Head parts layout

Using a cigarette as a stand.. -.-;

Front shot. Getting the head armor to fit together snugly is a bit tricky.

The eye LEDs run through wires that connect to the switch and button cell battery in the backpack.

Outer armor removed.
Unfortunately, there's absolutely no hatch-open feature. -_-

The light source unit made up of an LED and green clear parts, and the one-piece molded eye mask.

Side shot of the head inner frame. It has "ZERO SYSTEM" written on it.

A single LED lights up both the eyes and the head antenna at the same time..

Torso parts layout

The shoulder machine cannons open up, naturally~.
And it's not just the covers that open — the barrels are linked so they rise up a bit along with them.

Cockpit hatch open. You can see pilot Heero Yuy inside.

The red part around the waist is soft rubber, and it comes out of the mold all squished out of shape.
But once you fit it onto the body, the retaining pins hold it in the right shape, so no worries there.

The waist has a double metal ball joint, and combined with the rubber waist part, you get decent articulation..

Molding detail on the inside of the skirt.

Armor removed. For a PG, there are surprisingly few areas where the armor actually comes off. -_-
On top of that, once you've connected all the wiring, you can't really remove it all anyway.
The photo above was taken during the build process. What I mean by that is..

Once the build is fully complete, the backpack and the body/head are all connected by wires,
so the upper rear armor, neck parts, head, and backpack all become one solid chunk — you can't remove them separately.
I'm not really sure why they designed it this way. -.-;

And then there's this issue too.. There's a pretty convincing inner frame around the rear end area (see the arrow),
but the rear skirt is a permanent assembly rather than a removable piece, so once the build is complete, it's extremely difficult
to take off.

The chest lamp is made up of an LED and a chrome reflector dish, giving it a structure just like a real flashlight.

All the lower body joints connecting the legs on the PG W-Gundam Zero Custom are die-cast metal.
I guess the idea was to make them solid and weighty enough to support those big wings on the back — and it does look pretty impressive.

The metal ball joints are secured using the W-Gundam Zero Custom's special screw system.
It's a setup where a screw with a spring washer under the head is combined with a regular washer on the opposite end.
This means the builder can fine-tune how stiff the joints are just by tightening or loosening the screws.
It's a design that's really great for long-term durability. These spring washer screws are used in multiple places all over the body.

The leg connection parts are all die-cast as well.
They've helpfully molded "R" and "L" right into the metal surface so you don't mix up the left and right parts. ^^

The lower body joint assembly, complete with the leg connection metal parts.
The ball joints here can also have their stiffness adjusted using the spring washer screws.
In a way, this is arguably the most important spot on a kit with a big backpack —
the connection point between the legs and the body is what determines whether it can stand on its own.

Thoughtfully, the covers over the screws are designed to open and close, so you can still adjust the joint stiffness with a screwdriver even after the build is complete.
The covers over the screws are designed to open and close.
Just open the skirt and flip open the little cover, and you can adjust the joint strength with a screwdriver even after the build is complete. Very Nice..

The oh-so-famous complex shoulder joints of the PG W-Gundam Zero Custom.
Seven ABS shoulder joint parts are secured with six metal pins.
Connecting them with metal pins makes for a solid build, but they're incredibly stiff — you'll need pliers or some other tool to push them in.

And this is the W-Gundam Zero Custom's multi-multi-multi-layered shoulder joint (^^;)

Each shoulder has no fewer than five pivot joints and one cylinder working together, which allows for some pretty wild and varied shoulder articulation like you see in the photos above. Easily one of the best parts of the PG W-Gundam Zero Custom.

Because of this, even the upper body's outer armor has a lo~ng slot cut front-to-back where the shoulder moves through.

The backpack houses the battery compartment, and the construction is a bit complicated. =_=
Assembly-friendliness takes a bit of a hit here. Hmm.

Two LR43 button cell batteries power the chest lamp and the head LED.

Just a heads-up — sometimes the lights won't come on due to poor battery contact..
Nine times out of ten it's because of the metal contact terminal indicated by the arrow. Pull it as far to the left as you can
so it makes solid contact with the + pole of the left battery.

The switch is located right underneath the backpack.

LED ON !
Once fully assembled, the head and body can no longer be separated.

Two small wings and two large wings attach to the back.

The wings measure over 30cm at their largest. Lightweight materials were used considering their size.

Parts layout for the small wings.

A cool feature of the small wings!
When you raise the shoulder connection point past a certain angle, the lock automatically releases and the wings snap open downward.
I'll explain the mechanism behind how this works in detail below.

First, a springy metal pin goes into the wing section that gets tucked inside the small wing. Boing~

Inside the small wing, it stores another set of feather parts (?) like this.

If you look closely at the spring mechanism, it's quite a complex structure.
Basically the stored wing is under tension trying to open, but the locking tab indicated by the arrow holds the wing
in place, so it stays closed.

As you gradually raise the connection point between the wing and the body...

(1) As the wing connector rises upward,
(2) a protrusion inside the wing connector pushes an L-shaped black part,
(3) the L-shaped black part lifts the wing locking tab,
(4) the lock releases,
(5) the pin spring's tension causes the wing to snap open downward with a swoosh~,
(6) and the outermost edges of the wing spread open fully by the pin spring's force.
It's through this complex mechanism that the wings snap open with a swoosh~ ^^

Parts layout for the large wings.

The feather parts used on the large wings are composite pieces — a long metal plate on the inside with rubber molded into a feather shape over it.
They come pre-assembled and are packaged inside the Material Box.
Thanks to the internal metal plate structure, you can bend them with your fingers like taffy and hold them in whatever shape you want.

Each feather is secured with screws and can be moved individually.

The connection points on the feathers have a pretty nice sense of volume to them.

Parts layout for the arms.

Outer armor removed. I did manage to get all the outer armor off the right arm in the photo, but...
Removing the upper arm armor on the PG Wing is seriously a pain in the neck..!!

First, to remove the forearm armor, you have to unscrew two screws at the elbow.

Only then can you slide the one-piece forearm armor off like in the photo above.

Even then, getting the one-piece wrist armor off becomes a whole other challenge.

You have no choice but to disassemble the wrist all over again to get it off.. T_T

If you skip all that and just remove the parts that come off easily, you can only see the inner frame up to what's shown in the photo above. On the flip side, things like the sensor structure attached to the forearm can only be installed with the forearm armor already on.

Inner frame detail of the forearm sensor section. Nice..

The wrist has a double joint.

The elbow cylinders. The PG Wing uses more square cylinders than round ones.

The shoulder joint. At first glance it looks pretty ordinary, but it actually moves in a slightly unique way.
Not only does the connection pin to the body move, but the shoulder itself extends outward via something like a cylinder mechanism.
It gives you a pretty dynamic range of motion when posing the arms spread wide.

The arm articulation is pretty much what you'd expect from a PG — folds up just about as far as you'd want.

The shoulder is split into a 3-stage ball joint system, each section moving independently.

The fully articulated finger parts unique to PG kits are molded in white.

The wrist bends a full 90 degrees.

The leg parts too

Outer armor removed.

The inside of the outer armor has detailed molding throughout..

The back of the knee uses a spring mechanism so that when the joint bends, the outer armor slides out of the way.

The leg articulation is quite good, as is well known.

The forward ankle bend — that's about as far as it goes..

This is the famous sliding thigh joint of the PG Wing Zero Custom.

An animated illustration of the sliding thigh joint in motion

The ankle side-to-side bend works great on the bare frame as shown in the left photo, but once you put the armor on..
it barely moves at all -_-

This is the famously clever knee joint of the PG Wing Zero Custom.
No less than a 4-stage joint. @.@

An animated illustration of the 4-stage joint broken down into four steps (that was a pain to make -o-;)

The front and rear ankle cylinders and their range of motion. Doesn't feel like a particularly wide range, but...

The cylinder at the front of the foot. Square-shaped cylinders here too~

When you bend it, it ends up looking like this.

The legs too.. absolutely no hatch opening at all. -_- 無念.

Weapon parts too

Twin Buster Rifle and beam saber

The Twin Buster Rifle. Literally two beam rifles that are mirror images of each other, like twins.

"Zero" is engraved into the barrel in recessed lettering.
The PG Wing Zero Custom has these kinds of engraved markings all over various parts of the body.

The grip can be stowed away..

As with all big-scale kits, the grip has a peg that can pop out,
which you plug into the palm of the hand to lock it in place.

When combining the two rifles, you fold out the side sections of each barrel.

At the rear of the barrels, offset locking pegs pop out to connect them together.

They connect at 5 points like this..

The combined Twin Buster Rifle. With so many connection points, it locks together nice and solid.

Compared to other PG kits, the internal structure of the beam saber handle is a bit unique.
There are 2 pegs for locking into the palm, offset on opposite sides.

So once assembled, the two sides of the grip end up looking a little different from each other, like this.

Push in one hole and the peg on the opposite side pops out. Makes it much easier to get the peg out when you need it.

So you can choose which peg position to use depending on where and how you're gripping it.
Not a groundbreaking feature, but it's a handy little touch.

The beam sabers are stored on top of the small wings.