HGUC Zaku (painting in progress)

I wouldn't say I'm going to go for "heavy" weathering, exactly - I just want to give it more attention in that regard.  Maybe dust up the feet a bit and do some variation with the body color tone...  I don't do a lot of weathering so I kind of need the practice.  :)

great animation

zaku looks great, what need again? heavy weathering?

I'll probably still do some more work on this thing before I consider it "truly" finished, but here's how it looked at Otakon:

"Finished" (more or less)

I built this thing with animation in mind, and so even though I don't have a proper stop motion setup at this point I did a couple quick tests using just the camera:

potchip

Really like your previous work's paint job. Great colour depth for 1/144 kits.

Which one, the #13 HGUC?  (I guess, that's the only other 1:144 Zaku I've completed...)  That's kind of interesting: I always thought that one looked really bland.  :)  I followed a color guide for that one (the old 1996 HG Zaku color guide, I think) but I think it really could have used more contrast between the light and dark greens.

Really like your previous work's paint job. Great colour depth for 1/144 kits.

I really dig the color and the modifications. Especially the lit up eye. I need to learn how to do that.

take pictures of improved legs

just cut some piece here

and now this is the maximum angle

Keep on the progress Tetsujin

nice mods on the zaku Tetsujin , i have too one hguc in my stash.

Predicted also lots of mods to improve it, out onv movement improves i'll mod the nose/hose zone, to do more like same mg v2 zone.

also on the hguc gouf i've made lots of improving

these pictures are old , but with some cut on the rear knee zone, the leg movement was really better. ASAp i'll take new picture to show actual roatation angle reached

I must have tried the kneeling pose with the modified legs at some point, but I can't remember the result.  Probably some modest improvement.

One of the challenges is that the feet are big (as they should be) so it's not just a problem of getting the knee to the ground, you have to do it such that the foot will make contact at the same time as the knee (rather than before) - a sufficient degree of knee bend helps there but overall, I think Zakus just aren't really made for the kneeling poses.  :)

OOB the HGUC Zaku has kind of a tilted-back kneeling pose:

You can see the foot problem I was talking about...  Even if the knee could land, the foot's in the way, unless the leg were to bend farther at the knee...  I think you can actually manage to get that knee to land if you work at it.  But this, of course, is why the HGUC Zaku Sniper includes a strut that's used to plant the knee on the ground.  :)

As for the colors: the initial inspiration was the color scheme for the green MS-06R Hi-mobility Zaku.  But the scheme is almost identical to the "desert" color scheme for the real type Zaku and the color scheme for the Minelayer kit as well.  The three color schemes have minor differences in the hues of the light and dark armor colors: the Minelayer is more greenish while the desert scheme and the Hi-mo are more yellow and brown - but still close enough to the green range that you might look at it and say it's a green Zaku, if there weren't a green Zaku right next to it.  That's one of the things that appealed to me about these colors.

I love the way the Minelayer shoulder armor looks. The photo where I compare the HGUC part to the Minelayer part and in the middle is the HGUC part I was trying to alter - at the time I was thinking that I wanted to work with the HGUC parts as much as possible, fix 'em up instead of swapping them out.  But it really was wasted effort, trying to reproduce something that the Minelayer kit already got just about perfect...  The HGUC part has all this weirdness going on - boxy edges, deep grooves around the fringe, that pointy bottom contour...  It's such a mess.  :)

Tetsujin,

Excellent background information!  The HGUC Zaku supposedly can get down on one knee, although I never tried it with mine.  By extending the thighs and shortening the shins on your Zaku, it should be able to better perform this pose - is this correct?  I noticed that you are using MSV colors for your Zaku - the Minelayer's?  Your observations on the ins and outs of the HGUC Zaku are very keen - I never noticed the spike armor contour differences until now.

Great job so far - I look forward to seeing the model when it is done.  Seig Zeon!