I got these two kits of Vegeta recently from Yahoo Japan. They were from the same seller and they stated that they were convention kits. The kits came without boxes or paper work. I know absolutely nothing about them as I’ve never seen them before.
As you can see these kits are without their original packaging. Usually, I just do not buy “loose” kits because its there is a question of their authenticity. All the moral and ethical reasons aside, I do not want to spend a ton of money on a recast. I just rather find an original kit in my price range instead. In the past I bought some recasts and they collected dust in my closet because I did not build them right away. But in the mean time, I found the originals on sale for equal or less than the price I paid for the recasts! It just clicked that recasts are not worth it to me.
I still consider Dragon ball kits on the rare side, but I’ve been able to find some good ones these past few months. I notice that a lot of them do not have original packaging. Vegeta is my favorite Dragon Ball character and I had no kits of him. I realized that my firm rule of only buying kits with their original packaging was making me somewhat unhappy. If I’m not enjoying my hobby, then I’m doing something wrong.
So I placed all my faith in the seller that they were original and bid on these kit auctions. After all, a lot of convention kits are sold in plastic bags and they do degrade overtime. I’ve thrown out some of my early original kit boxes also because I did not know any better. So “loose” kits don’t always mean they are recast kits, but the odds are generally not good.
They were in two separate auctions but the one on the left was ending first, so I put in bids for both of them. Even though I think everyone will agree that the one on the right is the better one, I did not want to risk losing both. Even if I was just going for the one on the right, there was no guarantees that I will win the auction. I don’t like auctions. They are very nerve racking, especially on Yahoo Japan with the auto extend feature. But as you can see I won them both ^_^The one on the right went for 3100 and the left was only 1000.
The kits look nearly identical to one another. I really feel that the same sculptor did both kits, otherwise the resemblance is too much a coincidence.
1/8 SSJ Trunks is in the middle. The seller did not mention anything about scale in the description and there were no objects for scale in the auctions pictures. So I just really believed they were 1/8 scale haha. Well of course you can see that that was not the case. I think they are 1/12 scale but I have no way to know for certain since the scales vary so widely between sculptors.
They look the same, yet have a few differences.The major difference between the two is the hand and arm positioning. And the SSJ one is more muscular. I actually like them a lot, even though they are very small. (I’m very glad the auctions did not go too high also!!) Now I need to find more 1/12 Dragon Ball kits so that I can display them together. I feel they will look too out of place on my shelf with the rest of my larger size kits.
I feel that non-super Vegeta, and SSJ Vegeta have the same hair style more or less, with just the color being the obvious difference between them. So I dont have to decide which hair color to go with because I have both. Both kits have the Cell Saga armor on, but I am going to change the one on the right (I switched them by accident) to have Namek armor. The hair will be black and I’m going to fix it.. The hair is pretty bad right now, but I’ve seen a few other painted statues that had the same look for some reason.
This kit had almost no prep work done on it. You can see the seamlines and the hair flash untouched. Even though the kit looks casted somewhat badly, the details are great and I do not have to do any part fitting or pinning. When I did my own castings for my original stuff, they pretty much looked like this with all the airbubbles and huge seams. So these kits have a true amateur garage kit type feel to them. The sculpting is great, but the casting not so much. (Of course this is going on that they are originals and not badly casted recasts >_<) The other kit was already sanded and puttied already but I still need to do some prep work also.
The back of the kits look almost the same. Both kits have many air bubbles. The boots are different heights.
The faces between them are slightly different. This one has larger eyes and nose, but the frame of the face is the same size.
The face is really nice! The eyes and nose are smaller. The hair is great on this one. Too bad its not at least a 1/8 scale, but then again I now have a reason to go buy other 1/12 scales. I’m partially thinking he might even be 1/18 scale but I’m holding out hope for 1/12.
Pyramidcat's Garage kit and Anime Sculpture 