1:100 Zaku Kai project

[Nick M]

It reminds me of John Travolta in the beginning of Saturday Night Fever.

Ah, ah, ah, ah STAYIN ALIVE!

[George Caswell]

It reminds me of John Travolta in the beginning of Saturday Night Fever.

Ah, ah, ah, ah STAYIN ALIVE!

Or I could speed it up and set it to Ievan Polka...  Maybe make it twirl that hand grenade around like a leek... 

[GlauG]

Weirdly, I prefer the first walk animation.  Looks snazzy though!

[George Caswell]

I made some progress on cleaning up the shoulder armor and making it more symmetrical - and I took my first shot at mounting the spikes on it:

progress update (2008-08-13)

Not shown in this update is the work I did to make the joint that connects the shoulder to the chest - making joints is simple enough, but figuring out how to build the joint such that I could recast it, and using only aftermarket polycaps (none of the Bandai ones left over from various kits) was a bit of a challenge.  That'll be covered in another update later.

[George Caswell]

Zaku Kai 2009-04-12 Update

It's been sparse with the updates but progress has been made - I've been doing some work on the shoulder and upper arm lately.


Aves has been pretty much pissing me off in my work with the shoulder armor - when I add new stuff it flakes off when I try to sand or carve it. Maybe in the future I'll stick to poly putty.

[Paul Lopez]

What Aves are you using? The stuff I have doesn't flake like what you describe. I only have that problem with the white Mr. Putty stuff.

So where do you think this project will be in 2 years? Updates are infrequent, but whenever you do update, you show a lot of work. I would have thrown this project out the window already so I'm impressed you've stuck to it for this long.

[George Caswell]

What Aves are you using? The stuff I have doesn't flake like what you describe. I only have that problem with the white Mr. Putty stuff.

Aves Apoxie Sculpt.

The flaking occurs when I try to carve the cured part (or do a real whole lot of aggressive sanding on it) - as I approach the boundary between the old stuff and the new stuff it tends to split too easily.  But I've been thinking about this and it's possible that some of the Aves I've been putting on has been too far along in the curing process - I think if I get it on there as soon as it's mixed and use more water I might have more luck.  But even so, it really seems like poly putty is more effective for additive processes....

So where do you think this project will be in 2 years? Updates are infrequent, but whenever you do update, you show a lot of work. I would have thrown this project out the window already so I'm impressed you've stuck to it for this long.

I'm really hoping to get it done this year.  I think that's doable, the main reason I haven't made more progress on this thing is because I haven't put in the hours that it's needed - there's always other projects, etc, and it's always tempting to put off a long term project in favor of a "quick" one...

[George Caswell]

It's got a leg now.  I can't say "it's got a leg to stand on", though, 'cause there's no hip, knee, or ankle joints installed...


Zaku Kai Update: 2010-1-20

[George Caswell]

Now that my workspace is finally getting back to a usable state, I'm taking another crack at the lower leg...


Zaku Kai Update: 2010-6-18



I think this method seems a lot more promising so far than the other approaches I've used. The placement of those edges is important for getting the right look and for symmetry when I build multiple copies, so putting a guide right on the edge seems like a great way to accomplish that.