I’m currently doing an Advance of Zeta build. I started this WIP in Fichtenfoo's forum in the beginning of January and I thought I'd bring it over to BAKUC since I've recently become active on this forum. Sorry to start a long WIP in the middle.
I had originally planned to build four models for Fichtenfoo's Advance of Zeta contest, but I’m pretty sure I’ve now decided to cut it down to two. I was going to do an OWSLA with the Dengeki primrose chest as well as a Primrose fighter with the Hazel tri-booster unit.
However, as time goes by (I’ve been working on these since mid-December already), I’ll probably put off the two kits above and focus on these two:
First is a Hazel Proto-GAU (Gigantic Arm Unit) - a poor-man's GAU prototype. It’s my own, cheaper take on the OWSLA Gigantic Arm Unit. However, this unit is intended as an assault/anti-shipping mobile suit. To help it survive it’ll have all the front armor that comes with the Primrose. Since it’ll work in medium to close range, I gave it the standard Hazel head. It’s going to wield dual beam SMGs. Im going to bash a backpack including a Hazel custom backpack top and Hazel advanced skirt arms to each side, canted forwards 30-45 degrees. Under this will be a functional frame with Zeong boosters and shoulder mounts for Zeong “Gigantic Arm Units�. I kind of like the idea of using the Zeong arms. Not only will it be a lot cheaper, but it's got that "recycling parts to make a proof-of-concept prototype" feel. I’m going to scratch-build some Psycho Gundam-looking shoulders for the gigantic arms.
Here’s a proof-of-concept mock-up I did “borrowing� my Hot Rod Zeong’s arms:
Here are the pieces I’ll actually use:
[/img]http://home.roadrunner.com/~funaka/images/Hazel-GAU.jpg[/img]
I’ve already started on the last model, it’s a Hazel Hummingbird Long-Range Sniper. After buying enough parts for the three models above, I had a lot of extra parts (a standard Hazel torso, head, arms and legs, a set of Hazel Advanced hips, a Hazel custom backpack, A Hazel sensor visor unit, two thruster shields, a Hazel beam machine gun, a GM machine gun and almost an entire Zeong, minus the arms). There were also a few Hazel design elements that I really liked that weren’t included in the above designs, such as the HRUDUDU sniper rifle modification and chest armor fin things. So, I began to dream up a design that would use as many parts as possible and still have a coherent design and purpose… The end result was my favorite design of all.
Work has begun on the Hummingbird. I’ve built the top of the thrusters that replace the legs. They’re just crude boxes at this point, but with some detailing and beveling I think they’ll work. The good part is they have the tops of the Hazel legs inside them so they connect via the hip ball joints and are poseable. Each “leg� will have two of the smaller Zeong thrusters (which are huge for a Hazel), which will also be poseable.
A bit more progress. I reshaped the tops of the hummingbird units, as well as finished the basic block shapes of the lower half of the units. I used pieces of sprue as posts to attach the Zeong thrusters.
I'm happy with it so far. I need to bevel the rest of the edges and putty the cracks so I have the basic box, then I'll start to add detail.
Okay, the hummingbird thrusters are complete (except for priming and the final touch-up fill and sand). I decided to post pics before that to show those interested all the putty, Mr. Surfacer and sharpie marker it took me to make these things look right. Lots of measuring... Also, I tended to build and putty/sand in layers because to me it's just too hard to sand around surface details after they've been attached. I tried to get one layer nearly perfect, then add the next layer.
I did a quick functional mount for the rear skirt. It's a piece of white sprue glued into a hole drilled in the rear center crotch piece (I cut off the rear skirt armor that was attached). That piece of sprue fits perfectly into the polycap that fits into the leftover green mount for a Zeong booster, which is now glued to the underside of the skirt.
The skirt itself is cut out from the Zeong skirt (which comes as a big single piece of plastic). I cut the piece out that I used following the molded panel lines. I then cut it in half lengthwise on the crease that runs down the middle. Then I filed each half at an angle so that when glued back together, the skirt would be a little narrower and the crease would be exaggerated, making the skirt more shell-like and also narrower.
I'm still a little iffy on it. I really like the curvature fo it when viewed from the side, but I'm not sure if it really fits the model overall. Obviously if I keep it, I'll do some work on the cosmetic end of things.
Here are my home-made HRUDUDU parts. The fins are pretty similar to the real thing, though I made them a bit wider and more angular to suit my taste. The actual block that mounts them to the chest doesn't match the original at all. For one, I didn't really like the original, it's too horizontally "squeezed" and IMO it looks a bit like a duck bill. This design has more of a dog snout shape. Secondly, it was a heck of a lot easier to make!
Like the skirt, the HRUDUDU chest isn't really done. I need to add at least one sensor to it, and a greeble or two. It also needs to be cleaned up a lot. Also, until final gluing, the fins are just resting on the shoulders. They will sit right in the end.
The next step was to add the shoulder–mounted shields. These look kind of like wings. Functionally, I think they would assist in AMBAC maneuvering, and they can also fold down to cover the torso as shields.
I started by cutting out holes in the shoulders to add polycaps from another model.
I used the balls from the many spare Hazel hands I have.
The balls were sawed off of the hands and were pinned with a paperclip.
The paperclip also fits the inner diameter of the smaller white tube. I end up with a short stick with double-ended ball joints. I made a mount for another polycap to fit inside the shield.
Mounted to the insides of the shields:
And, finally on the HH:
Crotch surgery, OW!
While I was at it, I inserted a polycap drilled out to accept a 1/8" rod for future mounting use.
Once I really got going, I forgot to take pictures. Basically, I got the crotch put back together and filed flush and then I added a 0.02 inch plate to each side both to smooth over the construction and to add width.
I sawed the balls apart (again, ouch! ) and filed them flush on the inside so I then had each ball on its own plastic plate. To the inside I added 0.03 inch plaplate. After test-fitting, I glued these pieces back onto the crotch.
The end result is that the ball joints are now about 5-6 mm wider, 3-4 mm lower and 3-4 mm forward of the original design.
It's a subtle change, but now I can separate the legs more and get them as wide as the shoulders. They also tuck under the skirt a bit better (I shortened the skirt mounting rod, so the skirt also sits a few mm further forard).
The downside is that I have a bit of a gap between the torso and the top of the hummingbird legs. I may put some fairing there to fill the empty space. We'll see.
I cut up the extra Hazel chest I had to get the sensor off of it:
I glued it to the center portion of my HRUDUDU chest add-on, as well as a Kotobukiya hatch (it's on the bottom, you can't really see it here):
I also extended the rear skirt and notched it based on an idea by Chaos Theory's:
I'm now happy with the model's proportions. I still need to fill the gap between the bottom of the torso and the top of the Hummingbird leg units, but that shoudn't be too hard.
I've begun work on the HRUDUDU type sniper rifle parts. This doesn't look like much, but it's actually 15 different pieces of plastic and represents several hours of trial and error work:
Front half of the gun mods are sorta done. It needs putty and beveling, but the basic shape is there. I built a lot of the details up with lots of layers of plastic so there are actually 33 pieces of white plastic!
The good part about scratchbuilding it is that I could change a few things. The main thing is that it's now around 150% longer than the original design. In general everything is just stretched, but if you count, there are five side vents, and the original only has four.
A size comparison to the actual model (Mwahahaha!):
So now onto the back half, which is much smaller, but much more complicated too, ugh!
I'm tempted to add some kind of super-sensor or scope. I really like the round radar-looking things on the EX-S and Zeta Plus. We'll see. Here's a link to pics of what I'm talking about at Dalong.net. If the links don't work, you can copy and paste them in your browser's address bar:
http://dalong.net/review/mg/m46/p/m46_n07.jpghttp://dalong.net/review/mg/m60/p/m60_n31.jpgGUNS GUNS and GUNS!
Moved onto the back of the HRUDUDU sniper rifle. I looked at a lot of AoZ artwork as well as pics of the Dengeki and HGUC TR-5 HRUDUDU gun and came up with this drawing:
I built the back around a rectangular piece of evergreen styrene laminated with plaplate:
Here it is completed. I'm really happy with the outcome. It's by far the smallest and most detailed thing I've ever scratchbuilt. It's too bad it'll be hiding in the Hazel's armpit... After finishing it, I'm sure I'll be giving the front half another look, and try to make it as interesting as the back:
With all the HRUDUDU parts on hold waiting for Mr. Surfacer 500 to dry, I started on a simple mod of the GM Machine gun. I realy hate the GM machine gun, especially in its HGUC incarnation (the MG version isn't quite as bad, but still...). The back half is too long, the clip is too small and the front half is this dumb tube barrel. Lame.
So, again, a drawing and a quick layout of the underlying structure of the mods:
And the finished work. It's a bit crude and boxy, but a big improvement on the original:
Here's a pic of the original from Dalong (copy and paste if the link doesn't work):
http://dalong.net/review/hg/h74/p/h74_10.jpgSo, sand the putty and add final details and the guns will be done. I have to do a quick fix on the waist, but then the HH should be ready to prime!
More gun refinement... I'm getting tired of these guns, so short of final sanding/puttying/touch up, they're done. Put a fork in them.
Added some detail and did some more bevel sanding on the machine gun:
Here's the front half all marked up, beveled, and with greebles added:
After priming I have this (I haven't glued the blade to the bottom of the front, so it is absent in the rest of the pics):
The cheaper permanent marker I used after my Sharpie died bled through the primer. Hopefully paint covers it.
I had to mod the wrist so the hand could hold the sniper rifle. I may still lengthen the ball stem.
Finally, here is the HH with its guns:
With the stock of the sniper rifle resting in the armpit, it will hold this pose. I may decide to add a stiffener in the arm once I'm ready to start gluing and working out the final pose.
Phew! Thanks for bearing with me starting this huge WIP mid-way.
