HGOption Parts Set line (Gunpla accessory series, Gundam Build Fighters aesthetic)

Build Hands Round (S,M,L)

Thirty six tiny hands that fix more posing problems than any full kit ever will.

MechaGrade Score

3.7/5

Build Hands Round (S,M,L) · 1/144 · 2018

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2018

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

I'll say it straight, this is one of the best five dollar decisions you can make in this hobby.

It is not a mobile suit and it will never sit on your shelf as a finished build, but it quietly fixes the single biggest weak point of almost every HG kit: the hands. Once I had a drawer of these I stopped fighting stock knuckle joints that only do a fist or an open palm, and started posing kits the way I actually wanted.

Best for: HG and RG builders who pose their kits for photos and are tired of stock hands that only do two things

The full review

What it is

This is Option Parts Set 04, a hand replacement set with round, organic looking fingers instead of Bandai's usual squared off 'kaku' style. You get two of each hand type (fist, flat open palm, and weapon grip) in small, medium, and large sizes, left and right, for 36 parts total. It is built around a 3mm peg so it plugs into the wrist joint of basically any HG kit from the last decade. My reaction the first time I swapped a set onto a Gundam that shipped with sad little clenched fists was immediate, the model suddenly looked alive instead of stiff.

The catch

These parts are small, and I mean genuinely fiddly, tweezers helpful territory, so if you have shaky hands or you build on carpet you will lose one and never see it again. The peg fit varies a bit by kit generation, some HG wrists hold the swapped hand snug and some let it wobble or pop off during a dramatic pose. Sizing across grades is inconsistent too, S/M/L is tuned for the HG 1/144 line and does not map cleanly onto RG or MG wrist diameters, so you are guessing until you test fit. There is also no color other than the base HG skin tone plastic, so a metallic or unusually colored mobile suit will need painted hands to match.

Who it's for

Buy this if you build more than a couple of HG kits a year and you care about how they look in a finished pose, the weapon grip hands alone are worth it for anyone who has fought a stock hand that will not hold a rifle properly. Skip it if you only build one kit a season and are happy with what comes in the box, or if your collection is mostly MG and up where the stock hands are already better sculpted and better fitted. For everyone in between, this is a cheap, repeatable upgrade you will reach for kit after kit.

The build story

What the build is actually like, and the engineering worth knowing about.

There is no assembly in the traditional sense, you clip 36 small parts off two runners, clean the tiny nubs, and you are done in under twenty minutes. The gates are placed reasonably but on parts this small any leftover nub is visible, so I took my time with a sharp side cutter and a bit of sanding rather than rushing it.

The real engineering story is the 3mm peg system, it is the same interface Bandai already uses across most HG wrists, which is why this works as a universal upgrade rather than a kit-specific part. The three size options let you match hand scale to the mobile suit's build (a bulky Gundam frame kit wants the L hands, a slimmer suit looks right with S or M), and the weapon grip hands specifically add a friction channel that grips 4mm x 2mm handles and 3mm saber grips noticeably tighter than most stock hand parts.

Lore & trivia

01This is Bandai's Option Parts Set 04, released in August 2018 as a companion piece to Option Parts Set 03 (Build Hands Edge), which came out the same year with square fingered hands instead of round.
02The round finger sculpt style traces back to the Jigen Build Knuckles look, popularized through the Gundam Build Fighters spinoff aesthetic rather than any specific mainline mobile suit.
03The set's compatibility with both 4mm x 2mm grips and 3mm diameter saber handles means it works across the two most common weapon peg standards Bandai uses in HG kits.