MG F91: Arms and Shoulders

So, as promised in my previous post, here's my construction of the arms and shoulders of the MG F91... Also known as "The worst MG arms I've ever built!"


The Arms:

The arms are reasonably easy to put together. The left and right arms are different as the left arm mounts the F91's beamshield generator. This isn't that big a deal as it does not affect articulation, just an aesthetic thing.
Articulation is good, the arm can basically go 180 thanks to its double jointed elbow.

Arm straight...

and bent up to scratch behind his ear

Articulation itself isn't really a problem as you can see. However, the problem arises from how the articulation is achieved. Namely, this devil of a peg jointed elbow.

Sure it allows for the full bend, but is it worth it?

This joint made the whole arm feel uncertain and swivel-y. I don't like it. Although I will concede that after a paint app, the arm has improved a great deal. Maybe it just needed a bit of stiffening? The exterior armour used to be slightly loose on the arm as well, but I think the paint has helped stop that.

Overall, the arms are good, just... that joint on the elbow isn't great. I got over it. Hands are standard mastergrade fair, trigger finger, three joint fingers and a thumb. It works quite well, though I had to glue the back of the hands in place on my model, I'm not sure if that was just mine or what, but the fingers were too loose, so I had to do it.

open hand

pointing

Closed fist

The Shoulders:

There's not much to the shoulders. They're nice and simple to put together. A bit too big and plain white for my liking, but that's just my taste. Be careful with putting the fins for releasing excess heat in place and you'll be fine.

Completed shoulder and component parts

I found the fins slide very easily in and out and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I quite like the feature. There's some paint application required here, but nothing too challenging I'm sure. There's not much more to the shoulders, really. They're quite good and don't limit the shoulder articulation much.

The manual is very clear for putting all these parts together, so don't worry about a complicated build. If you're finding the elbow loose and do not intend on painting the kit, I might suggest a coat of topcoat over the peg in the elbow, or glue would do it too.

 Hope this is helpful to you. Until next post, where I will go over the legs and waist.

P.S. You might be saying some parts look metallic. that's because they are. I've started painting the inner frame. Did some dry brushing and it looks quite good. I'll pick out some detail tomorrow.