Let’s take a look at what’s in the box:
I have two initial observations. First, some of these parts are massive, which … yeah. It’s the Zaku III after all.
My second observation is that this kit is built out of the same extra hard, extra shiny plastic that most old HGUC kits seem to be made out of. I know from past experience that that it still looks perfectly fine after some topcoat, so I’m not really worried about that. What I do find interesting is just how rough this plastic looks under the surface.
If you look at the underside of some of the larger parts, you’ll see that it is hardly smooth. In fact it almost looks akin to something that was 3D printed. My guess is that this has something to do either with the nature of the plastic, or the way the mold was formed. It’s hardly a big deal, since no one should be seeing it on the finished model. I just find it curious because it’s something I’ve never encountered before.
A Puzzle of Sorts
Putting this kit together was a lot like solving a puzzle. You have to keep track of all the things that need to be painted, what color they need to be, and then come up with a plan of attack for how you want to do it. In some cases it’s best to paint before assembling a section, and in other cases it’s best to do it after. And that’s to say nothing of all the seamline removal, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
I wouldn’t want all my builds to be like this one, but sometimes I like this kind of challenge. It can be quite fun to see an otherwise basic model come to life as you add more color and texture.
Seamlines
I expected this kit to have a lot of seamlines, but I didn’t expect it to have quite so many. They’re practically everywhere, including places I wouldn’t have expected.
Removing them was hard work, and as is often the case, the results weren’t perfect. At the end of they day, after you remove a seamline you really are supposed to paint over it, preferably with some primer and an airbrush. But since I don’t do that, most of the seamlines are still at least partially visible. Topcoat helps hide them, but it’s not a panacea.
Anyway, I managed to get it all done, but by the end I was getting pretty tired of it (not to mention my fingers wore sore and torn up).
Color Correction
This kit involved quite a lot of color correction. Some of it was done to make it color accurate, but I also went a step further and did a tiny bit of customziation on top of that.
As you can see in this straight build courtesy of reddit, the kit has a whole bunch of blue plastic, including for its Beam Rifle and backpack:
This is not strictly color accurate - depending on whether you go on with the mobile suit’s portrayal in _ZZ Gundam__, or the color guide in the instruction manual, these parts are either supposed to be a very dark blue, or a dark grey with just a hint of blue. I tried to go for the former, but when I mixed the paint I ended up creating the latter. It’s not quite pitch black - it’s just a tiny bit brighter and bluer than that - but I’m not sure if that is going to be apparent in photographs. It’s barely noticeable to me in person.
And then there is the matter of all the red on this kit. It’s on the cockpit hatch, inside all the thrusters, and weirdly, even the knees are red.
Adding red bits to the traditional, mostly-green Zaku color scheme goes back at least to the Zaku II FZ (at least in terms of the Universal Century timeline; in the real world, the Zaku III existed before the FZ). I’ve never been a fan of it. Outside of Christmas, most red and green tones clash too much. So in the case of this model, I decided to do something about it.
I left the cockpit hatch as-is, because for some reason I feel like it’s the one thing on the mobile suit that can afford to be red. As for the thrusters I came up with a much darker red that I think pairs better with the model’s green tones. Lastly, I completely painted over the knees to make them black, which is more in line with a traditional Zaku.
There is other color correction beyond what I’ve mentioned so far, but we’ll tackle the rest as we come across it.
Beam Sabers
Of course an old kit like this is going to have the “chopstick” style beam sabers that you have to paint:
Not much to say here. The beams are yellow, which is fairly typical for a Zeon mobile suit.
Beam Rifle
The back half of this rifle looks great. It’s perhaps a bit overcomplicated, but it also looks nicely complex and mechanical. The piping going from the stock to the sight reminds me a lot of the Beam Rifle used with Cima’s Gelgoog.
But the front half is just a big cylinder, and the tip of the barrel looks like the tip of a pastry bag. It’s just not that threatening.
Still, it’s the suit’s main weapon, so it will have to do.
Aside from painting the entire thing blue-black, I of course had to paint the camera sensor red. But if you look closely, you’ll notice that there’s a seamline running right down the sensor, which drives me nuts. I didn’t even bother trying to remove it because it’s in such a small, tight space, but it’s such an eyesore, even when covered in paint.
Head
That’s a Zaku head alright, albeit with a lot more surface detail. Also, it’s got not one, but two antennae/horns/etc. I’m not entirely sure why, nor am I entirely sure I like the idea, but it is what it is.
If you look closely, you’ll see that there is yet another seamline running right down the middle. This is what I meant when I said that they pop up even where you wouldn’t expect them.
Upper Torso/Backpack
The whole backpack needed to be painted, right down to some tiny red highlights on those little wing thingies.
Flipping it around, there wasn’t much work to do on the front side:
(Oh, hey, there’s another seamline running down the fuel tanks on the backpack …)
Lower Torso
This section is nuts.
First we have the front skirts, which have little beam saber handles on hinges (since they can be fired as beam cannons in this configuration).
Then you have the massive rear skirt, with a yellow Zeon emblem that needs to be painted:
And don’t forget all the other nooks and crannies that need painting too:
On the underside, this is a red part that you can fill in with some black:
Speaking of which, here’s something a bit archaic. These interior thrusters are only attached to the torso by plugging them into this little tab on the inside of the plastic:
It’s not exactly a sturdy connection, so I had to use some glue here. We’ll see another example just like this in the future.
Anyway, it’s quite large and impressive looking, though the seamlines running down the side skirts are rather unsightly. Try as I might, I just couldn’t get rid of them, not to the level I would have liked.
Arms
Would you look at that? This kit comes with an extra pair of holding hands. And not just that, but one of them is a left trigger finger hand. You almost never see that nowadays.
But yeah, a kit from 1999 has more holding hands than most modern High Grades. Make of that what you will.
In regards to the arms themselves, they’re pretty simple. Each one has a peg on the shoulder for mounting their respective shoulder armor. And since each peg is at a different angle, there’s no way for you to get them mixed up.
Shoulder Armor
The left shoulder shield is a new spin on a classic design.
It’s actually made of two shields now. And they’re on a working hinge!
There’s even some nice surface detail on the interior:
And, of course, another seamline running along the top …
As for the right shoulder armor, it’s a classic spiked Zaku shoulder with a mine launcher coming off the end:
Though I don’t believe it ever uses this gimmick in the show …
Legs
The legs are probably the largest body part of them all, and so it’s no surprise that there’s a lot going on here.
To start with, I painted the red knee armor black, and the armor plate below it from blue to hunter green:
Next, I pained the entire inner surface grey:
This isn’t strictly necessary, but these extremely wide and bulky legs are also extremely hollow and empty on the inside. Painting it grey isn’t so much for the purpose of color correction as it is to mask and hide all of that rough interior plastic.
Here we have another thruster that just plugs into a little interior notch:
This one definitely needs glue, or it will keep popping off.
Now for the weirdest thing of all - the power cable on the leg only plugs into the model on one end, while the other end just kind of dangles down into the cavernous interior:
The crazy thing about this is that it actually kind of works. Unless you’re looking at it from a direct angle, and/or bend the knee joint as far as it will go, the loose end of the pipe will remain safely tucked away, and the whole thing will look perfectly normal:
Feet
Let’s start with the facts:
- There’s a seamline running right down the center, which is pretty common for these old kits
- The grey upper section is painted
- The yellow bit in the front is a panel lined sticker
Now for the weird thing - there’s this strange hinged piece in the back of the foot, which can flip out to create an extended heel:
I’m not entirely sure what the point is, other than perhaps to create more surface area on the feet to help support the massive mobile suit above. But what I’m most curious about is how it’s assembled. The hinge piece attaches to the upper part of the foot:
You then have to line everything up and slide it through the bottom part of the foot; if you do it wrong, you’ll notice immediately, as the hinged bit won’t be able to move into place to sit flush with the rest of the foot.
Anyway, from a visual perspective, these are huge. For funsies, here they are set next to the foot of a Zaku II:
Conclusion
This certainly was an interesting build. I know it probably reads as being a more negative experience than it actually was. There’s just so many little oddities that betray its age, and in some cases were entirely new to me.
But as weird as it was, I hope you’ll agree with me when I say that once it’s all assembled, it actually looks pretty great. But we’ll get to that in the next post.