Android Girl 1/6

This is my first kit from GK-M. It is an original character called Android 01 and I simply found interesting. There is a basic WIP available here.

Overall, it was a great kit to build. Out of the packaging the resin was very easy to work with and only required minimal work. I think the quality was better than the E2046 kits I’ve built previously (which I also enjoy). This kit wasn’t all that complicated and parts were pretty minimal, so that also made it easy.

The hardest thing ended up being the paint job. I spent way too long trying to figure out colors, originally planning on trying to follow the original color scheme but I never landed on a choice of the right shades of grays (and didn’t want to order more), so instead I improvised a little and think it worked out alright.

This was also my first time using Gaia Notes flesh colors. They were pretty easy to apply. I think I need to use highlight color a bit more in the future as it looks pretty minimal at this point (although it felt heavy enough when I first applied it).

Gluing the little parts on the left and right of spine (6 of them) was also pretty annoying. Up until this build I used a two part epoxy glue for all resin builds, all parts. It’s plenty strong, but it’s also time consuming especially for little parts that you have to sit and hold in place for a good 5-6 minutes until it sets, and then mix a new batch of epoxy to repeat for next small part. Super glue to the rescue!

With super glue, I am strangely dumb and afraid of it. I never knew glue could be so scary, but I used a super thin BSI glue (blue cap) which basically comes out like water – I thought thin would be good for small parts. And it might be, but not for my first time using super glue. Ended up gluing fingers together (luckily was wearing gloves), burning my finger (after removing gloves, apparently cleaning up with paper towels also not smart). But, it’s glued now, and requires far less holding. I think with practice, and probably some thicker super glue, I’ll be using a lot more of it in the future.

Lessons Learned:

• Super glue is scary to use the first time around, but can speed up glue stage significantly. If there are a lot of small parts to glue and you need it to dry fast so you can move on to next part, super glue will do the trick. Just keep in mind it comes in different thickness and practice first. My first time was with watery thin glue and can quickly go downhill if not careful (both gluing things that shouldn’t be glued and even burning skin). But once you get the hang of it, speed is much faster than two part epoxy.
• Plan glue order ahead of time. I actually spent far too long trying to glue two of the small pieces on spine because I glued upper/spine/waist together first, thinking adding small parts at end would be easiest. However, two of the small parts were up right against the upper body and a really tight angle, made gluing them hard.
• No matter how much you mask, you’ll still mess up. At least I do. I spent a ton of time masking, trying to get this one perfect. I know from past experience that most time of painting is spent masking. Well, guess what? Still not good enough. I had to touch up what I could later and some other parts are forever imperfect.
• Mixing a color with skin flesh tone is a good balance for lips / nails. Most solid colors I have are too bold for lips as is on most kits. On previous kits I used the layered orange clear tone method for skin, which is probably harder to mix for lips. But, if you have flesh base (like in this case I was using Gaia Notes), it is pretty easy to get a decent lip color I think.