Welcome to Fall, and what a better time to announce I finally finished the Frame Arms Girl: Hresvelgr Atel Summer Vacation version model. Because nothing says Fall like bikinis and beachballs.
Swimwear based character goods are quite popular in Japan, so it's no surprise that the ladies of the Frame Arms Girls lineup also feature kits for this look. It's not exactly that much of a stretch of the imagination considering the modular nature of these kits. The colours of the official art work also appealed to my eyes, so I decided to go for it.
Like most of these types of kits, there's sufficient parts for a "base" body and something a bit more pimped out. In this case, the base body is pure swimwear, featuring arms and legs that feature frilly lace cuffs, with a second set of armoured limbs.
You also get a variety of hair options, including both with and without twin tails and six different front pieces, three different face plates, a beach hat, ten hands for each set of arms. There's also the aforementioned beachball and much to my surprise, a multiform weapon, something that I wasn't exactly expecting with a swimwear based figure.
But the greatest surprise? NO. FREAKING. STAND.
The actual assembly of the model kit, at this point, is pretty straight forward. I'm proud to say no joints were broken this time around because I finally figured out I should probably sand those things down and make sure they fit before shoving them into a socket, and that got me out a few sticky situations. Unfortunately, I'm still handing pieces with the force of a small black hole, so fragility will still cause some pieces to break.
The actual level of articulation remains unchanged from previous Frame Arms Girls models, just that the base body is a bit more naked. There's still no waist joint or ab crunch, but you do get the pull down hips, double jointed knees and the nice double jointed neck that allows for great range of motion of the head. The range of motion in the head is less inhibited when using the head with no twin tails, though it's more an issue of awkwardness as opposed to actual blocked motion.
I forgot to mention this earlier, but in order to allow you to recreate the beach ball holding pose on the box art, the kit comes with dedicated shoulder pieces to create a more natural overhead arm position pose. These pieces also lock her arms in position, which helps if you're trying to get Hresvelgr to overhead slam some poor bastard.
So like with all kits, the Build Quality and Paint are effectively my fault. I will say I feel I did get a bit better at mixing the colours, even if they aren't perfect. The painted figure actually looks kind of right.. .for once. The accuracy of the paint apps and panel lining? Well, that's something else that I'm going to need to work on.
Something new I experienced was painting on transparent/translucent plastics. It certainly takes more layers to build up that nice smooth finish, but I don't think it's any worse than working with a full gloss white.
Here she is, fully decked out and looking like something out of Phantasy Star. There's a very minor loss of articulation, namely the loss of toe articulation. Otherwise, you're pretty much getting that same experience as her beach body mode. Her primary weapons are a pair of pretty sweet energy blades that feature folding handles.
These blades can be combined with other kit parts to create various bladed weapon forms though I have to say the long while handle parts are... kind of lame looking. Functional, I suppose, but none the less, lame. Due to the universe connectors, I imagine you can probably connect these to other kits and make some pretty funky combinations.
Overall, a visually beautiful kit with great variety in display options, but for reasons unknown, didn't come with parts for a stand when pretty much every other kit I can think does. Working with the clear plastics was certainly an experience, but at least now I know it's doable.
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