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I was surprised by how plain it looks without panel-lining and decals, especially after having built and painted the MG Sinanju (Animation Color). The plain white and dark blue panels basically suck up all the detail from the model, and even the seams between different shades gets lost without the contrast provided by the panel-lining. Keep in mind that this mobile suit is the least outrageous of the Sinanju/Unicorn line, so do your best to make it pop out. 100% recommended if you're willing to put the work.

The aesthetics of the base Unicorn Gundam are among my favorites in all of the Gunpla I have, considering that I own the PG Unicorn, x2 RG Unicorns, a Mega-Size Unicorn, and an RG Banshee. However, the common denominator is that all transformable Unicorn Gunpla and the Mega-Size show the activated colors of the Psycho-Frame, so this is my first Unicorn without the Psycho-Frame. I also made an effort to paint the back of the shield as shown in the instructions, as well as being the first time I tried to panel-scribe, full panel-line (which ended up pretty bold) and top-coat a kit, hence why it looks a little wonky. 100% recommended for all those reasons.

Albeit the transfer decals work just fine, none of the stickers are cut to size and have to be cropped to fit. Practically all the stickers have a 2-3mm border around the print, so 95% of them, you have to crop with either an exacto-knife, or with scissors. The whole point of stickers is that they take less work than decals, but this kit manages to have the contrary. Apart from that, the stickers are exclusively printed in white, so there's a significant part of them that will go on the light gray surface of the Ball, rendering them barely visible. Regarding the transfer decals, keep in mind that you're transferring them to round and curved surfaces, so it will take some effort to place them without them looking crooked.

If you choose to use the stickers, keep in mind that there's quite a lot of chrome stickers, some of which are just millimeters long, so they're extremely easy to misplace. If you have available a chrome paint marker, it's a better option than using the stickers. The head is entirely color separated, so neither the eyes nor the cameras need to be covered with stickers either.

The kit's appearance and poseability are fine, but the color separation employed requires rather glaring stickers. A handful of parts would have been enough to correct this while still qualifying as an HG kit. Compared to the MG variations of the Astray Blue Frame, the colors of the kit are less vibrant. It's an okay kit if you're willing to do some homework.

The kit is close to color correct as shown in the pictures, except for the fact that the fingers are not white and would have to be painted. Granted, this is very common of Astray kits of all grades except PG. The kit also may as well be a color swap of the MG MBF-P02KAI Gundam Astray Red Frame with some cosmetic variations. Just like with the aforementioned kit, the base provided with the kit does not hold the whole kit, but either only the mobile suit or only the backpack. As such, the posing of the kit with the backpack is severely reduced if you don't have an Action Base 1 as recommended in the instructions. The base provided can aid to hold the kit if you just pose it standing. The kit is a vast improvement from the HGSEED 57 MB-P03 Gundam Astray Blue Frame Second L, which required even more color correction, and overall has less vivid colors. I don't own the MG MBF-P03D Gundam Astray Blue Frame D, so I'm looking forward to buying if it's even halfway as good as this one, which I really like. 100% recommended