So it was with great interest that I greeted Robozone's news that they were getting some kind of Dangard Ace item as part of their next shipment. When it finally arrived, it turned out to be a beast of flavour that I'd never experienced before...

The item in question is a pre-painted vinyl and resin kit from Romando.

Now, I've done vinyl kits; I've done resin; I've assembled plenty of Bandai Master Grade kits (cast in 99% the correct colours to begin with, and so are arguably pre-painted), but I've never heard of a pre-painted, assemble-yourself garage kit.

When the package finally arrived (Anthrax seems to be slowing USPS down to a crawl), I was surprised to find that the instructions showed that you could build Danguard in either robot or space cruiser mode. Sadly, you have to choose between one or the other. The design of the kit is such that you need to cut/glue the parts differently depending on the mode that you choose and there's no going back... It's too bad, really. With a little more engineering, there's no reason that the kit couldn't have accommodated some kind of transformation. Oddly, all the parts necessary to make the cruiser are cast in resin, while the rest of the kit is pure vinyl, as if this mode was an afterthought. Cool as the cruiser might be, I wanted a Dangard...

Since a few people seem scared of garage kits, I thought that I'd quickly describe what it took to put this thing together.

The first thing that I do with any garage kit is give it bath. This is to remove the mold release agent that usually remains on resin or vinyl kits. Now Dangard had already been primed, painted and sealed, so there wasn't any real need to clean this kit, but there's another reason to do this. Like any vinyl kit, the various pieces came with copious amounts of flash that needed to be removed. The easiest way to trim flash is to heat the pieces up either with a heat gun, heavy duty hair dryer, or a sink of hot water. I prefer the hot water route myself.

To do this, you need a very sharp knife and a steady hand.

*** Danger Will Robinson ***

In order to trim vinyl you need to work quickly before the vinyl cools and hardens. If you're the kind of modeler that makes a blood tribute part of your regular routine when you build an HG or MG kit, you need to take extra care when trimming vinyl. Always cut away from yourself.

Next, I did a bit of test-fitting. One drag with this kind of a kit is that you can't putty over your mistakes as easily as a kit that you plan to paint over upon completion. After trimming away any excess, I whipped out the crazy glue (you must use crazy glue -- regular glue just won't hold vinyl together) and started assembling. That's when I discovered the ball joints...

Another first in vinyl kits. The various points of articulation are accomodated with tiny plastic balls that supposedly fit into the appropriate holes. This is probably the single thing about this piece that nearly drove me mad. We'll just skip over the part where my wife came home to find me in the kitchen grunting into a sink of scalding hot water, weilding a pair of vicegrips while yelling obcenities about trying to fit a great dane through a cat door at a pile of soggy twisted vinyl on the kitchen counter.

Ahem.

Let's just say that it would be rather wise to attach the ball joints before trying to assemble the rest of the kit. If you don't, you'll just end up destroying your nice glue job (and twisting the beejezus out of parts that probably can't take the strain.)

All in all, the kit came out fairly well considering the abuse that I put it through. I usually fill vinyl kits with plaster or foam to avoid sag, but this guy just had too many points of articulation to make that practical. Hopefully the numerous seperate pieces will get around that problem.

Conclusion:

Cons:
The ball joints are a bit too long in the arms and ankles. You can pose the figure in such a way as to hide this, but it's kinda annoying. The tightness of the ball joints make the toy about as poseable as a McFarlane inaction figure.

Pros:
It's as decent a rendition of the big guy as you're likely to see. If you take into account the caveats that I've noted above, the kit should come together fairly painlessly. If you're a Dangard-starved SOB like myself, get this thing...and if you can afford it, get two and build the cruiser! .