Kusakusa Gunpla

Topp Zaku I – Work in progress

This is the first of the 3 Zakus from Topp’s squad. I thought about simply using the HG Zaku I Origin kit for this build, but I decided to make things difficult for myself by doing a kitbash.

Head: Zaku I Thunderbolt.
I added the commander antenna from an older HGUC Zaku II kit:

And repositioned the fin at the back of the head. The gap will be filled with putty.

Instead of using a sticker for the monoeye, I attached a round plate from MSG which will be fitted with a clear lens.

Body: HGUC Zaku I Sniper
First I cut off some parts from the chest, shown by the red arrows:

The Zaku I Sniper’s chest looks different from the one in the 08th MS anime, so I padded the chest with 1mm plaplate. Any gaps will be filled with putty later.

I also had to modify the shoulder socket because of the arms I decided to use. To make way for the polycap ball socket, I had to trim off some excess plastic and fill some empty gaps with plaplate.

Since the Zaku Sniper body doesn’t include a normal backpack, I used one from the Origin kit. I had to drill some holes to make them compatible:

I wanted to elongate the waist, but I took a slightly different approach. Instead of using a single slab of plaplate, I arranged 1mm square pipes around the underside of the waist part:

The old Zaku I sniper waist uses ball joints to connect the legs. Since I’m using Origin legs, I had to replace the ball joint with a rod-type joint from the Origin kit. Excess plastic in and around the intended area had to be removed to fit the rod-type joint.

To attach extra drum magazines to the skirt armor, I decided to use magnets. I used superglue to stick the magnets to the undersides of the skirt armors and drum magazines, as indicated by the red arrows:

So that way the skirt armors look clean, without any pegs or holes. The extra drum magazines can just stick like a fridge magnet.

At the back skirt, I attached some detail parts made from 1mm square pipes:

I felt that the empty gap between the head and the body was too big. So I remedied it by 1) Making the polycap neck shorter by cutting off the ball joint, removing excess parts, and reattaching it. I inserted a 1mm metal rod inside for extra strength. Then, in 2) I attached a neck plate(?) from the Origin kit, after trimming off some unnecessary plastic. I attached 1mm plaplate on the shoulders to compensate for the shallower neck.

Arms: HGUC Zaku II Tristars.
On the right shoulder, I removed the peg intended for the shield. In its place I glued some pieces of 0.3mm plaplate.

For the left shoulder, I did the following modifications: 1) Remove the spikes and make holes using a drill; 2) Attach round plates from Wave into the holes; 3) Attach MSG detail parts in the round plates

I arranged 0.5mm plaplate into a square around the wrists.

Legs: HG Zaku I Origin
I covered some panel lines on the thighs, and knees using basic putty. On the lower legs, I covered the thrusters with 0.5mm plaplate.

Weapons:
The Zaku machine gun from the Origin kit is used as is.

So this is what it looked like after all those mods:

After finalizing the parts, I added some battle damage using a battery-powered router, hobby knife, and chisel. Nothing too extensive, just some dents and scratches here and there.