Zaku Minelayer
September 28, 2008 at 9:54 pm | Posted in Master Grade | 3 CommentsTags: battle damage, Master Grade, minelayer, weathering, zaku II, zaku minelayer
Introduction
The 2nd MG I bought since arriving in Japan. After seeing all those tempting photos of the MG Zaku Ver 2.0 in hobby magazines, I knew I had to get one. But instead of getting the plain MS-06J/F types, I opted for the minelayer version. Part of the reason was the minelayer backpack could be fitted on the MG Gelgoog as well, and as an added bonus, I got a free bazooka when I bought it from Toys R’ Us.
Materials & Methods
Like the MG Gelgoog, this was a straight build with no modifications other than the weathering effects. This time though, I decided to paint the whole kit. I bought some spray cans with different shades of green and hand painted some white parts on the head. Painting the minelayer backpack was more of a hassle because it required a lot of masking to separate the dark green and steel colored parts. Battle damage was carved out using my penknife, painted with silver and finally added a dab of black weathering pastel (Tamiya) around the damaged area. Weathering and panel lining was done using flat brown+black enamel wash.
Results
Here’s some pics of the inner frame for starters…
And now for the main course…
Discussion
Unfortunately I found some parts became brittle and some even cracked after I applied the enamel wash. I’m not sure of the exact reason for this because I used the same method on the Gelgoog and no cracks appeared. Other than that I had no major problems with this kit and quite pleased with the results. Thanks to Mr Mark Setter, the waterslide decals I used came off nicely, with minimal silvering effects. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll buy another Zaku II (or it’s 195734848729 variants) in the future.
Supplementary Figures
And finally here’s some extra pics I took for fun…
(Yes, I know I’ve been watching too many samurai movies lately)
This is MADNESSSS!!!!!111
July 28, 2008 at 1:08 pm | Posted in Random rants | Leave a commentTags: Geara Doga, Gundam Ez-8, Gundam Gound Type, HCM Pro, MS-06JC, RX-78(G), Sazabi, zaku II
Okay, so I was on the way home from the summer festival (that’s another story) and stopped by Sumiya (kinda like a deparment store) to buy a roll of Tamiya masking tape. Normally the gunpla there is kinda expensive, but at one corner they had a stack of MSIA and HCM-Pro stuff on sale. The HCM-Pro models were selling at 1000yen each so I grabbed 4 boxes: Ez-8, Gundam Ground Type, Zaku II and Geara Doga. I thought that was the end of my Gunpla spending for the month, but it doesn’t end there…
The next day I went to another department store to buy some stuff when lo and behold, my most coveted item, the HCM-Pro Sazabi Special Painted version was on display on the shelves. It cost around 3800yen but still cheaper than the online prices I saw. It didn’t take take me long to contemplate buying it. In fact, I’m not sure I was even thinking when I made my way to the cashier.
And so ladies and gentlemen, those were the events that conspired to deplete me of my Gunpla budget for the next 2 months. I’ll leave you with the picture of my HCM-Pro shopping spree. They’ll most likely stay inside their boxes until I finish off my Gelgoog (95% complete) and Zaku minelayer (inner frame complete).
Char’s Zaku II (coating ver.)
February 27, 2008 at 2:09 pm | Posted in Master Grade | 1 CommentTags: Char, coating ver., Master Grade, zaku II
The infamous Red Comet. A super shiny one at that. Nothing much I can say about this one cause it’s just a straight build. Due to the special coating I can’t do much with it either. No point buying this if I’m gonna glue, putty or sand it. So I left it as it is, no mods whatsoever. Looks neat already anyway.
The only thing I did was to apply the stickers and dry-transfer decals which came with the kit. And I painted the weapons too which included the standard zaku machine gun, bazooka, a Magella cannon, heat hawk and Sturm Faust grenades. Overall, the posability of this kit is quite poor, especially at the elbow, ankle, knee, hip areas. (Hell, that’s almost all the body joints). Now with the release of ver. 2.0 Zakus, I wonder if Bandai will release a Char’s Zaku II ver2.0 coating version?? (that’s a mouthful). So anyway,enjoy the pics…
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