1/48 Zaku II - Part 1

The 1/48 Zaku II is in the “Mega size” range from Bandai, but the kit itself does not have that many parts & the inner frame does not have that much detail compared to say a PG or even an MG Zaku.   That being said it was nice to use it for a practice bed on some ideas on paint schemes & effects without having to worry about ruining an expensive kit.

The instructions show a lot of the sprues are designed to snap together before the parts are removed, but as I will be filling & painting the kit I’ll stick to the more standard way of making a model.

A lot of this kit will be primed using a method I found works for this kind of plastic where a light spray of Halfords car primer is put on first, then a very light sand & clean before Vallejo primer goes on top.

The first area I started on is the feet. The bottom sections are made of just 2 parts & after fitting were given the Halfords undercoat then Vallejo Black primer (70.602) that gives a satin effect.  

The ankle joint is going to have some detail painting done later, so to start with I made the ankle joints as shown in stages 7 & 8, but please pay attention to how parts G2 & G3 go on the ankle as the larger piece must go on the front facing end.

These were undercoated then painted in Vallejo “Metal Color” Dualuminium.

Looking at the pieces they needed a bit of detail painting done just to enhance them. I used some Vallejo “Metal Color” Steel (77.712), Copper (77.710) & Ammo Of Mig Brass (A.MIG-0197) on the pistons, recesses & fixing joints.

 

The upper parts of the feet were primed on both sides & the detailed ankle joints put in with the poly caps. When I looked at the feet I was not happy with the size of gap in the joints and I used my normal plastic filler & after sanding checked to see how it was looking.

To me it just needed the final touch of some very thin superglue to go over the filler & that will then seal any micro holes to give a very smooth finish for priming again later.