Hand painted, panel lined, decaled and coated. Shot with a Nikon D5300 with an AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G lens.
The moment has finally come—back when I finished the Cal-re.A in February, I called it my favorite SEED Freedom kit, but I was still waiting on Athrun’s Z’Gok to see if it would dethrone it. Finally building it after owning it since May, does the Z’Gok kingslay the Cal-re.A, or does the white knight reign supreme?
Well, the Cal-re.A is gonna keep its crown. The Z’Gok is still mighty supreme and is one of the best in the SEED Freedom line, but it comes with a few hindrances and despite its glorious gimmicks, it doesn’t out-wow the Cal-re.A’s intricate engineering and its godly array of accessories.
But never mind the mobile suit piloted by Cosmic Era’s biggest simp(s), this Z’Gok has an Infinite Justice hiding inside its bulky exterior, including a simplified torso, head, lower legs and soles, which makes me really happy how much Bandai committed to the bit as much as they could. They could’ve easily just done the head gimmick and call it day. Outside of funny Justice bits, there is a kinda inner frame, the tube limbs are a bit of a pain, especially with sanding those nubs away, and the exterior parts are super simple, though each nub will all leave awful marks. It’s big, it’s hefty, and comes with a complete copy of Justice’s Totally Not X-Wing. Overall, this build is considerably unique from the rest of the SEED Freedom line, the frame is quite involved, yet the armor is literally just a sandwich of two pieces.
As for detailing, I did not go the extra mile and paint any of the Justice parts to color accuracy as trying to disassemble the kit was near impossible and did not feel like breaking or twisting the pieces just to paint something that’s gonna go unnoticed anyway. Instead, I dabbed a bit of Vallejo Dark Gray and Tamiya Metallic Gray here and there. The Z’Gok barely has any surface detail to comfortably paint on, so I did what I could and got a pretty decent result. The torn up head piece comes in one color and needs considerate color correcting, which was not a problem since it just needed gray. Where I really went out was the X-Wing, as I basically recreated the color scheme 1:1 with Infinite Justice’s, using more dark gray, Vallejo Red and Vallejo Chrome. Painting the X-Wing with no easy way to disassemble the wing still absolutely sucks though.
Sounding like a broken record, I then added some generic caution decals from DelpiDecal, but as you may notice, I used 1/100 scale white decals as I used them on my IJ, and I just wanted the Z’Gok to match up. As you might see, I used the decals sparingly, but I really like how it still spices up the design a lot, probably because the 1/100 decals are much more legible to the eye than 1/144 ones. All that was left was a flat coat (and gloss coat on the beam effects) which unfortunately frosted the kit a bit, but at least removed all the ugly sanding marks I left. With everything done, it was time to get my DSLR out and go for the photoshoot!
If there’s a problem I had with my S21 Ultra, it would be that it made reds waaaay too red, so I’m so so glad that it isn’t a problem with… well, an actual camera. Following my first time using the D5300 with the Command Qan[T], I am a lot happier how these photos turned out, with everything being noticeably sharper to the point you can almost read the text on the decals. I adjusted the aperture at a super low level, allowing to get more stuff in focus, though I had to raise the ISO from 100 to 200. I did do a little bit of editing just raising the exposure a bit more. Anyway, as for posing the Z’Gok, it has its ups and downs. For a big bulky kit, it can pull off a lot of poses, and for whatever goddamn reason can stand on one leg without much of a problem. What is a problem is getting it balanced with the X-Wing. You’d think with all the bulk and heft of the Z’Gok it should be able to stand okay with the X-Wing, but it surprisingly topples back. It probably has to do with the fact that the joints feel quite awkward to deal with—the torso joints are made up of hollow pieces, the hips don’t provide much maneuverability, and extending the ankle joints make them much less stable, and I feel like this was the trade-off of getting some of those Justice bits into the Z’Gok. On its own, the Z’Gok is fine, but because it has to bear the weight of the X-Wing as well, you will need to be a bit creative with the ground shots. Either way, I still got a lot of poses out of it, just beware of its faults.
Overall, the Z’Gok was a fun time. The novelty of Justice being inside has been starting to wear off as they are the weakest points of the kit, but it is still a very good kit otherwise. It is such a goofy redesign of the original Z’Gok, but I will admit that it does look really cool, and with how it was introduced and used in the movie, it does radiate quite a bit of aura. If you liked the Z’Gok from the movie, this kit will certainly not disappoint, even with its hefty price tag of $37-$40. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time!
