Sephiroth 1/8

WIP Available Here

This Sephiroth 1/8 kit was my second figure completed. It also is another cheap recast kit similar to the Cagalli kit I did first – a better cast can be purchased from e2046 here for only a slightly higher cost than what cheaper casts on ebay sell for.

Overall, this was another good experience working with resin. The end result of the kit looks alright although there are certainly ways it could be better. However, working with this kit gave me experience bending resin, more pinning practice to build a kit that is more stable (it hasn’t fallen over yet, unlike Cagalli!), and experience filling in large gaps to join parts that don’t fit well. I still need more practice cleaning the kits up before painting, as there are still some rough spots in the kit. For example, on his front bangs they are still rough. I’m still not sure the best way to clean those up with sand paper and a knife, however, as they are so fragile and can easily break.

Lessons Learned:

• Resin bends very easily when hot enough!  It seems as though heat can cause resin parts to bend and warp, and as such some parts arrived already warped.  They did not fit together at all.  Having never bent resin, I dived online to figure it out.  The secret – hot water.  If you drop it in hot water for a minute or so and pull it out, it should easily bend.  If you are bending resin for the first time as I was, you may not be sure how ‘easily’ it should bend.  REALLY easily.  Chances are it may bend a little on accident when you pull it out of the hot water – it’s that bendable when hot enough.  If you have to use any force at all, it’s not hot enough.  I used a hot water boiler which boils water in a couple of minutes.  Once boiling, I turned it off so it was no longer boiling and dropped the resin in.  Pull it out every 10 seconds or so and see if it’s ready.  It doesn’t take long at all and it bends quite easily.  Be quick – it will harden up again in seconds.  If not fast enough, just drop it back in the water and try again.  Once done, stick it under cool water to ensure it is set and hardened and you are good to go!
• Filling large gaps with epoxy putty can be a challenge, but needed.  As shown in the WIP for this kit, the back of the jacket had a huge gap down the middle that needed to be filled, even after bending the parts to fit as close as possible.  It was a bit difficult at first to fill this gap due to it’s size, but doable.  I had to work slowly on it in several sessions, first just trying to put a bunch of putty to build it up a bit, and then eventually filling the gap and beginning to sand it down.  I don’t think it’d be possible in one session.  I also ended up purchasing some tools for working with putty which helped a lot – previously I had been just using my fingers and an old knife blade, but having some actual shaping tools can be useful.
• e2046 is probably the site to shop at.  My first four resin kits purchased (Cagalli, Sephiroth, and two other unbuilt kits) were purchased from ebay – they were cheaper kits for those new to resin and other sites seemed to sell kits for $75 USD and higher – more than I wanted to spend on my first kit.  However, e2046 has kits for only $5-10 higher than the ebay versions and the castings look a lot better.  For example, the sephiroth kit I purchased had half as many parts as the same one seen on e2046 and was probably a lot lower in quality, even though it’s the same kit.  So, be sure to glance at e2046 and see if it will work for you before looking elsewhere.  I will probably be using that site for the majority of my future resin kits. Update: I have sinced purchased from e2046 and the kits are drastically better – well worth it.