The FAZZ (Full Armor ZZ) FA-010A was a slow and energy consuming monster but he boasted the fire power of a battle ship with its Hyper Mega Cannon.
This led me to always imagined the beast as a sniper from afar, giving artillery support to his faster moving mates fighting in the front lines.
Kit specs: over 500 pieces, only the MG EX-S can claim to consume more life force then this kit. Cost:115$ Canadian after tax and is worth every penny.
HEAD UNIT
The head unit is thick and short and accentuated by the protruding chess armor giving it an intimidating look. I also prefer the sentinel version of the FAZZ head then the ZZ version because it a little bit squarer around the cheeks and temple. The head is constructed with a total of 11 pieces including one polycap and one transparent piece for the visor.
I outlined the panel lines with a Gundam marker then wiped away the lines until only the crevasse of the panel lines were slightly highlighted. To further weather the head unit, I painted the edges of the head with dark blue to simulate stripped paint and torch burns.
BODY UNIT
The body unit of the FAZZ is truly beautiful with its high stuck out chest and Hyper Mega Cannon magazine chain. The body unit also has a few gimmicks to boot. The chess plates pop off revealing a healthy 10 set of missiles ready to overwhelm any close encounters. Of course under that armor lies the ZZ body unit which has a hatch that opens up into the cockpit door of the core block unit revealing your tiny pilot. This kit does give you two core blocks, one that transforms into a core fighter and one that displays the Gundam pilot sitting upright as it should be. I decided to go with the upright none transformable core block for the body unit of the FAZZ because the Gundam pilot looked better sitting upright when all latches were open.
The body unit has a lot of meat and is quite interesting to think all the internals have a reason to their existence as each part aids in the process of transforming the ZZ into a G-Fortress. (The FAZZ does not come with all the pieces needed to complete the G-Fortress transformation)
To construct the body unit you will have to construct the pelvic, core block, chest, pelvic armor, and chest armor. The fitting is quite solid and the top half of the body even does a nice click sound like a gun clip locking into position(I only know of toy guns by the way ), when pushed down onto the core block.
ARM UNIT
The arms are in two layers, the normal ZZ arms and the armor on top. The only concept I didn't like was that these arms didn't have a skeleton to frame on, but it still satisfied me for internals because it had hidden thrusters inside which were originally for the ZZ transformation and a dual solid poly cap for the elbow limb which acted like a skeleton.
The FAZZ is full of neat gimmicks and one of them would be on the left arm which incases a hidden latch that holds 3 missiles. (You never know what the FAZZ has up its sleeve)
The construction and painting of the arms took me quite some time because even though I knew that the ZZ would eventually be covered by the Full armor, I still decided to weather all the pieces for the ZZ by painting all the edges with a darker tan gray then the piece itself.
The truth is I actually built the ZZ first before building the armor to put over the ZZ. To fast forward in the time table, painting the white armor took some time and lining the panels lines were a pain as I first painted over the panel lines with a dark grey then painted over the entire piece with white until you basically could only see white with only a tiny hint of grey. Then after that dried, I took a needle and scribed the panel lines which would then reveal the dark lining underneath giving thin beautiful panel lines a marker could not replicate. ( There are probably better techniques out there, but this one gave me the best results)
Overall the arms are beautiful with great articulation for all poses.
LEG UNIT
The leg unit is quite intricate since the ZZ was created with the ability to transform into the G-Fortress. This is the only part in the kit where you need screws to support the punishment from transforming the ZZ. Inside the shin you will find yet another booster for the transformation of the ZZ. There is something about the sea shell shape legs of the ZZ, when completed, it is almost sad to have to cover it up with extra armor.
I do have one disappointment in the legs though, the armor itself really doesn't have that much internal detail. It looks pretty from the front but when you take it off the ZZ, you will notice it is pretty hollow and that the thrusters don't seem to link up with any particular part of the ZZ. There just doesn't seem to be any logic to how it connects with the ZZ's legs.
Now the feet of the FAZZ has no disappointment. Shaped sort of the like a dinosaurs foot, it can pivot in the middle and has a back toe to balance the load of any weight on its back. I also personally prefer the Sentinel version of the feet when compared with the ZZ version because the feet are much longer giving a sort of Five Stars Story look.
Overall visually its stunning.
WEAPONS/BOOSTER/EXTRAS & FINAL VERDICT
The Hyper Mega Cannon is the glory of this kit but there is one problem. The goal for me was to make the FAZZ look as close to the box pictures as possible but I could not find a way to aim the cannon low like it showed in the picture. The bottom of the canon would always hit the shoulder and at max aim the barrel of the cannon would be horizontal to the stomach which did not look that pleasing and intimidating. For this reason I now display the FAZZ without the cannon and without the double beam rifle to give a nice symmetry.
The booster pack looks like it packs enough to put the FAZZ in flight and also packs two long tubes of missiles pods for added fire power. What is surprising is that the boosters actually have internals. The boosters are connected to what looks like an engine which is then fitted into the general backpack molding.
I am a bit disappointed at the barrel height of the Hyper Mega Cannon but its something I am probably just being too picky about as it still looks decent.
Read More ..
This model just like its in-show counterpart is based off the RX-78-2. It features slightly reworked proportions particularly around the head and waist by BEECRAFT. 
