{"id":1358,"date":"2023-01-28T03:25:15","date_gmt":"2023-01-28T08:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scope-eye.net\/?p=1358"},"modified":"2023-05-03T16:07:28","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T21:07:28","slug":"need-a-change-of-pace-i-know-hg-zakus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scope-eye.net\/?p=1358","title":{"rendered":"Need a change of pace… I know! HG Zakus!"},"content":{"rendered":"

With SCGMC 2022 behind me, I have a whole new year of model projects to look forward to. SCGMC2023 is coming up and this time really for sure the Zaku Kai is gonna be done. I have other projects in mind for the show as well… Plus Anime Boston is coming up and I need to be ready for my usual panel there… But right now I want to take a bit of time and work on some simpler projects. I only just barely managed to get a single model ready for SCGMC 2022, the good bit there is I did it, I had something to show, and it got me motivated to really work on my workspace and my airbrush setup. But I want to make painting more of a regular occurrence. I want to make finishing models more of a regular occurrence. So I decided to do some more Zakus, the 2021 version of the HG Zaku, and the First Grade Zaku from 1999.
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\nThe 2021 HG Zaku, commonly known as the “Revive” HG Zaku, is largely based on the design of the MG Zaku v2.0 which came out in 2007. That kit became the basis for various other Zaku kits that have come out since, like the HG Hi-Mobility Zaku and the Real Grade Zaku. To me this influence is kind of a mixed bag. The v2.0 is a “retro” kit, meaning it attempts to look more like the simple animation designs from the original Gundam TV show. This would appeal to me, but I feel like they played things too “safe”, design-wise. When a mecha design is very very simple, I think it benefits from being a little bit weird. If it’s too clean, it just looks boring. That’s my theory anyway. All that said the MG Zaku v2.0 design does have its merits, and the HG “Revive” Zaku plays on those strengths, while also making a few minor changes for the better. When Bandai releases a new kit of the Zaku it’s a very safe bet that I’ll buy one, whether I like it or not. I got the Revive Zaku as soon as a green version was available.
\nOne complaint I have about the kit is that it has some extra joint parts that increase the mobility of its arms, but these joints just look like garbage. There is an “inner shoulder” joint that lets the sides of the chest slide around relative to the middle bit – with the end result being that if you’re not careful, the joints will flop into an awkward position and make it look like the chest parts are misaligned or something… The other problem joint is a “second wrist” in the middle of the forearm. The last segment of the forearm can extend a bit and then flop around on a ball joint. It looks absolutely terrible, makes it look like the end of the arm is dangling on the end of a stick. So I decided to disable both of these joints by fusing them with model cement.
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\nThe arms are a bit needlessly complicated: Bandai tends to try to make things easier for casual builders and in the process makes it harder to make their models look good. So building the forearms became a bit of an iterative process: assemble a couple parts of the forearm, align them properly and clean up the seam, then proceed with the next set of parts, assembled around the previous set, and so on. The alignment step was important in this case, too, as the forearm parts on this kit don’t align correctly on their own. The upshot is that when these issues are dealt with, the merits of the kit’s design show through more clearly.
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\nNext I turned my attention to the leg parts. As with the arms, the lower legs are a bit overcomplicated due to Bandai’s dedication to “hiding” seams in panel lines. As far as I’m concerned it’s way easier to deal with a seam straight down the middle of a smooth, mostly-featureless area rather than one that’s stuck into a recessed nook between the parts, and which needs to be rescribed afterward to re-establish the panel line.
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\nThe legs on this kit are built around a simple inner frame. This is a good way to make compact moving joints and anchor them to the exterior parts of the model, but unfortunately it also makes it difficult to deal with the kit parts individually while painting. I find it easier when painting these kinds of structures to be able to separate areas like the knee joint from the outer armor parts, so I can more easily access the different areas of the joint and paint them. However, if the outer armor is cemented together around the inner frame, you can’t do that. After some investigation I determined the upper leg could be separated from the frame just by cutting off the connecting pegs and adjusting the part a little, so the frame can just slide right in. The lower leg was harder: Ultimately I decided to cut the lower leg frame in half. After painting, the top half of the lower leg frame (with the knee joint and upper leg frame) can slide back into the lower leg and be permanently attached with epoxy or something.
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\nWhile all this was going on, I started to think it would be good for me to practice hand-painting a model. I looked through my model collection trying to figure out what would be suitable for a project like this: Something cheap and relatively common so I wouldn’t feel bad about maybe messing it up.. Something that I liked well enough as it is that I wouldn’t feel a need to make a lot of changes to it… Pretty quickly I decided that the First Grade Zaku would be a good choice. Bandai made this kit in 1999 for Gundam’s 20th anniversary. The gimmick is that it’s a modern kit with a modern look, but the box art, the size of the box, and even the price of the model are all based on the original 1981 Zaku kit. The result is a kit that’s dirt cheap, looks great, and it’s relatively free of nonsense. Aiming to avoid getting mired in modifications I committed to a straight build, and got the whole thing assembled and ready for paint over a few evening sessions.
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\nOne area where I allowed the project to start to get a little more complicated was the shoulder pauldron. On the stock kit, the round, spiked shoulder pauldron is simply molded as part of the shoulder itself, which sits underneath. As a result there is no undercut to the shoulder pauldron, in the spaces where the interior of the shoulder pauldron should be open, there are flat panels instead. Ultimately I decided I wasn’t OK with that, so I first tried making very shallow undercuts, just to give it a little bit of sense of depth, and then I’d make the undercuts look deeper with paint. Also I didn’t decide to alter the parts until after they were already cemented together… It would have been way easier if I’d made the decision earlier in the process. Anyway, I tried making a shallow undercut but I cut all the way through in a few places, and I got concerned that this would weaken the part… So I decided to cut all the way through and then build out the shoulder structure under the pauldron a little with epoxy putty. It’s an improvement over the stock kit, but it’s not great in some respects. I think it’ll look okay at least.
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\nThere’s still a fair bit left to do on these two builds, I don’t want these to take too long as I do have other plans for this year that I need to get to… It’s coming along, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With SCGMC 2022 behind me, I have a whole new year of model projects to look forward to. SCGMC2023 is coming up and this time really for sure the Zaku Kai is gonna be done. I have other projects in mind for the show as well… Plus Anime Boston is coming up and I need […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[47,89,88],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scope-eye.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scope-eye.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scope-eye.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scope-eye.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scope-eye.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1358"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/scope-eye.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1371,"href":"https:\/\/scope-eye.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions\/1371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scope-eye.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scope-eye.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scope-eye.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}