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MS-06F ZAKU II Gundam Suit - 1:100 Bandai Master Grade


Julien

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The kit can be seen in my inbox review here on BM. The intent is to build the kit out of be box. As it is multi coloured plastic, with push fits I am not using any glue or paint. Thanks to japan:cool for this kit. If you have any interest in Gundam please visit their website and have a look around. I can not be held responsible for any money spent there as they have too much "cool" stuff for sale.

The kit has very detailed instructions, now I know a lot of the time we don't read these, but for this kit you do have to as there are a lot of parts inside the kit which help in the articulation, as well as supporting other parts. The instructions also help by showing what sprues you need to get out for each stage, handy when there are 12 in total! There is some cleaver engineering with multi colour parts on one sprue, and a mix of plastic on the same sprue.

1. The Body Unit
The first construction stage is the main body unit. This consists of over 40 parts on its own. The first picture here shows the internal parts being put together;

b01.JPG


There are some external armoured conduits linking the front to the back of the suit. These are made on a flexible grey sprue with the armoured green parts moulded around this. After you have cut the whole part from the sprue you have to cut away each of the separate armoured parts from the runner. These are then slid along onto the part from there runner. It takes a fair bit of force to do these as there is obviously some heat involved in the moulding process, however the do slide along.

b02.JPG


b03.JPG


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Once the conduits are attached to the internal parts the outer armoured panels can be added. Here you can see the multi coloured parts coming into their own with the Body unit complete. This took a little over an hour after a good read of the instructions.

b05.JPG


b06.JPG

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2. The Head Unit

This unit has fewer parts than the main body but the parts count still comes in just over 20. The main head parts build up with a movement inside which allows the seeker unit to move back and forth as the head turns.

h01.JPG

Like the body unit the head unit has armoured conduits connecting the front and the back. These are again moulded with the light green harder plastic over the grey flexible plastic. You cut each individual unit off and then push all the parts to the end of the sprue. Each small armoured outer unit has a pair of moulded clips on the out side so it is best to take a little time and get these to all line up. The added benefit is it hides the cut marks on the back of the units.

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Once the conduits are added a couple of outer parts then lock these in place. The modeller than has a choice of helmet to top of the head. One is just plain; the other features an antenna? unit. It is also worth pointing out there is a choice of two different antenna for the helmet if you choose to fit one.

h05.JPG

Once the helmet is selected and added this completes the Head Unit.

h06.JPG

h07.JPG

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Great stuff. The antenna points to the suit being a commander type.

Cheers, all good info for me as its all new. Working on the arms now and they are complicated with all the moving parts. There are 12 parts per hand, never mind the rest of the arm.

Julien

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Cheers, all good info for me as its all new. Working on the arms now and they are complicated with all the moving parts. There are 12 parts per hand, never mind the rest of the arm.

Julien

Be thankful you haven't got one of the ones with individually jointed fingers. :D

Edited by ShaneS
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3. & 4. Arms

I have mainly concentrated on the right arm for the pictures. Both build the same way. The right arm carries the Ballistic shield where the left is topped with a spiked protector. First the individual joints are built up, there are 8 parts for the 3 joints.

a1.JPG

These are then joined to give the basic structure of the arm.

a2.JPG

The arm is then clad with the external armour units.

a3.JPG

Next step is to construct the hands. As mentioned these are 10 parts each not 12 as I thought, (though I notice the thumb is missing from the photo).

a4.JPG

The parts for the right arm are now shown, and then when assembled.

a5.JPG

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The left arm is now shown as assembled as well;

a7.JPG

It is surprising when you first start the kit with the number of parts, but once it starts to come together you can see why they are all needed with full articulation of the limbs.

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Great stuff. The antenna points to the suit being a commander type.

Good job its not "man salmon" either... 300% more powerful.

The build is coming along really well Julien. Personally I've always hated making the legs... But that's just me.

Kind regards,

Dazz

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Nice, good going with the build.

I really like gundam kits but I find these days I dont have the patience for them, I did make a start on the 1/60 perfect grade zaku II few years back (talk about jumping in at the deep end! Though its a beautiful kit) but after the mammoth task of construction I got major burn out on it and sold it to a friend :blush:

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5. & 6. Legs

Now I have moved onto the legs and I can see why Dazz hates them. There are a lot of parts in there to make everything move. Things start of with the feet and in a departure from building left & right individually both the feet are built at the same time.

l01.JPG

The feet then get their armoured coverings and the units to make them articulate.

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l03.JPG

Once the feet are assembled then its back to building individual Left & Right legs. Both are essentially the same so I will show just one. The internal parts are assembled.

l04.JPG

Then the armoured coverings are attached, and the feet added to the main leg.

l05.JPG

The upper and lower legs are connected by an external armoured conduit similar to those on the head and body. Unlike these the central core is a supplied spring. You attach this to the spure with the conduits and slide the parts across like before.

l06.JPG

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Unfortunately this process is not as smooth as the previous conduits. As the spring is not part of the sprue but attached, the parts dont slide across and the spring becomes detached. In the end I took all the outer conduit parts off and threaded them onto the spring part. Once the conduits are attached the legs are complete.

l08.JPG

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7. Waist Unit

The waist unit is fairly simple compared to the other parts of the build. First a central core is built up;

w1.JPG

Then the outer moveable armour panels are added;

w2.JPG

The legs can then be added to the waist unit;

w3.JPG

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9. Weapons

You get a 120mm machine gun,

gun1.JPG

Then there is a choice of a bazooka, or a super bazooka. Only one of these can be built as they share the same centre section.

baz1.JPG

baz2.JPG

Super Bazooka parts;

ba3.JPG

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Yes Pete it is quality moulding. I have had to polish a couple of seamlines out on two big parts, and the nib marks need careful cleaning up on some parts.

They do actually do paint pens in the colours of the plastic which can be useful for painting small parts and touching up.

GNZGMS108_1_ml.jpg

I have also used a couple of the grey & black markers to pick out a few details.

You can get these direct from Japan:Cool http://japan-cool.co.uk/epages/950003803.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/950003803/Categories/Accessories/Markers

Should be some finished pics as soon as I can get my photo booth set up.

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I'll be interested to see how these markers work with the kit... I have to say that I'm impressed with the speed of the build, and the quality of the parts. Bandai seem to have some serious skill in engineering models that don't need glue, paint and yet still remain mobile, so you can change their pose at will. Hats off to them :worthy:

I've succumbed... in a small way, with one of the cheaper 1:144 Real Grade Zaku II kits to dip my toe in the water for a quick build to restore my mojo a little :blush:

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I've succumbed... in a small way, with one of the cheaper 1:144 Real Grade Zaku II kits to dip my toe in the water for a quick build to restore my mojo a little :blush:

Welcome to the Dark Side... forever will it dominate your destiny...

Edited by ShaneS
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I'll be interested to see how these markers work with the kit... I have to say that I'm impressed with the speed of the build, and the quality of the parts. Bandai seem to have some serious skill in engineering models that don't need glue, paint and yet still remain mobile, so you can change their pose at will. Hats off to them :worthy:

I've succumbed... in a small way, with one of the cheaper 1:144 Real Grade Zaku II kits to dip my toe in the water for a quick build to restore my mojo a little :blush:

I found I used the grey one more as the black was a bit stark for this build, but will work better with darker coloured plastic. I can already see uses for them in my aircraft modelling as well.

I too am looking at other kits as well :frantic:

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5. & 6. Legs

Now I have moved onto the legs and I can see why Dazz hates them. .

Finally someone else who understands my hate!!! :D That's a really good Zaku you've got there Julien! Is there going to be a review on the paint pens?? I got two sets about ten years ago (had to import them myself). I wasn't really impressed with them or the paint coverage... However after reading some of the Gundam manuals I see that some people empty the paint into a container and brush paint.

You should build Lacus' Pink Zaku next ;)

Kind Regards

Dazz

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Dazz,

I have my eye on a 1.60 figure next, just waiting for Bandai to send them to Japan:cool.

I don't have the full set as shown above, but Shane kindly sent me a black fine marker, and a grey paint marker. As I understand it with the pens they are not designed to paint the figures, just details. The fine black one I have is like a marker pen, and it is fine. The grey pen I have is paint and it is thin, it had more of a felt marker tip again fine. It works well with putting panel line type detail in as the paint is thin enough to flow out using capillary action.

Julien

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One last point to mention and that is the markings. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of these before cutting them cut. You get a sheet of dry rub down markings and a sheet of stickers. The rub down markings were excellent, you need quite a bit of pressure to get them down well, they can tear easily if not rubbed down correctly but are easy to fix. The stickers though dont look as good. They have a fair amount of carrier around the markings (the rubdown have none). I tried a couple on the back of the feet and did not like the look of them so decided to to add them to the kit. If Bandai want a bit of feed back more rub down and no stickers please.

mark.JPG

The final complete figure can be seen here; http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234990595-ms-06f-zaku-ii-gundam-suit-1100-bandai-master-grade/

Julien

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