HGUC Zee Zulu: Work in progress

April 10, 2015 at 14:19 | Posted in Work In Progress | 1 Comment
Tags: AK-12, geara zulu, HGUC Zee Zulu, kitbash, Kotobukiya assault rifle, Lange Bruno gun, MSG weapons, work in progress, Zeon Remnant Project

For this project, I will build a complete kit using only spare parts that I bought from the Yellow Submarine shop in Akihabara. After choosing specific parts that happen to be on sale the days I went there, I went for a ground type Zee Zulu with long range weaponry. So lets go through each section:

Head: I bought the Zee Zulu head and merely replaced the sticker monoeye with a pink clear lens.

Body: The Zee Zulu body came with a belly tank and hydrojet thruster backpack. I recycled the backpack for my Zaku Mariner project, whereas the belly tank was removed for use in a future project. I attached some detail parts here and there. The front skirt armor was cut in half. The back of the neck was padded with epoxy putty to make it fit the backpack.

I decided to lengthen the abdomen by cutting the connecting peg at the waist and attaching a 1.2mm pla-sheet at the bottom. Then I reattached the peg to the plaplate with some super glue.

On the left skirt armor, I drilled a hole for the sub-weapon attachment part. The attachment part itself was made from leftover GM machine gun parts.

Backpack: I bought the Lange Bruno gun parts originally from the Geara Zulu (Angelo Sauper) kit. I reduced the number of backpack thrusters from four to just two, taking into consideration that this will be a ground unit. The gaps were patched with some square plates.

The backpack didn’t fit too snugly with the Zee Zulu body, even though the pegs are in the correct shape and position. To fix that, I’ll eventually glue it permanently to the body using super glue (after painting & detailing).

Arms: I replaced the sleeved forearms of the Zee Zulu with Zaku II F2 forearms. I had to remove excess plastic from the inside of the Zaku forearms to accommodate the elbow joints. The forearms were then attached to the elbow joints using epoxy putty.

The Zee Zulu didn’t come with any fists, so I decided to use a pair of leftover open hands (B-club resin). Also modified a pair of MS Hands (Zeon type) hands to change the position of the fingers and wrist peg.

Legs: Instead of using Zee Zulu legs, I used Geara Zulu legs instead.  The thrusters on the side of the thighs added some bulk that looks way better than the original, slim Zee Zulu thighs. Instead of attaching nozzles at the end, I decided to replace it with some pla-plate sheets to resemble a heat vent.

I added some detail parts at the ankles and knees. I also applied Zimmerit coating effect at the feet. Instead of using basic putty like the Marasai, I experimented with epoxy putty this time.

Weapons: I attached some detail parts on the Lange Bruno gun, and trimmed some excess plastic.

In addition, I decided to use the AK-12 assault rife from Kotobukiya M.S.G. Weapon Unit 31. I did modify it a little by removing the grenade launcher attachment and drilling a hole in the sights.

The parts that required seam-line fixing were the shoulders, lower leg, backpack and weapons. Just fusing the parts with cement sometimes wasn’t enough, so I had to use basic putty. So here’s what it looks like pre-painting:

All that’s left is to wait for a clear weather to do the spraying and painting. Speaking of painting, I still haven’t decided what kind of color scheme to go for. Any suggestions?