I don’t say this often, but looking at the runners for this kit, this feels like exactly the “right” number of parts:
You can very easily map out what most of the parts do, and where they’re supposed to go.
Let’s begin:
Dust
When I opened this kit up, I found that all of the parts were quite dusty. You'll probably notice it in some of the work in progress photos throughout this post.I'm not entirely show how this happened. All my backlog kits sit on the shelf at the top of my workbench, with the boxes closed up. I'm not an expert on the physics of dust particles, but I can't imagine how they could have gotten in.
I do know that sometimes I'll leave a model on the underneath the bench with the top open, which would certainly introduce a lot of dust. It's possible that I left this kit down there at some point in the past, but I honestly can't remember.
Ultimately it doesn't matter, as I wiped them all clean during assembly. But in case you're curious, now you know.
Upper Body
This is similar in nature to the Gogg, though it feels a bit better engineered. The Gogg was largely hollow in the center, whereas the Z’Gok has an inner core (the big black piece at the top of the photo) that everything’s built around.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start with the monoeye. Unlike most High Grade Zeon models, this one has an actual clear plastic part for the eye, as opposed to a simple decal:
It’s a small thing, but it’s a very nice touch.
Once that’s done, we crown it with the top of the armor:
And then attach that to the center “core” piece:
Next I’d like to draw your attention to the cockpit hatch:
The kit comes with a big wraparound decal for this, but it was easy enough to paint it instead.
Due to the nature of the construction, we have to attach the shoulder armor to the upper body before we continue on:
As you can see, there aren’t that many parts, since the actual shoulder joint is part of that black core piece that’s in the center of the chest.
Once we throw it all together, this is what we get:
A few remarks:
- The red markings on the shoulders are decals, but the red thrusters in the back were painted
- The kit comes with a decal for the Zeon logo in the front, but it’s similar to the sticker for the shield of the GM Cold Districts, in that it has a thick border that isn’t quite the same color as the rest of the body. I opted instead to use a waterslide decal
- Traditionally the Zeon logo on the Z’Gok-E is black rather than yellow, but I thought the yellow looked better (it’s just easier to see)
- All of the grey vents you see on both the front and the back are made out of color separated plastic. No painting or stickers were required. That’s impressive for any High Grade, but it’s really impressive for one that’s so old.
Backpack
I didn’t take a photo of the parts, but if you look back up at the runners, all but one of the orange parts are used here:
As you might imagine, there’s a nice big seamline running along the sides, which I cleaned up as best I could. Other than that, the only other item of note is that for some reason, there’s an intendation in the top of the tank that’s supposed to be painted silver. You can even see it on the box art
Lower Body
This is extremely similar to the Gogg. Just a couple of armor parts connected to a rectangular inner core.
There are a bunch of thrusters underneath, which you are free to paint if you wish:
Feet
These are nice and simple. And yet also quite advanced, in the sense that the heel and the toe are separated, and can move independently:
This is a gimmick that many High Grades continue to lack to this day, so I’m really impressed to see it in a kit from 2003:
Legs
The bottom half of the legs are made out of some very big, simple, hollow parts:
Not much to see there. The rest of the leg, however, is more interesting. The Z’Gok is actually a reversion from what we got from the High Grade Gogg. With the Gogg, each of the individual segments in its arms has its own ball joint, which allows its arms to bend and twist in all sorts of ways.
However, with the Z’Gok, all the segments in its legs (and arms) are simply parts that hang loose around rigid plastic rods, like so:
From the outside, it looks perfectly fine:
But we know on the inside there’s just no articulation to speak of behind those little segments.
At the very least we get a point of articulation at the knee, as well as the hip. I guess that’s better than nothing.
Arms
The “hands” are made out of a few big hunks of plastic, in addition to four claws:
One thing that’s interesting here is that the claws aren’t secured very tightly. Instead, they’re very loosely sandwiched in between two other parts like so:
This makes sense, as this “looseness” is what allows them to move about. But it sure was a pain in the butt to assemble.
Anyway, when we get to the segments that make up the upper arm, once again we get a few loose parts that drape around some rigid plastic:
What this means (again) is that there is some (small) amount of articulation around the wrist and the shoulder, but the segments themselves are stiff:
Side note - those red marks on the arms are the last of the kit’s stickers.
Finished
That’s it for the assembly. Next time we’ll put it all together and see how it looks.