First actual build of 2022: 2B from Nier Automata

Off to a good start this year with my first started and finished project of 2022. Granted, I ordered this kit in Nov 2020, it took over a year to fulfill, supply chain issues from covid is my best guess. Regardless; it arrived a 11 days into January and I cleared off my workbench and started laying out all the parts.

This is a good amount of resin. That base is an impressive amount of resin alone. One thing leads to another, I had the subassemblies test fit. I started drilling out and adding magnets to the subassemblies. Some of these parts will be glued together, but for the build progression, it’s nice to have a quick magnetic snap between parts. I’ve found that magnets are easier to align than pins. But some of the more load bearing areas I still use pins. The kit comes with two heads and removable clothing over her boobies. It also comes with a small bust piece to hold the extra head when it’s not in use. Pretty damn cool.

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Grim Reaper Part 2

Last time we left off, I was cleaning up the last bits of the kit with the scythe and the clear pieces. I have no idea why some of these pieces are clear such as the tassels since they’re going to be painted solid colors. I can understand the hair being clear, some translucent painting will come into play here. But these clear parts makes for some different approaches to clean up and filling. The resin is different, so sanding properties are slightly off in comparison to the regular resin. But once cleaned up, they go in for a soak in the industrial strength cleaner then a scrub in the ultrasonic cleaner and then dried.

After drying, the parts are ready for priming. The scythe parts are primed with regular Mr Color Surfacer Primer. The clear pieces are primed with clear gloss. The gloss fills in the tiny little scratches left over from the sanding process and when done, the part is crystal clear. There are a bunch of different methods for this such as dipping the parts into an acrylic clear medium or other products. I have a good amount of lacquer based clear gloss, so I used that.

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Time for a quick resin figure build

Time for the first resin figure project of the year. This has been a fairly productive year so far with finishing a number of gunpla project. Time to get at least one figure kit. I picked this kit up at Anime Expo at the Volks booth. They were there last year and back again this year. They even have a location in Torrance, so if I ever need to order something, I believe I can pick it up at their warehouse. Damn cool for folks that have had trouble getting original resin kits. And these are not your run of the mill resin figure kits. These have a high level of quality control. They are engineered using the bandai gunpla model; everything is molded in color. The color separation for these kits are insane. Last year, I grabbed a Revy kit from them and I was sold. You just shake the box and the kit’s done. It’s that friggin simple. Ok, maybe not quite that easy; but if you’ve ever built any other resin anime figure (original or recast) try these Volks kits. For anyone interested in trying their first resin anime figure kit; get a kit from Volks. The comparison is akin to building a macross kit from hasegawa to building any bandai gunpla kit released in the last 5 years.

Last week, we had our July build gathering and the goal for the day was to get her semi cleaned up and pinned together. Like most other Volks kits, she has some options. She comes with two sets of right arms to hold up a sign or her jacket. Pinned together, I have her holding the jacket. Again, the pictures below show the kit as is out of the box, pinned together. The color separation and engineering is amazing.

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