Hiya! I’m Samantha, Garage Kit Builder & Illustrator in the USA.
For Work Schedule Updates - Click Here
1/6 Chii
Commissioned kit. Client sent me her kit to have me paint it to her specifics. Requested to have a custom toned pink shade along with pink shadowing for her white fabric parts. In addition to a custom hair tone compared to the official artwork and anime styles, it is more of a pale blonde with peach / brown tones (though my camera is hard to pick this color up without being super yellow) I can only go on words, haha! The base is completely custom. The strawberries I purchased and everything else is hand made by me, also used silicone to freehand the decorations and a needle bottle to make the chocolate zag details. Tedious work and a few trial and errors but it worked out in the end =) The whisk was also made completely from scratch. Took about 7 attempts trying different wires that were uncoated so I could solder them, kinda worked and didn't work, so I used precolored hotglue for a chocolate effect. Carefully heat with a lighter to evenly distribute the color and level the glue without burning it. The handle was made (wait for it!) the end of a paint brush, bwahahaha! The things I find right? Hahah!
Challenges I had with this kit was the connections, everything kinda needs to fit like a glove to avoid super gaps but also not to harm the paint job ontop of that. The hair was divided into a few parts, including Chiis longer hair bits and I had to make new connections and use 3-4 wires to get a stable support to avoid cracking of the two pieces. Also alot of patience in filling and sanding over and over xD Her front hair pieces needed heat bending very badly since the pieces didn't set right, her front bangs are very fragile thats for sure. The bottom of her dress was divided into two parts, the ruffles come off half way under her dress and the pink top tier of her dress. The underside I am not sure why they made the white ruffle part come off as a whole cone piece instead of cutting it half way up her dress. Patching took aloooot of time to smooth out and paint. Their were alot of finger prints and dents too I patched as well under the dress and behind her hair pieces. Masking was a bit of a chellenge too with the materials I use, the detailes were heavily carved instead of a grazed surface to show details of the pin stripping on her socks, dress, hat cover and cuffs, so it was challenging to not have paint overspill into the deepcracks. If I had to go back and change, I would have filled these areas in and just blindly mask and paint that way to avoid over spillage of paint in the crevices. Lastly, photographing was really hard on Chii given her bangs cast bad shadows over her face and since my client requested a gloss coat for her outfit the reflectivity was a challenge too, haha! Also getting the right natural hairtone as I see in person, not as yellow as some people might think it is x///3
She definitely weighs alot too holy crap! But also due to the base but their isn't a whole lot on there to make it more weight, it's not necesarily a bad thing, I think its good for stability and her hair has great weight distributsion given her stance. Obviously can't stand on her own but hopefully you get what I mean.
Maybe later on I will do a tutorial how I did the base, but I have to rebuy the supplies again so maybe in the near future I'll put it on my YouTube page :3
Feel free to subscribe to me on youtube to watch me livestream working on other kits later in the months to come. Trying to finish quite a number of backlog from last year so I do plan on streaming again soon. I put some past streams below, though its not start to finish, it's just some work being done if ever needed something to watch, haha! If you have any questions about this project, feel free to reach out to me on facebook :3
Share & Support
