I ordered the Evoroid Jet-N earlier today.. Been interested in these lil guys for awhile now, and I finally caved in and giving one a whirl. Also helps that they've released info on future sets - an eagle, a helicopter, and a couple of remolds/repaints which look groovy. If I get into these, I might try n figure out a possible combiner geezer..
So my first foray into the whole Mecha Musume thing was ATK Girls Serqet. I picked this one in particular because of the mecha scorpion with the girl as an afterthought (not that I didn't have an idea of what to do with that). The mecha scorpion took the better part of three days to put together where one of those days was just putting the legs together. The kit itself fit reasonably well although it's apparently unforgiving on how you snip the gates (I've had some Gundam models where they weren't so finicky about that so this was a bit of a shocker). In the end some of the pieces wouldn't stay in as advertised (this isn't a new thing as I've had to do some... things to get some pieces to stay on some Zoids models) where I ended up hot glue on the transluscent blades on the claws (they wouldn't stay in otherwise as there was nothing actually holding them down) and I capped the supposed ratchet joints (all ten of them) without sticking in the ratchet piece (because I couldn't get them in, so I gave up). The legs and claws still move freely even if they don't ratchet though, so it's not completely useless. The tail I didn't have any problem with whatsoever. The girl I only had issue with putting the calf on one of the legs backward so I had to pry it apart and put it back on. I broke one of the pegs in the process, but there are enough other pegs on it that it didn't really matter. Sadly what I did break was the small peg in her parted hair that holds the two halves together so her parting slides out if you hold her head the wrong way. Kind of a shame because the other hair parts come in duplicate runners, but not those. The stand doesn't inspire me with confidence and I hear it is readily breakable because of the plastic used. I haven't tried any heavy loads on it (mostly because I never stuck the scorpion armor on the girl because of lack of interest) so it might be fine as is. The girl is dressed in either the first print bonus clothes or dollar clothes from Daiso (yes, they're actually too large for this scale, but I also already modified it for this scale so it fits fine. She is specifically modded to somewhat resemble my avatar, but you can't do a lot about fringe hair in this line). So while it wasn't exactly a perfect experience, I am pretty happy with both the girl and the mecha scorpion. I know that the mecha animals aren't exactly common in this line or the other brands (nor do most that do exist interest me, either), but it only takes one to hook interest, and this one has a particular special meaning to me personally. TLDR: loved it, looking to build another figure.
I picked up the Arachne Kimono set on discount and I'm in a bit of a pickle. I put the kimono on Serqet (because Arachne and Serqet are twin models so of course it would work) and I can't bring myself to take it off. I mean, sure, learning how to put the kimono on was an experience in of itself (still haven't figured out how the head ornaments go on), but the real trick was the obi only goes on when everything is actually set JUST right because it's not as long as it needs to be (probably about 10-20 mm too short, it is not a real obi and attaches via a pair of metal buttons. You CAN still just tie it together, but its not nearly as solid as the button. On the flip side, it does ensure you're actually putting it on at the right place) I don't know what other people do with their mecha girls, but I wonder if this dilemma is what prompted the retail idea of getting blank bodies (with customs as a side benefit unless you're working with 30 Minute Sisters, which I read were designed with customs in mind). Side note: invest in a stand with a clip attachment. Preferrably one that isn't as reputably fragile as the one that came with the model.
Every ATK girl I've built has absolutely obnoxious gating. The way they gate the kits, it literally quadruples the build time because if you want clean seams, EVERY PLACE where a clean seam should be...has a gate or two...or three. I LOVE the looks of the atk girls...but they are so labor intensive it's not really worth the work. I could build 4 MG gundams, finished, decaled and painted in the time to JUST ASSEMBLE these kits. Same goes for the MS general. I waited for that kit for 6 months...took 2 to build it. Kotobukia owns this shit hands down. The other companies produce good products too,but if you ask me, anything koto is usually a great build. Bandai 30 minute sisters are GOOD, but I think they are just relearning how to make girl models again, so I give them a break on selection now. A 30 ms feels like an action figure when your done. Thats cool.
I'd love to look into the other lines if it wasn't for the fact the things that actually caught my interest cost an arm and a leg. For instance, Chaos & Pretty Witch Darkness came out several years ago and commands an atrocious after market price. I did hear the regular Witch version was being reprinted, but it's not the same (although that's just sounding picky, it's still an interesting looking set), and that it seems to already be sold out for preorders (and very likely for good reason). I think part of the reason I haven't gone in on 30 MS is I don't feel like I can do anything with them yet. It's a little different starting from the bottom to having a warchest of parts over the course of several years is how I look at approaching it.
I don't know, the seam lines don't bother me that much in some instances, but then again I've got a few Kotobukia sets right now where parts just fall off. I shouldn't have to glue anything for these snap-together kits if I want to pose them.
So I did a bunch of shopping at my local hobby stores and pulled together some stuff I could manage (at discounted prices, at that). Also got a couple of decent deals at Amiami that should be coming next week. This month's haul: - ATK Girl Titans (Stag Beetle) (TBH I don't know how I ended up with this, but it was there and it was discounted) -Chaos & Pretty Darkness Magical Girl (heavily discounted) -Chaos & Pretty Darkness Witch (the aforementioned Amiami pickup with an aftermarket price less than half the current average asking price on ebay; I'm positive this will be okay) - ATK Girl JW-021 Elite Guard Overseas version (specifically wanted at least one of the two with Overseas version for the translucent purple sprue as most of the online stores that have her appear to have the Chinese release version; ALSO got this one on a generous discount from Amiami) If I'm not sick of these things after all that I'm more than likely picking up the JW Archer (although unlikely to be on discount because I haven't seen a place with her with a discount yet). My original intention was to get just JW Archer, but I couldn't pass on JW021 when I saw it (at the time of purchase JW Archer was backordered) I've already finished Titans and am in the middle of doing Magical Girl Darkness (waiting for the paint to dry). ==== Titans (Stag Beetle) Okay so I was warned ahead of time that Titans has two ridiculous flaws 1) she's backheavy as all heck to the point the stand is worthless with it deployed and 2) she can almost make a whole another body except there isn't a duplicate waist piece. I am making plans to remedy that with a bunch of hot glue, but I'm waiting for some other things to show up first before I do that (particularly want to see what spare parts I end up with when I'm done with the Chaos & Pretty girls); I have no experience with mold casting and I don't want to deal with that if I don't have to. The crazy thing about Titans is I was in the middle of following the default instructions to making her until I got to the part of her armored form when I started using the black body parts sprue. I realized between the unarmored version and the armored version I would have a much more difficult time if I didn't build it for the armored version specifically, so I undid the fleshtone chest and replaced it with the black one. Sorry, I couldn't help myself; the all-black bodysuit look under the armor pieces looked much better than the default bikini armor look (also means I used the old thicc black thighs, too). ===== Magical Girl Darkness Only about half-way done with her at the time of this post because I finished building her body and then painted some of the sticker details on her; currently waiting for those to dry before continuing. I've been told that the ATK girls have a bunch of issues with mold flash, but the two I did have nothing on MGD's grape-colored limbs (basically her stockings). I've tried filing and sanding it down to the best of my ability, but no matter what I do it seems to make things more messy. The worst of it is I don't have the right colors on hand to match the grape color used (nor do I 100% understand the instructions to mix it), so I think there's something I'm going to have to be really careful about when Witch Darkness comes (which I think also has grape limb parts).
I am not a huge fan of the lack of crucial parts to make two bodies with the A.T.K. girls myself, but I adore the overall aesthetic. They sold spare bodies of flesh tone with extra parts, but those extra parts I haven't checked out thoroughly enough yet to see if they will work for internal waist joints to make the bodies of the actual models both fully functional. I know for a fact they won't work for the Wolf Girl, since her design is different. Also it doesn't help that she (of the two I've built so far) didn't come with a spare armored up neck joint/head connector, the spare bodies A.T.K. makes doesn't include head connectors either so, if you only have the parts for one head in a model you can't make the two bodies even with the spare inner waist connection points. If those inner waist connection points match up with the design of the build. I have to check the instructions on my Heracross to see if those work there too, they might only be for Serket and Arachne since the sprues include the funky spider design chest emblem. Though I have no idea why you'd want one of those in flesh tones. The true beauty of the spare flesh tone bodies however is that they come with alternate head joints for similar style kits like the Kotobukia line, you only get one set of legs, but with the spare thighs from Kotobukia kits and the legs from same you can probably mix and match to make fully serviceable bodies. They all have realistic nipples of course, but with the clothing line from A.T.K girls you can cover up that little problem or just swap out torsos potentially with regular torsos from other lines. I mean, in theory, I'd have to look more into doing it myself before I even subscribe to such a thing. You can't mix and match parts while building though, at least as far as I can tell, but that is probably the norm for such things.
After messing with Chaos and Pretty Magical Girl Darkness and the ATK Girl spare body I realize just how crappy Serqet's body really is (or maybe it just shows its age). I mean, the proportions of the body are really exaggerated vertically. ATK Girl spare body does come with extra head connectors-- total of three, in fact. Not entirely sure what went with what as that was a little trial and error, but I did get Serqet and Magical Girl's heads to work on it. Titans, though... her head didn't work with any of the balls for some reason (you would think it would work with the 5mm ball, but the head doesn't 'catch' it and the 5.35mm ball is too big; it seems the socket is expecting something in-between that, but I haven't successfully pegged it on no matter how much filler (newspaper bits, in this case) I throw in). As for making use of a second body, the limiting factor is really how many spare shoulders and thighs you have (although Titans shoulders did not work for some reason... seems to be a recurring theme with Titans although her thighs did work). Almost like a hint for the tops/bottoms sets when applicable. The craziest thing about the ATK Girl spare body is... in some cases you can actually get it cheaper by buying it with a clothes set. ===== Magical Girl Darkness - Addendum Finished putting 'everything' together (some of the weapon parts are still on the sprues)-- they gave you so much modular weapon parts it's almost hard to settle on what to hang on to, except maybe as the mood strikes. It's certainly different from the previous two ATK Girl sets, although I can see this is also a case where having more stand arms just for the effects could come into play (although I never was big into the effect parts that came with the WfC figures, although I think some of them are actually compatible with these since they should all be mostly using 3mm pegs/sockets as well). It may be my eyes, but I can't tell the difference between the two hair sprues. I guess one of them is 'glossier' than the other, but I'm not sure what difference this actually makes (the only thing that made sense to me was you got a whole another head to play with). I know the regular version the second hair sprue was a radically different color so with Darkness I wonder what they were going for by doing this. I don't have regular Magical Girl to compare, but I am guessing one of the 'major' differences is the POM T-shape piece for the leg/waist articulation. Darkness otherwise leaves you with two other T-shapes with nothing to use them on, so I guess they're officially 'spare' parts like the ludicrous number of wrist joints the set gives you. Titans-- addendum Among her spare parts are two completely unused head bases. I assume they were meant for the Heracross set since Titans' hair doesn't work on them (and they're too big in the back for anyone else to use without cutting it down). Since Titans head didn't work on the spare body any thought I had at whittling down the back of the head to get it to fit other hairs went down the drain since I'm assuming they also wouldn't work (maybe I should actually test that before deciding that, but nah, fixing them up is probably more trouble than it's worth). Although to be fair the only extra hair backs came from the Serqet set since she comes with three runners for back hair for some crazy reason (and yet only one front hair sprue). ===== Thoughts in general I still like where I'm going with this, but at the same time I do see a light at the end of the tunnel as far as the known releases go; JW Swordsman and Archer are the only ones in the 'newer' releases that interest me. I waffled more than once on the four Saint Beasts, but in the end I decided I didn't want to go down that rabbit hole because a) I know I might feel obligated to complete the set of all four, b) I'm not that huge into the bikini armor thing (ref. what I did to Titans and Serqet), and c) I think I finally understand why people say the ATK girl face plates are 'terrible'-- its not that they're objectively bad, it's that they don't show enough personality compared to other MM kits (like how Magical Girl has a delinquent face and a standard magical girl winking face-- or heck, grossly exaggerated like Exorcist's yandere face). Speaking of which, as interesting as Exorcist is, personally I I want to take a crack at 30 Minute Sisters at some point, but finding an 'entry' into it is proving difficult since the existing ones don't impress me much (not to mention the ridiculousness of how the hair sets are being sold-- most are selling either the entire set of four regardless and then there's Amazon that gives you ONE randomly at the price of the entire set for some anti-consumer reason). I think the biggest thing is I don't quite understand the head piece situation with sets-- it seems like you can ONLY get the head base pieces from the main sets (because the face set seems to just be face plates-- and also being sold in an entire set instead of as individual sets of 3s like you would think...). So... uh... yeah. Someone needs to clean up that mess.
^^^^^ Welcome to mecha girl building. Almost every kit I've built from ATK give you ALMOST enough to build 2 torsos, but misses the internal connectors. Just fab something up or glue the torso. The "older" ATK kits only major problem, once again, is the gating. Im kinda a perfectionist with my models, and the sheer amount of labor ATK girls, and MS Generals require, have really pushed me away from those companies. I've either built, or have unbuilt pretty much all of the atk, ms general kits. They are all great if your willing to put in the time. If your not, or not skilled enough, these models will look like a flame g ball of shit. And because the integrity of the model is achieved by good fitting parts with tight seams, you will have a floppy, creaky mess that looks like he'll. Same for the I8 toys models...way too much labor to build. Because they took easy ways to make the mold.
Yuck? Some of these kits I'm building are the most complex gets, (to be fair, to LOOK GOOOOD) Take some of the highest levels of my model building life. I've built everything. You name it. These kits are some of the most fun I can have out side of bandai gundam kits, and some of these are HARD. I love that. Just finished greifen. This was a fantastic kit. Put it off for a long time. Base figure, fully glued, is as good as any modern high end figure, just lighter. I've often thought about weighting the insides...
Still have to paint the brown straps on the legs that hold the exotic frame. Finished virtue and dynames.. Not sure what I want to build next. Any suggestions? I should post my backlog. Anyone have pics of their backlog?
Funny thing about that. The more I looked into the ATK girls it seems like I totally fluked out on the ones that DIDN'T have a second body; apparently the ones that don't are just Arachne, Serqet, Heracross. Titans, and Baihu (the first four because they're paired twins, Baihu probably because they didn't think about it until they put out Xuanwu). So I think for the ATK girls at the time of this post that is just half of them. In any case, I solved my problem with Titans now that I got a set of Tops/Bottoms to work with (more than one, in fact, but that's neither here nor there right now). I mean, sure, it obviously doesn't fit directly, but with a bit of sanding and hot glue it sticks together. The leg crossbar, though, I had to resort to cutting off a bit of sprue to use that instead. It's not that snug of a fit, but it fits better than the spare T-piece from the Magical Girl set and it does its job now that its glued down. Backlog is filling up a bit. I got Witch Darkness in, and preliminary inventory suggests that everything's there. Also got Overseas JW 021 and JW 059 (because Black/Purple look better than Red to me, the Red version for whatever reason is easier to come by). JW 059 came with the first print magnets, JW 021 didn't (I knew that from the start, I wasn't actually counting on getting the magnets in either set, but it happened). Most likely going to work with Witch Darkness first-- once my workspace isn't occupied. At least that happening slowed things down for me a bit so I can't straight blow through all of the girls.
Just Paid for my Frame Arms Ginrai armor set @HLJ, n getting it shipped by FedEx - sod it, it's a late birthday present to myself!
Nice! Took a week off work after mom died, to get me head right. Instead of sitting on this I built it...I have a bad habit of keeping model kits I deem "too nice to build right now" and they sit in my backlog. Not this one. I said piss on it and started nipping. By far...the most incredible model kit I've ever built. Hands down nothing even comes close. Anyone...and I mean this..ANYONE who loves building models of any kind, should try to keep an eye out just to have this building experience. When I watched Adam savage build one said that's enough...im building mine... No panel line or paint yet. Only a few of the stickers from the main sheet. Fully transformable core fighter with retractable landing gear....battery powered beam saber.. I could go on and on.. My fav model kit ever
Finished half of Chaos & Pretty Witch Darkness. I skipped the bare body (when I could) and went straight for the Witch this time. Also used the Tops/Bottoms shoulders and thighs I built prior so I skipped those (for now). The stocking color is different in-person than in the pictures; they are actually a deep purple instead of deep blue like I've seen in various online photos. That turned out to be fortuitous to me since I actually have that color purple on-hand so I went and dotted out the leftover cutting/sanding marks from the gates. Holy crap, that eye piece that goes in the hat is probably the smallest piece I've ever handled. Whose idea was it to do it like that? Did some detail painting and waiting for it to dry. Instead of going for orange trim like on Magical Girl Darkness I did it in silver (the original intention was to do it in deep blue, but I a) don't have a dark enough blue, I have blues, but I would need a much, much darker one and b) see above, as it would no longer match the stocking color). I did consider doing the trim in purple, but I could do that later if I felt like it (easier to go over the silver than it is over purple, after all). ==== On a related note, the Tops/Bottoms set and the ATK Girl bare body. The shoulders work perfectly. Bottoms Thighs fit, but the peg on the thigh is much thicker than the thigh peg for ATK Girls. So no mix-matching legs (not without the entire thigh along with it, at least). A pity. Another related note: arm washers are the same size as the T-piece for the thighs. Used those and hot glue to make my own set of inner thigh pieces (from Titans set, it has two extra sets of thighs) that only rotate in the forward-backward direction (no sideways motion), but it does work. I *think* technically C&P girls come with extra arms so that's not going to be an issue, but I wonder what I'd do about legs.
So I'm 'done' with JW 021 Shadow Hunter from E-Model (Overseas version). First of all, it looks gorgeous. Gold on black/gunmetal. I don't care how weird the helmet looks, it went together great and it looks good in person. Second, it was really painful to put together: 1. If I thought CP Darkness Witch's eye was horrifying to put in, JW 021 has like six parts like that. Lost two of the pieces 'forever' that way (can't find them), but at least the runner has extras on it. As a note of point, four of them aren't even regularly visible in the end (because they go on the back piece as detailing), so when I get to JW 059 I'm leaving them off. 2. The backpack works on an arm system, but the base arm swivel on both sides stay in just as well as Golden Disk Terrorsaru's wings. Probably need to shave that peg down a lot before it becomes tolerable. 3. The pegs on the rubbery black plastic runner are universally too big for the regular ABS pieces' sockets. This is a bit of a problem since the entire shoulder part and the T-piece for the legs are made of those and they've typically won out against the ABS parts without some vigorous sanding, and I'm still not convinced I did it enough. Third, some fun notes: 1. the set actually comes with four head bases, not two. 2. it also technically comes with four sets of hair, but one of them is truncated for the helmet so it's really just three. 3. it comes with two extra chest parts that aren't used. From the way the runner is set up it's probably a copy runner for the Saint Beasts, but I'm still unsure if anything can be done with them. The weapons, head, and legs put together the easiest with little issues; the arms were a pain in the ass, especially when you put the arm blade in which gets in the way of everything you try to do with it. From the looks of it the arms for JW 059 should be different enough that it won't suffer the same sorts of problems as JW 021 (mostly because the cape), while most of the rest of the body should be the same.
