HGUC Black Tri Star's Customized Zaku I Part 6

I forgot the little ax
More images of the just completed HGUC Black Tri Star's Customized Zaku I:










Closeups on the details:




[Head]





[Body]






[Arms and weapons]





[Legs]
In my attempt to show off a fully armed version of the completed model, I forgot to include the Heat Hawk. ^^;

Anyway, a very simple HGUC kit this is. ^^ The joints, mecha components and weapons - all the gray parts on the kit have some nice line details molded, which aren't exactly too outstanding. There are some simple molded details on the black armor parts, which aren't obvious because of the molded colors. Then again, looking at the first green and blue grunt type, I don't think the the level of observable details is going to be significantly different even if the base color isn't black. ^^ The clear stickers applied to the various components do help to improve on the overall look. Maybe I should have included more to give the kit additional details to show. ^^

Instead of the details, the articulation design is the more impressive feature on this kit I think. As compared to Char's Zaku II released some four years before this kit, many joints were redesigned to have wider range of posability. The elbow and ankle joints are prime examples of such improvements, even though there are still issues of poor articulation with the ankle joints as noted in the previous posting. Also, the "return" of a waist joint (since it wasn't included for Char's Zaku II and all the subsequent Zaku II variations before the recently released MSV units) is quite a nice feature as well. ^^ It may seem like a really small matter, but given that it was so much easier to just inherit the weakness of having no waist joint from Char's Zaku II, I'm glad that the designer didn't go with the obvious way out.

The implementation of the then unconventional elbow and upper arm joint design through ABS parts gave this kit some pretty nifty assembly steps as well. ^^ Much like the waist joint mentioned above, the elbow joint design is no longer a special feature since ages ago. ^^; As a matter of fact, the double hinge design can be traced all the way to Master Grade Ground Type Gundam released in May 2000, some six years before this HGUC kit. Then again, this is the first time in quite a while that I encountered such joint design, so it's pretty refreshing and special to me. ^^ The last HGUC kit with the same joint design that I assembled was Advanced Hazel, and that was done six years ago. ^^ So, despite being an old and simple kit, I did enjoy assembling this kit very much. ^^

Some action poses from this HGUC kit in the next posting. ^^