The box, like almost all model kits, doesn't have a window. The design of Arsene's box looks really good. It got that Persona 5 style with nice large artwork of Arsene in front. The back is just blank.
If you have this model kit and saw this one a little different, this is a painted model kit. Yeah, I actually painted this so it looks better than the out of the box look. I'll make a separate post on how I painted this kit. By the way, the red plastic used on this kit looks really weak and thin because light passes through it a bit.
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| Arsene's profile shot |
I already attached Arsene on his display stand because he can't stand on his own because of his high heeled "blade stilettos". The kit looks really good even if it's not painted. Painting this kit will make it look even better.
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| Arsene's mugshot |
Arsene's mask for a face is translucent. This part is really fragile so I was really careful to not break it when putting the head together.
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| Arsene's face looks fiery. |
I applied the waterslide decals on the face which is really difficult to do because of the "thin, angular and twisted" design of Arsene's face. I made a mistake, the decal got crumpled and almost ruined the decal, this makes the face look crumpled. I managed to correct it a bit, now it's not noticeable when looking at it from a distance. This is the only part that I left unpainted, it doesn't even have top coating.
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| The top hat |
One of my favorite parts on this Arsene kit is his very long black top hat that looks part of his head. It's only normal in front but if you look at the back you'll see that the hat is tied by a lace (like a shoelace). I painted the gold eyelets and red lace.
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| Arsene's flashy clothes |
Arsene is wearing a red coat and underneath it, a black underclothing. The red coat looks really good and have that really weird and otherworldly design. I painted the gold circles and kind recklessly applied black shadings on the coat. The black underclothing also looks good. Again I painted the red and gold parts on the underclothing.
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| The ascot and the gold strings |
The gold rope things on Arsene's chest is a separate piece and it's fragile especially its really small and thin pegs. Be careful on attaching this. The white ruffled ascot is a floating piece. It doesn't have that laced design and it's just white. I used a blue sharpie to color the small jewel on the ascot.
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| Arsene's back |
The black part oat the back of the red coat is a separate piece so I painted the red strap which is really hard to do on a black plastic. I clumsily painted the gold parts because I got shaky hands.
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| Nice blue wings |
I didn't knew that Arsene's nice-looking wings have this dark blue color until I took some photos on a well-lit area. I just applied matte top coating on the wings.
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| Showing off his arm. |
The coat's sleeves looks good and it got some wrinkles for detail. I applied some quick black shadings around it.
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| Closer look of the hand. |
The hands looks really good. I had fun painting the hands. I just applied black paint for the fingers and its shadings. You don't have to paint the whole fingers, it got some "hidden indicators or texture" on the fingers on where you can paint.
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| Heart counter |
The left sleeve looks the same but here you can apply the waterslide decal on the bicep part. I don't know what those hearts mean, probably a stealing count.
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| Pants or boots? You decide. |
I don't think those are pants, they more like a very long pair of red boots. Anyway it looks good and I painted the gold parts and applied black shadings.
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| Blade stilettos! |
The feet looks good, I painted the black parts and left the "bladed heel" part unpainted because I'm not sure what's their actual color.
ACCESSORIES
Arsene doesn't have a lot of accessories. But it got some extra runners with extra parts. He only got an extra pair of hands and a display stand. It's disappointing, really. I wish Aoshima added some blue fire effects on this kit.
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| Extra hands (painted) |
Here's the extra hands. They look good and I also painted and shaded it. The manual says that you can just pull the hands to swap it with another one. But in reality it's difficult to do it on this kit because the build really holds the hands in place and you can't just pull it off and swap different hands. You have to disassemble the arms (that have really weak red plastic) just to switch hands.
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| Display stand |
The display stand, while it looks really good and functional, needs assembly. It uses those really small screws and nuts. I don't have tools for that size so I have to buy a set of small precision tools just to build this stand.
ARTICULATIONS
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| He's scheming something. |
Time to test this Arsene kit's articulations. To be honest I'm scared to pose this kit because it looks really fragile especially those red parts.
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| Looking to his left. |
The head can look around really well. It can turn side to side and have a bit of a head tilt. The neck is also articulated for more head movement.
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| Well that looks weird. |
No chest articulation. The waist can move but just a bit. The wings can move too, but I'm afraid to move them because they have really small and fragile pegs. And it doesn't look really good when you move the half of the wings, just see the pic above.
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| Doing some fancy hand gestures. |
The arms are connected via ball hinges on the shoulders. These ball-hinges are really weak, while I'm posing Arsene's arms I can see stress marks on the pegs. That's a sign that I might break the pegs so I stopped posing the arms, especially the right arm.
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| More hand gestures. |
Good thing is while I can't raise the arms I can still move some parts and I plan on sticking to one pose after this review. Anyway, The arms got bicep swivel on the ball-hinges and the bicep cut. They move really well.
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| Holding his masked face. |
The elbows are double-hinged but only works as a single hinge because of the kit's design. Still it works good enough. It can bend more than 90 degrees. The hands have a ball joint but can only swivel because the ball joints on the hands are recessed deep in the wrists.
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| Doing his artwork pose. |
The legs are on a ball-hinges and can move and swivel well but don't expect this Arsene kit to kick really high. The knees are double-hinges and have a really nice bend. No feet articulaton
SCALING
This Arsene kit looks really tall for a 1/12 scale kit. So let's compare it with one of my action figure and finished model kit.
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| Ayame and Arsene |
Here you can see that the
Bandai Figure-rise Standard kit of Diver Ayame is shorter than the Aoshima ACKS Arsene.
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| Joker with Arsene |
And here's
Figma Joker (Persona 5) in-front of his Persona, Arsene. Yup these two looks cool together and the scaling is really good. And yes, the adjustable display arm from the Figma stand is compatible on Arsene's display stand.
QUALITY ISSUES
The red parts like I frequently mentioned in this review are made of thinner plastic because the light can pass through them and they feel really fragile. And this kit have hinges and articulation joints that might break if these parts are frequently moved and posed. So be careful on posing this kit especially on the shoulder joints. I didn't apply glue on this kit but you have the option to glue some of its weaker parts.
CONCLUSION
While this Aoshima ACKS model kit of Arsene looks really cool. The quality of its plastic feels weak that it makes it scary to pose this kit. The unpainted version of this kit looks good enough, but if you have patience, you can make this kit look even better and more color accurate by painting it. The extra parts/accessories count is laughable but Arsene in the game doesn't really do or hold stuff much so he doesn't need anything for this kit except for blue fire effects. I don't recommend that you get this model kit unless you have a Joker figure because if you have Joker, you have a very awesome duo for display.
Cheers and Happy Collecting!
Thanks for your review! I'm not experienced with models or painting just yet, but it helps a lot to be aware of the issues I might run into when I work on this one. But at least I know to not rely on this one as a durable figure to "practice" on.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. If you have this model kit and want to paint it, stick to acrylic paints from tamiya or mr. hobby. don't use enamel paints, they tend to bond the plastic on this kit.
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