Introduction
 I decided to do a review on Kotobukiya's Aaliyah, because I'm a big fan
of their mechs, not the games though. Armored Core (AC) kits are known for their
detail and awesome looking arsenal of weapons, rocket launchers and
what-nots. My first AC kit is the Mirage Gaea, which i found out, not
very nice to build but very nice to look at. The latest that I bought
was the Y01-Tellus. I did this review because I really like the mecha design,
even more so than the Gundam kits, but the build and the parts are very
clumsy and the fit is not tight. For a fun build, i take Gundam anytime
of the day. This is my personal opinion and reviews on this kit, for AC
fans please don't get uptight about it.
Look and Design
This kit is one of the coolest looking ones out there. The parts are
lightly coloured in metallics, as most of the builders would say, even
without painting also look good. But then after cutting off the parts,
the stubs are very obvious, and after sanding, it will look worse, so
best case is paint the kit. There are a lot of tiny rivets and parts
that is separated and needs to be inserted in, to enhance the kit's
look.
Parts
There are 21 runners for this kit. some tiny some huge. What i find
irritating with Kotobukiyas AC kits are why can't they engineer the
parts in a certain way where a few parts stick together? Long time AC
builders may find that there are parts when its just cumbersome to
piece together a few parts that can be engineered as one part to avoid
seam lines. Some parts are engineered to piece together pieces with a
T-joint. This ultimately will become loose if you move it all the time.
Also the plastic quality is definitely not as good as Bandai's. After
spraying, the plastic will become extremely brittle, so definitely need
to be careful if you were to piece back together the arms and legs to the
joints. But compared to the first few AC kits, the latest AC kits are
engineered with spray painting in mind. But progressing slowly towards
that.
Posability
Don't even think about moving it so much... things will start to fall
unless you cement it. But then if you cement it, how are you going to spray paint? Basic
joints are arms, elbows, thigh, knees, ankle, wrist and head.
Things to look out for
These are the things that you can consider if you plan to build Aaliyah, just so to avoid mistakes and a bucketload of tears.
|
Sci-Fi / Anime 
