Hourai (Aoshingou)

Hourai concludes the last batch of kits I managed to finish this year. All the prep work was done last year (except for Haruka, I think) so despite my lack of time for the hobby, I got something done, hurray! For those of you who are not that familiar with Touhou lore, Hourai is one of Alice’s dolls. I say that because she only has very subtle signs that she’s a doll in this figure. Her small hands show doll joints at the fingers but that’s about it. Speaking of hands, I first lost one of her hands and then “found” it again in pieces because I apparently stepped on it without noticing. I clumsily glued the pieces together and had to model part of it from scratch. Taking care of small parts is not my forte… but I now try to always put small parts into bags so they don’t get lost.

If it wasn’t for her massive hair, she would be able to stand on her feet alone. Since she’s technically a doll, I have no idea what her scale is. Maybe 1/3? I don’t have her with me right now but she stands about 12cm tall, I believe. Which means she’s pretty small. I enjoyed painting her a lot!

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1/6 Little Red Riding Hood Miku (T’s System)

Don’t let the photos fool you, she’s 1/6 and huuge. She stands beside Dark Angel Olivia and is the same height. There’s something really satisfying about building a figure that has some presence which is also why I love figures with elaborate bases or big weapons! I like how her turquoise hair contrasts with the red, white, yellow that dominates the rest of her outfit. I can’t remember having too much trouble with this kit. The only thing you have to be prepared for is painting all those dotted yellow ribbons and her apron is NOT separated from the rest of the dress, so that needs some careful masking. She requires more patience than it appears at first glance but you’ll be rewarded with that cute smile! :3

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1/8 Haruka Morishima (Principality of Kagutsuchino)

It’s nice to work on a simpler kit once in a while. The fitting was pretty good and only her hair pieces gave me trouble sanding. She has a lot of dark colors and I struggled with mixing the right ones, because I didn’t want hair, dress and stockings to look the same. But the subtle hues were never the same when I looked for reference pictures. Same, when I looked for her eye color. In the end, I opted for a slight brown tint in her hair and sprayed her blazer blue.

Just recently I bought new masking fluid and tape and used both to maks her buttons and uniform borders. I’m really happy how clean that turned out! ^^

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