Category: Models

Labo Miku

Time for another model kit post, this time another Miku. Are you keeping count how many figures of this character I have made?

I bought the above in Tokyo in January 2019. I was stopping in to the Yodobashi Camera near my hotel every evening and one day I was surprised to see pallets of the above set out with a strict limit of one per person. Naturally, I hastily picked one up!

It’s a plastic model kit that makes a posed figure with no articulation. This allows for fewer pieces and a bit more style in the pose and finish. The kit includes the gimmick of layered injection:

It’s remarkable to see how sophisticated the injection molding has become. Only a decade or so ago I was astonished at two-colour molded pieces, now we have four or more and pieces that have multiple layers including transparencies!

The kit also included dry-rub decals, which in my opinion are a big upgrade from wet decals and were both easy to attach and added a lot to the detail of the finished product.

Even Loppi was amazed!

The finished kit looks great, and hardly looks like something I assembled (rather than a premade figure). It’s quite voluminous with her hair, but fits nicely on this Miku shelf:

I’m not a fanatical fan Hatsune Miku by any means, it’s just that she’s so popular that manufacturers know kits of her will sell better than most other characters. And if they continue to be as high quality as these, I daresay this won’t be the last time I assemble a Miku plastic model.

Chitocerium

It’s time for a new model kit. I don’t often do posts about kits these days, but this one is unusual:

It’s a tiny cat kit! This is one of several kits in a new line called Chitocerium, which apparently means ‘the protectors of the gates between worlds’. Yes it’s silly, but the kits are cool.

This kit is small and inexpensive (about $10) and all the pieces fit in the palm of your hand. It’s an easy one to build, but sandpapering down the flash was a little tricky due to the tiny scale. This segment for instance was made from 5 different pieces:

About a quarter of the total pieces in the kits are tails! There’s 8 to choose from; which one would you pick:

It took me only about ten minutes to assemble, and is very small but can be posed in many familiar cat poses. It’s an extraordinary kit for its size. Here it is next to a LEGO minifig;

As the box suggests this comes in two colours, and the line also includes some extraordinary figure kits of android girls (one of which I have). Given that this is a line from a company (Good Smile) not necessarily known for plastic model kits, I’m impressed.

Bonsai!

I got this as a gift:

It’s a candy kit to make an edible bonsai! Start by kneading the chocolate caramel to make it soft:

Gently fill the molds with the candy:

After a half hour in the freezer it had solidified:

While I was trimming the flash Kristin was cooking a green sponge cake. It was as easy as powder and water mixed together and microwaved. It looked… unusual:

But stone the crows it looked convincing when broken apart and placed onto the branches:

And here’s the finished product (which was about 2 inches tall):

Looks good enough to eat doesn’t it?

And we did! It wasn’t bad at all; basically chocolate caramel mixed with cake. Easily one of the best candy food kits I’ve ever made – or eaten 🙂