MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

[Sian]

commission work for a friend, starting with the 2.0 ZakuII R1A. He describes it as a post-OYW testbed for a newtype ace pilot. Some features of this build will be a blue/black splinter camo and quite a few mods. Despite this, it's a easy build compared to the Sinanju.

Planned mods: Knuckle spikes, shield studs, mega-beam bazooka, machinepistols for close quarters, gouf heat-hawk.

Possible mods: Psycommu remote cannon bits x2, extra reactionmass/fuel cylinders, horns!

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

Inner frame is done! It will get primed and painted quick, some specific details picked out (Unlike the Sinanju, I'm not worrying terribly about anything that won't be visible once it's fully assembled) and then work on the armor, where the compound curved bits will get a cast texture, then paint and some custom decals. woo!

[Hemish]

Gotta love that new inner frame.
Will be following this one.

[hummingbird]

already anxious to see the w.i.p.. gonna be watching along this w.i.p  .. i have a feeling this will be a good build

[Sian]

Started on mods today, applique armor, and some major mods for the head.

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

Applique armor for the shield, and start on mods for the head, starting with shims to act as a backbone for the putty.

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

Filled in the side windows. I'll be modifying this area further later, but it needs to be filled first.

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

Double-antenna. The plastic chunks there are for placement, they'll go away soon enough. The second antenna was from the spares box, from a ZakuII F2. Luckily the old part and new part were identical.

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

Starting to come together, some .010 plasticard roughs out the shape

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

Then it gets plastered with squadron white.

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

Sanded, puttied, sanded, puttied again, sanded again,

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

And that's it for today! Still have to finish shaping the underside of the visor, as it's a fairly complicated shape too.

[Sian]

Little update, still working on the head.

 When I woke up, the visor was melty and rippled in the middle. The fix? More putty! I added wedges to the back of the visor, and things are looking good. Once everything is set up hard I'll go over it once more and probably call it done, hit it with Tamiya Surface Primer and give it a cast texture, which should conceal my hackery.

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

[Sian]

Lil update for my color test. Hacked this out in GIMP last night and today.

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

and finished the head sculpt!

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

[Zircor]

Head looks pretty interesting so far!

[Sian]

Tiny update, more soon.

Zaku demands knuckle spikes. Zaku will not be denied.

 

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

 

I found a chunk of sprue, I'm not even sure what from, chocked it into the dremel stylus there and buzzed it down to 6 little cones. Speed 2 worked just fine! Next I'm gonna lop those off carefully to attach them to the Zaku's knuckle plates.

[Ezechiel]

That digital camo looks cool.
The head needs a bit of cleaning up from what I see on your last picture of it.

[Sian]

That digital camo looks cool.
The head needs a bit of cleaning up from what I see on your last picture of it.

Yeah, it's close but not quite.
I'm not too concerned since I'm going to go over it, and all other complex curved armor pieces with tamiya surface primer for a cast armor texture before painting, and fix any last flaws at that time. That'll finish it up. Thanks for commenting!

[Sian]

Today, I got the parts textured I want to get textured.

 Used Tamiya surface primer, applied with the pictured trimmed Testors junk brush.

 

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

 

Then each piece got a going over with junk sanding films. I got all this old testors stuff out of the clearance box at the FLHS for pennies.

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

 

Knucklespikes added, some surface primer to blend them in, and ready for re-priming. I had to make about 10 spikes to get 6 good ones.. then I dropped one... had to make 4 more before getting one that matched.

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

 

So here's the finished, textured head, and knuckle armor. I'm almost declaring the texture too much, it's not exactly scale, *but* it looks good in an exaggerated way, which is probably a good idea when working in 1/100.

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

 

And a couple of other pieces, shoulder and rear skirt armor, to show off the texture on some larger pieces. The shield for the other shoulder is rolled/welded, so doesn't get the texture.

 

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

 

Now I can start painting!

[Sian]

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

I don't know whether the silver paint made it brittle, or if I just dumbassed it, but I broke off all three of the tabs that go between the fingers in to the assembled hand. Attempts to repair this have not been very successful as its a rather high-stress area and the tolerances are close.

I could try and repair using wire, would need to cut channels in the part and all, but this would be the most durable solution. Also likely to be rather ugly.

of course if someone is doing something silly like swapping out the left hand of a ZakuII for a Gouf's gun-hand, a replacement part wouldn't be missed. For that matter, does the gouf use the same runner and maybe have a normal left hand in addition to its gun-hand? If this is the case I can get a replacement from a gouf box if anyone isn't using the normal left hand.

If it comes down to it I can probably get a replacement from gundamstoreandmore, but the timeframe on that is rather uncertain.

Anyone have better ideas?

*EDIT*
Turns out the gouf DOES have the spare left hand, but the friend with it dislikes gun-hand and is going to use the spare.

Anyone else here building a gouf, and doesn't need the non-shooty left hand?

[Sian]

Primary painting is done! Got main tone and first pass post-shading.

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

[Sian]

After giving the clear plenty of time to cure, today I went and masked the parts that are getting the camo pattern, and sprayed with model master RLM64 Lt Blue (german aircraft colors just work so well for zeon mobile suits!) did a bit of subtle post-shading on it

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

 

Carefully removed the mask and:

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

the edges buffed down nicely with a cotton t-shirt.

Parts got another layer of Future+20% flat, and now I'll let this cure 24-48hrs before adding the German Gray portion of the splinter camo pattern. yay!

[Sian]

Primary painting is done. yay!

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

 

Yes I know the thigh armor is on backwards, It's fixed now.

MS-06 ZakuII R1N Cerebus Testbed for Newtype (Commission)

 

I still have a lot of weathering to do, as the commissioner requested a heavily (Appropriate for space use) weathered suit.

I'm getting yet more parts breakage, has anyone else experienced Tamiya Silver Leaf spray making parts brittle? This is through primer even, and very worrisome. so far I've had one hand made useless, the hips have gone loose, one of the feet and the arm for the shield. This is getting ridiculous. I know I'm never using this stuff again on any part that is going to be stressed.

[Zircor]

It's looking insanely cool.  The colors are nice; what are they?  And yes, I've heard that ABS parts will become brittle when painted...  which is what all of the ones you're talking about are.  I don't have any more details, though.  Maybe start a new post about it?

OTOH, the two antennae makes it look kind of like a dog or cat....

[Sian]

Blue: Te

It's looking insanely cool.  The colors are nice; what are they?  And yes, I've heard that ABS parts will become brittle when painted...  which is what all of the ones you're talking about are.  I don't have any more details, though.  Maybe start a new post about it?

OTOH, the two antennae makes it look kind of like a dog or cat....

Main colors: Testors MM Acryl Dark Blue, Tamiya XF63 German Gray, Polly Scale US Sea Blue
Camo: RLM64 Lt Blue shaded with Polly Scale USN Blue Gray, darkened German Gray highlighted with Gunship Gray.

The resemblance is intentional, Cerebus/Cerberus/Kerebos is a dog. Wait till I get to the other heads!

[Zircor]

The resemblance is intentional, Cerebus/Cerberus/Kerebos is a dog. Wait till I get to the other heads!

Good, I'm glad you knew that.  People will sometimes name their stuff Cerberus without knowing what it means.  I've been wondering where the "for newtype" would come into play as well, as that usually means some funnels or something similar.   Flying dog/zaku heads? 

[Sian]

Good, I'm glad you knew that.  People will sometimes name their stuff Cerberus without knowing what it means.  I've been wondering where the "for newtype" would come into play as well, as that usually means some funnels or something similar.   Flying dog/zaku heads? 

a pair of wire-tethered barrel-type bits in the style of Braw Bro actually. ^.^

[hummingbird]

wow... beautiful paint bro.. top notch...