MS-06S Char’s Zaku II (Red Comet Ver.)
Series: HGGTO (1/144) Brand: Bandai Model #: [fill model #]
Started: June 4, 2023 Finished: June 6, 2023
![[chars-zaku.png]]
I’m flabbergasted.
Just last week I came out of dealing with some of the worst HGs I’ve ever handled, and I thought I was through with them. But, I had an HG Origin kit in the backlog and the more I looked into it on Dalong, it looked like one hell of a kit. So, wanting to distract myself from the latest G-Witch episode, I started up the Zaku, and it did not take long to realize that this was indeed one hell of an HG, and only just one night later, I finished the damn kit entirely, and it’s safe to say that this is the best HG I’ve done this year. Yes, it’s even better than HG Aerial.
I’ve built plenty of high grades this year but this one builds like no other. You can build a semi-frame that even has a bit of detail that’s not shown with the armor, the joint strength is superb for a kit that has a heavy reliance on polycaps, there’s so much surface detail that you could mistake it for an RG, it even comes with decals reminiscent of the RG Zaku II, and oh my god, there’s a great selection of weapons. It comes with 4 weapons, and it’s a damn shame that it only includes a right trigger-hand finger. So, I did some modding on the machine guns which I snipped off the plug-ins and shaved the trigger with an exacto knife to get the right and left holding hands to be able to hold either machine gun, now allowing the Zaku to wield two guns at once.
This kit really feels like some middle ground between an HG and RG, almost like an RE/144 even. The build is straightforward for the most part, like an HG, but the surface detail and included decals make the kit look like an RG, much like how the RE/100 / FM lines are built like HGs but look like MGs. It’s so good, and the fact that most of the kit came out in 2015 puts a bunch of modern HGUC kits to shame.
Being heavy on surface detail and the kit having decals included, I went all out on hand painting, I can’t even remember all the paints I used. I hand-painted, panel-lined, decaled and even decided to topcoat it as I feel like it deserves it. My first attempt on topcoating with my Silver Bullet Suppressor did not go as I liked, but this time, it went so much better, that I am so fucking proud of myself with how the kit looked like in the end. This was such a great, accidental find at Hobby Lobby. If you haven’t gotten an HG Origin kit yet, probably get one. Now I have a problem of wanting not only more HG:WFM kits, but also wanting more HG Origin kits. Fuck you Bandai.
Ranking: ={red}S=
