the RG Zeong clear color though! I think in general the outside armour needs to be clear and glossy, not colored/matted then we can have a better result.
I bought the p-Bandai clear Rising Freedom with this thought in mind as well, to build a combo with the standard one. Any ideas on how I can mix it up?
Despite being high quality I’m sure, I really think it makes a model look cheap and lame.
NOW GRANTED- I’ve never purchased or completed a clear kit before specifically for this reason, but I would hope my opinion is still valid lol
I do not like them, i like the idea of them, being able to see the frame and all, but seeing all the mold stuff, pegs, holes, and those support things, i really do not like them
Idk, the mechanical clear kits are still very hard to see the frame underneath. I think the best way to display a clear kit is to paint underneath the part with silver or chrome paint.
https://preview.redd.it/8ifmoszl7c8d1.jpeg?width=5424&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=736fcc4b1fd5d77f4ad8127418f4a213a7743f1a
I like clear kits. Specially the crystal clear ones.
https://preview.redd.it/19rjz0jj2d8d1.png?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d423efb6093fad4e2c35d714bfe5eb73e2295fd3
Did you do any work on these? I think clear kits are a whole different animal from basic kits. If you wanna put in the effort, it'll look amazing, otherwise they just look meh. Just saw a video of a clear sazabi that's been painted. And another polished to make itook amazing.
I always considered them more for collection than aesthetic. People take them because they are rare, not to see the inner frame. Bandai really manage to create FOMO with them, so good for them. But it's really not my jam.
Some are really good and others are just bad. I have a rg zeong clear that looks amazing. It really depends on the color of the suit. Whites generally look bad imo, purple and black are damn near impossible not to get stress marks in, red is clean, blues and greens are generally good.
Join the r/gunpla discord and some of the retailer’s discords. People put them up for sale fairly often. Someone on the Mecha Warehouse discord is selling a bunch of clear MGs
https://preview.redd.it/cnlqz5l1qb8d1.jpeg?width=1110&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b6995a548235dd4e24a4ce4760e4e113e40f32d6
They cost the same as the retail kits but they are exclusives of varying types. The vast majority are Gundam Base exclusives. For the U.S. we have Gundam Base pop ups for people who can make it to them, and then our U.S. P-Bandai website has an annual Gundam Base event with hundreds of items available to purchase.
I like when people take portions of clear kits and use them in conjunction with the normal plastic and get a segmented “see through” vibe.
Otherwise, clear kits are just exclusive kits I have no interest in
I find that clear kits have a lower floor and a higher ceiling. Usually a clear kit looks worse than its regular counterpart (it has a tacky appearance) but with painting or changing out a few parts, it has the potential to look vastly superior. I find the best "clear" employs clear as a secondary or tertiary focus, rather than the primary focus.
MG Sazabi: https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunpla/comments/1bp9dgu/to_combine_mg_sazabi_ver_ka_kits/
HG Moon: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/vuUAAOSwf-JlOkMN/s-l1600.jpg
Aile Strike: https://sidesevenexports.com/products/mg-1-100-aile-strike-gundam-ver-rm-solid-clear-january-february-ship-date
(Sorry for linking sidesevenexports)
I agree 100%. Clear kits out of the box are very underwhelming. With a little love though, they become visual spectacles that are different from the rest of your collection. Here's one that' has a painted insane and been polished.
I absolutely love clear, color clear. I feel like it makes it just look so cool especially when it’s the kits that have even a little bit of hidden detail. I think getting alternate versions of standard kits gives doing one of your favorite builds a bit of a new take too
If there's a lot of detail in the inner frames that's worth showing for (like in this RG, on some MGs and PGs) then it's great. For HGs I don't see the reason since mechanical details in the inner frame are not their selling point.
Amazing choice for very little effort. You get a spectacular kit. Shelf worthy to the max with some decals and a nice gloss coat. It's incredibly impressive. The downside is that there's very little room for painting without sort of undermining the point of the kit. Another downside is they are generally more rare and expensive and lastly sanding nubs off is crucial if they're not undergated because any white stress marks show up on each piece very loudly.
I'm not too crazy about them but it's more of personal preference thing. I like to paint my kits. You can't do that with a clear kit. I mean you could but it would defeat the purpose.
My other issue with them is the ones I've seen weren't clear enough to see the frame that well which again defeats the purpose of a clear kit.
Clear HG kits are kinda silly since like, what are you even showing off in there? RG and MG make a little more sense, but the plastic is harder to work with and clear plastic can blow up god hand nippers. I can imagine them looking good, but I'd rather have a metallic coating (even with the nub mark hell)
I have both the HG Helios and Rising Freedom clear ver and i love it. Here is the Helios.
https://preview.redd.it/etle5fkvfd8d1.jpeg?width=1477&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bf91f39fbf9a0f74481cdc7084bf40105bd3a58b
I never got the appeal for them. To see the inner workings? Then leave the armor off? Like others have said seeing all the support and molding bits kills it for me.
I like the concept of mechanical clears where you can see a traditional frame underneath. Full clear kits are meh for me, though, to be fair, I have not built a clear kit personally.
There was a post a while back of someone who mixed the clear and solid kits together and it was gorgeous. I think that was the best use of them, otherwise I kinda agree with the others, they’re just not as cool.
It depends on the MS. Some it looks good on, others not so much. I also have trouble seeing where to cut or identifying part numbers due to the transparency. I have built one clear kit and it was a pain and looks okay. I do have another clear kit which looks better, so perhaps my opinion will change after building it.
I like the novelty of them, but personally I don’t wanna buy any. I’m sure they’re cool but I like the look of solid color just enough that I pass on clear colors
I have a few mech clear kits, built the Sazabi so far and I like them since I can paint the inner frame and make them pop with the clear armor parts. Color clear I don't like, since they remind me of my cheap water pistol toys growing up.
I’m not a huge fan.
That being said with enough work and effort they can look pretty cool. I saw one guy on YouTube that put a lot of work into one, highlighting the details of the inner frame, and then gave the outside a nice sanding and polishing so it was crystal clear. The result was really impressive.
One day I’ll give one a shot.
Depends on what kit and how they're used.
The clear parts as an accent, like on the Moon Gundam's Psycho-plate? Oh, metallic red paint on that in some areas to make it really pop, please!
A way to see the details underneath, like if you take both the translucent or clear edition and normal Sazabi Ver.Ka kits, and mash them together to show off the awesome under the plates that the normal covers up? It's expensive, but yes, please.
A fully translucent/clear kit? No, thanks. I'm not a fan of fully clear kits without a reason. It just looks too toy-ish for me and can, depending on the quality, be brittle enough to break the large pieces during shipping either to your door or the store. It's too risky for my taste.
Also, most of the full-clear kits I've heard of are P-Bandais, so they hurt your wallet.
Mechanical clear MG kits with a good looking inner frame works well, they make an interesting display piece. Shields and other parts that don’t have any frame typically fall short of the rest of the experience though.
I got the sinanju in the photo, looks cool.
Regret not treating kit better because, I didn’t know sanding existed at that time.
The nub marks could be hell to fix to look polished.
I was able to get my hands on a clear RG Nu HWS, where the mobile suit and funnels are fully clear and the arms and armour for the HWS are a smoky clear. I think it works well, at some point I would like to disassemble it and use metallic sharpies to highlight some of the mechanics of the inner frame.
Between armored and bare, they offer the worst of both worlds - you get none of the cool details of armor, *and* you can't see the cool detail of the frame.
Also Clear Plastic Syndrome.
I like clear plastic on electronics but in gunpla, most of the time there isn't enough contrast with the inside parts to make it visually striking. There is a stigma that it looks "cheap" which I get. Personally it's hit or miss.
Clear ball=best mg ball
Clear unicorn mg=worst mg unicorn
If they have a lot of mechanical detail underneath the armor, like the pgu or mg ball, they look good. However, I the kits are like the mg unicorn or mg zeta, which have a lot of moving parts and not much detail, they can look bad.
My first kit was MG Clear Barbatos and it was great and looks great
https://preview.redd.it/ihxotoykpc8d1.jpeg?width=2314&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39a17047a990875c0cab966ffdd5605f1c6a614c
Looks awesome. I always like to think of them as frames with a “hard light” exoskeleton, as though they were training mechs or could be something from a real life version of Gundam Build Fighters.
Never really was a fan of clear kits initially but I do have them I guess for collecting purposes[?] never built them either.
I do think a half clear half solid build would be good. I was thinking of doing that to the PGU so that you can show off the inner frame especially since I added a little bit of details. A half clear RG Zeong would be amazing too. If only they sold non colored panels tho.
I think some of them look amazing, but you need to take the time to polish them. When you put in the extra effort they can almost look like a glass sculpture, and if you paint the inner frame and detail it up with metallics....
🤯😍
Here's an example of ones that I do not like and look cheap and ugly, imo.
https://preview.redd.it/a73dc3r1gd8d1.png?width=1008&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f319739e953c3665674c405d6806e5959c0bfa9a
The only one that I would have any interest in building is the Ball Ver Ka. So much cool inner frame detail that is more interesting than the armor panels. Otherwise, no, they usually just look like cheap toys. There is a guy on YouTube who polishes the hell out of clear kits so you truly can see all of the detail clearly, and that's cool... but not for me.
I actually want more fully clear (like actually transparent) kit, something like the LD Box Exclusive HG Eva 01 one. Seeing a fully clear gunpla is pretty enchanting.
Mechanical Clear is a second contender because its different enough than the regular kit. The type like the one showed is okay. Else, the 'clouded' clear or the sparkly one is bad. Looks too cheap.
I like them because I want to get a few of the crystal clear MG kits so I can do the split down the middle paint job that half is clear and other half is fully painted in its original colors.
I have mixed feelings, leaning more towards negative. Some look pretty nice, but it usually just feels like a cheap attempt at a limited variant. I do however like ones with a visible inner frame underneath, and especially the mechanical clear ones with the ghost of an armor and a partially visible inner frame. Even then, I still wouldn’t buy it in a heartbeat because they don’t look that great either. The mechanical clear kits *could* look good if you really put in effort in making the frame stand out and look good. Unless you wanna keep the silhouette of the MS, you’d might as well just take the armor off and display it like that
TL;DR: I don’t like em that much
I generally dislike them a lot, though there are elements of some kits which look good in clear. An example would be the blue wing segments of the MG Freedom 2.0, where the clear nicely contrasts with the rest of the kit without being distracting
I built MG clear Barbatos and painted the inner frame. It worked really well. But i regret buying clear lupus, was not good and you can’t easily paint color corrections on it.
I love em. Gives off a different vibe that standard kits even when decaled and painted to GBWC levels can't compare to.
Im hoping that the clear color HG Shenlong goes on sale later this year with the HG Sandrock so I can finish my clear Operation M set!
One kit I would love to get is the 30th Anniversary Operation V Clear Color.
Ive yet to see any other clear color Guncannon or Guntank set.
I dont get the hate, I thought Gunpla was freedom.
Really like them. The frame is almost always a looker and being able to see it with the armor on is a big plus.
Plus, I like what some people do if panel lining them with fluorescent paint and shine a black light at them
https://preview.redd.it/6e5ln60sie8d1.jpeg?width=5841&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc53e46ae5e1c6ee017fec00f8d0312475774de7
I’ve come around on the clear kits!
They’re ok. Not for me but I’m sure there’s a market for them. I’ve seen they sold for less than their regular counterparts on the secondary market. It leads me to believe that they’re not as popular.
The only clear model I’ve bought was the HG Vargil but only because the regular version was sold out. It looked ok. I ended up painting it a matte purple like the original version.
For MG and RG its great, because of great inner details. But for simpler HG its kinda weird except if you want to build color gradation from opaque to clear. For bigger/more complex HG such as sinanju its fine. PG is great also.
Really depends on the kit. I hunted mechanical clear versions of the MG ball and MG RX 78 2.0 because those ones had clear armor pieces which you can use to show off painted inner frames. If I had money, I'd also buy the mechanical clear Ver. Ka. Nu.
Pass usually on the clear color variations. Maybe except for the RG Full Armor Nu
I got one of the more recent p bandai hgs in clear, the aerial standard. I dunno it looks neat next to the normal one. But man cutting those pieces off the runners was like "is this about to fling to the other side of space or nah?"
look cheap and tacky, i know the idea is x-ray vision of the inner frame, but reality is x-ray vision revealing that its a plastic model held together with pegs and clips
never seen one that i didnt wish was normal version on the shelf instead
it literally looks more like a toy than a model and yet people pay a premium for it?
Not at all a fan lmao they look gaudy and cheap.
They clearly sell enough to keep making them tho so apparently they have a fan base but I’ve been building since 2005 and not a single clear kit has been appealing to me.
It was nice back in 2007 ish where we had the 30th anniversary kits all come with extra runners of clear parts. Used them as back up pieces.
As
Not a fan of either the looks or the clear plastic material. However, I'm clearly not the target market for them and they don't take up regular release slots, so all the more power to those who like clear models!
This one is too much. It just looks cheap, even if it probably isn't.
Plus that shade of red doesn't go well with clear kits. It's too vibrant and makes it look... odd.
Most look bad to me. I've seen talented people use clear pieces over intricately painted inner frames, and that can be super cool, but generally speaking I think they look worse than a standard kit. Some exceptions of course!
It always depends on the kit for me. Like there are some wich look absoloutly awsome but most of the time they just look like some cheap toy for me.
For me it depends on if the kit has a nice looking frame underneath, if not, it looks a bit like candy
Fair point
Never liked them. Seen them in person but never built one, they just look so cheap to me.
I read person as prison for a second there. Kinda makes sense too. Wouldn’t want inmates hiding things in their gunpla.
Shawshank redemption but instead of chess pieces, Andy is making gunpla
What gundam would be on the poster hiding the hole he’s digging?
If I recall, a lot of people in this sub say the plastic material is also more prone to cracking.
It's not just this sub. In the Transformers fandom, there's a name for it - Clear Plastic Syndrome.
Poor transformers fans, I think there’s also gold or brown plastic syndrome which just disintegrates
That's been improved over the years, but yes, old goldf plastic had a tendency to dissolve or break easily. There are MIB figures that have turned into dust and fragments that you can just see through the window.
I imagine it's like the action bases. Not my thing.
I hated clear kits, ngl some of them still not appeal to me but then I saw MG barbatos clear and yeah it’s amazing
Never liked them.
I don't get the point They're not clear enough to see the frame properly, and look worse than the standard versions, why even get one ?
And clear high grades too ?? Like whatre you trying to show off? Poly caps ??? Even real grades have barely a frame worth to show off and the clear coloured pieces make it hard to see.
>Like whatre you trying to show off? Poly caps ??? 💀💀💀 bruh we need a clean up on aisle HG over here. I do like the RG Zeong clear color though! I think in general the outside armour needs to be clear and glossy, not colored/matted then we can have a better result.
True words never been spoken
If they still came with the regular armor so I could do a half-clear build.
This lol Even if I have the normal version I don't want TWO Frankensteins xD
A guy did a combo of clear and traditional a few months ago. Fully painted and decal’d and it looked phenomenal.
I bought the p-Bandai clear Rising Freedom with this thought in mind as well, to build a combo with the standard one. Any ideas on how I can mix it up?
I'd do half the body, personally. Split straight down the middle.
Despite being high quality I’m sure, I really think it makes a model look cheap and lame. NOW GRANTED- I’ve never purchased or completed a clear kit before specifically for this reason, but I would hope my opinion is still valid lol
I wouldn't say they are high quality. The plastic is much harder to work with.
That’s not really a quality problem, that’s just the nature of all clear plastic varieties. It’s just hard and brittle.
Every time I see a clear kit in shelves I wish it were the standard version
They cost more too to look ass lmao
I do not like them, i like the idea of them, being able to see the frame and all, but seeing all the mold stuff, pegs, holes, and those support things, i really do not like them
Mechanical Clear >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Solid Clear
Idk, the mechanical clear kits are still very hard to see the frame underneath. I think the best way to display a clear kit is to paint underneath the part with silver or chrome paint.
There are a ton of clear HGs on PBandai and I really don't see the point. There's not even an inner frame to be seen!
https://preview.redd.it/8ifmoszl7c8d1.jpeg?width=5424&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=736fcc4b1fd5d77f4ad8127418f4a213a7743f1a I like clear kits. Specially the crystal clear ones.
https://preview.redd.it/19rjz0jj2d8d1.png?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d423efb6093fad4e2c35d714bfe5eb73e2295fd3 Did you do any work on these? I think clear kits are a whole different animal from basic kits. If you wanna put in the effort, it'll look amazing, otherwise they just look meh. Just saw a video of a clear sazabi that's been painted. And another polished to make itook amazing.
https://preview.redd.it/o9dhli0o2d8d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=003be9975c70b57a0f25b174bb97677d6b909582
I always considered them more for collection than aesthetic. People take them because they are rare, not to see the inner frame. Bandai really manage to create FOMO with them, so good for them. But it's really not my jam.
Some are really good and others are just bad. I have a rg zeong clear that looks amazing. It really depends on the color of the suit. Whites generally look bad imo, purple and black are damn near impossible not to get stress marks in, red is clean, blues and greens are generally good.
Remind me of Mcdonalds toys ngl. Thats y never bothered with them.
It’s a no for me — they kinda break the illusion too much. They look cool though.
Don't like them. They look cheap and you can't paint them(or at least it's pointless to).
Some look decent, but most are ugly as hell to me
With all due respect? Ugly as hell, never seen one I liked.
I dont like them it looks cheap idk why
I'm not a fan of a kit having brittle plastic as an inherent part of the design
These look so sick! Are they quite spenny? Or rare??
They're supposedly rare as I believe Bandai prints a limited qty of them. Got this one for $60 when it's first released about 5 years ago
I’m gonna have to keep my eye out!
Join the r/gunpla discord and some of the retailer’s discords. People put them up for sale fairly often. Someone on the Mecha Warehouse discord is selling a bunch of clear MGs https://preview.redd.it/cnlqz5l1qb8d1.jpeg?width=1110&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b6995a548235dd4e24a4ce4760e4e113e40f32d6
In that case I will try to not have an opinion of them. There are enough kits that looked cool in reviews then impossible to get. Too disappointing.
They cost the same as the retail kits but they are exclusives of varying types. The vast majority are Gundam Base exclusives. For the U.S. we have Gundam Base pop ups for people who can make it to them, and then our U.S. P-Bandai website has an annual Gundam Base event with hundreds of items available to purchase.
I like when people take portions of clear kits and use them in conjunction with the normal plastic and get a segmented “see through” vibe. Otherwise, clear kits are just exclusive kits I have no interest in
I find that clear kits have a lower floor and a higher ceiling. Usually a clear kit looks worse than its regular counterpart (it has a tacky appearance) but with painting or changing out a few parts, it has the potential to look vastly superior. I find the best "clear" employs clear as a secondary or tertiary focus, rather than the primary focus. MG Sazabi: https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunpla/comments/1bp9dgu/to_combine_mg_sazabi_ver_ka_kits/ HG Moon: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/vuUAAOSwf-JlOkMN/s-l1600.jpg Aile Strike: https://sidesevenexports.com/products/mg-1-100-aile-strike-gundam-ver-rm-solid-clear-january-february-ship-date (Sorry for linking sidesevenexports)
https://preview.redd.it/2rvt7jkd5d8d1.png?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8636934020c437488561f420aa3171d9ebce7753
I agree 100%. Clear kits out of the box are very underwhelming. With a little love though, they become visual spectacles that are different from the rest of your collection. Here's one that' has a painted insane and been polished.
reminds me of the bootleg transparent legos i often buy when i was a kid, saw them in person but they look sh*t af
I absolutely love clear, color clear. I feel like it makes it just look so cool especially when it’s the kits that have even a little bit of hidden detail. I think getting alternate versions of standard kits gives doing one of your favorite builds a bit of a new take too
Crystal clear is perfection. Milky jizz colored clears of recent years, are just that.
most look bad, a select few look quite good
If there's a lot of detail in the inner frames that's worth showing for (like in this RG, on some MGs and PGs) then it's great. For HGs I don't see the reason since mechanical details in the inner frame are not their selling point.
Interesting but I can't find myself getting one.
Amazing choice for very little effort. You get a spectacular kit. Shelf worthy to the max with some decals and a nice gloss coat. It's incredibly impressive. The downside is that there's very little room for painting without sort of undermining the point of the kit. Another downside is they are generally more rare and expensive and lastly sanding nubs off is crucial if they're not undergated because any white stress marks show up on each piece very loudly.
I’ve loved clear kits these since the neon Stealth fighters of my youth :-) I love the way edges turn into highlights
Easier to screw up nubs and harder to clean up.
True
Love em
I don’t usually like them but this looks killer
I'm not too crazy about them but it's more of personal preference thing. I like to paint my kits. You can't do that with a clear kit. I mean you could but it would defeat the purpose. My other issue with them is the ones I've seen weren't clear enough to see the frame that well which again defeats the purpose of a clear kit.
Clear HG kits are kinda silly since like, what are you even showing off in there? RG and MG make a little more sense, but the plastic is harder to work with and clear plastic can blow up god hand nippers. I can imagine them looking good, but I'd rather have a metallic coating (even with the nub mark hell)
I have both the HG Helios and Rising Freedom clear ver and i love it. Here is the Helios. https://preview.redd.it/etle5fkvfd8d1.jpeg?width=1477&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bf91f39fbf9a0f74481cdc7084bf40105bd3a58b
I never got the appeal for them. To see the inner workings? Then leave the armor off? Like others have said seeing all the support and molding bits kills it for me.
I like the concept of mechanical clears where you can see a traditional frame underneath. Full clear kits are meh for me, though, to be fair, I have not built a clear kit personally.
There was a post a while back of someone who mixed the clear and solid kits together and it was gorgeous. I think that was the best use of them, otherwise I kinda agree with the others, they’re just not as cool.
I think they can look cool depending on the kit i have some clear/translucent zoid kits and i love them
It depends on the MS. Some it looks good on, others not so much. I also have trouble seeing where to cut or identifying part numbers due to the transparency. I have built one clear kit and it was a pain and looks okay. I do have another clear kit which looks better, so perhaps my opinion will change after building it.
I really like what they did in full mechanics Kenbu with first run and clear armor runner. More kits should have something like that
So you guys think that crips and bloods are into the red or blue clear kits as well? 🤔🧐
Cool concept, not my cup of tea and depending on the kit, paying extra to make it look worse.
Don't care much for it, painting is 80% of the fun.
You could use clear paints. Also, painting the inner frame is part a big chunk of the required detailing on clear kits.
I like the novelty of them, but personally I don’t wanna buy any. I’m sure they’re cool but I like the look of solid color just enough that I pass on clear colors
Plastic on clear kits are brittle
Doesn't work unless it's for trans-am.
Some are great. RG Zeong, for example. Most of the others, though, well...
The only clear version of a kit i like is moon gundam. Them psycho plates are pretty af.
I have a few mech clear kits, built the Sazabi so far and I like them since I can paint the inner frame and make them pop with the clear armor parts. Color clear I don't like, since they remind me of my cheap water pistol toys growing up.
Never saw the point to pay twice more just for translucid plastic.
I’m not a huge fan. That being said with enough work and effort they can look pretty cool. I saw one guy on YouTube that put a lot of work into one, highlighting the details of the inner frame, and then gave the outside a nice sanding and polishing so it was crystal clear. The result was really impressive. One day I’ll give one a shot.
As long as it is not hg I am fine with them
Depends on what kit and how they're used. The clear parts as an accent, like on the Moon Gundam's Psycho-plate? Oh, metallic red paint on that in some areas to make it really pop, please! A way to see the details underneath, like if you take both the translucent or clear edition and normal Sazabi Ver.Ka kits, and mash them together to show off the awesome under the plates that the normal covers up? It's expensive, but yes, please. A fully translucent/clear kit? No, thanks. I'm not a fan of fully clear kits without a reason. It just looks too toy-ish for me and can, depending on the quality, be brittle enough to break the large pieces during shipping either to your door or the store. It's too risky for my taste. Also, most of the full-clear kits I've heard of are P-Bandais, so they hurt your wallet.
Depends on the kit. I'm working on the clear RG Sazabi and it looks great to me.
Never built one myself but the clear sazabi looks really good because of that darker red. Other than that it looks a bit tacky
Mechanical clear MG kits with a good looking inner frame works well, they make an interesting display piece. Shields and other parts that don’t have any frame typically fall short of the rest of the experience though.
Super brittle plastic that is awful for your nippers, be careful if you choose to do one
I love clear kits. If I could buy more I would. I have the NU HWS in clear waiting for me.
Good ones such as the plavsky particle clear and bad ones such as rg strike freedom
Back light the bish you got a winner
True clear and red clear look great. Milky clear colors, often seen on blue clear and white clear, look weird and gross.
Don't like them
I got the sinanju in the photo, looks cool. Regret not treating kit better because, I didn’t know sanding existed at that time. The nub marks could be hell to fix to look polished.
Not for me, I suppose I just never really dug the look of them
I was able to get my hands on a clear RG Nu HWS, where the mobile suit and funnels are fully clear and the arms and armour for the HWS are a smoky clear. I think it works well, at some point I would like to disassemble it and use metallic sharpies to highlight some of the mechanics of the inner frame.
I think they would look great if I could add find details to the frame. Would make it like one of those clear plastic controllers from the 90's.
Between armored and bare, they offer the worst of both worlds - you get none of the cool details of armor, *and* you can't see the cool detail of the frame. Also Clear Plastic Syndrome.
it looks so goood. add some clear coating to make it more see thru and shine more
reminds me of those transparent controllers we had back then.
I’ve done 3 clear HG kits. I didn’t enjoy them very much honestly. So I can’t imagine doing a clear MG Sinanju.
I like clear plastic on electronics but in gunpla, most of the time there isn't enough contrast with the inside parts to make it visually striking. There is a stigma that it looks "cheap" which I get. Personally it's hit or miss.
Clear ball=best mg ball Clear unicorn mg=worst mg unicorn If they have a lot of mechanical detail underneath the armor, like the pgu or mg ball, they look good. However, I the kits are like the mg unicorn or mg zeta, which have a lot of moving parts and not much detail, they can look bad.
My first kit was MG Clear Barbatos and it was great and looks great https://preview.redd.it/ihxotoykpc8d1.jpeg?width=2314&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39a17047a990875c0cab966ffdd5605f1c6a614c
I like the idea of them but the amount of extra effort required to make them look nice doesn't seem worth it.
Only for after images
There should be more of them. Most of the kits I've seen readily available weren't MS I particularly cared for.
i love them i’m just broke
I love them. I think the extra layer of depth they add to the suit is really cool.
I don’t like them but others do so I am glad they exist.
Looks awesome. I always like to think of them as frames with a “hard light” exoskeleton, as though they were training mechs or could be something from a real life version of Gundam Build Fighters.
No
Never really was a fan of clear kits initially but I do have them I guess for collecting purposes[?] never built them either. I do think a half clear half solid build would be good. I was thinking of doing that to the PGU so that you can show off the inner frame especially since I added a little bit of details. A half clear RG Zeong would be amazing too. If only they sold non colored panels tho.
Not for me. I just hate the feel of clear plastic.
Never liked snipping the clear plastic bits, can't imagine a whole kit like that.
love the look, hate the build, got a PBandai clear Wing a bit ago and nub removal was absolute hell, even with wet glass files
meh
I think some of them look amazing, but you need to take the time to polish them. When you put in the extra effort they can almost look like a glass sculpture, and if you paint the inner frame and detail it up with metallics.... 🤯😍 Here's an example of ones that I do not like and look cheap and ugly, imo. https://preview.redd.it/a73dc3r1gd8d1.png?width=1008&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f319739e953c3665674c405d6806e5959c0bfa9a
The only one that I would have any interest in building is the Ball Ver Ka. So much cool inner frame detail that is more interesting than the armor panels. Otherwise, no, they usually just look like cheap toys. There is a guy on YouTube who polishes the hell out of clear kits so you truly can see all of the detail clearly, and that's cool... but not for me.
I kinda like them but also I have done one yet so idk.
I actually want more fully clear (like actually transparent) kit, something like the LD Box Exclusive HG Eva 01 one. Seeing a fully clear gunpla is pretty enchanting. Mechanical Clear is a second contender because its different enough than the regular kit. The type like the one showed is okay. Else, the 'clouded' clear or the sparkly one is bad. Looks too cheap.
I have this kit... I'm terrified to start it...
Love it for kits that have inner frames
I like them because I want to get a few of the crystal clear MG kits so I can do the split down the middle paint job that half is clear and other half is fully painted in its original colors.
I have mixed feelings, leaning more towards negative. Some look pretty nice, but it usually just feels like a cheap attempt at a limited variant. I do however like ones with a visible inner frame underneath, and especially the mechanical clear ones with the ghost of an armor and a partially visible inner frame. Even then, I still wouldn’t buy it in a heartbeat because they don’t look that great either. The mechanical clear kits *could* look good if you really put in effort in making the frame stand out and look good. Unless you wanna keep the silhouette of the MS, you’d might as well just take the armor off and display it like that TL;DR: I don’t like em that much
They exist
I generally dislike them a lot, though there are elements of some kits which look good in clear. An example would be the blue wing segments of the MG Freedom 2.0, where the clear nicely contrasts with the rest of the kit without being distracting
Neat gimmick
I built MG clear Barbatos and painted the inner frame. It worked really well. But i regret buying clear lupus, was not good and you can’t easily paint color corrections on it.
Generally they aren't my thing, especially for kits without a full inner frame. That said, more power to clear kit enjoyers.
I love em. Gives off a different vibe that standard kits even when decaled and painted to GBWC levels can't compare to. Im hoping that the clear color HG Shenlong goes on sale later this year with the HG Sandrock so I can finish my clear Operation M set! One kit I would love to get is the 30th Anniversary Operation V Clear Color. Ive yet to see any other clear color Guncannon or Guntank set. I dont get the hate, I thought Gunpla was freedom.
Really like them. The frame is almost always a looker and being able to see it with the armor on is a big plus. Plus, I like what some people do if panel lining them with fluorescent paint and shine a black light at them
Varies kit to kit. This one that you posted looks dope. I think the clear aerial looked nice as well, but there aren't many others I like
Hate them. The shiny golden ones too
I like clear but not enough to buy or make shelf space for them. However i do want a clear mg hyaku and mg char’s zaku II.
I love clear kits, clear colored ones. They look special in a shelf, and you can never DIY them. I especially love clear red ones.
Solid clear is the only way to go.
https://preview.redd.it/6e5ln60sie8d1.jpeg?width=5841&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc53e46ae5e1c6ee017fec00f8d0312475774de7 I’ve come around on the clear kits!
I think some of them are pretty cool, especially the red ones like Sazabi and Sinanju.
They’re ok. Not for me but I’m sure there’s a market for them. I’ve seen they sold for less than their regular counterparts on the secondary market. It leads me to believe that they’re not as popular. The only clear model I’ve bought was the HG Vargil but only because the regular version was sold out. It looked ok. I ended up painting it a matte purple like the original version.
Clear MG Zaku 2.0 is amazing.
I thought they were stupid until I got one and now I fucking love them they look so eye catching on a shelf
Clear kits need good lighting.
For MG and RG its great, because of great inner details. But for simpler HG its kinda weird except if you want to build color gradation from opaque to clear. For bigger/more complex HG such as sinanju its fine. PG is great also.
Really depends on the kit. I hunted mechanical clear versions of the MG ball and MG RX 78 2.0 because those ones had clear armor pieces which you can use to show off painted inner frames. If I had money, I'd also buy the mechanical clear Ver. Ka. Nu. Pass usually on the clear color variations. Maybe except for the RG Full Armor Nu
I got one of the more recent p bandai hgs in clear, the aerial standard. I dunno it looks neat next to the normal one. But man cutting those pieces off the runners was like "is this about to fling to the other side of space or nah?"
I love the mechanical clear kits, but the coloured clear ones just seem like a waste. I'd still almost always prefer to have the regular kit.
Only mechanical clear for me.
Fun to have but not fun to pose because clear plastic is brittle get then in a cool pose and don‘t touch them again
Yeah clear plastic cracks easily
some looks bad ass some looks messy, it really depends on the kit
They’re cool. Don’t have any myself and I’m a little too clumsy to work with clear plastic.
I only have the barbatos and it's cool under light!
Love them and wish they were more common
I like the look of clear kits, but it is real pain in the ass to work with clear plastic. Something always ends up braking when I work on one.
I'm not into them. I only bought the hyaku shiki mg clear as it's my favorite suit and I buy pretty much every version I can find.
I love clear kits, sometimes I prefer the clear ver to the og ver. Example: mg gm sniper
It's good especially when everyone overlooks em.. more custom and painted kit for me
look cheap and tacky, i know the idea is x-ray vision of the inner frame, but reality is x-ray vision revealing that its a plastic model held together with pegs and clips never seen one that i didnt wish was normal version on the shelf instead it literally looks more like a toy than a model and yet people pay a premium for it?
Not at all a fan lmao they look gaudy and cheap. They clearly sell enough to keep making them tho so apparently they have a fan base but I’ve been building since 2005 and not a single clear kit has been appealing to me. It was nice back in 2007 ish where we had the 30th anniversary kits all come with extra runners of clear parts. Used them as back up pieces. As
Just kinda ugly
Not a fan of either the looks or the clear plastic material. However, I'm clearly not the target market for them and they don't take up regular release slots, so all the more power to those who like clear models!
This one is too much. It just looks cheap, even if it probably isn't. Plus that shade of red doesn't go well with clear kits. It's too vibrant and makes it look... odd.
Most look bad to me. I've seen talented people use clear pieces over intricately painted inner frames, and that can be super cool, but generally speaking I think they look worse than a standard kit. Some exceptions of course!
If you polish them, they are absolutely stunning. Changed my entire opinion of clear kits.
Love em.