Whew! Over a month after starting it, I’ve finally finished the Zaku I Sniper Type. Let’s dive in and see how it came together:
Weathering
The first thing I want to say is that, when all was said and done, and after all my whining, the weathering did come out pretty darn well. I still have a lot of room for improvement, but when you put the whole model together, it doesn’t end up looking too busy or over-weathered like I feared it would. You can still see all the original colors, yet it also has that grimy, battle worn look.
Articulation
Some sections of this model have decent-to-great articulation, but the parts that are bad are so bad that they bring the average down. A lot.
Starting from the top, the head can turn fairly well, though it was a bit stiff on my model:
You can get an ever so minor bit of up and down tilt:
It looks more significant from the sides than it does from head on. In practice it isn’t very useful for poses.
Similarly, you can get a tiny bit of side tilt:
If I’m being honest, all of these motions are negligible save for the head turn. That’s unfortunate, as it would be nice if it could look up when firing toward the sky.
Moving down to the torso, you get the slightest forward bend, but no backward bend due to the backpack getting in the way. This is, once again, unfortunate, because once again it would be nice if it could tilt upward to fire at aerial targets.
Thankfully, the torso can do a full twist, without the backpack interfering:
I don’t tend to rotate the torso very much when posing my models, usually because I forget that it’s possible. That wasn’t the case this time around - the torso twist is crucial for making certain poses look good, due to some poor articulation elsewhere in the model (more on that later).
The arms are the only part of the Zaku Sniper where the articulation isn’t compromised. In fact, it is quite excellent all around.
The elbow bend is extremely good, especially for a model from 2006. The only reason it isn’t better is because the armor gets in they way.
Meanwhile, the shoulder joints swing way out from the body:
This allows both the arms to go fully across the body:
Note - I realize that there is a hand missing in all these photos. I needed to remove the rifle, but didn’t want to remove it from the holding hand.
It is this wonderful articulation that allows the model to aim its massive sniper rifle perfectly straight:
Not only can it do this, but it can do so very easily. This is an extremely sturdy kit - nothing falls off, and nothing pops out due to strain on the joints. This is a far cry from the GM Sniper II, which (at least on my model) can’t hold a gun for its life without either the holding hand coming apart, or the hand popping out of its socket. Once you have the Zaku I Sniper in position, you can easily move the arms up and down as needed to adjust its aim.
This is something that not every High Grade model can pull off, but it was absolutely crucial that this one could. A sniper that can’t aim straight is not going to look very good, but clearly that isn’t a problem here.
Now we move down to the legs, which is where the real problems arrive. The articulation at the hip joint is among the worst I’ve ever seen.
To understand why, a comparison is in order. Here is the hip joint on the Zaku II C6, a fairly modern kit with good articulation:
There are three points of articulation around the hip, which allows the Zaku II to swing its leg forward and back, as well as swing it out like this:
And twist it out like this:
The Zaku I Sniper, in contrast, has only a single point of articulation:
Granted, it is on a ball joint, so it can swing out a surprising amount:
But it cannot really twist:
As for the rest of the leg, the knee bend is pretty good:
Way back in Part 1 of this series, I talked about the funky articulation in the foot. This allows it to get a good twisting action, so long as you pull it up and away from the leg armor:
This helps, but it is no substitute for the bad hip joint. The lack of good articulation around the hip makes some poses extremely difficult. If there is one thing I’ve learned from building Gunpla all these years, it is that a good pose is all about the footwork. If the feet aren’t planted right, and the legs aren’t angled properly, an otherwise good pose is going to fall apart - or in this case, said pose would simply be a non-starter.
Now, one could make the argument that this is no big deal. This is a sniper after all - what fancy poses could it need to do? All it needs is to be able to aim straight and crouch, and it does both of those things very well:
These poses were easy to pull off, and they look fantastic. However, sometimes a little bit of extra body language goes a long way:
As you can see, you can make up for the (lack of) articulation in the legs by getting creative, relying on both the torso and feet to pick the slack (okay, so technically I didn’t do anything with the feet in this photo, but I’m about to).
Let’s switch gears and try some poses with the machine gun:
During the build I compared the machine gun to two other, more standard-looking Zaku guns. Let’s bring that photo up again:
You can tell that it is smaller, but in this photo it doesn’t look that much smaller. That changes once you equip it:
It feels quite compact once it is in hand. This isn’t bad, perse - this is its side weapon after all - but I do miss how intimidating that classic Zaku II gun looks in comparison:
Unlike the GM I just built, this model does support using an Action Base. Too bad that, as a sniper type, I can’t really think of any good aerial poses. The best I could come up with is this one, where it looks like it is practicing its best “jumping 360 no scope”:
I’ve made it this far into the post without mentioning the kickstand on the right knee. There’s a reason for that - it turns out that it isn’t really necessary. You can rotate the foot out to the side and get a good straight bend, just like on the GM Sniper II:
It’s not super obvious in this photo, but the kickstand is not actually touching the ground.
Even when the foot is kept straight, it still isn’t strictly necessary:
Though it is useful for other kinds of kneeing poses:
I’m glad the kickstand exists. It remains a nice visual touch that gives the mobile suit some extra character. But it is a testament to the design of this kit that despite being a bulky Zaku, and despite some articulation issues in the legs, it is still balanced enough and flexible enough to do a solid crouching position without breaking a sweat.
Final Thoughts
This is one of those models that trades versatility for photogenicity. There aren’t that many poses that it can pull off, but it really pulls them off. As hodgepodge and ramshackle as the design may be, the Zaku I sniper nevertheless manages to pull off that “cool sniper” look. When combined with all the weathering effects, this is by far one of the coolest models I’ve ever built. It may not have been fun to build, but it is a heck of a lot of fun to look at.
Other Thoughts
-
I wanted to take a photo of the Zaku Sniper and the GM Sniper II squaring off:
This scene took me ten minutes to put together, because the hand on the GM kept falling off and/or falling apart. Meanwhile, the Zaku got into position in mere seconds. Furthermore, looking at this photo, the Zaku's sniping position feels much more natural. This isn't to say that I now hate the GM Sniper II, but I do realize that I should have been a bit more harsh in my [assessment of it](/posts/2021/01/gunpla-build---high-grade-gm-sniper-ii-followup/), as I now feel that its behavior is unacceptable.
Of course, if these two _did_ square off, the GM would still win. I mean come on, this is the __GM Sniper II__ we're talking about:
-
I knew I wanted the model to do a crouching pose on the shelf, but I didn't realize how effortlessly cool it would look up there:
It looks like it is aiming down at anyone in the room, without even really trying. What a champ.
-
Here are just a few comparison shots between the Zaku I and the Zaku II:
I am impressed at how much surface level detailing they've added to the design over the years. I am also surprised at how much shorter the skirt armor is on the Zaku II. I never had a problem with it before, but now I wish it had longer skirts like on the Zaku I.
