This is one of many repro garage kits that are available from many places in the world. By far the best come from Hong Kong and are often better than the original Japanese casting. Those from Thailand are to be avoided at all costs for they are generally quite brittle and full of molding defects.

Unlike aircraft kits from Hong Kong, these anime' figure kits almost never have any molding glitches. No air pockets, no pinholes, no broken off pieces and often have most of the mold casting seams already removed. This leaves only tiny sprue attachment points to clean up. Something that is generally done within an hour or less with a sanding stick and paper. The kits are packaged with most parts in bubble bags; the large pieces getting a bag of their own. They then are packaged in more bubble wrap inside a hard plastic container. In over 200 kits, only once have I had a part arrive broken.

Also included in each kit is a parts breakdown and perhaps an exploded construction view. This kit is so simple that no construction information is really required. A full color photo of the completed model is also included, as much to help with painting as parts placement.

The engineering on this particular kit is quite good. Often companies will provide a multitude of parts. For the most part these are not really needed and many of us appreciate when bits are incorporated together. As I generally tend to lean towards a lot of bare skin, I don't really have to deal too much with a lot of clothing, which not only increases the price of the kit, but also increases its complexity.

Once the parts are removed from their protective bags, the first thing to do is to remove any pour stubs. It is important to remove these without flattening out the surrounding area. I have found that the best way to do this is to use coarse sanding material at first, then go to the least coarse material that will do the job. Resin is soft and it is easier to sand off than it is to build back up areas that one has botched. Be sure to either wear a dust mask or wet sand as the particles are not good to breathe in. One has to be quite careful to clean up fine areas like fingers and the tips of hair. I often use an inexpensive set of very fine files to do this as they work well in tight places. They are also good for removing mold seams as there will be some that you will need to attend to. Since skin is not 20,000 grit sandpaper smooth and it is nice to have something for the paint to stick to, you don't really need to get too carried away with the fine grades of sandpaper. 400 grit is about as fine as I use on these.

This kit is about as simple as you can get without it being a single casting. The legs, torso and head are all a single casting with the arms attaching to the shirt. This latter section can then be simply glued in place once all the painting is done. Most of the work on these kits is in the painting. I know people who can finish one of these in two or three days. They work many hours on them and often hand paint them with fast drying acrylics. All my attempts at hand painting large areas have looked horrible so I stick with spray painting and masking to get things done.

First gluing is to attach the small part of the hair to the pony tail. Then I glued the arms to the shirt. I use superglue for all this construction and while there are times that I'll insert metal pins, with none of these parts being weight bearing, I decided not to go that route. I also sanded on the arms for the best fit I could get, but still needed to go back with superglue to fill in the gaps. Thankfully, this is quality resin cast under a lot of pressure so there are no real worries about sanding through a thin veneer of resin to a mass of air bubble lying in ambush for the unwary.

I've been having trouble with paint sticking to resin so asked a lot of questions and got some great answers on the forum. For this kit, after the usual wash with warm, soapy water, I washed the parts in bleach and then sprayed the completed subassemblies with Future to act as a barrier against any oils that might leach out of the plastic. Then I sprayed both the body and shirt/arms with Floquil Reefer white. It provides an excellent base for skin tones and there were several areas that needed to be left in white. One was the socks and those were clear coated again then masked. I then used Badger paleflesh acrylic and sprayed the entire body of the figure. To my eyes this stuff is too dark and while I usually lighten it up, this time I left it as it was. One the shirt I masked the collar and cuffs to leave them white.

Since the shirt and body can be worked on separately, I started work on the body by first using Testors Gloss White enamels to fill in the eyes. I used a matte white to streak in the hair that was molded into the head. Usually all hair is separate, making it easier to paint, but not in this case. The pony tail and bangs were prepainted in white as well. One thing this prepainting does is to highlight any areas not properly cleaned up in the initial build stages.

The shirt was then sprayed a lavender shade that I mixed using Testors Napoleonic Purple and Floquil's Reefer white. Then the hands were painted, again with Badger acrylic.

I bought this so you can see what these kits are like. Warning, they can be addictive.

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