I'm definitely a fan of Zeta Gundam (in fact, my favorite gundam video game is Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam!), and when I got a chance to read through some of the "Zeta Define" comic series I jumped in with both feet! It's an excellent adaptation of a classic tale.

But let's get to the real reason I mention Zeta Define; the Nemo prototype codenamed "Zero Shiki," developed from the Rick Dias. I fell in love with this model from the beginning. It's such a cool design...time to build one!



The ideal starting point? Why, its cousin the Hyaku Shiki, of course. The images below outline some of the changes I had to make from the original:

Most notable changes: Lower legs, shoulders (Rick-Dias style!) and backpack. More minor changes: skirt armor and head. This was going to be a major undertaking.

BUILD

I decided to use the Nemo kit for most of this, which makes logical since because the two mechs are related! The gallery below explores the build WIP. The most difficult challenges I encountered were mating the lower leg parts from the Nemo and the Shiki (because they used completely different joint designs) and building the shoulders.

PAINT

I primed with my usual dupli-color grey and used black for pre-shading. Remember that the reason we perform pre-shading is to break up large areas and give the final model a sense of size and depth. The gallery below shows my progression from pre-shading to final red coats; I used Tamiya Flat Red and a 1:4 mixture of Flat Red and Hull Red for the colors. I think they turned out great!

The next step is gloss coat (Future floor polish!) and decals, followed by flat coat (Vallejo Matt). I re-designed the wing binder mounts between these two pictures, and I also magnetized the beam sabers on the rear skirt since the friction-mounts tended to take the paint off of the handles.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT

I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out! Time to paint up some weapons!

As always, thanks for reading! More builds and kit reviews to come.