Astray ______ Frame; Work Log #1

Having skipped out on the expensive Perfect Grade Red Astray, and laid off the Master Grade Blue Astray Second Revise despite Dalong's high review of it, I jumped on the Red Astray as soon as it arrived. I am building it at work during breaks so it may take me awhile. Once constructed I will take some shots then take it apart, bringing it home with me for painting. What you will see will be the test build and look rather crude for the most part.

Assembled after work, Day #1

This is the head, as you can see. This took me about 30 minutes. I hope that I can get it apart again without wrecking the eye sticker...
Red Poly-caps! There are two sets of these polycaps so expect a lot of articulation, for example...

The feet. There are two polycaps in each foot with one of them, the ankle, being in a swivel. Due to the lack of any real heavy armor I expect some high posability.

Assembled before work; Day 2

And here is something new to me; アンダゲート. Undergate. The way the molds are done allows the plastic to come up from underneath. The advantage of this is that you don't have to cut the piece from the sprue from the side marking up the part.
Once you cut it off it leaves some small nubs underneath which are simple to remove, if not a bit cramped sometimes.
The instruction manual even indicates where you can expect to find the undergate (shown with triangles/arrows).

And here is the torso mostly put together. I left off the white armour parts and the two side pistons. I took the pistons home to paint and the armour I will leave off so we can get a good look at the frame.

Front

Going to have to do something about those vents.

Back

Assembled during lunch; Day 2

And here's some pieces and subsections which together make up the arm. There are a lot of pieces and a few polycaps here.

Engineering like so...

Leaving you with some really good articulation.

Assembled after work; Day 2