Kit Info
Brand: Bandai
Scale: 1/72
Media: Styrene
Markings: Kit
The Subject
The Cosmo Zero is the latest single-seat space carrier fighter deployed by the United Nations Cosmo Navy. It is designed for both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. In 2199, the first two prototypes were just completed in time to join the Yamato on her mission to Iscadar. The Cosmo Zero features four pulse plasma cannons on the underside of the nose and a large caliber positron cannon on the centerline of the nose. The two prototypes would be upgraded and modified through the course of Yamato’s journey.
The Model 52 upgrades feature stealth features through the use of more angled lines. Drop tanks can now be mounted above the intakes and a variable-geometry C-D main engine nozzle was added. Various wing hardpoints enable the Cosmo Zero to carry four large air-to-ground missiles, six air-to-air missiles or six anti-ship missiles.
The two Cosmo Zeroes onboard the Yamato were piloted by Susumu Kodai and Akira Yamamoto.
Info adapted from Space Battleship Yamato Wiki
The Kit
The Cosmo Zero depicted in this kit comes from Space Battleship Yamato 2199, the 2012 re-telling of the original 1974 TV series. It’s a modern take of the classic design by Junichiro Tamamori. Unlike other modern Bandai kits, it’s not 100% snapfit (see The Build below). It is however, packed to the gills with options:
- With parts swapping, the kit can be configured into stowed mode with folded nose and wings
- Deployed pilot ladder
- Wheels-up or wheels-down
- Three versions of the exhaust ring
- Canopy can be posed open
- Both seated and standing Susumu Kodai figures
- Armaments include 4x air-to-ground missiles, 6x air-to-air missiles and 6x anti-ship missiles
- Standard Bandai flight stand
Instructions is in booklet form that’s in Japanese only although the pictures are quite clear. There’s also a small sheet of decals provided with serial numbers and stencils.
The Build
This was supposed to be my sanity build while I was mired in other builds but as usual, it wasn’t to be so. The kit came together quite quickly with the usual excellent snapfit quality of Bandai’s engineering. The first surprise however, was that none of the stores would snapfit in place. It’s nothing that cement can’t fix but coming from Bandai, this was a surprise. Another surprise is that some of the yellow pieces were designed without enough pins so they fit with some visible gaps. I cemented them into place after painting.
Anyway, I decided to have the Cosmo Zero with landing gear down but with everything unfolded. The only thing folded was the ventral fin as there’s no clearance for it. It will also be loaded with the 6x air-to-air missiles and with the external fuel tanks mounted up top.
Colors & Markings
The instructions call out for generic colors like silver, red etc although they are all supposed to be mixed. Instead of an overall silver color for the body I went with a warmer white color. The end result is not what was planned as I botched the painting, had to fix various mistakes and I ended up repainting all the white parts with various shades of white paint. I did however follow having red and yellow for the overall color scheme. I also painted the exhaust ring instead of having it the same color as the fuselage.
For the markings, I went with Susumu Kodai’s unit ’01’ and left out the smallest stencils. The Bandai decals are very well made although they took some soaking before separating from their backing.
Finishing
With so many mistakes during the painting stage, I really couldn’t have a cleanly finished kit so I went ahead with finishing it as per my aircraft kits: panel wash, streaking and filtering with a dark gray oil paint: not much time to keep things clean when the Gamilans are constantly attacking! The stores were then carefully attached with both cement and PVA glue and I was done.
So this took way longer than planned and the finish left a lot to be desired. This is one of those literal ‘look from 3 feet away’ model. But hey, I’m calling it done and my collection of 1/72 mecha spacecraft just expanded again. That’s a good thing.
Build Log
> Construction & Finishing
Number 05 of 2020