MG Zaku II F2 EFSF Ver. Part 7

The short-lived shoulder joint design
Time to finish up on the assembly of MG Zaku II F2 EFSF Ver.'s "half" inner frame (^^;) after the previous posting. ^^


Inner frame parts of the torso.


Pilot figure of Keith (painted in Part 5) inside the cockpit.


Screws are used for three most heavy-duty joints on this MG kit: the shoulder and hip joints.


The rather unique shoulder joint block. ^^




The torso's inner frame is completed.



Hidden inside the chest by default, the shoulder joints can be pulled out to enable a very wide upward tilt.


Forward and rearward swing for the entire hip joint is a standard design that can be seen in the High Grade series since quite some time ago. ^^


Separated bend possible with each joint can still be considered a special feature though.
Together with the ball-type thigh joints, a wide articulation range for the hip is well anticipated. ^^


Just a few parts for the backpack's inner frame.


Done for the backpack's inner frame.


(Left) Assembled the backpack onto the back of the body module.
(Right) The most basic thruster movement is of course possible.


Inner frame parts of the head.


The mono-eye camera component.


Unlike MG Zaku II Ver. 2.0, the mono-eye camera's movement is still "manual" for this Zaku kit XD


All components of Zaku II F2 EFSF Ver.
Only the arms are the components without inner frames it seems. ^^;
More images of this partial-skeletal form (^^;) of MG Zaku II F2 EFSF Ver.:









Closeups on the details:












For a near one-decade old MG kit, the inner frame is quite impressive in my opinion. ^^ The details are very well designed. Some of them even made it to MG Zaku II Ver. 2.0 I think - the backpack's and part of the legs' inner frame details look very similar to the same components on that successor MG. ^^ Still, MG Zaku II Ver. 2.0 is miles beyond this kit. Not only does it feature a complete inner frame, including parts for the arms, a "cage" for the left shoulder armor plus many other components, its articulation design is way better as well. With Zaku II F2 EFSF Ver., you can still feel that the inner frame is mainly just for extra display purpose. The entire frame still looks very thin, hollow and "incomplete" to me. ^^;

A look at the shoulder joints' expansion now that the arms are assembled onto the inner frame:


The articulation is already pretty good without the pull-out gimmick, with the latter, the shoulder joint can do a near 180-degree upward swing. ^^ It's very impressive, but there's no need for such a huge articulation range really, since the shoulder armors on both arms would have collided with the head long before the bend is achieved. XD

Interestingly, the only other Gunpla I remember with similar joint design is Perfect Grade Gundam Mk. II, which was released in November 2001, less than a year before this MG came out. Master Grade Zeong featured similar joint design, but that was meant more as a compliment to the shoulder blocks' expansion gimmick in my opinion.

Advances in joint design was probably the reason why it wasn't utilized more on other kits, but it's very amazing to see how fast the design got replaced by newer type nonetheless. ^^

Armoring up the entire model in the next posting. ^^