–Do me a favour and tell me (1) what your biggest Gunpla frustration is, & (2) your comments and criticisms–
8 months…I started building the MG Psycho Zaku in March and submitted it for the GBWC ’17 on the 27th November of the same year, that’s 8 continuous months I’ve been working on a kit, which is a new milestone, extra awesome because my Girlfriend bought it for my birthday! The annoying thing is I’m still finding imperfections every time I look the Zaku over, but I think this may be an inevitable part of any craft as there will always be something to improve on. Yep, this is what I’m gonna tell people when I’m still gunplaing at the age of 40.
MS Review:
The MG Psycho Zaku is a great kit, every review I’ve seen says it’s great and damn straight it is. But what makes it great? The MS uses a Zaku 2.5 frame (i.e. it reuses portions of the Zaku 2.0 frame but the majority is new) which moves well and looks good wherever it is exposed between the armour. The joints look incomplete, but are covered by the frame covers so that’s irrelevant. I really like how the cockpit has the secondary hatch that moves to the side like in the anime, very cool.
We’ve seen red on antagonist suits so many times you would think they would be boring, but the Psycho Zaku uses familiar colours with just enough changes to look sexy. It’s like the movies where the geeky girl suddenly looks like a super model after changing her top and losing her glasses.
The armour and all the thrusters that cover the Psycho also look great. Again, it’s familiar to anyone who has built a Zaku 2.0, but the changes really make it feel like a one of a kind, ace custom MS. There are some problems with the design however, the number one annoyance being the waist skirt. Get some glue or blue-tack into the connection between the orange and red pieces or they will fall off constantly. Secondly, once the outer layer of high mobility armour is added to the legs you won’t be able to do poses with a wide stance, the double armour layers are just too heavy for the kit to do the splits in the air.
Backpack and fuel tanks Review:
The back pack is fun to build and is essentially static outside of the sub-arms, which are well designed, fun to assemble and play with. Remember to remove the mold lines on the sub-arms because they are far more visible than expected, unless you have the arms folded up.
Here we have the bulk of the kit, for reference the largest tank is about the same size as the PG Full Armour Unicorn’s tanks, which is crazy. I find it’s a little too long and imagine it’s a problem for the many people who won’t have the space to display it. That being said, it is accurate to the show so what can you do? All the tanks come as two half circles than are pegged together, but the seam line is disguised into a raised panel which is much appreciated (seriously those seam lines would be such a pain to fix). On its own the main tank does look plain so it’s a good thing were given heaps of water slide decals to liven it up.
Bandai has done a good job designing the attachment method for these tanks. Despite the bulk they attach to each other securely, I’ve held the entire model via the main fuel tank on multiple occasions and never felt as if the kit is at risk.
Weapons:
The weapons are the weakest part of the kit for me. The machine guns, heat hawks, and 90% of the bazookas are from the Zaku II 2.0 line so they have many mold lines that need cleaning up. The Beam Bazooka and Sturm Fausts are new so don’t have as many mold lines, but there is a seam on the Fausts that needs fixing as it’s very visible. My complaint with this seam is I imagine it could have been avoided with a different method of assembly. So the weapons can be a pain to work with, but will look good with some effort.
Unfortunately though, they are painful to try and pose with. This wasn’t much of a problem with Zaku 2.0s because there wasn’t any backpack restricting the movement of the arms and shoulders, obviously that’s not the case with the Psycho Zaku. For the solid bazookas you’re likely to scratch the backpack and the bazooka magazine if you want the Zaku to aim at anything not directly below it; for the beam this is the only option as it is simply too heavy to point anywhere but straight down; the machine guns’ stock and butt plate are strange to pose and a constant scratch risk; the sturm fausts can be held perpendicular to the forearm well enough, but I couldn’t find a pose where it looked natural. The only weapon which has no problems posing is the heat hawk, and, while it is cool, it’s very tame compared to all the other weapons.
So what did I actually do for this kit?
Mods:
• Cut holes into the high mobility leg armour on the back of the legs and then filled them with mesh.
• Added pla plate to high mobility leg armour, groin, chest, and shoulder shield. I’m most proud of that last one.
• Added thrusters to the groin.
• Cut holes into the skull armour.
• Increased the armour gap in the torso where the shoulder connects to show off more of that sweet sweet frame.
MS Priming:
The first stage is always priming and this time I assembled the kit, broke it down into its main components (arms, head, torso, waist and legs) and then primed with the armour on (excluding the extra high mobility armour on the legs). The advantage is I save time and primer by avoiding priming frame that’s going to be covered up, and, I reduce the chance I’ll miss those little bits of frame that peek through the armour.
MS Frame:
• Grey Primer
• Black paint
• Chrome Silver
• Black Enamel Panel Wash
MS Armour (Red):
• Grey Primer
• 50% Red + 50% Brown Base coat
• 100% Red (avoiding areas directly below panel lines and recessed areas)
• Brown Enamel panel wash
MS Armour (Dark Blue)
• Grey Primer
• 50% Grey Blue + 50% Black Base coat
• Black Enamel Panel Wash
MS Armour (Red to yellow gradation)
• Grey Primer
• 100% Red Base coat
• 50% Red + 50% Yellow gradation, leaving red near the base/edge of the part
• 100% yellow gradation at the tip/centre of the part
• Brown Enamel panel wash
MS Armour (White)
• Grey Primer
• White Base Coat
• Blue Enamel Panel Wash
Thrusters (Gold)
• Gold base coat
• Black Enamel Panel Wash
Manipulators & Secondary Arm Frame
• Black Primer
• Rose Gold Base Coat
• Black Enamel Panel Wash
Secondary Arm Armour
• Grey Primer
• Grey Base Coat
• Black Enamel Panel Wash
Backpack & Fuel Tanks (Brown)
• Grey Primer
• Metallic Black Base coat
• Hull Red (avoiding panel lines and recessed areas)
• Black Enamel Panel Wash
Weapon & Fuel tank support structures
• Grey Primer
• Gunmetal Base Coat
• Silver Acrylic details (hand painted)
• Black Enamel Panel Wash
Weapons
• Grey Primer
• Gunmetal Base Coat
• Blue (head of Sturm Faust only)
• Black Enamel Panel Wash
Mono-eye and Machine gun & Bazooka Lenses
• Silver on inside
• Clear red (for mono-eye) & clear blue (for weapon lenses) on outside
Final Touches
• Water slide decals
• Flat coated everything, except the clear parts
Lessons learned:
1. In future I’m going to prime my kits with the armour on, as it saves so much time and heartache whenever I find out I forgot to
paint a spot that peaks through the armour. Unless, of course, I’m exposing the frame.
2. Remove seam lines – even the ones I think won’t be seen <_<
3. When pre-shading pick colours with greater contrast (seriously see if you can spot the shading on the red armour <_<)
Pictures:
You will have to forgive me but I’m not willing to change the pose of this guy anymore as it’s so easy to scratch. In fact, I will probably never change the pose, but then again why would I? IT LOOKS AWESOME!!!!!
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