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Bit of a short post this week but I thought it would be a good idea to break up all the Ignis updates, so I thought I would post my summer spending since I had a few figures arrive in the past week.
Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, I have 2 Rize figures! Due to a bit of a clerical error on my part, I placed 2 orders for Rize on HLJ while they were (most likley) going through some maintenance. so the 2 orders got merged into 1 and I received 1 order confirmation which I never bothered to check. Memo to self, check order quantities from HLJ at all times from now on.
Expect to see one of her on ebay or the like fairly soon.
Meifeng is the re-release and she takes my Shuraki collection up to 4. I purposely missed out on Nida cos, to be frank, I didn’t like her. Much like the Aya Hirano Fanbus, I chose not to jump on the Shunya Yamashita fanbus. He’s good, but not *that* good! That pretty much ends my dabbling in buying PVC figures as there are none on the horizon which has grabbed my fancy. There are rumblings of a shuraki second series of figures, but with most of the main cast now covered, there’s only Monica (a goth loli) and Mizuchi (a miko) left who have an active role, the other characters introduced are mainly background players, unless they introduce new characters and a whole new plot…
The Striker pack MG kit was one I have been meaning to buy for a while, but since it only comes with 1 strike gundam in the box, I bought a second Aile strike gundam so I can pose all 3 packs together with my previously purchased Aile. Why buy another Aile? Simple, it was cheaper!
Those 2 will most likely be OOB (Out Of Box) builds with no paint job because their appearance would jar with my aile strike, which was built before I started painting my gundam kits to remove the plastic look. it it’ll be all minor mods and panel lines only.
And finally, I bit the bullet and bought a figure from the e2046 gathering section. The figure I chose was the first Asuka Langley Soryu on bike, sculpted by Vispo.
Actually, she was on preorder for quite some time. In fact, I had almost forgotten about her before I got the email saying she was in stock. Given how so many figure collectors rave about gathering figures, I was expecting some great things from my first purchase. So what do I think? A very clean, very neat paint job which suffers from a few niggling issues and personal preference conflicts. I’m not going to throw praise after praise on the kit, but at the same time, I can see why a lot of figure collectors fell in love with the gathering series when it was announced (although I think it has now become too bloated, they should cut down on the figures in the service).
But they really pack them carefully!
I’ll do a full review at a later date, though I’m only just noticed that, due to my one post a week, format, I actually have a fair backlog of figures who are waiting for their time to shine. I should really get on with it…
I got Asuka because
- the kit is very impressive and I liked it, a lot
- I’m too lazy to do it myself for once as the bike alone is ridiculously complex. I’d have no problems doing just Asuka though.
- as well as laziness, I also fear this kit to a degree. It’s a know fact among model builders that kits with large “accessories” like a bike are some of the hardest figures to build as they are sculpted separately most of the time so the 2 will not fit perfectly. How badly it fits depends on the figure, I heard some real horror stories regarding mahoro on bike and Misato on scooter (both are now available as PVC figures so the pain is now gone)
Having said that, due to several factors, I don’t think I’ll be getting the accompanying Rei figure for a long while, even though I much prefer Rei to Asuka.
Edit:Looking at the vispo site, it looks like his next project is going to be a version 2 of Rei. Here’s hoping that it’s better than his Asuka R2…
And the new anime season is apon us… Busy busy for once, even if the only show I really care about is Sekirei!!
A relatively minor update this week due to a variety of issues such as 1) me going through a state of mild melancholy, 2) hayfever is a bitch and makes it hard for me to focus 3) you guessed it, more MGS4!
Having said that, it’s still a milestone for the kit as there isn;t that much left to do now, just weapons and the head. Oh, and the mother of all cleanups!
On a completely different note, these recent changes to wordpress are godawful! Bring back the old style dammit!!! I don’t like the built-in uploader!!
Bit of a late post this week (blame MGS4. Just started playing it after buying it last weekend!)
Anyway, After the fun that was liquidstone fate, I went back to my main project of Ignis. Good thing too, because it wasn’t until recently that I was able to complete enough of her to make sure that these shots would be safe for work (remember, this Cerberus project kit is cast off!)
So this is where I’ve gotten to so far.
After the base, I thought it would be plain sailing. How wrong was I? The legs proved to be much harder than I had anticipated. Primarily because the black buckles made the light stockings a pain to paint (because of all the masking) and the general detailing meant that I had alot of masking fluid to use, which complicated matters when removing it.
If you’ve come from dannychoo.com, then you may have seen my post where I posted my purchases from WHF Final. One of them was of this;
Normally, I have a rather strict rule about finishing my current project before working on another. The only time I have worked on 2 projects concurrently was when I built WildFalken, but then I knew that it wouldn’t be very long. Technically, I’m working on 2 now, but all my efforts were being focused on Ignis. However, I couldn’t pass up this one so I bumped her up the queue!
For those of you who don’t know a thing about this item or it’s maker, this is a variable pose figure created by a group called liquidstone. They are event only and the group have only made figures for the characters in Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. This figure depicts Fate Testarossa in her final form, True Sonic Drive
(Mini Translator note: A lot of guys (and fansubbers) translated her form as “New” sonic form or 新 ソニクフォム. But Liquidstone and a lot of other model makers have been using 真ソニクフォム Which translates to “true” sonic form due to the different Kanji. Don’t you just love how words in far eastern languages can sound identical but have completely different meanings? -_-’
In any case, I’ll be using the translation from the modellers from here on out.)
So back to the figure, If you think fraulein Revoltech or Figma, then you’re half way there. Of course, there isn’t currently a figure for fate in her true sonic form and there are currently no plans, although there is going to be a Fate in her standard combat form from Figma.
So far, so exciting. We’re going to get a movable figure of Fate wielding 2 separate blades and looking really cool, right? Well, time to hold your horses, cos when you open the box, you are greeted with this!
Yup, you have to build it yourself!! plus, the parts aren’t labeled so you need to pay close attention to the instructions to find out which parts are which. It’s a bit of a pain, esp for the small parts. And let’s not forget the separate joint parts too!
OK, if that hasn’t scared you yet, well done. But now the first word of warning. This figure is HARD!! REALLY HARD!!!!
Don’t even think about getting one unless you’re fairly confident about your modeling abilities. Especially
regarding drilling holes and pinning! The reason I say that is because you will be expected to drill holes in the parts to fit the joints in. The parts are also resin, not plastic so plastic glues like Poly cement won’t do anything here. Some parts are also incredibly fragile! You are also expected to cut some of the joint sections to allow for a clean fit.
Long story short, I didn’t do a particularly good job. My main problem was that I didn’t have the correct size drill part. I bought a new one, but the diameter was 3mm while the joints (and by extension the required hole size) was 2.9mm. It may sound like a small amount but it makes all the difference. In the end, I had to fill the sides with some putty to make the fit, but it meant that the joints aren’t as strong as they should be. This is definitely one thing which would benefit from a streamlined production method.
It’s been a while since I did a simple progress post, but I have been working steadily on my cerberus project Ignis so I thought an update would be good.
And so I came to realize that the 1 thing which I was fearing regarding this kit as a major obstacle was, in truth, rather easy… It was the other parts I should have kept an eye on…
Anyways, here’s a look at how I did the base!
When I started it, I had no clue as to how I was going to get my desired effect so I simply painted the whole thing in a deep red colour. I figured it was a good base to work on. I also lightly sprayes dome pink on the tongue-like tentacle thinking that I would eventually need to distinguish it from the rest of the base. The horns were covered in masking tape as it would be easier to paint over the primer than the very dark colours which the rest of the base would eventually become.
Next I sprayed the whole think with a thin layer of purple. Hey, purple seemed appropriate for the base (in case you haven’t figured it out yet, I was totally winging this up to this point)
But there wasn’t much difference after the purple spray so I decided to go further and add some dark blue into the mix.
Getting closer, but it was still lacking something. But at this point I got stuck. So after scratching my head
and getting rather annoyed I went on a bit of a self destructive (and somewhat crazy) idea. After finding a bottle of black wash (really really thin paint basically). I thought I would liberally apply it to the base. By that time I didn’t really care how it turned out because I was just messing about and planning what I was going to do on my second try. The Black wash was a pretty damn bad idea though because it clumped together and just became a black blob which covered everything, so I decided to rub as much of it off as I could. Then something cool happened…
Hurrah!!! Tis time to celebrate a very special Birthday!!! No, not mine. That was last week.
Today, this blog officially turns 1 year old!!! It was on the 29th last year when I started this blog and opened it with a post about my Bubba Haruhi and 52 weeks later, it’s still going after a “1 post per week” policy (well, except for that time I had no internet for a while). To be honest, I never thought it would last as long as this… When I first started the blog, I thought that it would last a few months with regular updates and then maybe a post when I finished a kit before finally dying of lack of exercise, but it’s still here, with regular updates and no worries about future content (for now)!!!
This part is where I get all mushy and thank all of you, the readers, for making this blog as successful as it is. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that my hobby and works would get as many hits as it does a week. It’s no Dannychoo.com or Heisei Democracy but it’s still pretty good for a little upstart blog about a very niche hobby!
So, in order to celebrate this occasion, I thought I would share a few pics which depict all the figures I have in my current residence (so basically everything built which isn’t in my gundam army collection.
Here’s everything in 1 neat pic. I’ll go through them all in more detail but you can probably already see some familiar faces who have graced the blog already, and others who will be doing so in the near future. The main point of interest would be my glass cabinet. I use it almost exclusively for my painted resin kits, so that hold my entire portfolio, as it were.
I’ll go through the shelves first and then give closeups of the resin kits after the jump.
So yesterday, I went along with a friend to the London Expo which was being held at the Excel Center in the docklands. I tend to avoid events like that as I don’t really have that much interest in the special events held and such but I thought I’d go to 1 for the experience and see what they had to offer.
Looks like I didn’t miss much…
The event itself was pretty much for cosplayers who massed outside the event, and I really dislike cosplay. So I hope that people who read this blog don’t get too offended when I start rolling off the bad ones. Kudos for those who enjoy doing it and even greater kudos to those who pull it off well, but the ratio of good-to-bad was not pretty…
There were some really good points tho. For a start, the cosplay of Hard Gay wins everything, without even trying. Like Chuck Norris.
There were some good Code Geass cosplays too. Cornelia and Guilford were the best, but the group also had their shares of not-so-good.
And we have a shout-out to orbital comics!! Rock on guys!! Believe in us who believe in you!!! Rock Haruhi also says Hi.
but what about the expo itself?
And so, what it my main project at the moment? This…
Ignis from Cerberus Project. You know? the one which Yamato has recently announced that they were going to make into a PVC kit?
Man, I still remember the hard time I had trying to find one of these babies after last years summer Wonderfestival. Had to pay a pretty penny for it as well! And now it’s coming out as a cheap PVC… orz
well, good luck to them. They’re probably going to need it (yes, I am a little bitter about the announcement. This is the first kit I have bought which has been (or rather will be) converted into a PVC figure, which lowers it’s overall value). The pic above shows the model after pinning and most of the flash removed and sanded out. There are some seam lines left which will need to be taken care of, but cleanup has been pretty good this time round.
Yay! She’s finished!! Another one to add to my completed list. I present Yoko, 21 years old!!!
This post may be a bit on the long side as the final part of the building section will also be included. For those interested, earlier posts can be reached here:
Man, has it really been 2 months since I got this figure? Looks like her re-release has come and gone as well…
In any case, here is the first Shuraki Figure, Mishiro Akatsuki (and despite the name, I’m pretty sure that she can’t reflect beam attacks off her skin)
I’ll keep the review pretty short as pretty much everyone has Mishiro by now and there are already good reviews available.
One thing I will note, however, is that, despite being a second run of this figure, all the faults and imperfections which were noted in earlier reviews are still present in this one. You would think that Goodsmile would try and resolve some of these issues…
And now we return to what the blog was initially started for, MODEL KITS!!! It’s been several weeks since my last update on the progress of Yoko so if I didn’t have something to show for it, it would be safe to start worrying…
So she’s starting to take shape now. The jacket is giving me a little difficulty as I can’t quite get the colour right. But I think I’ll be able to nail that soon.
Well, I said I would do it, so I did! Most of the preliminary steps have been completed now. the parts fits were pretty good for the most part. The pics below show what the larger parts assembled look like, with the areas where I needed to putty to fill in the gaps.
It wasn’t all fun and games though. There were a couple of things which threw me off.
Lelouche did…
And a little devil she was to paint as well!!
This was probably the first time I was happy to paint the eyes on a kit before! Of course, the final assembly of the head caused a whole load of problems and I ended up having to redo the face and hair several times before coming to a compromise…
Thanks again to Melonpan over at Figure.fm, who’s pics of the E2046 C.C allowed me to figure out how everything stuck together!
For those who would like to see my past posts about her, you can find them here:
There wasn’t much to go through this time as there were no complicated parts, just troublesome.
This post should really have come a lot sooner, but dark forces (read: the mail service) conspired against me at every turn. Somehow, the mailman managed to lose both separately after failing to deliver them to my doorstep, since I was out! It took considerable patience, numerous trips to the depot, several complaints and a ridiculously inflated customs tax (some fool worked out the tax thinking the price of the item was in Hong Kong Dollars, not Japanese yen, despite the box saying so. Thus, the exchange rate went from 211 to 13… Big difference!) before getting these 2 so I haven’t been able to post this until now! Shuraki Box 1 and 3!! Mishiro Akatsuki & Char Rhousseman!!
Mishiro only came in this week so this review will cover Char as she has been waiting almost 2 weeks for a chance to shine!
Winter Wonderfestival is now done and dusted with many blogs giving us teases as to what we are missing.
Personally, I have found from the past 2 years I have been following the event, that the winter wonfest is generally more geared towards the corporate side of things so there is more focus on PVC figures and the strength of Garage kits tends to be weaker than that shown in the summer, and this year is no different.
The Garage Kit side of things was dominated by Hatsune Miku (vocaloid) and Yoko (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann) but there were a few others which caught my eye.
but none really had a “must buy factor” so my spending (thankfully) will be a little subdued this time round, if I purchase anything at all. Out of the kits I have seen so far, I think the most impressive ones have been the 3 below.
Of course, Vispo’s rendition of Yoko 21 years old is in the list. One of the much better looking figures of Yoko in the show, but I can’t help but feel that the face is off. Vispo tends to do very distinct face types and, while it works on Asuka and Rei, it doesn’t work that well on Yoko. Chin definitely needs to be less pointy. Being a vispo kit, she’s also very expensive, with figures going for 40~50k! Will probably give this one a miss.
Next we have San-chan from Seto No Hanayome (damn funny show. Watch if you haven’t!). This shows her in full dance getup from her idol duel with Luna Edomae. A pretty solid kit which looks like it would be fun to build. On the fence for this one.
And bringing up the rear, we have Fate T Harlaown (no I don’t know why they stuck with the spelling which was made up by a 5 year old either).
I was hoping for a kit of Fate in her Riot Zanber form and there were a few available. Pose is pretty decent but not sure about the face. There’s always the possibility of a better version in the summer as well… Out of the above 3, I’d say Fate has the best chance of being bought, if I’m quick enough since I’ve only seen one on Y!JA.
For more pics and info, Danny choo and Heisei Democracy are covering the event. Danny also has a news post which links to other Japanese blogs with more pics.
I would recommend
for coverage.
And after the jump, We have the other kits which made me go “hmm”
The end is near!!! And while it would be a lie to say that I hated painting this kit, It’s not an experience I am in any rush to repeat (says the person who also bought the YoikoQ C.C figure at the summer wonderfestival)
Ignoring the rather morbid premise of a pic of a dismembered head, you can see that the head is now completed. When I last posted about C.C, the hands and head were still incomplete.
I decided to paint the nails pink just to highlight the fingertips. Otherwise the hands looked very bland. As for the head, the Geass mark on the forehead was both the hardest thing I had done in a while, due to it’s very small size and precise requirements and also the most pointless thing I have done on a kit…
Winter WonFest is next week and Heisei Democracy has posted up some of the early pickings which will be up for grabs at the event!! a few interesting kits including the Vispo Yoko which I posted about a while back!
Gone off the completed version a little. More pics can be found here. Is it just me, or does her face look a little funny? And there’s more than a hint of :3 in there too!!
Vispo will also be selling the version 2 of his Asuka and bike kit, but I think the first one is superior.
Man, this was a mission!!!
After several weeks of painting, more painting and several mishaps I’ve managed to get the bulk of the project done!
Amazingly, for weeks of work, not that much seems to have been done. Don’t be fooled!! This monster is far more trouble than it appears!!
Many thanks go to Melonpan over at Figure.fm for posting pics of his completed gathering C.C from E2046. With those, I was able to figure out where all the accursed belt parts went and how they all fit together!!! There are still checks and tidy-up to do before I move onto the next part, which should be more interesting than the “all white” painting I’ve been doing on this kit up till now.
Well, I did say that I would give an update, not that there’s much to update at present.
The parts have cleaned, sanded and primed, as shown in the above pic. For some reason, this process took an insanely long time due to various mishaps when priming. Word of advice: Always pay attention to the distance between the part and the Primer can when spraying. I had to redo the primer 4 times because i kept putting the parts too close to the spray which resulted in air pockets and craters in the finish. so you don’t get a smooth finish which really shows up after painting. Just to add more problems, the only way to remove them is to sand the paint off after it has dried and spray again.
Painting has begun but I’m dragging my feet a little because the figure doesn’t stand up by itself!!! As a result, I’m waiting for a display base to arrive so I can fix the figure when the body and legs are completely done. Otherwise, I’ll just have painted parts floating around my workspace with nowhere to put them. The base should arrive soon so then i can go full throttle on the painting, not that there’s any difficulty in this kit, it’s mostly just 1 colour afterall…
In fact, maybe I’ll do another one on the side…
Buying figures and kits used to be easy… It used to be that I would see one kit and it would almost speak to me. It would block out all the other figures and kits of the same character and would be “the one”
Even figures released after wouldn’t quite match the one I originally picked. A good example would be bubbas bunny haruhi. When I first saw that, I went all out to get one and even after seeing such kits as CobraKais rendition, I still thought that the bubba version was better, despite it being less dynamic and interesting. It just had that magic touch.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE DAYS???
Case in point, Vispo has shown a near complete version of his Gurren Lagann Yoko (post time skip) on his website. And it looks impressive to say the least!
I do believe that this feeling building up inside me is… Desire! And this is AFTER I bought the kotobukiya resin kits!! My rules of kit buying are falling apart before my eyes!!!
Still, I’m not sure if the “vs tepparin” Yoko is better than this one, which makes it even worse. Why can’t we go back to the old days where there was the “one for me” feeling instead of cheating and getting several dozen kits of the same character? Guess I could try and sell my Vs AntiSpiral kit after I’m done but that makes me feel dirty, and I don’t think i’d get a good price for it. orz
More pics of Yoko can be found here. His Asuka Racing ver2 also looks sweet but I think the original is better
Heisei Democracy has an interesting post which shows new figures of Kannagi Ayano from Kaze on Stigma and Kirara from Samurai 7 aver at amiami.
To be honest, I don’t think much of them. Ayano, especially, looks off from both the anime and manga designs but I decided to post about these 2 for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, the Company who will make them, Piccolo, have stated that these are actually resin kits, but not only that, they will be prepainted!!
Secondly, They aren’t that expensive!!! Granted, the price tag on the 2 is a little higher than the usual PVC fare, but factor in the advantages of resin (no lean, colours don’t fade, more dynamic poses, etc) and looking toward the future, it will be interesting to see how this pans out. It is possible (though unlikely) that prepainted resin kits will take out a chunk of the figure buying market or even make PVCs obsolete at the price they are selling these 2 at (hah! well, we can dream…)
Of course, prepainted figures such as these are nothing new, but the fact that these are planned to be only a few thousand yen more expensive than a comparable PVC figure, as opposed to much more, like previous prepainted resin figures (which were closer to 15k yen i.e. more than double), will surely turn some heads. Lets just hope that the sculpt and overall figure is up to scratch!!
Afterall, spending 9,000 yen on a figure is no laughing matter, tho I spent that much on each of my Yoko kits and those still require painting…
Seems that the revoltech line has gotten big enough to have a small event dedicated to itself!
I’ve been reading up on some of the reports on akiba hobby and I have to admit I was underwhelmed. Fraulein idolm@ster line and even a revoltech Gurren Lagann didn’t really appeal to me and the whole event seemed rather dull until I saw this:
Do mine eyes deceive me? Or is that a revoltech of the Laevatein?? If that is the case, Definitely DO WANT!! although a regular figure of some sort would do nicely as well.
Spoiler: for those not in the know, the ARX-8 Laevatein is the replacement/upgrade unit for the ARX-7 Arbalest in full metal panic. i.e. Sousukes new unit!! I won’t spoil the plot of the books, but it appears after the events in Owari day by day as animated in FMP: the second raid and it’s rather powerful, being able to take out several Codarls and Behemoths single handedly and in a matter of minutes…
(Edit: in case people are curious, a colour pic of the laevatein can be seen here)
Danny Choo has posted pics of 2 Resin kits of Yoko due for release in December. Click on the links for more pics! HLJ have both up for preorder but I’m having a hard time choosing which one…
I know that many PVC figure lovers are wishing for the first kit, but as a resin kit maker, I have to say I’m favouring the second kit a little more. due to parts of the kit being more interesting to paint (the jacket) and the fact that the hair strands on the first kit are sure to be individual parts and will be an absolute pain to put together…
Having gone thru this for several kits already, notably my Ren, I know how annoying it can be when your kit has too many fragile parts.
Also, one of my rules of resin kit building states that there shall be only 1 kit of any particular character. This was initially to stop myself from buying and old resin kit as it forced me to think if this really was the best kit for the character as I would not be able to buy another. However, this rule has now been broken since I have purchased 2 kits of C.C from code geass from Wonderfestival and is now under review.
What do people think? you they believe that the rule is a good one? or should it be scrapped?
And for those wondering, I have 4 rules:
1) The character represented in the kit must be female. Not really a problem since 90% of all kits are of female characters anyway.
2) No H kits
3 Only 1 kit per character in my collection. (under review)
4) If the character is from a game or anime, I must know the game/anime they are from! I won’t buy a kit of a character from a show I have never watched or a game I have never played. Original characters are exempt, but they are scrutinized more harshly.
So what do people think? Which kit do you think I should go for? or do all of you think that I should just scrap rule 3 and get both?
*sigh* my list of kits to build is growing ever larger. But at least I have plenty of material for this blog for the time being…
Images are the property of DannyChoo.com.
Well, there was no way I was going to pass up on one of these!!! It’s YOTSUBA!!!! in revolvtech form!
(Note: the title of the post was from one of my fave yotsuba sketches (when she goes around shooting ppl with a water pistol quoting a movie she just saw. It’s not a dig at ppl who bought yotsuba by implying they are pedo. Though Don over at orbital, is…)
As always, click on the pics for bigger versions.
Well, it’s been a (not really) long time coming but She’s finally finished! I give you Getsumento Heiki Mina (Densha Otoko ver). Now standing proudly with my other works, unless my very own Herme-tan comes and takes it away…
After the extreme pleasure/pain experience of Bunny Haruhi, I had forgotten how easily things flow when you have a relatively non complex kit to work on! There were no real challenges in this kit, save for the usual thorns and it feels great being able to finish another piece of work. Of course, it still doesn’t match Haruhi in terms of cost (cost of haruhi: £don’t ask) or time spent (6+ months) but it was able to get me back into the groove!
also, for the regular visitors (hah!), I’ve added some more categories to make browsing a little easier. Now, you can click on the “completed works” link to view all the painted figures be they resin (like most) PVC or even the few revolvtechs I have. The in progress link will take you to the posts which comprised of my mini tutorial. Both should grow as I get more kits under my belt!
I also retook the pics of my Bunny Haruhi kit so you may want to check those out!
For those budding kit builders out there. Here are the likes to the previous posts for Mina.
More pics and a brief rundown on the final steps after the jump.
I said it once and I’ll say it far more times than is unnecessary: I HATE PAINTING EYES!!
They never seem to go smoothly for me… But after 3 attempts (including 1 where I had to paint half the face all over again after a mishap with paint thinner) I’ve finally managed to get to stage where the eyes look correct and acceptable. Note, I didn’t say perfect. If I wanted a perfectly painted kit, then I’d never finish as there’s always something I would redo! So, for the penultimate stage of this little project, let’s look at eye painting in a little more detail!!
Initially, we started with a face which was painted completely over in flesh colour, as seen in the first pic along with hair parts.
The first thing we need to do is paint the whites of the eyes. This is pretty much the only time I use something other than acrylic paints on my kit. For this stage, I use enamel paint. The reason being that being that enamel paint doesn’t react with paint thinner, so if you make some big mistakes later on, you can use thinner to wipe out all the acrylic paint on top but the enamel will always remain so there’s one step less to worry about. Just be careful when wiping the paint off. You don’t want to overdo it and rub off some of the skin paint around the eyes by accident… orz
Continued after the jump
Bit of a small update today as we’re on the final stretch of this little project and the eyes (as always) are giving me a real headache. I’ve nearly done them but for now, I thought I would update the progress with the rest of the head.
And by rest of the head, I mean the hair and bunny ears. Since they’re all that’s left. Mina was a little tricky as her hair colour was not straight up blonde, but more of a darker shade which was harder to mix together. First thing to do was to spray the hair pieces white, to make sure that the final hair colour wasn’t too dull.
Once that was done, I sprayed the pieces yellow. The hope was that the yellow would brighten up certain areas so long as the main colour was not sprayed on too thick. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite work out as planned…
More after the jump
Methinks it’s time for another update!! When we left Mina last time, she was cleaned and primed ready for painting.
and now?
Please excuse the shots, I’ll make good ones when she’s finished… I promise!!
With regards to painting, I won’t dwell on it too much as it’s pretty much down to the individual for techniques and how they wish to tackle it. But I will cover some general techniques which will be essential for any wannabe model painter after the jump.
Now that Danny has posted up the winners of his contest, I’m now free to actually post this figure up!
I have made no attempt in hiding my general dislike for PVC figures in the communities I am a part of. For me, the building process is as important, if not more so than the finished product so I have usually chosen to go for unpainted resin kits over a mass produced PVC. There are, however, exceptions. They are few and far between (the most recent ones being the Shuraki figures and Mirei-san by Shunya Yamashita) as they really have to stand out for me to take notice. Like this one.
KOS-MOS from Xenosaga Episode 1!
KOS-MOS has been one of my fave video game characters in recent memory and this atypical pose for her has been one of the best renditions of her first form, so I had to get it! I also have the BOME version, but like nearly all BOME figures, I found the pose to be very dull and static. Which is another reason why i tend to shy away from PVC figures.
More pics after the jump
It’s been quite some time since I posted anything about my current figure project, so i thought an update is in order. Luckily, she hasn’t stalled yet!! They say that preparation is half the battle. That certainly would be the case here…
When we last left Mina, her preliminary fitting was done and excess flash was removed but that was about it. After that came the cleaning. Obviously, you couldn’t leave the flash marks and seam lines as they were, otherwise they would show up really badly when you came to the painting phase. (more after the jump)
For those of you who don’t visit figure.fm, the first 2 kits from my wonder festival shopping spree have arrived from Japan!! I posted the pic over at figure.fm earlier this week but I hadn’t even taken them out of their packaging by that point.
In any case, here are 2 of my purchases from FW summer 07, Cerberus Project Ignis from Jingai Makyou and Jet Streams rendition of C.C from Code Geass!
You will probably recognize them from my previous posts on Wonfest kits which interested me. I haven’t done much to them so far, only removed the really big flash parts and one a very basic parts fit to make sure I wasn’t missing any pieces but even that was enough to impress me so I thought I would post my initial impressions. You can read them after the jump.
Another blast from the past this time around. This is my kit of ren ren nagusa… something from DearS!
This kit was my very first airbrushed kit so I learned a lot over the course of painting this kit, from how much to thin the paint to what paints work well with eachother.
I also got a crash course in what materials to use for very basic modding, free of charge…
A few more pics and extra info after the jump.
away from me!
*ahem*
There’s nothing like a wonderfestival shopping spree to get you in the mood for building yet another kit. I took n extended break after the, rather draining, bubba haruhi bunny kit but I though I should do my last remaining figure kit before the summer 07 batch arrives.
And here she is!
This is the original 月面兎兵器 ミーナ (Getsumento heiki Mina) figure as seen in the live action drama 電車男 (densha otoko, or train man). I managed to obtain it at around the same time as my bunny haruhi but it took a back seat as I worked on other kits. Now, I find myself in the mood for making another model kit, but I doubt that there will be a Hermes-tan who will take this figure away from me when it’s done.
Truth be told, I was trying for a prepainted version, but there was a hiccup along the way… Nevertheless, now that I have one, I’m going to complete it. I’ll also be doing a small step-by-step guide on how I’m building this kit so those of you who are interested in making your own resin kits may find this and future posts of interest. Feel free to ask any questions on the kit.
more thoughts and the first steps after the jump.
True to my word, I was able to purchase a Dark Saber Revolvtech to accompany my regular saber!!
You would think that a recoloured saber with a few design changes would make very little difference to the figure itself and the gripes I had with the original would still be present. Well, in some ways that is correct and in others it’s very wrong.
More pics and review of the changes after the jump.
The internet is now abuzz with the aftermath of wonderfestival, which occurred on Sunday. Various blogs and sites have now started releasing photos of the kits which were available at the event and I have to say, it’s a pretty strong showing this year. If WonFest Summer 06 could be considered the Year of Haruhi (it was when bubba’s bunny kit was first shown afterall…) then this year will probably be remembered as the year of Code Geass! A lot of high quality (and not so high quality) figures for that series and, arguably, the ones most people would like to get their hands on.
The only disappointing part was that, unlike last year, there was no 1 “must have” kit! There were quite a few good ones but none which made me drop everything and put all my efforts into obtaining one, which could actually be considered a good thing… However, this one came close…
This is a kit by Cerberus Project and was unveiled on the groups blog just prior to the event. Unfortunately, trying to track one down has proven very difficult. Add to that, the demand for the kit and is shows that this one will be very difficult to get. Not that it’s going to stop me from trying though… If anyone knows where I can find one, please share!!
I’ve posted up some pics of the kits which grabbed my attention but you may want to check out dannychoo and Heisei Democracy for more galleries. Currently, I have 3 figures on my watch list and 1 actually bought! These should keep me busy for a while!! Pics after the jump!
The summer wonderfestival is this weekend so I’m sure all the big blogs are gearing up and charging their cameras for coverage of the event.
There has been a fair bit of talk leading up to the event too, with manufacturers showing what they will have to offer at the event. None of which really grabbed me, as I am far more interested in the Resin kits.
Heisei Democracy have a fair few posts on what will be up for show but I have to admit that not many kits which have been announced even hit my radar, although the ignis resin kit from Jingai Makyou by Cerberus project (which can be seen here) looks very tempting. I probably couldn’t do it justice either, but that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to give it a try.
I was looking forward to the C.C kit at Wonfest but after looking at the prototype more closely, I may give it a miss. We’ll have to see how the other code Geass kits shape up. The Shirley Kit by RyunRyunTei looks quite nice, if a little plain.
Looks like I’ll have to wait for pics before hitting Yahoo Japan! Auctions. There are a few other kits which may pique my interest. Better contact my agent too, since she usually takes several days to reply…
Are there any items which other people are looking out for/ want for themselves? Aside from the now infamous Ignis the red…
I have now bought my first revoltech! All Hail Saber!!!!
Orbital Manga had a few in stock and the revoltech line has always intrigued me so I went for the plunge. (still waiting for my Revoltech Dangaioh tho. *nudge*)
On the subject of Japanese renditions of all things British, I also watched eps 24 and 25 of Code Geass last night! Without putting in any spoilers, They really milked the fact that there is a second season for what it’s worth. The ending wasn’t too bad but it did feel like they were milking the fact for all it was worth!
In any case, more pics of Saber and more Geass goodness (with spoilers) after the jump!
gah, my limited Japanese is getting rusty. In any case, here is one of my personal fave kits in my possession, Kazami Mizuho from Onegai Teacher!
There are quite a lot of kits of this character, both in PVC and resin flavours but most tend to focus on her more sexy side. Nothing wrong with that but I prefer the more demure teacher look she had over a provocative lying down pose which she never actually did in the anime…
Thus, when I found out that kotobukiya were doing a re release of this kit a while back, I instantly snapped it up! This kit also has the honour of being my last hand painted kit. After this one, I bought myself a small airbrush and compressor for my future kits. Maybe I should go back and repaint this one…
Again, I’m sorry about the quality of the pics. They do get better, Honest!!
Finally managed to dig out some pics of older model kits so ppl can see how much better (or worse) I have become over the years.
First up, we have Jam Kuradoberi from Guilty Gear X (and it’s numerous revisions). There was actually a very nice coldcast kit of the same model available but I didn’t like some bits of the colour scheme so I decided to paint my own.
This was one of my very first kits and it probably shows. Back then, I painted all my kits by hand (no airbrush for me) so there were many issues I needed to overcome, such as visible brush marks on larger surfaces. Still, I do look back rather fondly on this kit, being one of my earliest works. I hadn’t even developed any skills with the camera at this point so even the photos suck!! Apologies everyone!!
For those curious about my edits in the colour scheme, originally, the right arm was completely covered in a black glove which went all the way to the shoulder and also covered the cleavage. I wasn’t having any of that so I painted the dress so the cleavage was more exposed and painted it as though the glove was never there. I prefer it that way but here’s a pic of the original for those interested
Remember around July last year, the whole anime community went gaga over this kit from a sculptor who went under the name BUBBA? Well, I went and got one of the 200 original kits which he sold at WF (thanks Mayu!!!)
Almost a whole year later, I’ve finally managed to finish her. Just don’t ask what took me so long…
For those who are interested, The bunny costume was painted in a midnight blue colour and not black like the original (I felt that black was a little boring) but the colour doesn’t show up too much in the pics. It can be either a blessing or a curse depending on how you think. The accessories were purchased as part of a Macfarlane toys figure of Jimi Hendrix. So, now I have jimi missing his amp and mike stand…
The Mic stand was extended, otherwise it would only reach the naval. but otherwise, everything else was pretty much by-the-book (what book, I’m not sure). Any questions? feel free to ask and I’ll try to answer them.
And yes, I am aware of the recent flood of official kits on Yahoo Japan Auctions since the re-release .
More pics after the jump
