[Toy Review] CASTER NERO CLAUDIUS - Fate Grand Order Petitrits Model Kit (Partly Painted)

I'm not a fan of the Fate series by Type-Moon, but I like the design of some of their characters. What I got here is a chibi model kit of Caster Nero Claudius. This is part of Bandai's Petitrits series of non-scale chibi/SD model kits.

"You're looking at me? Umu umu, what an honest person!"

~ Caster Nero Claudius ~

PACKAGING

Top of the box.

The top of the box have a very nice and colorful artwork of Nero standing on a beach.

Bottom of the box.

The bottom is just a blank cardboard.

One side of the box.

The sides have lots of product shots of the finished kit.

Time to build Nero.

Packaging includes:

- 4x runners
- 2x Sticker sheet
- Instruction manual

Recommended tools:
- Nippers
- Scissors/X-Acto knife (or something similar)
- Sand paper
- Paint, thinners and paintbrushes/air brush/spray paints (optional)

Be careful when you use model kit building tools. If you're a kid, have a parent or older sibling to assist you while building Gunpla or any model kits. And read the instructions properly to avoid building errors that might result to broken parts/pieces.

THE BUILD/FIGURE

Viewing Nero at 4 sides.

I picked up Nero first because I like her color scheme (red and white with some gold) that remains consistent on her different character designs. The kit looks really nice. I don't know why Bandai went through this version of Caster Nero that's wearing just a red and white bikini, I preferred that dress-looking red bathing suit. Anyway, I painted some of the parts here. It's a sloppy hand-painting job with limited supply of paint and painting tools and I got shaky hands.

Nero's face.

Nero's face is cute. The manual prefers to put a blush on her cheeks but I don't have any pink paint to do that. The eyes are stickers, which is ok. I used a matte top coat for the hair.

Nero's ahoge.

Nero got an ahoge, a strand of hair that stands higher than the rest of the hair. I think it's literally called stupid hair, I'm not sure... Anyway ahoge's are common to the Fate characters and those characters who have this hair are probably popular characters in the franchise.

She got very long twin tails.

Caster Nero have long twin tails. They look good. I didn't put any shadings on the hair, I just let the light do the shading.

Nero's two-piece bikini (front view).

She's wearing a really sexy two-piece red and white striped bikini. It looks really good. I hand-painted these parts with white paint. It looks good at a distance, but up close you can see that I did a really poor paint job on this. After painting the bikini, I applied a glossy top coat on it. I didn't apply any skin shading because I lack the paint color. But I did apply matte top coat for the skin parts.

Nero's two-piece bikini (back view).

The back looks really nice. The straps of the bikini's top is a matte-type sticker. I tried to paint it but it bleeds to the skin parts. I also tried to apply some masking tape but it left a sticky residue after I removed the tape.

Nero's chest up close.

Nero is a busty lady! Anyway, here's a closer look at her bikini top. The white paint I applied is below passable. You can see some small gaps on these parts. Probably a kit design error?

Nero's back up close.

Here's a closer look of the bikini top at the back. I used the sticker provided for this kit because I failed on painting this area. You can see some of my errors here if you look closer.

Left arm with scrunchie.

Her arms looks good. She got some kinda big pair of hands. She's also wearing a transparent blue scrunchie on her right wrist. I lack silver or grey to paint some areas of the scruchie.

Nero's bikini bottom (front).

Nero's bikini bottom looks good. It got those straps tied on the sides. I also painted this part. The proportions looks really good and the transition of the skin parts from waist to the legs looks seamless.

Nero's bikini bottom (back).

The paint I applied on the back is really poor. By the way I also painted the bottom "sensitive" part of this piece.

Nice legs with a scrunchie on the ankle.

Nero got a nice pair of legs. You can see the lines on the side which is not good for a part that have exposed skin. You can fix this with the Tamiya Cement and sanding technique. The left ankle have a matching scrunchie to her wrist.

Elevated sandals.

Nero is wearing a pair of elevated sandals. I failed again to paint the straps of the sandals with red paint, so I used stickers for each sandal which I torn a bit, I struggled in applying them. I painted the soles with gold paint.

ACCESSORIES/OPTIONAL PARTS

Caster Nero have two cool weapons. I don't know what they're called but I call the gold ones "cannons" and the sword is just "sword". No alternative faces or extra hands on this kit.

Nice weaponry!

Nero's weapons are really good but still not enough. It needs some blast effects for the cannons. And she needs some extra hands. I hope Bandai will make some additional option parts for their petitrits line.

Cool red and black long sword.

Nero have her signature long sword. This one is only red in the runners so I have to paint the black parts with a Gundam Marker. I messed up on the other side of the sword when I'm applying the glossy top coat. The black paint "melts" or got smudged by the top coat.

Golden Cannons.

Caster Nero have a pair of golden cannons that hovers to her sides. Good thin that I have gold paint, because I don't like the pearlescent kinda gold color of the plastic. I saw in the gameplay of Fate Grand Order that the barrels of the cannons can separate and hover and shoot around like Funnels in the Gundam series. So Caster Nero is a Newtype?

Gold cannon closer look.

The result of my hand-painting on the cannons looks kinda good and cool but not that I aim for. It looks like worn gold or the cannons got battle-damaged. The red parts are stickers and the barrel of the cannons are painted black.

Nero's display base.

Nero got a display base that looks like waves of water. It's made of transparent blue plastic and looks really nice. You can apply some white dry brushing to add some white water effect on the tips of the waves. You also can print a beach sand on paper or get a light brown sand paper then cut it to fit into the bottom of the base.

The base's figure holder.

The base have a figure holder that latches on one of the kit's legs. Downside is that it can't hold the kit very well. The kit tends to fall of if you hold it up.

Base rods for the cannons.

The base have a couple of ball-tipped transparent rods for the gold cannons. The purpose of the ball-tip is so that the canons can turn and pivot around.

Nero's display base completed.

This is what it looks like when the display base is completed. Pretty cool but cramped when you put Nero at the center.

ARTICULATIONS

"Care to join me?"

Petitrits kits have few articulation points. Still, you can pull some cool poses on the finished kit.

Holding her very long sword.

The head is on a ball joint it can look around really well. The twin tails can only swivel and they're really heavy. They sometimes force the head to look up. The kit can stand up but those tails make it difficult to do. By the way, the ahoge is articulated.

"En garde!"

The shoulders are on a ball-joint and doesn't have any movement problems. The arm can shift and turn around really well. The arms can raise up to the side with no problems. No torso (chest and waist) articulation.

Nero signaling to fire.

The arms have bicep swivel. The elbows are on a single hinge that have really nice range of motion. The hands can only swivel.

Holding the sword on both hands.

The legs are on a ball joint. It can twist, raise forward/sideways and go back a bit.

"Fire!"

No knee articulation but the feet are on a ball-joint, limited articulation though. They can point up and down a bit. They can full turn around and have a tiny pivot motion.

The gold cannons can swivel/turn up and down and can pivot/turn left and right via the ball-tipped base rods. 

SCALING

The kit measures approx. 10 cm. It's taller than other Petitrits kits (hint, hint) because of the elevated sandals.

QUALITY ISSUES

The runners are intact and there are no warped parts/pieces. There are noticable gaps on the chest area when check the kit up close when fully assembled I guess cutting/sanding excess internals of the pieces can fix the issue.

CONCLUSION

I tried to imitate the pose on the box art.

The Petitris Caster Nero Claudius is a nice kit. It's fun to build it and it looks good. It will look even better if you put some effort into painting it. Anyway, Nero looks cute and have cool weapons. The articulations are limited but they're fine to me because I plan to pose it and display it after. I also might change her pose from time to time. This is a cheap kit so if you're a fan of the Fate series, go pick it up. In my opinion, this is a cheaper alternative to the Desktop Army line or Nendoroids. I hope that they make a Petitrits kit with her original design.

Cheers and Happy Collecting!