After watching the Zeta movies a year or two ago I started to really appreciate the designs in Zeta, including the Zeta itself. But combing through Dalong’s site at past Master Grades I came upon a Zeta that I felt looked better than the original, that being the Zeta Plus A. Seeing as how this is a 2001 kit, doesn’t come from a Gundam anime, and came out before the 2.0 Zeta its understandable how most people ignore it but as I built it I found out that the build itself might be better than the original.

The thing about the Zeta Plus A is that it is a solid kit with extremely sturdy and strong joints and what makes it even more unbelievable is that this is a transforming kit. Seeing as this is a transforming kit it has a great range of motion with 180 degree bends at the knees and elbows. On top of that the transformation itself is simple and while it mimics the basic Zeta transformation it streamlines a few things to make it smoother while maintaining the perfect waverider look.

Given that this is a 2001 kit of course there are seam lines but for the most part they are easy to deal with.

The one exception to this would be that the wings have the back half of their seams covered but have a vertical seam down the front half. While looking up how others dealt with this I found some leaving it in while a few cleaning them up (each of these builds were from experienced modelers). In the end I decided to do what I did to the waist which was to make the main seam into a panel line, while also sealing up some of the top parts.

One large issue I had at the beginning of the build is that the mesh covering I needed to cut was cut at the wrong length. This stupid mistake resulted in me trying to find alternatives everywhere and being only a click away from ordering expensive HIQ Parts mesh tubing. Luckily an alternative I bought months ago that I thought wouldn’t work actually worked amazingly well, shoe laces.

Probably the smallest issue to me but what could be the biggest issue to others was I had a molding error in my kit. I have never seen an error like this before in a BANDAI kit so I was pretty surprised to see that there was a pool of extra plastic in a joint but because of its location it was simple to cutout and file away without any problems. Hopefully I don’t ever run into one of those again BANDAI.

Finally while looking for other Zeta Plus builds I ran across the Fix Figuration Zeta Plus’s and decided to paint my kit it in a similar style for the most part, and I think I was pretty successful at it.