The Zaku II, The Beginning!

Oh~ Guess who's back with a brand new pack~ It's been a while, mostly because I had just finished the last of my exams and after that had went to visit my sister and her husband (or my brother-in-law, which ever one you want to use) in Kuching (and also my cousins and aunties to whom I say "Thanks for the nice time I had in Kuching, YO~), which is also a break from all the studying and stress and stuff. But now I'm back, back to where most of the tools I use are available, and with that, I can kick my gundam building into full gear! This post is quite delayed because I have been settled for a while, about 2 days. But this was actually a good thing because earlier this day I met up with a few fellow gunpla builders, and we had a nice time sharing ideas, and also methods for painting, panel-lining, weathering and stuff like that. This meeting also kicked my gunpla and building to FIFTH GEAR!! which then made me feel like doing a fully-painted model again.

Yup, the above picture is the model I will be working on. I have a Nataku and an anime version Heavyarms waiting, but I just felt like working on a Zaku II model, I have a HG in waiting and this is the guinea pig!

(Above) For this SD model, I decided to try something new. Looking at the poles for joining the 2 parts together, they looked quite ugly, although these will be on the inside of the model, they would be quite visible even when attached, and after much thought and asking, I decided to remove them and join the 2 parts purely by Tamiya Plastic Cement.

(Above) The finished product, although you can clearly see the marks after cutting, I am planning on doing a little extra cleaning up later on, and also, I might be able to hide it with some good sanding.

(Above) Some of the other parts prepared for sanding and painting. After much thought as well, the feet, rifle and magazine are going to be filled with epoxy putty.

(Above) Much of the parts are filled, but genius Farid strikes again!! Forgot that the other side of the rifle have fine details, and as I'm not too confident in my sculpting, I decided I would make a mold to form the other side of the rifle.

(Above) The magazine however can be easily sanded down to be nice and smooth, no molds required~

(Above) Puttied up the gaps in the shell armour (I call it shell, cause well, it looks like a shell), so that it looks solid on the inside.

(Above) Ran out of putty in the process, forgot to check how much I had left, however, this problem will be fixed tomorrow!

(Above) The head, not the finished product, but just to see how it will look if I opted for a straight build.

(Above) The rifle which I had pre-filled but then realized I needed to use a mold... haih...

(Above) Before and after sanding, you can really see the difference, since after sanding the plastic is obviously not as glossy, but this really makes the paint stick well to the plastic.

(Above) Comparison for both head pieces.

Well, that's pretty much what I had completed in one night, it has been a long time, and me forgetting to mold my parts before filling the gaps with putty really shows that if you stop doing this for a while you get really rusty. I'm also currently playing Pokemon Y on my 3DS XL and hopefully after I finish the game, I shall give my opinion on the latest Pokemon Game, which has also brought a lot of new changes. But I will post that in another post! Buh Bye!!!

Farid