Using data and engineers from the defeated Principality of Zeon, the Earth Federal Forces developed the RMS-106 Hi-Zack to bolster it's post-war fleet. It's design borrowed heavily from Zeon's MS-06 Zaku II, which was well known for it's reliability and ease of use, but it also incorporated many new features which became standards during the mid to late UC0080's. It was the first mass-produced mobile suit to feature a 360-degree panoramic monitor (first seen on the RX-78NT-1 'Alex' Gundam late in the One Year War) and was also equipped with light-weight titanium alloy/ceramic composite armor, which allowed for the use of more powerful thrusters for greatly improved mobility over older One Year War-era suits. It's main drawback was a fairly weak beam generator only capable of driving one weapon at a time, which often limited it to an old-fashion machine gun or an oversized heat hawk rather than the, now standard, beam rifle and beam saber. Much like it's predecessor, the Zaku II, the Hi-Zack was popular among pilots and was widely used by both the Federal Forces (which stuck to a less-Zeon blue color scheme) and the Titans during the Gryps War of UC0087.

In Progress:

Undetailed:

Finished:

Hi-Zack & Zaku II:

I like how this one came out, despite a few screw ups I made along the way. The only real downside to the kit are those yellow conduits, which are a pain to make. The ones on the head and torso were separate rings around a plastic line (almost exactly like the ones on the Zaku II, but without a spring in between the plastic line and the rings), while the ones on the arms and in the legs were just yellow rubber. These work really well in the arm, where they stretch around as the lower arm moves. It does limit the arm movement a bit, but not to the extent that it bothered me. All you had to do for the rubber ones was fill in the black areas, which wasn't hard at all with a fine tip black sharpie, but it sure took a while to do. Otherwise it's a very straightforward build, no weird areas to look out for. They made the backs of the feet actually lift up off the soles of the feet in order to increase the distance you can spread it's legs without having the feet tilt off the ground. It's quite clever and works really well. The monoeye assembly is miles away from the gear-based one used in the Zaku II, it just has a single peg with the monoeye on the side. The top of the peg can be revealed by lifting the top of the head up and the monoeye can swivel around by turning the peg (usually with the aide of a flathead screwdriver). It comes with stickers to personalize it (by way of pilot name stickers for the cockpit hatch and two logos for the side of the head and the left shoulder spikes) for two different Titan's pilots: Jerid Messa and Kacricon Cacooler (two of the three original Gundam Mk.II pilots). Jerid was always a bit of a whiner, so I choose Kacricon, even if he was short-lived.