Fire rains from above (MS-06S Zaku II resin conversion kit)

[WhiteWulfe]

Odds are this thread may be a tad slow at times due to a variety of factors, but probably also because of the fact it's not only a resin conversion kit, but a recast one since you can't get the original one anymore.  Conversion kit has changed from original due to issues

 

Right off the bat, I have to say this: No, I won't be painting it in Kirk's colours.  They're nice, but I'm not one to always do the "canon colours" or "factory paintjob" thing.  I'm actually kind of thinking of some sort of patchy and "muddied" scatter camouflage based off of some sort of combination of Spotted Hyenas, Dalmatians, and even Great Danes.

 

^Obligatory "glory shot" of what I suspect will wind up being used.

- Master Grade MS-06S Zaku II Ver 2.0 Char Aznable's (will mainly be used for the frame)

- Universal Century MS-05L Zaku I Sniper resin conversion kit

- SIMP/EVO Studio Zaku II (Ver 2.0) Grunts decal sheet

- CJHobbies metal detail up parts kit (will mainly be used for leg thrusters as well as the mono-eye)

 

Yeah, it'll be a bit of a situation of not really using everything in that detail up kit, but such is life.  I don't want to try and figure out what size thrusters to get to work with the kit.  And yes, I know the Zaku I doesn't have the leg thrusters, but oh well.  Resin kit has them, and I kind of like that it's almost like it's a slightly modified Zaku I for better mobility.

 

^So uh, where's construction so far?  Well, truthfully?  This is where things left off, but will be seeing a decent amount of progress in the very near future.  Yup, you build the initial kit only to then take three quarters of it apart, whee!

Edited May 7 by WhiteWulfe

[WhiteWulfe]

It's been a little while, but...  It's done now, at least the initial build.

 

 

I took one other pic, but I suspect "creative use" of those fully posable hands probably would be a violation of the forum rules. 

 

Now to take it apart and wind up having a bunch of the parts I spent a long time sanding nubs so they'd be hidden sitting in the parts box when it's all said and done.  Looking forward to finally starting on the resin kit!

[WhiteWulfe]

So I figured I'd start with a bit of test fitting, and figured the head would be the battle I didn't have to worry about the most.  Well, I've already disregarded some of the directions on the sheets, because they didn't make much sense, plus things didn't fit, even after an hour of oh so slowly trying to make an area larger...

 

^So I did the second best thing, and started sanding the spare helmet that was in the kit.  I plan on ordering some styrene in hopefully tomorrow, so I'll just work on rebuilding what's missing from the resin part.  Couple of reasons why....  First, things just didn't really fit all that well with the resin parts.  Secondly, they put the tab/runner/vent across a relatively large detail area, so I wound up inadvertantly chopping most of that off the front part...  And third, after all that fiddling around I figured I'd just go with parts that more or less fit.  I'll have to build up the lower half of the camera housing to match, but such is life.

 

So then I moved on and wanted to see a few things, namely how some of the parts would look with a test fit, and how much additional work is ahead.  Short answer?  Depends on the part.  Some will need a lot of work, while others seem like just a little bit of tweaking and they'll go together fine.  Definitely going to have to do a bunch of rescribing of lines though!

[WhiteWulfe]

Been working on various things so this hasn't seen any progress other than splitting the parts into various component bags (so all bits for left arm in one, left leg in another, etc), but I know the following is happening...

• I'm going to modify the stock head cap to have the upwards eye aspect, and maybe add in some extra panel lines.  Overall it just fit better, and just worked.
• I want mine to be a little bit different compared to others out there, so I'm going to make mine a left handed gunner, which will entail having the deployable knee pad on the left
• Odds are I'm going to look into sleeving the wires, as well as the spring, because I want those elements to look a little nicer
• Odds are pretty good I'm going to keep the shoulder shield.  Some might argue the Zaku 1 didn't have those, I argue that the official HG GTO Char's Zaku 1 kits have such, and therefore they could very well be an option.  Besides, I like it.  Shield will also definitely see some styrene added in, because I want to add a bit of a design on top of it, and I have some styrene in now.

[WhiteWulfe]

Jeez it's been a while, almost 11 months, wow.  We'll ignore the various reasons WHY the project sat on the side for so long, and instead go "oh hey, it's actually being updated!"

 

Short version of what's happening with this kit...  Yes, I'm working on it.  Yes it's still going to be left handed like originally planned.  No I won't be using the original helmet part of the head I had modified.  I'm also going to be attempting to add in fennec fox ears and shape the "mouth" more like a fennec's muzzle too.

 

So obviously the scribing tape finally comes out, because it's a lot easier to scribe lines with tape that won't get shredded.  I later discovered that as nice as the 0.2mm scribing tool I have in the handle is, my Olfa blades are closer to 0.4mm, so I'll keep that in mind next time so it's easier to finish the cuts.

 

This is where I realized that I really didn't like how my heavily sanded helmet was looking.  Well, okay, I realized it BEFORE I cut things off center, but you get the general idea 

 

What was originally supposed to be my backup became my main choice.  There's just something more menacing about the jutting, angular nature of the Commander's type helmet.

 

Aaaaand the styrene sheets come out to play now!

First order of business is to build the initial ridge that's there in the center of the original design, as well as plug the hole in the back, since the Zaku 1 doesn't have power pipes connecting the back of the head to the mouth.  The parts in the back will be sanded down flush, while the "crest" will be used to build up the one that's "supposed" to be there, as well as form a basis for liberty spikes.  Because, y'know, Zaku and spikes, or something.

 

Hey, if I'm making it a "me" mecha, I'm going to go all in because why not.

[WhiteWulfe]

^So here's the original idea I had run with for the liberty spikes, and in all honesty, something just didn't quite feel right about them.  They kind of gave off this vibe of looking like hybrids of bullets and bowling pins... 

 

^So I swapped over to my backup plan (6.4x2.5mm bar styrene), and right off the bat I've discovered two things.  The first is they're easier to shape (and I don't sand my fingers anywhere near as much), and secondly, it definitely gives off the feel of liberty spikes by comparison. 

 

I also started working on thickening what I'm calling the "jaw" of the head with 1mm styrene, so that lines match out a lot more closely.  End goal is to have some of the stock lines there, but to have a semi-seamless kind of look to it. 

 

So now that that's figured out I should probably see just how many spikes can fit on, eh? 

 

 

Ah, good, definitely looks like five will fit, although I'm really tempted to work on squeezing a sixth one in for various reasons.  It would take a bit more work, but I do like the number six somewhat more than five, and would, with sanding, allow for more spikes along the top of the head. 

 

That's it for now, scratch building is fun, but sure takes up a decent amount of time, especially the cleanup side of things... ^_^;;

[WhiteWulfe]

Long day at work today so didn't get all that much done but I did get the initial shaping of the liberty spikes done.  I'm swapping the second (from the right) and fifth ones though, for a slightly more uniform look, plus at the moment it just doesn't feel right.

 

 

Scary (to me) part is going to be coming soon, aka that "last" step after I finalize the shaping with a few finer grits of sandpaper - gluing them in place.  But on the other paw, I'm rather looking forward to reaching that milestone, because it means I get to work out how I'll be doing the ears and muzzle!

[WhiteWulfe]

Whoops, totally forgot to update this thread with all the various progress, including two separate burnouts alongside finding out that all of the parts are cast 5-10% too small...  So I tried to coerce myself into rolling it all on my own.  Well, that's how I was able to get about half the body done, and then my brain wouldn't take any more of it, and that was the second burnout.  It's now a few months later, and I'm wanting to get things rolling again with this kit, and so...

 

It's still going to be my first resin conversion kit, I'm just going to go with a much higher quality one, the one from Yujiao Land this time, and I'll be working on him for Mecha May!

 

 

A number of things I'll keep, like the face modified to look like a fennec muzzle, the increased vision of the MS-05L, that mohawk, and especially that rounded shoulder I'm so proud of, but the resin conversion kit will replace things on the legs, waist, and chest.  I tried a number of different ways to make that extra reinforcement on the shoulder shield fully pan out, but odds are I'll wind up discarding it as something about it just feels off.

[Glitterwolf]

Impressive !

[WhiteWulfe]

 

So, uh...  Yeah.  Threw my hat into MechaMay, but more specifically two of them: first is a group thing between Walter's Workshop, ThunderheadStudio, and Dr.Rhino, while the other is being done by Monument Hobbies.  Deadline I'm most worried about would be from the first, which is more or less end of day May 23rd.  Yeah, just shy of 17 days from now, which is going to make life interesting, but hopefully in a good way.

 

So, what's in that box behind the mobile suit?  Well, that would be the Yujiao Land Zaku II Command Type resin conversion kit, which is really more a "detail up" or updetail kit, but still.  It'll effectively fix several of the issues I ran into with the most recent burnout, and help add in some of the details I want without going too too overboard.  It also brings a more Gundam:The Origin look to the panel lines, which is a style I prefer over the more traditional 1979 cel shading lines the base kit is based off of.

 

Hoping to have more pics later today, I'm going to make a coffee, have breakfast, and go pick up that bottle of Simple Green that's waiting for me at the store to pick up so I can clean these parts.

[WhiteWulfe]

Did some really quick and rough cleaning on the Yujiao Land resin parts to do a test fit.  Things definitely look interesting and have a lot of what I was looking for, so I'm quite happy on that front.  Looks like I'll have to clean out at least a few panel lines, which isn't really unexpected, nor is all the wet sanding I'll be doing in the coming hours unexpected either.

 

I should probably figure out what kind of colour scheme I'm going to go with, as well as the colour of primer I'll be using, eh?

[WhiteWulfe]

 

Not much is exactly visible in here, but let's just say wet sanding is kind of relaxing, almost zen-like.  After an hour-ish of sanding, I've got about a third of the parts cleaned up of the remnants of their pour tabs.  Still undecided on colours, but I'm seriously thinking orange, black, and "dusty white" being involved, almost like those are my colours or something 😛

[WhiteWulfe]

 

Sanding and overall cleanup of pour tabs and excess resin complete, so here's another test fit of things.  Just need to clean and tidy up panel lines, then tomorrow it's a case of a soapy scrubby bath, then on to priming!  I probably should also get the metal parts sorted out while I'm at it.

[WhiteWulfe]

Happy soapy scrubby bubble time complete - we have cleaned parts!

 

 

Here's all the exterior bits.  Odds are I'll clean up and paint any frame bits that are visible with the exterior panels on, but I won't be painting the full frame.  To some, such is heresy, but I'm more of a "if it can't be seen when assembled or posed, I'm not painting it" kind of guy.  Also, this makes it so I can repose things without having to worry about paint rubbing.

 

Sadly there's a 99% chance I won't get to use the airbrush for this project, as the smoke from wildfires and forest fires is going to be really bad the next two days (like go out in an N95 mask or I'm coughing for hours afterwards bad), but thankfully Monument's ProAcryl Prime goes on VERY nicely with a brush.  And speaking of ProAcryl...

 

 

90% confident that these will be the paints I use.  Overall scheme is orange, with a bit of hot pink, plus dusty whites (and greys) and some rich purple.  Forgot to put Imperial Purple in the photo, but still.

[Brother Jim]

Is that a 1/100 Sazabi??