Falchion 1:5 Devil Hunter Yohko sofubi figure build

[greg]

I’ve begun working on my first anime figure kit: a Devil Hunter Yohko sofubi (soft vinyl) kit! So far I have trimmed the pieces with an X-Acto blade after I soaked them in warm water. I’ve done a bit of filing and sanding, too. The sword and her token braid circles are resin parts. The braids also come as vinyl parts, but they come in halves, requiring gluing and probably puttying the seamlines, so that isn't worth it. I’ve drawn a rough outline of her eyes with pencil just to see what her face could look like. I'm really not artistically inclined when it comes to drawing, but I was able to approximate her eyes with a pencil by copying what I saw in the instruction manual.

Here's a link to a Tumblr page I made for the kickoff of this build. There's a well-known GKer (garage kit builder) who goes by Leona's Workshop on YouTube. I asked her if she's ever built a soft vinyl kit, and she said no, she only builds resin kits. She says she has no patience for filling the pieces.

So that's the troublesome part about soft vinyl kits: they may sag over time unless they are reinforced. This kit of Yohko has her standing on one leg. What I will need to do is first attach that foot to the leg, and then fill it with plaster (after I drill a hole in the bottom of her foot to attach it to the wooden base I bought). That is the leg that needs to be solid. The other leg can just get stuffed with newspaper or something. Maybe plaster paris, since it is so light. Or maybe it can stay hollow? I dunno. I've never done this before.

[greg]

Here's progress on my Tumblr account. Yohko's weight will be all on one leg. I chose to fill that leg with plaster up to the waist. As for the other limbs, I wanted to ensure that their shape will remain solid, but I did not want to use something heavy like plaster. Some people use newspapers. I chose papier machet, which is basically like liquid newspaper. It's taken a few weeks to dry. Some parts are still drying (her left leg).

Last weekend, I primed her and saw some bubbly indentations that I needed to go over with some Mr. Surfacer. I will need to re-prime those parts, but I won't get around to that until maybe next weekend.

I've started making videos of the build and will start uploading those to YouTube and Daily Motion sometime in the near future.

[usamimi]

I never thought about these things sagging! That's unfortunate, and I can see how it would be a little tedious to do more stuff to prevent it beforehand...still, she looks so cute! I'm glad you're building it. I love the box art she came with, too.

[greg]

Yeah, the art's great. Haven't you owned an anime figure that started leaning? Figures posed on one foot are particularly notorious for this. Since vinyl is soft, it has that propensity. Resin garage kits are solid, so they shouldn't sag. I've never built one, though.

There's a neat channel on YouTube dedicated to building garage kits called Leona's Workshop. I've learned a lot on that channel. She told me that she has no patience for vinyl figures because they require filling. As for my Yohko, I probably only needed to fill her one leg and waist and her other limbs should be okay.
https://www.youtube.com/leonasworkshop

[greg]

I have uploaded build videos of the progress:

Video 1.
Video 2.

[greg]

I've just uploaded video 3.