Kusakusa Gunpla

RG White Ogre Zaku

Introduction

What I like about the Zaku is the many color variations and one of my favorites is the White Ogre. The idea of custom painting my RG Zaku in white has been in my head for a while but the final element which makes a White Ogre Zaku has eluded me. I’m talking about the lizard decal on the right shoulder armor of the Zaku. Yes, it may be a small thing, but one that differentiates the White Ogre from just another Zaku with a white paintjob. When I found someone selling 1/144 scale White Ogre decals on Yahoo Auctions, I was finally able to go ahead with the project.

Materials and methods

The Zaku used was the RG Char’s Zaku II. I could have used the RG MS-06F Zaku but I was saving that for another project. If you’re a stickler for details, you may argue that the White Ogre was a ground type Zaku, hence no leg thrusters like the one on Char’s Zaku. I could have covered those leg thrusters but I didn’t. So basically this means that there’s no modifications to the kit other than the color scheme.

Since the kit was originally in various shades of salmon pink and maroon, I sprayed a layer of black surfacer on all parts except the inner frame, which was sprayed with Tamiya Gunmetal. For the power cable parts, I removed them from the runner and onto a toothpick for easier painting. For all the armor parts, I sprayed multiple layers of Mr. Color flat white to get the desired shade of white.

Another main feature of the White Ogre Zaku is the weathering, and for that I first applied the wash method using brown + yellow Tamiya enamels. This simulates the dirt/rust kind of weathering effect. Next, to simulate paint scratch damage effects, I used a toothpick (the pointy end) dipped in grey enamel paint and “drew” the paint scratches on the parts painted white. I repeated the same method using silver paint for the black parts (chest, knees and elbows). The placement of these paint scratches are important, so I used images of a weathered MG White Ogre Zaku for reference.

After all the paints have dried, I applied the water-slide decals. I used copious amounts of Mr Mark Setter to make sure the decals stick and to prevent silvering. I also scratched the decals a little bit using my hobby blade to have a consistent battle damaged look. As a final weathering step, I applied sand-colored weathering pastels (Tamiya), mostly on the foot and as always, I finished off with a layer of flat topcoat.

Results

Discussion

This is the second RG kit that I built, after the RG Strike. The weapons that come with the kit are the standard machine gun, bazooka and a heat hawk; the rest that you see are from System Weapons 002. Building the kit was a breeze, despite the many small parts and the same can be said for the painting process. As expected from an RG kit, the joints have great movement but it still can’t match the MG Zaku 2.0 in that respect.

Most of the problems I had with this kit was during photography. Every time I tried to make some action poses, the front skirt armors tend to come off. During the many times I popped them back in, I accidentally snapped them in half. Fortunately it was easily remedied using some plastic cement.

Admittedly, applying the White Ogre color scheme on a RG Zaku was hardly a novel idea, but I think I managed to execute it quite well, particularly the weathering. Overall, it was fairly smooth sailing and an enjoyable build. Now that I have a clearer idea of the RG Zaku anatomy, hopefully modifying the next one for a future project wouldn’t be too much of a nightmare.