About The Kit »

Several damaged Earth Federation GM mobile suits were captured and salvaged by the Principality of Zeon. These GMs were  combined to creat a few dozen workable units. These units were used for testing against Zakus and other Zeon MS and MA. The Zeon would use both EFSF and their own weaponry in these tests. This particular Z-GM is outfitted with an MMP-80 machine gun, Zaku bazooka, Gelgoog shield, and beam saber.

About the Build »

This is another of my cheap kits found at Amazons clearance sale. I picked up 2 of these GMs for $5 each. Not too bad! The kit itself is not up to the level of detail one would expect from MGs. There is very little internal detail. As such, I decided to make more Jeep
styled mods so enhance the look. Looking back I should had made some mobility mods for posability, but that’ll be a task for my next one. Below is what I did to modify the original kit:

• Painted visor with clear yellow-orange with Alclad chrome on the internal part.
• Added 2mm MechaSkunk bead to forehead visor to simulate camera.
• Added 2 small MechaSkunk screws to chest for detail. Added various 1mm MechaSkunk beads to detail the armor and  simulate small vernier.
• Modified ankle pistons with Aluminum tubing. Removed molded in plastic pistons.
• Spun all thruster bells on my drill (used like a lathe) and sharpened the edges with a razor to create thinner looking walls.
• Used 2 bells from other GM kit to make a 4 booster backpack.
• Added details to all verniers in the way of additional bells, beads, and tubes.
• Drilled/cut open soles of feet to detail thruster bells.
• Bazooka sensor/scope modified using large wave-eye and round vernier.
• Cut apart Bazooka and made it seperable using aluminum tubing and magnets.
• Modified Ruck Mount to attach Zeon Bazooka with magnets.
• Replaced gun barrels on MMP-80 with aluminum tubes.
• Added minus molds to shield interior to cover up injector pin-marks.
• Modified shield handle with Aluminum tubing
• Made new shield mount on shield and forearm using magnets and aluminum tubing.
• Added 1mm MechaSkunk balls to shield face for detail.
• All aluminum tubing polished to a shine using drill and steel wool.
• Custom Color Scheme
• Custom Decals designed
  by me.
• More!!!

06.29.2006 » Concepts
/ Intro

Since
I wasn’t using my Gelgoog shield for my Gelgoog and had a
bunch of MG Zaku weapons lying around, I decided to make a
Zeon-Use GM out of one of my $5 MG GMs from Amazon’s legendary
sale. I’ll be doing the scheme up in green with yellow decals
and highlights. I’ll also be detailing up this piece with
lots of aluminum and option parts.

First up is the weapons done up
in the “Jeep”
style. I’m beginning to love my electric drill
for polishing crappy aluminum tubing into high-polished
eye-catching upgrades. I use very fine steel wool,
then a make-up wedge “borrowed” from
my wife. You can see below the difference between
the polished and unpolished pieces.

For the MMP-80 I removed the baller
and the round “back” of the barrel with
my scribing saws. I then drilled out the holes
to make the barrel one piece that slides all the
way through. Smaller aluminm details were added
afterwards.

For the 280mm Bazooka, I have been
making it seperatable using more telescoping pieces
of polished aluminum tubing. More on this later
as I’ve gotten further with inserts.

07.09.2006 » More
In-progress

Here’s some more progress on the
ZGM. I decided to add 2 more thrusters to the
backpack. I used them from another GM kit that
won’t be needing them. I painted them with Alclad
Polished Aluminum and painted the insides with
Tamiya Clear Orange. The clear orange actually
looks a little golden which is cool. To attach
them I mounted a ring magnet onto each side of
the backpack internals. Then I glued steel bearings
to each of the 4 bells. An extra magnet attaches
the lower bells to the top. The feet bells are
small Wave option parts painted the same way and
inserted into holes I drilled in the feet. For
the face, I painted the inside with chrome and
the outside clear part with Clear Orange.