With the continuing concerns over COVID-19, and additionally the unrest in my neck of the woods, my Gundam club held another virtual build day.   I joined, pulling out the Gray Zeta to work on.

Now, you've seen the cover image, so this is spoiled, but the Gray Zeta isn't actually gray.

That's right, it's cheddar orange.   Supposedly the result of the mechanical designer having a form of color blindness.   They said Stroudley was colorblind, too...

She transforms, too;

Doing so is a right pain.   This is no Transformer.   It waits to be seen which mode I display it in.   The stand supports either.   I've also seen images of people posing it in a 'Gerwalk' mode akin to Macross/Robotech.

Gray Zeta is supposed to have beige-brown stripes.   Bandai provided these as stickers.   This wouldn't be so bad if the stickers fit the indentions made for them.   I've spent the past few evenings painting these in;

Yes, the arm's off.   That joint doesn't hold well, so I just left the arm off for now.  I've made two mistakes with the stripes.    My brush has wandered, and I chose a overly dark color.   I like it a little better than the right color, though.   I also didn't have the right color neat; I've never had luck consistently mixing a shade.

I have used some stickers.   As here, I didn't think I could freehand such a large stripe;

There's also other accessories.  Can't store most of these on the model, though.   All except the mondo job seen in earlier pics are specific to the normal Zeta Gundam;

Finally, I skipped the stream on Tuesday to help my buddy with a little 1:1 scale;

Forgive the focus, please.    This here is a Chevrolet Vortec 5300.   Chevy's Vortec motors are nominally iron-blocked versions of the touted LS family.  There is something like 98% compatibility between the two.   He picked this motor up for around $650 - not bad for a motor that makes some 200-300bhp with no extra work.   I was helping him tear down the motor.   He'll be rebuilding it.   I've never done so, so he invited me to be involved to learn.    Very appreciated.   Might help with this Jag I'm looking at...

See you next week.