Saturday, February 13, 2016
Review: Frame Arms Girl Stylet
| Figure Information | |
| Manufacturer: | Kotobukiya |
| Origin Series: | N/A |
| Scale: | Non-scale |
| Height: | Approximately 15cm tall |
| Original Price: | 4800 yen |
| Packaging: |
Frame Arms Girl is first of all, a kit, so this is actually my first time reviewing a full kit unlike the previous ones where those are just minor kits (I'm talking about the Microns from TF Prime's Arms Micron guys). So yeah, being a kit, you get a similar packaging like most other kits where in you actually have zero window and you're presented with a cover art while the sides does show you a possible outcome IF you paint up and detail your kit. Frame Arms Girl (F.A.G.) also market some of its gimmicks in one side while the other side shows you Stylet's different faces and the decals included in the package. Anyway, not much to say here so, that's it for the box discussion.
| Details: |
Before I start the detail discussion, do note that I just straight built Stylet for this review as I want to review figures/kits in their raw and unmodded state.Probably the only real modeling work I did here was sanding the some nubs but aside from that, Stylet was just assembled according to the manual with no paint attempts of any kind.
First off is with the face, I definitely love Stylet's face and it is one of the factors that really made her kit an easy order for me. One thing that I do not like though is how glossy her faceplates' skin tones are. It's pretty minor but at times, the glossiness just tend to stand out but yeah, her face is definitely a win. Her hair is quite plain but you do get some needed linings on where you usually see them in anime-ish designs and the spiky edges look quite nice.
Her armor bits look great despite the fact that my piece being was just straight built; it's probably how well the colors combine to present a visually stunning piece, for me at least. While building Stylet, I definitely hated the black plastic used on her since sanding the nubs definitely left the sanded areas in a somewhat light gray color which can is quite visible to a certain range.
Similar to her upper armor details, you do get the same quality overall but it really does look great even if you leave it unpainted as Stylet's color scheme definitely is eye pleasing overall.
Probably my favorite part of Stylet's details would be how plump and meaty her ass is. I mean, maaaan, those are just juicy hahaha.
Part of building Stylet actually requires you to attached the double missiles on her left forearm and being a kit weapon, it's totally the very unpainted gray plastic you cut from the runners.
| Size Comparison: |
As far the official height from Kotobukiya goes, Stylet stands 15cm tall though in actual measurements she's more close to 16cm actually and if you'll count to the pointed tip of her headgear, she's nearly 17cm tall. Now if you are looking to pair up the Frame Arms Girl with your typical female figmas, it might not work since Frame Arms Girls are way taller than your average female figma; as an example, below is a shot of Stylet standing next to figma Racing Miku 2014 and you can easily see how much Stylet towers over Miku.
Luckily though, Frame Arms Girls seems to be work better if you display them with AGP MS Girls; sure, FAGs are still taller but the size difference is barely noticeable unlike with figmas and besides, best pair up a mecha girl with their fellow mecha girl, right? To give and insight on this, below's a shot of Stylet standing next to AGP Gundam Mk II (Titans).
Ultimately, Stylet still passes as a piece inside the 6-inch scaling as her height is more reflective of that Marvel Legends scaling, I have her standing next to Marvel Legends Ultron below.
| Gimmick: |
Frame Arms Girl is a spin-off of Kotobukiya's Frame Arms line and as such, even though we actually build girls instead of receiving an actual pre-built frame with tons of 3mm ports, Kotobukiya did their best to actually keep the "Frame Arms" gimmick alive in the Frame Arms Girl line by incorporating a similar "frame" feel as stripping Stylet of all her wings and jet pack does open up a number of 3mm ports all over her body.
Upon removing her wing parts and jet pack, Stylet is then revealed to have a total of 12 (2 of which I wasn't able to taka a photo of) 3mm ports all over her body, making her highly "customizable" as you can technically plug any 3mm pegs on those slots and arm her up like their line namesake "Frame Arms".
As you can see in the main photo of this section, I've attached Revoltech Complete ZET's wings and tail on Stylet; so far from my tests, Frame Arms 3mm ports are highly compatible with Revolver Joints, so, parts from Revoltech Jetwing Optimus Prime could be a good match for Stylet.
AGP MS Girl parts also work with her (do checkout my instagram for that), however, it seems that AGP has different standards per franchise and it's only the armor/parts in the MS Girl subline that I was able to mix and match with Stylet, AGP IS and KanColle parts just didn't do it; and speaking of the MS Girl subline, given that they are compatible with RDs, it is safe to assume that Side MS RD parts will work with Frame Arms Girls.
Last that I've tested was S.H.Figuarts Kamen Rider Birth's CLAWS system and they definitely work wonders when mixed with Stylet; in theory, old legends class transformer weapons should also work as they also wield 3mm port weapons.
There's definitely a huge amount of potential for making clustered combinations with this line and if you guys know any other lines that can fit, do let me know in the comments!
| Accessories: |
As for the accessories and alternate parts, Stylet comes with a lot which is pretty sweet of a deal if you look at it. She comes with an alter fixed left arm and leg which you can use to recreate the art as seen in her box's cover. Additionally, we are provided with 3 pre-decal installed alternate faceplates as well as 4 sets of alternate hands. You also get to build her a figure stand, two sheathed Katanas (a long and a shorter one), two unsheathed versions of the said Katanas, a combat knife and a Gatling gun. The sheathed Katanas also have holsters with 3mm pegs and these holsters actually come in 2 types which is a single holster (unseen in the photo above) and a twin holster.
Being a model kit, it is quite common that we get unpainted weapons and that is actually true for ALL of Stylet's weapons and since I need zero customization work for my reviews, you actually get to see the weapons in their raw unpainted state.The weapons are the exactly the same as the ones released under Kotobukiya's M.S.G. kits.
Lastly, the set also comes with a water slide decal sheet which contains some jet imprints, eye sets which you can use should you need to custom paint the face to match with a custom painted flesh on the body and last but certainly not the least, pantie decals... yes, pantie decals lol.
| Articulation Points: |
As you build Stylet, you'll actually know all her articulation points and from what I've heard from Gourai's straight build, she's got a lot of loose connection and joints problem and I can definitely say Kotobukiya has taken a good amount of feedback to ensure that most of Gourai's problems have been resolved for Stylet's release.
Stylet's neck has ball joints on both the bottom and the top of the neck so you can make her look up and down to a decent degree, tilt it a bit and rotate to the left or right; you can't do a 360 rotation though since Stylet has twin tails and these tails hinders the articulation once it bumps on her armor.
Her tails do move on a ball joint on the connecting point but it's not a huge amount of movement.
Her arms can rotate 360 degrees on the shoulder and can also be raised to nearly 90 degrees which is good stuff for a kit actually. Stylet also has bicep swivels and her elbows bend to just a little pass 90 degrees while the wrists are on ball joints which you can't do much aside from fully rotating her hands with it.
Additionally, you can pull down Stylet's arms on due to the ball joint.
Her back pack thruster also moves via the hinge that's available.
Stylet's torso moves mainly on a hinge on the ab section but the slot that the lower half of her torso connects to is a socket-able ball joint so this allows you some minor tilting aside from bending and rotating.
Stylet's skirt is actually divided into 5 bits, the back's one piece, the sides are one piece each and the front is divided by the hip armor. The side and the front does move up which works pretty nicely when you do kicks and splits.
Stylet's hips is actually built similarly to that of old Figuarts, so you can actually pull down her leg to allow her greater kicking range and thus allows her for perfect splits while the side split just allows you to somewhere near 45 degrees. The rest of her leg articulation include a thigh swivel, a fully bendable double hinged knee, ankle hinge and toe pivot.
Additionally, a great engineering gimmick that Stylet has is for her leg armor as you can actually extend the knee cap and have it hinged together with her knee joint.
Last is that the wheels on her feet are actually deployable which helps her stability on certain poses by acting as support heels.
| Poseability: |
Probably the hardest part of posing Stylet is having her stand without the base since her feet is technically just half flat and sometimes the deployable wheels just don't touch the ground to help you with things.
Don't get me wrong though as Stylet's joint are definitely built for dynamics and I really feel that of all her included weapons, I'd say her Katanas are my favorite as Jet girls with twin katanas just work like bread and butter for me; additionally having her wield the katanas actually does make great use of her articulation to certain points. Additionally, her shouting face really brings out a great amount of character and I really love it that they actually included it since Gourai didn't have any shouting faces.
While I like having her dual wield her katanas, a single katana setup is definitely possible especially if you use the single holster option. It's really just too bad that Stylet doesn't have any 3mm port on the side of her hips so it's either you plug the holster on her forearms or at the back near the skirt; single holster looks pretty badass if you port it on her forearm though as she does generate that Devil Trigger Vergil (from Devil May Cry) feel by having the katana sheath attached there.
The forearm missiles are actually detachable but yeah, you really can't do much it aside from pointing it towards stuff for photos. The same goes for her Gatling gun but it does work second best from the Katanas and I think, the Frame Arms Stylet (the mecha one) does actually have the Gatling gun as well, thus, making it Stylet's real weapon of choice.
My least favorite would be her combat knife since none of her hands can seem to grip it properly and I really like my combat knife wield upside down but yeah, if you can actually get her hand to grip it properly, it does make for really cool poses.
And of course, if you want something different, pop in her extra arm and leg along with the expressionless faceplate and you actually a more static figure feel which may be to your liking for displays.
| Final Thoughts: |
I actually got Stylet for a really good price and for a piece that acts as my exposure to the Frame Arms Girl line, she definitely did not disappoint at all. Straight building her definitely made me happy with the outcome and because of it, I've back ordered the Frame Arms Girl Weapon Set 2 and pre-ordered the recently revealed Frame Arms Girl Jinrai!
For her price, you get a great number of accessories which goes along with her decent overall articulation and that really makes it a worth it purchase; should you decide to paint and panel line her, she'll definitely look even better if you know what you're doing. I did get my Stylet from the awesome people at XenoToys!
I give Stylet a stylish 5 out of 5.
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Where deatail white at her armor? Must make with your self, or have sticker at that figure?
ReplyDeleteYou'll need to paint that if you want the white details.
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