So for the first time I actually top coated my painting. Mind you, I've avoided doing it for so long because a lot of the scratching/rubbing issues I've had in the past were really fixed by not touching the thing (mostly my custom painted Transformers are fine if left alone for a week), but with MD (especially with Magical Girl Darkness where I was having huge issues with it) I decided I ought to give it a go and bought a cheap can of Krylon Matte Clear (or whatever) and had at it with a few handful of things. So yeah, I do feel kind of silly for avoiding it for so long because it really wasn't anything worth worrying about (except for the obvious First Time Noob errors like overspraying and running-- I had one thigh peg get some running down it that I had to sand/file off. On the other hand that thigh actually holds my modded ATK girl leg a lot better than before). The matte finish it gave was really good and it even worked ridiculously well against my hot glue spots (they no longer stand out against the rest of the pieces). The unusually glossy Tops/Bottoms look a lot better with less gloss on it, too. I know people recommend stuff like Mr. Topcoat, but I wanted to use something both useable and less expensive (I've done enough research to learn that Krylon's topcoat spray is acceptable, it's just that the nozzle is a lot stronger than the Japanese cans, so doing it just like the Japanese cans is a no-no). Eventually I may graduate into spray paints and/or airbrushing, but one thing at a time. Think my next step is working with primer (as I've primarily dealt with acrylics I haven't usually done this, but I can't imagine it should be that much different from paint layering which I already am familiar with)
Sorry, no picture (yet). I've been debating off and on about the Kotobukiya Crash cloak which costs around $15 for a piece of barely articulated plastic. I can't deny that it looks good, but I heard so many complaints about it, not the least of which is how overpriced it is. Yet my mind can't help but keep thinking to it and how I just like that look. For a while I've been looking at tutorials to make my own cloak, but they varied greatly on skill levels which I'm not a high enough level to do. The thing that made the most sense to me was a wired cloth cape, but in a lot of ways that's seriously going overboard for what I want (I don't need dynamic posing, I am okay with gravity doing its work. Which is why I'm okay with the Crash cloak being inarticulate-- I'm really going for a look, not looking to make a pose). An off-hand comment I saw on Gunpla Reddit (it's obviously about Sandrock or Crossbone capes) mentioned using an old T-shirt and to double the width to get the whole wrap-around look. That finally ticked on a light bulb in me. While I didn't use an old T-shirt I did use a part of old pajamas, cutting a piece out that included the sewed seam. I took an old twist tie that came from a loaf of bread and laid it against the inside of the seam, then took some Elmer's tacky glue and put it generously on one side of the seam, and folded it back over. Effectively I have the twist tie glued into place at the seam which made it easy (for me) to keep track of it. Result is a really barebones makeshift cape with a wire across the top. In theory I should actually fold the seams on the remaining three edges, but I think I'll leave that for when I do a better one.
^^^SNIP^^^ For top coating, if you want gloss, Use Future. Any clear parts, do the "canopy dip" with future...I airbrush it on mostly, but you can brush it on as well and it will give great results. You never run out, I have models ive top coated with it for years, and it holds up just as good as any you can buy. Plus you can add different colors and tint future. If your building Koto kits and mecha masume models, you NEED future in your inventory, just to tighten up some of the joints here and there. Plus you can easily put some future in a smaller bottle and brush small parts you want glossed and it self levels so NO Brush strokes. It literally is one of the best "new things" ive discovered since buildings models as a kid. As for dull, Ive tried them all, and what ive settled on in the past few years is Mr surface dull. Yes, its a bit pricey, I get about 2-3 kits out of one can, but you just cant come close to the quality. Even the spray tip is very good. As for accessories and the cloak...no way...Build that thing your self. Get some thin wire, and go to the fabric store. Tell the person you want "this color..thin..that does not fray easy" they will show you some colors, then just grab some fabric glue "I beleive that last one I bought was a flexible white glue type", run the wire close to an edge, lay a bead of glue along the wire, and fold the end of the fabric over the wire. Your not doing ANYTHING differemt that the little wire embedded cloaks Ive recieved in any other kits.
It's so weird, now both of the Asra Aoi kits are being reissued. While I'm still on the lookout for getting an inexpensive x.0 Asra Archer**, I think there's no hurting me putting in a preorder for the Aoi version (did the same for Aoi Ninja, after all, even though I don't have interest in x.0 Ninja and that's readily available. I think it's just I find Ninja more acceptable in sky blue). Sure, it'll take the rest of the year to see either of them, but I guess that's the nature of the beast now (unless I stop waffling on the SOL sisters***). ** I do have a working avenue that hasn't come through yet, but you never know. *** I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, Low-Vis Hornet reminds me a lot of the girl on the box art for the European version of The Guardian Legend. On the other hand, ATK Girl Titans as I have her is configured in virtually the same way I would have done Hornet (not to mention Titans already looks like the censored version of aforementioned TGL girl), so in a sense I already 'have' Hornet. I may end up just getting Road Runner.
I seen...Ive wanted archer aoi but would never pay the price. I have the shadow archer n ninja, but Asra archer is.... its one of my all time fav builds.
One lonely night on Amazon and I realized I could get some relatively inexpensive Modeling Support Goods sold by Amazon (the same as how I got some of the tops/bottoms sets, which have since gone out of stock and are now rip-off prices there. Have to get them elsewhere now since I used all of them up for customs-- story for some other time). The first to arrive is MSG 01 Flexible Arm Joint Type A, which looks like three missile racks and three arms, with some intermediate pieces. Now, what prompted this was how I took Magical Girl Darkness's pieces and rebuilt JW-021 Swordsman's backpack. 021 is now currently my favorite MM girl, but her backpack didn't survive QA intact so it never really held together right (the backpack itself; the arms are actually fine. Even the single holder arm is fine). I took one of MGD's "club" pieces because it basically was a four-way socket piece and stuck in male-male pieces to attach the backpack to the girl and the two arms. As a bonus, I attached the long sword arm on the remaining space so 021 rocked five swords. Flash forward to today. Seeing as how I owned so many extra pieces now I rebuilt the backpack into a more compact shape using just three pieces. Then I took 30MS Rishetta's legs off and gave her skeleton mechanical legs for the fun of it (side benefit is it makes her taller; her real legs went on a legless ATK Girl which officially uses up all of my Titans thighs**). The thing I didn't quite understand about this set is why it had a set of sockets/pegs that were in 3.3mm diameter. I have no idea what the point of that is since they can only connect to each other (which eventually leads to both ends back at 3mm connections anyway). I ordered more than that, but they're mostly more pieces. I was surprised at how much I got out of just one set and glad I backed down on buying the Raging Booster (which I was originally getting to make as mech legs, now I don't have a pressing need for that and won't feel as stupid when/if I get C&P Alice since her rabbit mech is made out of it) ** Yes. That means if you hadn't been keeping up, 30MS and ATK Girl thighs and shoulders are 100% compatible with each other as opposed to Megami Device where it's just the arms and the thigh pegs are larger ED 4/27: Reading some documentation on Hobby Search apparently 3.3mm pegs/sockets were used on Frame Arms Girls (of which I have none) so it may just be a legacy thing since I heard they should all use 3mm sockets/pegs now.
Got Mobile Doll May (normal version) today. I don't know anything about Gundam Build Divers so I got her based entirely on appearance (I do feel it fair to see about getting at least one model from each series, although in many cases it doesn't work out. I still haven't found a Frame Arms Girl I thought interesting/inexpensive enough, for instance; I was recommended Magatsuki, but she's expensive as all heck. I came close to getting Nuke Matrix Lirly Bell because of the tactical HUD, but that was the only thing I liked about it so I made one instead-- part of the reason why I went and bought MSG parts). Very much a precursor to the 30 Minute Sisters. Probably the experience I was robbed of Rishetta earlier (ref: bought it used on Amazon, it came completely built). I can tell if I started with one of the more recent Bandai kits I would have probably raged at the ATK Girls for being much more difficult, but that's what hindsight does (in fact I think starting with Serqet really was the best thing that could've happened to me). Roughly same size and build as Rishetta, but that's where the differences end. - Rishetta can't use any of MD May's limbs, but can use the 3mm accessories (the two handguns) - On the other hand, MD May can use Rishetta's legs (from the thigh-to-waist connection, but not anywhere further down. BTW it doesn't work the other way around because May's thigh sockets are very deeply recessed so no other kit can make use of it) - Rishetta and MD May can actually head swap, although the neck is way too long for May. May can also use the 30MM head adapter that came with Rishetta without modification (unless you count removing her neck as a mod, which really isn't). I don't know how exactly the 30MM adapter is supposed to look on a 30MS body, but it does open up some possibilities (May comes with two heads-- one is supposed to be her human face and the other her mech face, but there's nothing stopping you from making another human face out of the remaining parts) - MD May only comes with one socket on her back which is in a really awkward place (under her backpack). It would've been nice if it had an actual working back adapter to attach other stuff with it... actually I wonder what it looks like when you take the backpack off. In any case I still have an order of MSG parts coming so that should be fixable. - The connection point for May's arm-mounted beam sabers is the same as the smallest blast effect that came with Chaos and Pretty Magical Girl/Witch, although it doesn't look nearly as cool because of size. Although I guess it makes an acceptable blow torch effect. - The dumbest design decision is MD May has a ball joint for a waist, and a ball joint for a torso, but NEITHER ONE is actually articulating her. The waist point barely moves and the only thing you can do with the torso is spin it around; I wonder what idiot designed it like this because it was so pointless. - Her faceplates are all blank (this kind of explains Bandai's issues with 30MS since apparently 30MS is the first time they tried working with tampographed faceplates). You have the option for stickers, water slide decals, or paint. I opted to paint, although most of it was just tracing in the lines of her eyelashes and eyebrows with my trusty Sakura Micron pen (the gift that keeps on giving). The effect it gives off now is it looks much closer to my personal style than it does the anime's. (side note: the stickers baffle me since the actual eyes are a separate piece, but the sticker is basically eyebrows-eyelashes-eyes all on one piece. How can that possibly look good?) I didn't have to pay such a huge markup for her, but I looked at the other Build Divers girls and they're not that cheap for whatever reason (I wouldn't pay more than $30 for one). Might be the only one I get (this entire time I've been seeing some $100 dollar deep blue version of her on Amazon and I think that's outrageous, good thing the regular one was massively cheaper than that).
Finished Sousai Shojo Madoka (Summer Ver) today, the other large part of this week's haul (all the rest of it is more smaller add on parts, the most significant which is Exceed Binder Version 2 which only just came out, will talk about it later). Like I said, I'm willing to try one of every line if I can (catering to whims). Basically my stopgap for waffling on the SOL sisters. I have to flat out admit from the start that I only got this because it's basically the classic sailor uniform that I've seen in just about every anime since the 90s. It's a huge reason why I skipped over the other Sousai Shojo girls, in fact. I almost got Ritsuka on sale because I was told she was the most compatible with Megami Device (particularly her thigh-high stockings which is fairly standard in MD builds), but I held off at the last minute. Kind of glad that I did when I found I could get this one since this style holds a little more meaning to me personally. Anyway, from what I heard of this line is it's not really Mecha Musume in the classic sense, but it's still often considered part of it because of its deliberate intractability with Megami Device. Well... sort of. - The head for SS is a 5mm ball joint, too large for 30MS (which is 4mm), too small for Megami Device (6mm ball), but the same size as most ATK Girls other than Titans/Heracross (5mm). This kind of baffles me because Megami Device usually has it going the other way with the neck adapters; I don't see why they couldn't have just used a standard ball size and stuck with it (I mean, I do understand it's a legacy thing to do with Frame Arms Girls, but SS is newer and doesn't have the same excuse. At least it's 'backward compatible'). I surmise this technically means Frame Arms Girls are directly compatible this time around. - The arms from the shoulder socket are standard and take just about any other arm from the shoulder. Anything from the arm down to the wrist is not. The hands are standard Megami Device style. - The rest of the body down to the feet isn't directly compatible, with some caveats. The calf for Summer version goes right down to middle socks as opposed to knee socks the Winter Ver had and using a female-female connection piece here would allow you to connect the calf with Chaos and Pretty Magical Girl/Witch's calf pieces (the ones you leave over when you use their boots). Summer Ver. comes with her normal middle length calf and her knee socks calf, but no knee socks (bummer), so the above is an option to 'fix' that deficiency. - The feet are standard Megami Device. - Madoka comes with three full heads and four pre-printed faceplates (plus four blanks). The hair styles seem to be the same as the Winter Ver, but the faceplate selection is different (I know for a fact the Winter Ver's angry face is missing, I think I got one with her sticking out her tongue instead). - She also comes with what amounts to one and a half bodies, although the "half body" is really meant for posing purposes and not a full body (it is neck, torso, skirt, and legs to the upper calfs, in a leaning forward + sitting position). Of course, that's not stopping me from trying (because arms are 100% compatible and calves are fixable... mwahahaha). - Her accessories are a standard school bag, two smart phones, and a couple of scrunchies. One scrunchy is used for her ponytail hairdo, and the other is unused. I don't know what the point of two smartphones is, although I suppose you can have one on and one off? Book bag is... well, just a book bag, and it's surprisingly light for its size. Madoka has no trouble holding the book bag, and the smartphone can stay in place if you don't jostle her (not a tight fit by any means so its very loseable) My murderous master plan involves having two schoolgirls and the third head will be left for something in the future (for when I receive another body to work with). I don't mind that one of them is going to be perpetually sitting. Is it worth it? Only if you have something you really want to do with it as it's kind of bland and not really flashy like a lot of Mecha Musume kits (but it's designed to be this way, you get exactly what you're paying for. Just don't spend too much on it because you really don't get a lot in it compared to your average Megami Device, I would say. A lot of places it's definitely overpriced, so if you can get a good deal on them it may be more worth it).
The patient pictures thread. I got a new phone and I'm still suffering a learning curve with it (I haven't quite figured out how to get photos off it, for instance; I settled for mailing them to myself). Exceed Binder 2 (Modeled by Madoka Summer ver.) This is another backpack with wings item, although I've seen a picture of Bullet Knights Exorcist using two of them as a new skirt (probably have to fiddle with it a bit, I know Exorcist uses the original Exceed Binder to make up her skirt so doing it with this one is probably natural). Pictured is 'wing' configuration. The thing comes with six weapons-- four daggers and two short swords, and BIG SURPRISE the handles are not painted and they're all one piece. I haven't quite figured out what I want to do with it yet, but it certainly looks pretty. Magia Blade (Modeled by MG Darkness) I thought it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And unlike Exceed Binder's weapons the swords are in fact made up of two pieces. I don't have any sort of fancy display stand like the pictures 'suggest' you use, so instead I used my makeshift 'magiccraft' stands out of MG Darkness's effects runner (corner intersections are extremely useful for this sort of thing). This is basically one thing I wanted to do with them, to use them to make up a scifi style computer interface (mostly inspired by concept art for Azure Striker Gunvolt and Blaster Master Zero where characters are touching a floating screen, but I've seen it used elsewhere, too). This is the kind of thing that almost got me to buy Nuke Matrix Lirly Bell. Modeled by Kylo Ren (junker figure) This was my original conception from the idea above, now using the leftover parts from Madoka Yuki and Magical Girl Darkness (whole arms, lower calf). The shoes are from a Daiso doll set and fit perfectly. The calf extensions are from two different runner B's that came from MSG sets (3mm-3mm socket pieces). Samurai Armor F Type (Modeled by ???) The thing I thought was cool about this was, even if you don't have the sockets in the right places, it provides you with a backpack 'spine' that lets you use them as free-floating panels. The leg armor modeled on Rishetta's legs. Flexible Arm A (Modled by Rishetta) Rishetta on stilt legs. I don't plan to keep it like this. No pictures of Flexible Arm B since I haven't figured out what to do with it yet. ===================================== ED: I've since changed my Madoka extra body's "knee socks" to use the two 3mm-3.3mm socket tube pieces I had instead. For the 3.3mm end (which is the top in this case) I cut out a square of a paper towel and wedged it in between the peg and the socket. This achieves two things: 1. The 3.3mm side is firmly in place 2. The 'fold over' from the oversized square makes it look like girly frilly socks and hides the fact that the cylinder is much smaller than her calf (it's still the wrong color, but I can't quite fix that right now since I don't have the right grape purple to paint the cylinders. OTOH I could just paint them both white and just have white socks) In other news I gave the Exceed Binder 2 to May, which also fixes her lousy backpack problem in a way. The nice thing is she can actually hold the swords and daggers in her regular holding hands (they're coincidentally the right shape unlike the Magia Blades). Although apparently I did something weird and stuck the entire shield 'shell' on the same side her F-91 shield would've been mounted on... probably need to fix that. ED2 5/2/2022: Duh. Epiphany time. Stuck Daiso knee socks (from the same set the shoes came from) on sitting schoolgirl and that hides the mismatching parts entirely, and bonus she's now wearing thigh-highs (minus the twintails she's now classic tsundere) For clarity's sake Daiso doll clothes is 1/6 scale and typical Mecha Musume scale is 1/12 so knee socks are long enough to be thigh highs. Absolute territory is on the menu.
プラモデル ｜ コトブキヤ コレクション EXTRA 2022｜KOTOBUKIYA Some new MD and F.A. reveals from Kotobukiya cool bug! OH SHIT!!!
Wing accessories seem to be a thing lately. M.S.G新作ヘヴィウェポンユニット「ウイングエッジ」ご紹介！！ | 壽!!プラモLABO ED: That new Magatsuki picture somewhat inspired me and I found out a store I'd been perusing in the past couple months for kits actually had Magatsuki Kikka in stock at a normal price (same store that has Tamamonomae at regular price, too, that I'd previously been waffling on). She's going to be my first Frame Arms Girl (of which I've determined since getting Madoka Yuki that she's actually got more in common with that than Megami Device) so this is exciting.
Pushed back Magatsuki Kikka for the time being because now's a good time to get some painting done. And the subject is... SOL Road Runner (getting Magatsuki forced the waffling issue and I ultimately did not get SOL Hornet). It's not a huge thing, but I'm painting her hair grey with aqua and silver highlights (not too much silver, that would make it look too shiny). Leaving her helmeted head hair alone, though, since the aqua helps break up the color on the helmet more. Mostly doing this because she looks too much like Sailor Neptune with the aqua hair. ============= ED: I saw the instructions on Chaos and Pretty Red Riding Hood on Hobby Search and she's literally Magical Girl + Claw Arms (enough to make 8 claw fingers where the MSG set has enough for six claw fingers) and a few extra parts to complete the look. I love the Claw arms set for how flexible it is, and while I can't do the exact same things with them as the new kit (because Red Riding Hood's new parts) I'm a little tempted to get another Claw arms set for the heck of it. Oh yeah, Red's got flesh colored toes and an extra set of arms like regular Magical Girl.
I quite adore XF-3 Stylet, so much personality in her expression The best part is she comes with parts from first Stylet so you have options on how to build her. Like this, its first version Stylet with newer face and hair parts. Newer armour set
I haven't finished Magatsuki Kikka. Some RL shennanigans prevented that. Instead, I fitted in some quick 30 Minute Missions and Figure Rise Standard that pretty much lived up to the name. Megami Device SOL Road Runner Low Visibility Nearly straight build. I painted her normal hair grey with silver highlights (there's also aqua highlights, but it doesn't show that well). I always felt that Road Runner should be sporting a bandanna, so she's wearing the extra scarf from Build Divers Ayame (see below). Ho boy... she really is a product of her time. The legs are fantastic, but the rest of her feels a lot more fragile than the Chaos and Pretty girls, which makes me very hesitant to move her much. Her chest fins are removed because they got in the way of her shoulder articulation and tended to pop out. I overdid it with gluing her waist parts, but oh well. I just love how her look emphasizes the speed aspect; she's like the Flash in a blue costume or even a personified Sonic. The thing that I found was crazy that Road Runner's runners came with enough parts that you could make 80% of another body with her kit alone: The only parts that don't belong to the Road Runner kit are the head (which Road Runner has anyway) and torso (which is ATK display body from the Santa set in this case). The shoes are 90% WISM with custom soles (which were the only things missing) and a couple unused WISM parts plugged in for stability. The forearms are 100% custom manufactured, created by splicing two bits of a cut up credit card linked together with a bit of runner (so it can work with the spare upper arm) and a WAVE ball joint part (from the 3mm set). The hand is attached to a functioning ball joint so it does have wrist articulation. For reference purposes, you CAN make a whole arm using MSG joint type D which comes with wrist swivel. Modeled using more leftover WISM parts, which is probably the extent I could go with them. I'm a little surprised how much of a WISM girl I could make out of the Road Runner kit and it only really has one runner from WISM. Figure Rise Standard Gundam Build Divers Ayame I said before that I wouldn't pay more than $30 for one of these, and I managed it with Ayame. Amazon kept recommending her to me, but she is overpriced there. Surprisingly enough, it is a well-made kit and a decent precursor to the 30 Minute Sisters type (unfortunately it's not compatible in any way beside the standard Gunpla backpack). Beside her left side skirt blocking some articulation she's ridiculously flexible. The kit also comes with enough parts to make a 'bust', which is supposed to be head to waist (no legs). BUT... despite having an extra runner specifically for the arms, the kit DOES NOT come with another set of elbows. Gee thanks, Bandai? Well, with the magic of runner recycling and a pin vise, I fixed that for myself: The results of giving Bandai the finger. The elbow joint is made out of an abbreviated T-shaped runner with the top portion of the T notched into two drilled holes on the sides of the upper arms (which need to be fairly short just to fit in). The long end is unmodded; instead I took a 3mm pin vise and lightly drilled into the forearm so it would fit (normally it asks for a square peg, which I obviously don't have-- that's how you fit a round peg in a square hole). Note I also painted her hair and eyes. The resulting face layout gives her a rather murderous look that the pack-in stickers or water slide decals weren't going for. Uh... her bottom half is 30 Minute Missions Spinatia (see below). 30 Minute Missions Spinatio (Sengoku) Done in 30 Minutes or you get no mecha. This is the first one I built and I did it with the quick instructions. The quick instructions were very intuitive and it was pretty satisfying to put together in 30 minutes, although I do think some of the design decisions could've been better (I don't particularly like the knee and elbow joints having a sliding cap-- sure, it makes it more stable, but the cap is questionably removable for me). I'm sure the actual point is sticking other things on it, and I don't know what to do on that end, so he's probably staying vanilla for the time being. His sister, though... ho boy. 30 Minute Missions Spinatia (Assassin)... or what's left of her Poor Spinatia. I fitted Mobile Doll May's robot head on by drilling a 3mm hole into May's head (ultimately it only went into an unused space between two face pegs so this was a freebie) and stuck in a piece of runner to plug into Spinatia's helmet. I was not planning to do this to Spinatia (she did manage to get her arms back after I manufactured the new elbow joint, see above), but I guess that's how it goes sometimes.
Part 2. Magatsuki Kikka done! I think there's a theme going on with the Mecha girls I've picked up; she's the THIRD that came with a sword backpack (the first two being ATK Girl Titans and the second ATK Girl JW-021 Swordsman, where I previously declared 021 as my favorite girl kit. She still is). I was looking into a Frame Arms Girl to get the experience and understanding that came with it and was advised to avoid any of the original run girls (because of various degrees of tolerances and growing pains), and was recommended Magatsuki based on my background and the trends running at the time. And it turned out that, for a while, one of 'my stores' actually had Magatsuki Kikka in stock at 'regular' price (as far as USD goes), which I kept on missing because I was waffling on buying Tamamo no Mae, also at 'regular' price, so I was distracted and didn't notice. In any case, after building Madoka Yuki (Summer Version) I now realize that Sousai Shojo has a lot more in common with Frame Arms Girls than Megami Device, which explains a lot of things I thought were backward with Madoka. Turns out *I* was the backward one. Pictured above is the full package Magatsuki Kikka, wielding the sword from SH Figuarts Vicious and 30MM Spinatio's nodachi (blade painted silver). Pictures show her holding the throwing stars, but I find she has trouble holding them. The thing that was immediately apparent is Magatsuki Kikka is bigger than the Megami Device girls, about maybe 10-20% taller and wider (she comes off as a bit THICC next to them), but despite all the internals beside the shoulders being wildly different she's got the same kind of articulation (minus the waist swivel, but that was always questionable on Megami Device I felt). The included artbook makes it readily apparent that this girl is directly evocative of the Frame Arms Magatsuki which explains just about everything about the armor placement and the giant Gundam boots. The backpack is the least extravagant of the three sword girls I have, but very serviceable. Oddly it comes with another backpack adapter and THEN doesn't explain what to do with it (although I did find a use for it... see below). I did not really care for her unarmored mode, so she's keeping the armor. There's much easier ways to get a half naked girl than disassembling half of this girl. If there's one thing I didn't like about Magatsuki is she looks great from the front, the sides, above, and below... but not from the back. The back she's naked as a jaybird. I would have at least expected the skirt armor to extend to behind her, but some horny designer decided that they liked bare ass (I don't care about the fudonshi explanation, either, because even that is... half assed). I mean, sure, JW-021's art is drawn wearing thong panties, but even her actual kit isn't bare ass. Titans panties doesn't even cover her ass and it's still more covered than Magatsuki's ass. I enjoyed putting this kit together overall. I'm not sure if that's really a resounding endorsement of Frame Arms Girls in general, but there's no reason not to keep an eye on it as long as something interesting comes out (no, I don't plan on getting Durga, she seems too similar to Magatsuki despite being a knight esthetic). Spinatia-- the Revenge She's back, and she's got her legs again. Spinatio-- What that 30MS head adapter is for I think I've settled on everything on how I want Spinatio except for the head-- that has to wait. For the time being, I found out how to make best use of the 30MM adapter that came with Rishetta (STILL my only 30 Minute Sister... OMG Bandai). Custom Ayame, V2 So you're like, Spinatia has her legs back, so what happened? This happened. Before I get into the internal changes, the exterior changes: - Diver Ayame is wearing her extra waist parts (panties) - The legs are fully from 30MS Rishetta - The backpack is Exceed Binder 2 with Magatsuki Kikka's extra backpack adapter. The Binders are arranged in wing mode, but upside down, so now they're peacock feathers. - The front (and back) robe is cut cloth with the hole in the middle reinforced with glue so it shouldn't get any larger than it needs to be. Also doesn't cause any articulation problems That part changed everything. I took a pin vise and drilled a 3mm tunnel into the blocked side so I could make a cross-shaped peg with a hole on the top. Let me explain. Build Diver Ayame's panties are held together with the usual pegs, but also two 3mm sockets that connect to the inner skeleton waist piece. Diver Ayame's kit doesn't come with a second one of those. Instead, the alternative, the 'bust' adapter is a short 3mm peg on a swivel. That piece up there covers all three of those sockets and pegs, but don't address the need for another set for the legs. The Diver Ayame kit comes with rubbery runners where some of them come at rounded angles instead of hard 90 degree angles, so with a little trial and error I cut some out at the right length, bent it into the approximate needed 45 degree angle being asked for, and slid it in. Then I took Rishetta's legs and slid them on (after thickening up the pegs a bit so they wouldn't slide off so easily). Which leaves... I basically dismantled the 30MS down to the torso. Wow, that's harsh. The Ugly I managed to break two shoulder joints in two weeks. One of them was a really old ATK girl shoulder joint (which probably originally came from Serqet, but if not her it was from one of the ATK Girl spare bodies) and... the other not surprisingly came from the Road Runner kit (I knew something was wrong here). Fortunately it was easy to recover with the extra shoulder joints from the Megami Device Tops sets, but I think that's a good sign to keep some extras handy for that occasion (even though I technically have more than enough shoulders)
What store do you use? Kikka needs them decals. If you've never done the metallic decals like these...they take some extra effort...but the payoff is there.
Yeah I noticed; the pictures with the decals make it look that much better. I'm setting that aside for the time being until I either sum up the courage to learn how to apply the decals (preferably on something else first for practice) and/or get the proper tools to apply them (because I don't have those which is why I haven't tried yet as the only 'tool' I have that's appropriate are q-tips; I don't even have an xacto knife). I haven't felt any sort of urgency to apply any so it's probably not going to happen anytime soon.
