HG MS-06CK Zaku Half Cannon (Gundam The Origin Ver.)

I really love HG line of Origin kits. 

This is MS-06CK Zaku Half Cannon that I have built. The original kit was amazing so it didn't take much to make this kit look great. 

Starting from the box art.

The giant battling gun on its backpack was what sold me to this kit. I really didn't want to build another Origin Zaku II kits but after seeing that giant gatling gun, I had to get it. 

Here is the instruction manual. It had few pictures of built kit and tow of them with an awesome pose. 

Like most Origin HG kits, it comes with a sticker. Lots of stickers. Fortunately, they are very thing and well cut out. I would still have preferred water slide decals but these are not bad. 

The building of this kit was pretty straight forward and easy to do. As expected of the Bandai kit, the parts are easy to cut, and it hides its panel and nub marks pretty well. It didn't take much effort to make a clean looking kit. 

Here are the pictures of the finished kit, built straight out of the box without its stickers applied. 

As you can see, this kit look great even without painting it. 

The kit was built for the group contest in mind. The contest is from the Gundam Amino and I was trying to build my very own custom commando-type mobile suit for a mercenary unit. My idea was to add a more Gatling gun because I love Gatling gun. 

Fortunately, Bandai had a Giant Gatling from their Build Fighter series. I bought two of them and lo and behold, they fit on the backpack where the launchers go into. 

It looks bad ass.

I like the short barrel Gatling gun but honestly, for the epic look, I went with the longer barrel ones.

This guy looks business.

Now the paint part. 

For the color scheme I thought about keeping its desert color theme but I have painted many mobile suits with that color so I was getting tired. I thought about gunship when I built this kit so naturally I went for the grey.

I did paint this kit with different shades of grey but the pictures didn't show it well. The chest and skirt are a bit darker. 

Here is a photo with the contrast and brightness adjusted a little to show the difference. 

The paint I used are mostly Badger primer really. I adjusted the shade of the gray by either adding a Badger white primer or black primer. The red is Vallejo Air. 

After the paint, I gave it a wash with Tamiya panel liner and weathering is done by using a sponge with acrylic paint for that chipping effect and Tamiya Weathering Master. It's basic but it gave a bit more depth tot he already epic looking kit. 

And here are the pictures with that Giant Gatling. It completely changes the aura of this mobile suit.

I really enjoyed building this kit, and I really love how this custom paint job came out. It was built in a short time and I wish I had a bit more time on it and make it look better but that being said, it is on my shelf looking epic. 

Here is a video of the build.