Another week passed, another week closer to this COVID mess ending... or so I hope.
Being stuck at home, there's a great deal that I want to get done, and a greater deal I SHOULD get done. Since I can't actually get to the "should" pile due to never being left in peace and quiet, I figure I'd attempt the "want" side of things, namely build a model.
More specifically, one of these waifu kits that seem to be very popular.
So I order a few of them, the first of which to arrive was this Wonder Woman kit from Kotobukiya, with a look designed by Humikane Shimada and based on the Frame Arts Girl body, which is a line of model kits with a central figure that has various third party IPs as themes for gear. When you have a few of these, they are designed such that you can mix and match various body parts to create your own thing. If you're REALLY hardcore, you can even then go ahead and repaint everything to your liking.
I'd actually been told about this kit by many different people since it was announced, but this was all pre-COVID and quite honestly I didn't know if I had what it took to put one together and have it look respectfully done.
Then the boredom set in, so here we are.
Clearly the art style is geared towards a specific customer base, so if you're in for the more typical depictions of her in the comic or Gal Gadot, clearly this kit isn't for you.
My goals were to end up with something that generally resembled the actual official art, with a few changes here and there mostly due to my hating some of the colours the kit came standard with and also, my non airbrush owning ass and non desire to actually get the gear or learn to mix the colours. Besides, I had a few Tamiya paints sitting here since before my first child was born that needed to be used, which I complemented with some new tools and more importantly, cans of top coat.
I'd come to accept that no matter how hard I tried, I was pretty likely to screw up. So armed with the acceptance of my suckage, combined with some lessons and tips from various Gunpla webpages, I dove in.
The kit (and in general, most of these kits) comes with the parts to make the figure, weapons, and a rather crappy stand. In this case, weapons and gear consist of her sword, shield, and "lasso", which is really just yellow plastic encased wire. There's also a total of three faces (smiling eyes front, smiling eyes to the left, angry) and five pairs of grabbing/posing hands.
I'm not gonna lie - while the overall character design is fantastic, the shield and the Lasso of Truth are pretty lame. Especially the Lasso of Truth, which comes in to lengths and requires you to make your own loop on the end.
The only real pro of the Lasso is that it does seem relatively easy to pose.
I'm going to skip Paint App review because, well, most of it is my fault. This kit, like the other Frame Arts Girls kits, come with facial decals on a face provided with a Flat top coat. For the record, here's what I did to poor Diana here:
- Semi-Gloss Black for the hair
- Titan Gold for the gold parts
- Metallic Blue for the blue parts
- White for... white
- Gundam Marker fine tipped Black for panel lining
- Mr. Hobby Premium Flat and Semi-Gloss topcoat
Articulation wise, this is my first of this series, so it was interesting to see what the body could do. The short version of this discussion is she's basically equipped with slightly more joints that your run of the mill female Figma. Presuming all Frame Arts Girls are the same, here's what the body has:
- Ankle front and side tilt
- Ankle rotation (mid shin)
- Static knee joint (thigh and calf contain the pivot points)
- Thigh tiwst
- Pull down hips
- Mid torso
- Standard shoulders with butterfly joint for moderate lateral movement
- Bicep swivel
- No actual elbow joint (forearm connects to upper arm directly)
- Double peg ended wrist joint
- Neck tilt
- Ball joint at base of head
The actual range of motion is very good, partially due to the the design of the body, with credit also due to the fact there's really nothing in the way of movement. You're also able to cheat a bit, as you are able to pull things out of their socket slightly.
Build Quality wise, there's actually some good stuff to discuss. For starters, at the end of the day this is still a very light and flimsy model kit, so.. yeah, there's that to consider if you pose your figures a lot. I also understand now why there are so many third party body upgrades for this line up.
Nubs and seamlines are of course, on me, but I am happy to say that the parts themselves actually fit together quite nicely, with no warping or QC issues. Considering how many freaking parts there are to this thing, it's actually quite impressive how well things all come together.
So all in all, an interesting experiment and first attempt. I've learned a few things from this experience that I hope to put to use in my future projects.
Will these models make my days of hoarding figures a thing of the past?
Dear Lord, no. They're way, way, WAY too much work. Not to mention relatively expensive.
But as a collector of stylish ladies, there's various designs that for whatever reason never actually get a completely painted action figure release. So, I figure having the ability to kind of do it yourself can't hurt, and in a way future proofs me.
On to the next kit!
For Full Gallery, please visit:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22877494@N02/albums/72157719412977146
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