Char's Z'Gok Decal Update and some other news.

Well I haven't posted in a few days which has just been down to me being slack which i shouldn't do. Anyway heaps has happened and I mean HEAPS. I did some more decals on the MG Char's Z'gok (which will put some pictures up in this post), I received new loot (Which I will put up in my next post). And I finally was able to grab the ever elusive "White Ogre" Zaku 2.0, I have seen it in stock 5 times in the last month or 2 but I finally ordered it and hopefully I don't miss out for a sixth time. I don't even know why I am getting so riled up about trying get my hands on it, its only a standard J type Zaku in a white colour with a small extra runner of special parts. I guess its just the name and the look maybe that I like the most :). 

But on with the show and here are some update pictures of my Char's Z'Gok.

So there are a few more caution decals around the feet and the chest area and a few more I think on the fore arms. Oh and a small Zeon symbol on the, I guess you could call it reactor access hatch on the waist plate with some other caution/information decals.

There is a Zeon symbol on the chest plate that I will take off though just because I think its a bit overboard with the on the waist plate.

The back of the kit I think I am real happy about I think it has the right amount of decals on it for me anyway. I quite like the large script decals on the back of the hydro thrusters I think from what i could read it mentions maintenance and a few other things which I thought was quite fitting for it.

I have a few more decals to put on the segmented parts of the arms and legs. Just some small ones nothing too large. I am sort of wondering if I should still put panel lines between the notch parts on the segments just make them look like 2 pieces of armor.

More Master Grade Char's Z'Gok

We are back with some more on the Char's Z'Gok after completing panel lines I got into setting out some decals. 
The decals that come with it are either stickers or dry transfers. I'm usually against putting stickers on due to the fact that they don't work too well with a top coat so i only use them in time of desperation e.g Cyclops Team symbols because Bandai decided to discontinue the water slide sheet that had them (super sad face).

Dry transfers are the other thing on there and I am not too keen to use them because I have read they are quite hard to use e.g if you balls up the position that's it.
So that left me with water slide decals, which are probably the best  unfortunately I have only 1/144 scale decals which sucks because I had to wait for ages to get them and HLJ is always sold out of almost any form of decals from Bandai. 

So after looking around online I noticed a few other people had used 1/144 scale decals on master grade Z'Goks and suprisingly they looked quite good and more realistic so I just went with them instead. The only thing is I would be missing out on a few of the cool decals that came as dry transfers.

I just added some of the basic ones to start like Zeon symbols, rank, unit numbers and a few other caution decals. They seemed to work out pretty good and I was happy with the result. I had ordered a HiQ parts caution water slide decal sheet from HLJ that came in a white and orange colour unfortunately again they were sized for 1/144 scale but I went ahead and put them on anyway :).

The result was better than expected again. I was pretty happy how they came out, they are really durable and the orange can still slightly be seen so wins all round. 
The size is perfect in my opinion too because the writing is small i figured that's what maintenance crews would see anyway when they go near hatches and panels. I still have a hell of a lot more to put on but I will probably do more this week.

I have also put on a decal from the HiQ parts marine decal sheet its of an Orca with some other blurb and a number which I was thinking would be like what Zeon Submarine it would be attached too. I kind of go the idea from 0080 WITP when the Cyclops team deploy at the start of the first episode and Unicorn when the Feddie Aqua GM's get surprised by the Zee Zulus. 

Oh and also when using these HiQ parts decals use a setter as well as a softener too make sure the decal stays in place. This just my experience and the advice I got from the HiQ parts Japanese website.

Next up more decals and possibly a Gunpla side project that I have been working on in between this build.

Z'gok Leg modifications 

We are back with the Z'gok But I had to wait for a few Kotobukiya parts that came in my last shipment so I had a bit of a backlog to get through which I quite like to have between larger planned builds. I will put a post of that build later. But back to the main event I wanted to have some thing to set it apart as a the S type Z'gok so I planned to glue some vents on the upper calf and then cut one of the leg panels out to accommodate the vent. Originally they were supposed to go on the forearms but with all modifications I had already done on them it would have made the forearms look to busy.

I wanted to it to be minimal but still stand out. It came out quite well in the end which I was quite pleased with.

I Also put some small painted the pipe detail on the inner frame. This was only done with a silver gundam marker and this together with a bit of Red underneath the monoeye will be the only paint that I will put on this kit.

These techniques are to show that you can build a kit with just with a small amount of modelling techniques and a rally small amount of paint.

Next time decals!!

Current project Master Grade MSM-07s Char's Z'gok

At the moment I am working on a the title above. this will be the second Master Grade I have got stuck into. Initially i read a really great interview with Joshua Darrah about what he did for his Master Grade Sinanju. So this made me want to prove to myself that i could build a Master Grade kit and make it look decent just by using techniques like armour separation, panel line scribing and adding small aftermarket parts with little to zero paint except for the detailing.

The kit itself was quite an enjoyable to build and just the unboxing felt nice like gift. The inner frame details were pretty cool too like piping and other mechanical details.

I started putting some panel lines on the head and the front chest armour. Just to get it started this turned out to be quite a difficult task without the correct tools asI didnt have the dymo tape which I found out later was a really big help when it came to panel line scribing.

So after getting a lot of dymo tape it made a massive difference in panel line scribing. I suppose my best advice/lesson is to get the correct tools straight off the bat. 

My next post will be after market parts and detailing of this kit. Until next time :)