Time to break up the monotony of the constant EX reviews here on the blog. Today's item is decidedly different and little bit unique in its own way. We are going to look at a resin kit of Marida Cruz in Unicorn 02 Banshee pilot gear. While there have been a couple of really successful figures of Marida released by MegaHouse the only time she appears in Unicorn Banshee gear is as a deformed miniature in the Banpresto WCF Gundam Series from 2013.
This kit comes from FIELD, a brand/company that I do not really know a whole lot about. They are or were based in Koriyama City, Fukushima Province, and I am aware of about ten or so kits of various Gundam girls of varying scales and styles but I bet they did loads more. Going from the sparse information included with this item we can also learn the following:
Designer: Yoshito Sato
Item Number: 254-08
Original price: 5000 yen
Distribution: Unknown
The kit consists of fourteen components including a very fragile looking ponytail and stands about 13 centimeters tall when fully assembled. No base is included with the figure. The kit is not designated to any particular scale and I couldn't find any specific mention of Marida's height but if we assume that she is about 170 centimeters tall this figure should be somewhere around 1:13 scale or so. Kits of this type tend to be very rare and I have only ever seen it for sale at one time and that was back in 2017. I had to pay ¥5000 for it and since then it has been patiently awaiting its time to shine. Well, now that time has arrived.
This figure is a painted commission done by my reliable friend Marcin who went all-in on this project. The flight suit has been painted and highlighted using airbrush and then worked over with brush for the detail work. One of the feet is magnetized and while the figure can stand upright without support it certainly isn't recommended as the gentlest breeze will topple her over.
Once geared up and ready for combat Marida had the misfortune of
getting stuck in the international postal system for an extended period
of time until finally finding her way back to base. I guess cyber
newtypes need better psyco shard support. Still, even though she endured several weeks in transit I was amazed to see that the ponytail hadn't broken off, something I've seen happen much too frequently on similarly delicate plastic figures even when they come in their original packaging.
Marida really gets some of the best flightsuits of any Gundam series, both when she is sporting Neo Zeon purple or Vist Foundation navy blue. Below you can see the figure side by side with a Banpresto/Craneking DXF figure from 2013 and the awesome Banpresto-Ichiban Kuji metallic colour Neo Zeon flight suit figure from 2014. Notice how the DXF figure has already begun destabilizing even though it has been kept in its box and it is now secreting part of its chemical composition as a sticky residue. : (
All in all a really beautiful sculpt and unlike far too many resin figures it is realistically proportioned and posed. I also like that it isn't just a simple recycled pose of a figure concept we have seen over and over again but something fresh. The main disadvantage beyond price and availability is of course the difficult case of storing it safely. Likeness could perhaps have been a bit better and there also aren't a whole lot of suitable figures to pose it with as it is sort of its own scale but overall I am very pleased with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment