Garage Resin Kit 1/6 YoRHa 2B (Sexy Mode)

The year, 11945, humans, through millennia of intercene combat, war, plagues and diseases, plus an alien invasion in 5012 have been driven to the moon. Low in numbers and nearly extinct, they created the YoRHa android units as premier soldiers in their fight to win back earth. Over 5000 years later, during the 14th “Machine War”, what is left of humanity sends out two of their best android warriors 2B and 9S to finally end the machines once and for all….Thus begin the story of Nier: Automata and the epic struggle between the never ending battles of the androids of YoRHa and the Machine life forms that rule the earth.

The game Nier: Automata first came out in 2017. It’s made as a sequel to the first game, Nier and indirect sequel to Drakenguard III. All of these games are made by Japanese mad man Yoko Taro (How does he act? When in public being interviewed, he always wears the head of one of his more famous characters, Emil to hide his face). The man may be an eccentric, but he can write a great story with hidden meanings that espouse what I like to call the “human factor”……..Previously, most of his games had low budgets and strictly controlled, and thus, did not perform well and was riddled with gameplay issues. But now partnered with Platinum Games (The same company that make my num. 1 bae-bae waifu games, Bayonetta), and published by Japanese RPG (Role-Playing Games) powerhouse Square-Enix (SE), which finally allowed him a far bigger budget. Nier Automata finally sold what it should be and earned Yoko and Platinum the recognition they deserved due to its smooth gameplay and for adult gamers, a well written story full of philosophic wonderings that make you question the meaning of the “human factor and condition”…….

Now, I get what most of you are saying…Video games? Philosophy? human factor? Hah! YEAH RIGHT! Ok, I’ll admit…The initial reason I got the game…finally in 2020 and this resin model of 2B is that 2B is a female android with a very THICC behind and she knows how to shake it (As you about to see when I finish this)! But the more I play the game, the more I fell down the rabbit hole and certain parts of the game makes you wonder truly what is like to be human…Still going, HA!!! Yeah right! Video games can never be like that! Well, here are some examples!

The names of the three main characters in the game, 2B, 9S and A2 all have their basis in Shakespeare…Don’t believe me? 2B, surely even if you never ever read any Shakespeare, you heard the phrase, “to be, or not to be….” from Hamlet right? And yes, this main character fate is very much like the main character from that play. Ok, this one may be harder to get. 9S is Ninus Tomb from A Mid-Summer Nights Dream. And yes, like Ninus, 9S dies again and again and again. A2, say that real fast a couple of times. A2 A2 A2 A2A2A2etuetuetu etu etu et tu…..et tu Brute? Yes, from Julius Caesar. And yes, A2, in one of the many endings, do get stabbed like the namesake from history!

Ok, fine, that is one and it’s a fluke...Is it? Remember how I say one of the character dies again and again? But how? Well, these androids, in death, can upload their memories to the “Bunker”, a floating space station in orbit and then can be downloaded into a new body and keep on fighting in a never ending circle of suffering, death, new life, keep on fighting and suffering until some of the “resistance fighters” are growing numb from all the fighting…..Sounds familiar? Any Buddhists will instantly recognize this and any soldier will instantly recognize the downfall of constant combat. In fact, the game intro instantly throws this at you, “Everything that live, is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped…in a never ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the God that blessed us with this cryptic puzzle…and wonder if we’ll ever have a chance to kill him”. And yeah, the game’s third act throws that phrase at you with such a bang that you just wonder how the game had turned!

Still not enough? Check out Michael Saba’s YouTube channel which covers nearly all of Nier Automata’s hidden meanings in detail. Two of my favorite are Simone and Pascal. Yes, some of you may have already deduced, A LOT of in game characters are named after major philosophers of old. The boss Simone screams “I’m pretty! I’m pretty” while trying to kill you! Fitting the adage, “beauty is only skin deep”. But if you know Simone De Beauvoir and her thoughts on feminism, then this fight just took on another meaning, meaning I won’t cover here. That’s what google is for! It’s kind of sad actually to hear her scream “I’m pretty! LOOK AT ME!” during the fight now that you have some references.

Then there is the character Pascal, a machine who denounces all fighting and violence and help you more than once in the game…..Then comes his ending which is a shocker….But if you know that he is named after Pascal and his book Passe and the meaning of fear, then pretty much it’s a foreshadowing…Sigh, Pascal even says, “…..Or (he) skipped right past the profound straight to insane” before all hell breaks loose while, ironically, the book being delivered to him next is Passe……..And oh, if you elect to spare him and not kill him when the choice is given….Be prepared, be VERY PREPARED to learn the meaning, “There are worse things than death!”

Still not enough? Well, go to the comment section and read what “Moon Twister” wrote about how the game hid Chinese philosophers like Lao Zi, Mao Zi, Zhuang Zi and Confucius into the game and how the game subtly expand on the teaching espoused by them…It’s subtle but very well done and I didn’t realize it until I read his comment! But anyways, enough about me rambling about a game that got me so deep in the rabbit hole I still have not gotten out! On to the kit that I got cause of how great the game is, not just because android waifu 2B has a very thicc, very nice looking gluteal!

See my preview here: What I said is true. Generally, the fit of this kit is A LOT better than my previous figure kit, Bayonetta. This is perhaps due to the breakdown of the kit. As mentioned in the preview, due to the options provided, namely two heads and two waist/torsos, the parts are generally smaller and since all parts are solid resin casting, leaves very little leeway for the parts to warp and shrink. Not saying there are none, the warpage and shrinkage in this kit are minor due to the fact the casting and mold are older and this stuff will happen with any resin kit. But unlike my Bayonetta kit, in which the two major body parts are warped to the point I needed SWMBO’s hair dryer to heat it up to almost melting point in order to get them even somewhat close together so a major putty session closed the gap, I had a far easier time here. The only major point of contention is in this “sexy mode”, her upper and lower waist joint, the back jutted up somewhat where I had to insert a very thin stretched sprue to fill it up. The rest are the shoulder blade joints, the rear needed some minor puttying and along the gluteal joints, the front side where the skin portion join against her thong...umm..AHEM….Camel Toe, the joint juts forward slightly. Other than that, the rest fits perfectly, which means I can paint then superglue the major pieces without worrying seams popping up. The only major warpage is her sword “Virtuous Contract”, a daikatana…..Or is it a Nodachi? It’s much too big to be a regular normal sized katana that’s for sure. In fact, she has a bigger one, “Virtuous Treaty”. I highly recommend YouTube’s “Men at Arms: Reforged” and their recreation of the said sword! It’s awesome and I want it! Too bad I don’t have 5 grand to get it! Why I am I mentioning it? Its cause this sword is not included in the kit! Come on! My bae bae waifu needs both of her weapons. Ahh well, it’s just a minor quibble and Virtuous Treaty being missing does not distract from the kit. But yeah, Virtuous Contract, the blade section screwed WAY to the left and no amount of bending will bend it to the correct place! Sigh, time to steal SWMBO’s hairdryer again! This is not the fault of the molding or the kit. When you cast resin this long and this thin, over time, it’s gonna shrink and cause this type of warpage! It’s just the way it is.

Ohh, one thing I missed in the preview is the fact a set of small decal sheet is provided. This is mainly to provide the pattern on her skirt. Now, the pattern is molded onto the skirt itself so if you feel lucky, go ahead and try to tape and then paint it…I won’t cause the pattern is complex and I don’t want to cross my eyeballs!...As you may guess, my second kit will be in her combat form and thus, will have to deal with this issue! The second is most welcome, a set of eye decals! In fact, four eyes are provided so you can mess up two and still have leeway! This is very welcome as I’ve said, getting a figure eyes right can be a PITA and an acornhole in one since there is an old saying, “eyes are the window to a person’s soul!” so this should save me some serious headaches! Anyways, time to begin.

Main construction is very short….The first thing I did was hit the bathroom, turn on the hot water with some cold mix in and some soap to wash all the major parts to remove the mold release agents and oils that cover nearly all resin kits. This is true except for the small parts in the small parts bag since I don’t want to lose them. I’ll clean them up after they come together to form larger pieces. Also, need to mention there are almost no mold blocks to remove. Some resin casting have major casting blocks attached to them and removing them can be a real pain! Not here. Still, small casting pieces are still attached to the parts. This make what needed to be removed and what are actually location tabs a crab shoot so adapt the adage, test fit twice, glue once since you don’t want to remove location studs by accident!

As you may have noticed, this kit is actually two kits in one. The first of course is 2B herself. The second is her support pot, Pot Unit 42. Both have a lot of parts with complex painting scheme. Due to the painting, I have to look at both the game and the provided pictures to determine what to join, and what to forgo until the painting session! Thank goodness the kit make this somewhat easier! A huge example is her hair and boots. Now, 2B hair is platinum white, a symbol of YoRHa purity….A lie as if there is one if you play the game! It’s another one of the many game’s “human condition” observations. 2B also wear a rather large black hairband in the middle of her hair. To help with this, the kit separated the hair out into two halves, not only cause it would be very difficult to insert her face in afterwards, but also to help you with the black hair band since the hair splits in this section. The black hair band is inserted into the back hair piece before the face is inserted, then her front piece. And the kit even considered the detailed of her hair as the back hair piece has an inner insert. Same with the front, right side has an insert to show the second row of hair. Now, most casters will cast these inserts as single pieces. This makes the pieces heavy and ruin the detail fidelity so great job here.

The second is 2B’s boots. 2B wears thigh high boots that almost come up against her…”other” cheeks….Higher than her boots are her black silk stockings. Now, the back of the boots has some laces and her legs, with the stockings, can be seen through the laces. I first I thought the boots will have the silk stocking ends molded on and I will have a bisnatch of a time trying to paint the inner skin details. Nope! The parts breakdown is clever here. You see, after you glue on the gluteal cheek pieces, the next thigh parts are separate. These of course, are the silk stocking pieces. The stocking pieces has an insert right through the boots that cover up the inner laces spaces that shows off the skin. This means you can paint these pieces in their relevant colors, then insert into the boots, where the insert nicely shows off the skin details so you don’t throw a hissy fit! The fit here is nice and tight so no seams to tackle…Just be sure to insert the right pieces into the right place here though or else you will have problems later! Nice job indeed!

So, with those out of the way, time to superglue the relevant pieces together. As mentioned, I had to glue some pieces together due to seams. See above. The elbow pieces were not cemented on since they have these four feather “caps”, two on each elbow that I will paint in a different shade of black. The rest is white silver color with fingers in cloth black…..Sigh, headache here I come!

Anyways, that is it for 2B. The head is also separate since she wears a very high collar dress so I need to attach her head after both her face, hair and body colors are done. Again, fit here is extremely tight so no seams to worry about. Time for support pot unit Pot 42.

Ok, sigh, right here I encountered one of the fault of the kit. The poor mule of an instruction. In fact, with 2B, the waist call out is wrong! If you follow the instruction and try to attach the waist called out here to the dress, it will never fit! That waist is the stand alone thong “sexy” waist! In fact, even if you try, it will not work since the correct attachment waist to the dress, the attachment spigot is far smaller and have two location inserts to the sides. The standalone sexy waist has a far bigger rectangle spigot with no location inserts so don’t get confused here!

But Pot 42 was worse! The problem is in his torso. His very small torso has three main pieces with attachments. The instruction calls for parts 41, 47, 63, 64, and 69….Unfortunately, two parts are missing and the instruction drawing is so horrific, that I tried to attach part 41 vertically against part 42. Thankfully, looking at the picture included, I realized that there is no way this is how it works so I tried to look at the Pod in the game and also a far bigger picture from google. But no matter how hard I tried, there is no way I can get the torso to work as it should be as it calls out in the instructions. Desperate and frustrated, I picked through the small parts bag that contains all of the Pot 42 parts sans the head when PRESTO CHANGIO!!!!!! Out pops this “t” shaped torso container part that has two holes for attaching the arms! It’s like a light bulb flashed in my head! I quickly inserted this part onto part 47 and EUREKA!!! It fits perfectly! So yeah, that torso container part fits on part 47, the lower body armor part. Then part 41, what look like it should be attached vertically in the instruction, should be attached BEHIND the torso container part with parts 63 and 64 attached onto the sides, then the head should be…..It won’t attach to the torso container part. Miffed again, I started digging into the parts again and what look like a rubber neck piece popped up! I quickly attached it to the top of the container piece and yep! That is the neck piece that supports the Pot’s big head! Safe to say, I wanted to point at the instruction and shout screw you you bad boy you! Took me over an hour to figure this out! But anyways, after attach the main arms, the body portion is complete since the head is silver, the main elbow is chrome silver with gun metal fingers, copper orange recognition bands. This meant the main construction is done! Time to hit the paint shop for some major work!

The first thing I did after the putty session was to wash all the relevant parts again because, as may surmised, the parts are covered with resin and putty dust! Funny enough, I had to insert some putty into her lips to “close” it. For some strange reason, the “eyes open” face has her upper lip bend upward too much and thus, part of her teeth is showing! Not cool! I had to insert some putty in there to “close” up her lips and modify that. Strangely, her blindfolded face has the lips in full and closed… GO FIGURE!

Next is to decide what paint goes with what. Most of her outfit is black but doing one single shade of black is gonna be boring. I quickly decided that the upper part of her outfit will be flat black since this is cloth, her boots will be gloss black to denote leather with her black hair band the same, and the feathers on her elbows will be semi-gloss black. Her hair will be insignia white with her gloves gloss black with semi-gloss black details. Any exposed skin area will be sprayed with Testor’s flesh base as a start.

The session begin with Testor’s skin tone base. This is sprayed onto her face, buttock section, and the legs inserts to her boots. This is also the same with any skin exposed areas on her outfit, the most obvious area is the cut out that exposes part of her boobs but also the surrounding areas, the cut out on her back and the surrounding areas and three spots on her belly. Coverage on the putty areas was not good so I had to sand, then spray again multiple times in order to finally cover up the putty there. It’s at this point that I also decided to work on her blindfolded face and her skirt since my second kit is almost here and I’ll do that as the “Combat Mode” version thus decided to do those while I’m painting anyways so flesh was also sprayed on to her shorter buttock that goes underneath her skirt, which was painted semi-gloss white from the inside.

After the flesh base is dry, I uses Apple Barrel “Sunkiss Peach” artistic acrylic paints from Wal-Mart to highlight any areas that need some “Warmth”, these include her cheeks (NOT butt), her brow areas, nose, and her other cheek area (this time, it is her butt!), especially the bend between the thong. Then Testor’s Skin Tone, Warm was used to highlight her brows, lips and yes, once again, her you know what area! All in all, her skin areas are not that hard compared to my Bayonetta kit simply there isn’t a lot of it to cover. But then that is completely off set by her outfit!

Come to think of it, with her outfit, I shoulda have just paint her crouch area silver then cement on her “other” cheeks…This is because once her cheeky cheeks are on, the complex curve to her thong is such that, trying tape it is next to impossible, especially when your hands are sweating like Niagara Falls! Finally, sighing, I decided to wing it and hand painted that area with a very fine 00 point brush. After the paint has dried, I taped up the flesh areas then sprayed the paint on! It worked out well, not as well as entirely spraying it but well enough under the circumstances. Meantime, while the paint is drying, I sprayed her boots gloss black, and her stocking inserts semi-gloss black at the very top, then from very far away, just gloss the bottom part with paint in order to show some skin through the stockings.

Next, her hair. As it turned out, enamel based paints caused them to be rather sticky on the resin. I found out quickly that if your fingers are dirty, it will stick to the white and get completely striped off! I had to do it several times to get the white I needed. To offset this, I washed the hair repeatedly with both gloss white and light grey for shadows. It’s at this point that I also finished painting her face and then put on the eye decals. These work absolutely wonderful and truly brings the character to life and is far better than I can do hand painting the eyes! Wish all manufacturers does this! The rest are her arms, which is sprayed gloss white and then black gloves.

As or Pot 42, his body is chrome silver torso with copper highlights, gunmetal arms with orange recognition bands and gunmetal fingers. His big head was already sprayed silver during 2B paint session. The final piece is the orange holographic display light on top of his head.

Time to finish it all! Her boots are assembled to her legs first. Then her elbows to her arms and hands. I had to pry her right fingers loose since it was too tight so had to use the hair dryer again so she can hold onto her “Virtuous Contract”. Finally, her head is put on to her neck. All in all, I have to say this, the face sculpt is especially on point. Compared to her in game model, it looks almost just like her! Her lips are redder but that’s about it. Even if it’s not on her neck, one look at her face, when well painted, you can definitely say, yes, this is my android bae bae waifu 2B!

Now, Pot 42. I assembled his main arms on, along with his fingers. Then his head is superglued firmly on his neck…Just watch it, because it’s just how it is like the game, his head is pretty big and heavy, and the neck attachment point is quite small so be sure the superglue sets firmly here before moving on. Then the figure is attached to the provided metal rod and on to the smaller display base. The last thing to complete it all is his orange display light on top of his head. Model(s) done!

AHHH! Ain’t she pretty! The way she looks, aint no way any lay men will tell that she’s actually an android. But she is, and a very HHHOOOOTTT one at that….Too bad…..Sigh, not gonna spoil it for anyone…But yeah, as I’ve said, her fate is very like that of Hamlet, an examination on human existentialism. To that end, well, again, not gonna spoil it for you! Except I’ll leave you with this:

Well, this one is well, it became a meme and explains why although I may believe God exist, but couldn’t bring myself to become a full Christian. The “Become a God” section examine with everything that is wrong with religion, not just Christianity! Yes, it’s a complex equation, but the producers and makers did this mission so well, it’s a very well done deal on how…Well, let’s just put it this way, I once heard someone who said this to a religious nutter who think everyone should convert to Christianity before they all burn in the very bottomless pit of Hell…..Judging by all the Machines jumping to their doom into the lava pits during the climax of the mission in order to be “saved”, I have say, this adage said by someone to him rings very very true…. “The good Book is good…But always be aware of the men BEHIND that Book!” ‘NUFF SAID!

Then there is the Machine’s version of Romeo and Juliet that left me crying with laughter….But then calming down…I wonder…..10,000 years from now, how will people remember us? How will they remember the classics? Will they remember us like the Machines? Like their very twisted version of Romeo and Juliet?

Before I go, time to lay another one on you. The Thermis Paradox. What is that for those who don’t understand? The Thermis is a ship, an ancient Greek ship since the time of Ancient Athens. The paradox is where, of course, ships of those days are made out of wood, and well, wood don’t last long before they rot away. So over the years, every single wood plank on the ship have been replaced again and again to the point none of the wood on the ship is the original. This begs the question, is the ship still the original Thermis or something else? Same in the game. After the prelude and you enter the game map proper, one of the first mission you have to do is gather enough parts to open the game’s shops. One of the shop owner has a bum leg and after you gather enough parts to open his shop, 9S, 2B’s companion tells him to fix his legs. The owner just go, “Ummm….No, not just no, but HELL NO!” The reason, through hundreds, even millennium of battles, he has replaced every single part in his body, from his chips in his brain to his power core, everything…All except his left leg. As his rambling says, “If I replace my left leg, will I even be my original self?” That’s is a good question for us humans too…As we change, grow and evolve, will we be…well, us? Or have changed into something else entirely….Food for thoughts people, food for thoughts!

Donald Zhou

20 November 2020

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