I managed to pick up the SD Z'Gok and thought it would be easy.
The initial build was fine, looked cool and all. I thought I'd try and fill the gap in the rear of the jet pack up with putty, well I shouldn't have.

For the last few weeks, I've had to cut pieces off of it and add new sections of plastic so I can rebuild it. What happened you may ask, well the putty decided not to cure properly and began to eat away at the plastic. It softened it up to a point that I punctured a hole in it with my finger nail. I've nearly fixed it. I re-primed it today and I'll go over it and see if the shape is right. If not, I'll have to re-do it again. D'oh.

The rest of the model is painted and ready for the clear coat / panel line wash. Hopefully over the next few days I'll finish it - and maybe a little diorama if I'm motivated enough.

17-04-06 : The Jetpack ....

Well, I managed to save the Z'Gok's Jetpack - just. I've pre-shaded it, air brushed it red and glued it to the back of the body. Next up is the clear coat followed by the detailing (panel lining, the rear visor windows, the claws, and the head-missles).

It's damn cold here right now so I'm a little hesitant right now to go out in the shed and air brush the clear coat.

21-04-06 : Detailing ...

Just a quick update. I decided to do a little bit of detailing tonight and have painted the claws chrome silver, the head missle turrets black, and the rear viewing windows black. If I have time tomorrow, I will clear coat him and get it ready for panel lining.

23-04-06 : Finished Detailing ...

Another quick update, I finished detailing the rest of the kit today. I painted the missles in Gun Metal and gave a few areas a quick touch up. I also highlighted the claws and around the missle turrets with the Tamiya Weathering Set (soot colour).

Also gave the kit a clear coating. Next up is a few panel lines around the feet, forearms and rear jetpack. I have an idea for a small diorama but I need to get some supplies from the local Model store tomorrow (Monday).


25-04-06 : The Diorama ...

Over the last 2 days, I have worked on the diorama for the kit. My thoughts were to somehow use the thrusters to give a 'just taking off' look. I also wanted to give it a sort of cavey look - similar to the caves of Jaburo where we see the actual Z'Gok Char pilots infiltrate the Jaburo Earth Forces Base in the original anime. I made up a rock pillar with several small pieces of polystyrene (like what is used in packaging materials) glued together and coated with an air drying clay. Once that had dried properly, I painted it dark grey and dry brushed it with a light grey. I added some green moss to the pillar also.

The jet stream was a bit tricky. I have heard of many different ways of doing this sort of thing, so I decided to try it with thin wooden skewers as a base for the streams. They didn't want to hold properly so I decided to use wire instead. This also gave me some flexibility when it came to postioning the model. I added some double sided tape to the wire, attached the cotton wool and glued the jet pack to the ends.

To finish off, I added grey ballast (Woodlands Scenics brand) as a base cover and mounded it up a little around where the stream hit the gravel to give it a blast look. At the last minute I decided to add a little man to the rock pillar. He came from another kit and thought he'd be ideal to stand up there and watch the Z'Gok take off.