A.T.K. Girl Heracross

This is A.T.K. Girl Heracross. It's an original Mecha Musume model kit from Easter Model. 

 It's a model kit from China, so I had some doubts about its quality, but having built this, I was pleasantly surprised. Now I regret not painting this. 

My feelings towards model kits from China are pretty bad, and the last kit I built, the Pretty Armor pretty much added to my negative feelings towards it. It's not because it's a copy. Some kits are legit licensed products. It is because they are usually bad kits from bad quality plastic to poor-fitting parts. I was introduced to them back in the day when Meng (I think) came out with airplane model kits when I was building mostly airplane kits. The part doesn't fit, or align, poor instruction, really bad plastic them smells, and breaks. 

After sharing my experience with Pretty Armor in the Facebook community, I was told by several different people to try out the A.T.K. Girl series. I was a bit skeptical, but I saw one for sale and  I thought I try it.  

The experience was definitely different from the moment I opened the box. It didn't have a bad chemical smell and the plastic wasn't a bad quality. It's not high as say, Kotobukiya, and it was still covered in mold release grease, but it wasn't too hard and it wasn't too soft nor brittle. 

This kit has alot of small parts, and most of them are on a clear runner which is these. It is a bit milky, but still usable. 

But looking at the actual casting, they are highly detailed, and colors are vibrant. I was also surprised to find out that most parts are undergated. More on that later. 

It did have this ugly yellow as a gold part. Surprisingly though, this was better than what Kotobukioya or Bandai does. I didn't see any swirls or stress marks despite its high level of detail. 

This kit also has these effect parts. It is in rubber-like material, but the casting was good and I didn't see any flesh marks. 

It also had a bag of goodies. 

Included was this. A cloth. Because for some reason because I build Mecha Musume girls, I am now going to play dress up. (funny enough, they were right)

These are the hands that came with the kit. It was tiny but pre-cut. Bit of mold mark, but easy enough to clean, aside from its small size. 

A sheet of water slide decals for the eyes. 

and six faceplates. 3 are painted and 3 are blank. The faceplate looks weird. It looks like a 3D model kit from a 90s game where the creator cheaped out and used free resources. The printed eyes weren't that great either but it is usable. 

One place they definitely didn't cheap out is the stand. That is some high quality stand. 

For this kit, I didn't paint it other than the gold part. I really wasn't feeling it due to my negative experience with Chinese kits. For skin tone, I just shaded with pastel and Tamiya Weathering Master and sealed it with a flat topcoat. For others, I cleaned it up and polished it, and gave it a glossy topcoat. As I said the only thing I will paint was the gold part and since I just picked up a Splash Paint gold, I might as well try it here. 

The build was very manually intensive and it wasn't really fun. The Bandai Magic isn't really there. The parts were cut out of their sprues easily, although some parts had large connection points and some were in awkward positions. The undergated parts are nice, but they had to be cut very carefully, or it will leave a gap on the parts, because either you cut it too short or didn't clean it enough. Some of these undergated parts are in a really bad position, so cleaning them was hard. 

Some of the parts were really small. And some of these small parts had large connection points, so I couldn't tell if I was cutting the sprue or the actual part. 

Most parts had either tight-fitting parts or loose-fitting parts, so some adjustments were needed here and there. However, Parts did align properly and if some parts were out of alignment, it was an easy fix with files, so I didn't have to do anything crazy. 

All these with a really bad instruction manual, with poor instruction, I had some angry moments while building this. 

Then you come to this. The un-armored version of the Heracross. 

I laughed. Her proportion, with big hip and itty, tiny hands and feet. It's one weird-looking girl that Sir Mix-A-Lot might sing to. I mean Jesus, look at this. 

It might look okay in the picture because I shaded the asking tone posed it a bit, but this is one ridiculous-looking girl with thick thighs that will definitely slap. 

The experience gets better from there though. The Easter Model put alot of details on her armor and shows that they are better at designing mechanical things than biological things. Small parts were a pain in the ass but it fit in with little work. 

Here is the armored version. 

It looks really good. If I am being picky, the design is a bit busy, and some aesthetics are weird, like her butt pack. It should be a bit tighter like a backpack with bigger wings, but I am being picky here. Some parts broke due to its small size so I had to glue it, like that design piece on her chest, but man this looks epic for such a small kit.

Then there is this. The effect part. 

It really completes the kit. These details really focus our attention, It really mitigates its weird-looking girl with might thunder-clap thighs. (Maybe that's where the lightning comes from)

One part of its effect is on her effect hand, but another part is in a 3MM hole so you can put it in other places like here, on her leg. 

Oh and her cloth. It fits her well. 

So Toy Photographers can fully take advantage of this. 

It also fits other 1/12 scale body as well, Like this seamless body.

And Megami Device. 

I was pleasantly surprised by this kit. It wasn't the best kit I have ever built, and I didn't really have fun building this. It felt more like a chore than anything else. But it is cheap and you get RG level of details. Honestly, She looks awesome, I regret not painting her. 

I was so impressed with this kit, I picked up a few more kits from Easter Model. Those are later releases so I heard those are alot better than the earlier ones like this Heracross. I am definitely going to paint them. And I definitely won't shy away from model kits from China.

This kit was not fun to build and some level of skill is needed to build this, but even with a little bit of work, (mostly topcoat on mine) this kit is stunning to look at. I recommend this kit. 

Here is the video of the build.