In an anime mecha plastic-model kit (“plamo”) industry dominated by Bandai, there are few contenders. Kotobukiya is a relative newcomer working to carve out their own piece of the market by catering to the franchises that are NOT Mobile Suit Gundam. The Hoihoi-san kit is based on a PS2 game property about
an automated robotic cockroach extermination system... which, interestingly enough, means any kit standing about 3 inches high could be considered “life-sized.”
Hoihoi-san comes injection-molded in several colours not unlike the Bandai Gundam plastic kits (“Gunpla”). There is absolutely no flash and the sprues are clean and sharp. Kotobukiya, tampo-prints some of the markings directly onto the parts. However, if one chooses to base-coat and paint the kit, they also provide wet-transfer decals.
Kotobukiya also ups the ante by also pre-painting certain parts to simplify the build. Personally I would prefer they didn't but the ultimate goal seems to be for allowing the build to look its best without additional paint. The boot assemblies come with a smooth coat of black paint in the appropriate area.
When the instructions are marked with "!", pay attention to the orientation of the pieces or else they won't fit!
In all my years of plamo, I never expected one day I would be assembling a pair of miniaturized plastic bloomers.
At what appears to be the half-way point through the illustrated instructions, it's time to stop and consider what to do next. While a majority of the parts are molded in pale colours, the black parts pose a bit of a problem. When black plastic is strained, the plastic turns white. Even taking extra care with my snips and using a utility knive to gently shave the sprue, there are visible stress marks on the hem. Perhaps this is a good time to do some paint touch-up and start the matt-coat (especially because from this point, I'm starting to foresee certain parts which are indeed molded in the “wrong” colour such as the replica USB port, etc).
Hoihoi-san comes injection-molded in several colours not unlike the Bandai Gundam plastic kits (“Gunpla”). There is absolutely no flash and the sprues are clean and sharp. Kotobukiya, tampo-prints some of the markings directly onto the parts. However, if one chooses to base-coat and paint the kit, they also provide wet-transfer decals.
Kotobukiya also ups the ante by also pre-painting certain parts to simplify the build. Personally I would prefer they didn't but the ultimate goal seems to be for allowing the build to look its best without additional paint. The boot assemblies come with a smooth coat of black paint in the appropriate area.
When the instructions are marked with "!", pay attention to the orientation of the pieces or else they won't fit!
In all my years of plamo, I never expected one day I would be assembling a pair of miniaturized plastic bloomers.
At what appears to be the half-way point through the illustrated instructions, it's time to stop and consider what to do next. While a majority of the parts are molded in pale colours, the black parts pose a bit of a problem. When black plastic is strained, the plastic turns white. Even taking extra care with my snips and using a utility knive to gently shave the sprue, there are visible stress marks on the hem. Perhaps this is a good time to do some paint touch-up and start the matt-coat (especially because from this point, I'm starting to foresee certain parts which are indeed molded in the “wrong” colour such as the replica USB port, etc).
No comments:
Post a Comment