Kit Review

Straight build + Panel lining

Gundam Collection White Base - Size comparison with a cigarette pack..? See if you can spot the cigarette pack ^^; Length is

Size comparison with a cigarette pack..? See if you can spot the cigarette pack ^^;
Length is roughly 60cm. Way too big to shoot in a mini studio, so I had no choice but to move out to the floor.. -.-;;

Click for a larger view

Front

Rear

Top view

The front and side panels of the deck open and close.

The interior deck is only reproduced on the front-left leg (?).

Front deck open on the main body

Rear deck open on the main body

The main cannon on the top deck of the body.. the cover isn't hinged — it's a removable piece.

The main cannon can be angled up and down

Gundam Collection White Base - The mega particle cannons on the sides aren't retractable either — they're swappable parts. Gi

The mega particle cannons on the sides aren't retractable either — they're swappable parts.
Given the scale, it would've been nice if they'd made these retractable..

With the mega particle cannons attached

Both the main cannon and mega particle cannons fully deployed.

1/400 Gundam Collection units on display
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Gundam Collection White Base - Just so you know, this kit only includes 3 MS from the 1/400 Gundam Collection. The ones on di

Just so you know, this kit only includes 3 MS from the 1/400 Gundam Collection.
The ones on display are separately purchased items I already had.

Gundam Collection White Base - Completely unrelated to the White Base.. I just threw on everything from Full Armor Zeta to SE

Completely unrelated to the White Base.. I just threw on everything from Full Armor Zeta to SEED MS;;

Gundam Collection White Base - The interior deck can store 3 units — First, Guncannon, and Guntank. All 3 are included with t

The interior deck can store 3 units — First, Guncannon, and Guntank.
All 3 are included with this kit.

Gundam Collection White Base - All the opening panels scattered around the body are basically there to store Gundam Collectio

All the opening panels scattered around the body are basically there to store Gundam Collection MS..
Gundam Collection MS tucked into the front storage compartment.

Gundam Collection MS stored inside the right leg, which has no interior deck.

The rear of the body only fits about 2.

If you remove the thruster section, you can fit about one in there..;

Gundam Collection White Base - The upper section of the body including the command center can be completely detached like thi

The upper section of the body including the command center can be completely detached like this..

You can pack in a bunch of Gundam Collection MS for storage.

This White Base kit includes 3 units in attention-stance poses — First, Guncannon, and Guntank.

RX-78

Guncannon

Guntank. The Guntank has surprisingly decent detail.

A size comparison shot. It's ridiculously huge.

These came out later.. but here's the Big Zam and Quin Mantha in the same 1/400 scale.

Gundam Collection White Base - A big boys comparison shot. Up against the 1m-tall 1/144 HGUC Den-chan and the 1/144 HG Meteor

A big boys comparison shot.
Up against the 1m-tall 1/144 HGUC Den-chan and the 1/144 HG Meteor.
In terms of sheer volume, the packed-out 60cm White Base seems to take the crown.

Gundam Collection White Base - Den-chan is massive too, but it's mostly the long cannon making it tall.. in terms of body siz

Den-chan is massive too, but it's mostly the long cannon making it tall.. in terms of body size, White Base wins!

If you want to photograph both together, the floor is pretty much your only option..

Gundam Collection White Base - The straight-built Meteor is pretty big on its own, but sitting next to the White Base it sudd

The straight-built Meteor is pretty big on its own, but sitting next to the White Base it suddenly looks adorable :-)

Straight build state. Without at least some panel lining, this thing looks pretty bare;;

A pretty wild item has shown up in the 1/400 Gundam Collection (Gundam Col for short) lineup. Instead of the usual compact 4–5cm gashapon-style finished figures, they've released the White Base at the same scale as those MS. And of course, it's not a finished product — it's a full injection kit. The completed length reaches 60cm, and the price matches that size at a hefty ¥13,000..
Quite the jaw-dropping item :-)

First off, this kit isn't made in Shizuoka, Japan — just like the Gundam Collection MS, it's "Made in China." Open the box and pop the bags, and you can tell right away it's not the typical crisp, precise Gunpla you'd expect from the Shizuoka factory. Chunky parts, rough molds, a large and sturdy build, with some pre-painted sections — it's got all the hallmarks of a typical Chinese-made plastic kit.

To put it more precisely, it's like they took the quality level of the existing small Gundam Collection figures and just scaled it up. The design was probably done in-house at Bandai (there's a rumor it was designed locally in China, but I couldn't confirm that), but it seems like it was molded at a Chinese factory to keep costs down for mass production and to sync up (?) with where the Gundam Collection is made.

That said, it's not like the quality is absolutely terrible — compared to something like the similarly-sized HGUC Den-chan, the parts are just a bit chunkier and the molds are slightly rougher. It lacks that refined feel, but in exchange, getting a large injection kit this size for just over ¥10,000 is probably thanks to the low labor costs of "Made in China" (;;)..

The blue on the front of the deck and some of the white and red sections are pre-painted directly on the runners (see the runner shots), and the paint quality is acceptable enough. Between this partial pre-painting, the color separation befitting a big-scale kit, and the stickers, you can pretty much nail the official color scheme with just a straight build.

That said, the molded colors have that very Chinese food-toy feel, and the part seams are pretty glaring (especially on the front legs -_-;). So it feels less like a precise "plastic model" and more like a detailed toy. The material is almost entirely ABS, which gives it that chunky, sturdy, toy-like quality. Also, despite the massive scale, both the main cannon and mega particle cannons are swappable parts rather than retractable. I guess we should be grateful they're even included at all.

The body has plenty of opening panels throughout, all meant for storing 1/400 Gundam Collection MS. The entire top deck can also be lifted off, letting you store 20+ units inside. In that sense, this kit seems designed primarily for display or storage purposes. The sheer size does put a serious strain on display space though;; It won't fit in most display cabinets, so you'll pretty much have to display it out in the open and accept that it'll collect dust. On the plus side, like the 1/144 Den-chan, it's designed to be easily assembled and disassembled in block sections for convenient storage.

The straight build does get you to the official color scheme, but the molded colors aren't great, so it ends up looking a bit bare. As you can see in the straight build photos above, someone once described it as looking like a bland bar of laundry soap..;; I figured some panel lining might help, so I went ahead and did the whole thing, and it made a big difference. (Getting all that panel lining done takes quite a while;) With careful seam line cleanup and a proper paint job, I think it could look really sharp — though the paint costs alone would probably run higher than Den-chan..

Anyway, it's definitely a kit worth acknowledging for being "unique," and for anyone collecting 1/400 Gundam Collection figures, it's a pretty solid addition. Chunky as it may be, there's something meaningful about having the White Base — the carrier from First Gundam — released at this big a scale. If you're not expecting too much and just want a big ol' White Base, this one's worth recommending :-)

White Base | 2003.8 | ¥13,000

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.