E2046 1/7 Youki Princess Mushroom, by Donald Zhou

Du dun de dum dum…….For anyone who played video game anywhere in the 1980’s and had an NES, Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom in Japan), that little intro is one of the most, if not the most recognizable musical jingle in the entire video game universe….Some more recent…kids….(even millennials are older than THAT) would say Halo, CoD, Minecraft etc…..No, NO, NOOO on those! That jingle, from the original Super Mario Bros. is THE national anthem for gamers anywhere and everywhere whether they are a fan of Mario or not. This is because back in the early ’80, following the royal disaster that was E.T. (couple years ago, someone finally paid enough to dig up all the wasted extra copies of that game from a landfill somewhere in New Mexico), Pac-Man on the Atari (two guys only had a week to develop that game….Yes, even though games back then was A LOT simpler, you can imagine how WELL that went!) and a bunch of other games that stunk so bad, they crashed the entire industry, it was up to Nintendo and their mustachioed plumber to save the day and revive the entire industry, an industry that’s worth minimum 60 BILLION in today’s money!

Mario actually started life as a unnamed antagonist in the Donkey Kong arcade game in Japan. In the U.S., he was named Jumpman in the instructions for the home consoles and named Mario in the sales brochures. When he branched out into his own game “Mario Bros.” (Notice the lack of Super), he became officially known as Mario, named after the Italian American landlord that owned the Nintendo warehouse at the time. As Shigeru Miyamoto recalled at the time, the character was supposed to be named “Mr. Video”. But one day, Mario came in and demanded back rent from the Nintendo employees. An argument ensued. Eventually, Mario left after the employees promised they will back pay the rental money soon. And as they say, the rest is history! Mr. Video just became Mario!

Mario original design was made by the iconic video game legend Shigeru Miyamoto. The original design was for a carpenter in the Donkey Kong game, hence his iconic blue and red coveralls. He would also acquire the even more iconic mustache. As Shigeru describe it, the mustache was born out of necessity due to the technology of the time since the character needed a separation between the nose and the mouth and the mustache was the simplest way to do that, which also made the character more Italian since Shigeru pegged him as an Italian-American plumber for the new upcoming game, especially since the character by this time was named after the Italian American landlord, Mario Segali.

Super Mario Bros. was released on the NES, then in Japan known as the Famicom back in 1985. There was a huge struggle to release it here in the U.S. since the video game industry has long crashed but Nintendo took a calculated gamble and released the NES back in 1986 here with Super Mario Bros. packed in. The rest was history!

Over the years, Mario and the gang have branched out. He and his brother Luigi had long ago grabbed their friends (and enemies) to play tennis, soccer, golf, go kart racing and even beating the bejesus out of each other in Nintendo’s hit fighting franchise Super Smash Bros (the latest saw Mario almost being stabbed to death by the newest character to the roster, Sephiroth). But in the mainline platforming games, Mario is always tasked with one mission, saving the “Princess of Mushroom Kingdom”, Princess Peach (her name actually wasn’t made official until Super Mario 64). Ahhhh! Still remember the anguish everytime I beat a world in the original Super Mario Bros, and Toad told me “Our princess is in another castle”…Near the end, almost wanted to strangle him to death! But yes, Peach also soon joined Mario on his various adventures, such as becoming quite a handful of a fighter herself in Super Smash Bros.! Now, there isn’t a lot of model kits of Mario and the gang…But one day trolling through the E2046 web site….I spot this kit….

THE KIT

Whatever I said about the kit is still true so go and check the review on what is up with this kit. Simply put, this kit is easy and not a whole a lot of parts. The only really bad thing about it is her garter belt, which again, I broke in three pieces but was quickly put together. The hardest part is getting her color right. The pics shown on E2046, the outfit is too white for my taste so I went with pink instead. Took me sometimes hitting various stores before finally finding the correct pink artistic acrylic paint that is a close match to her original in game outfit.

Nothing major. Again, the parts are not many and most of the assembly came after painting. The most major assembly is to get her upper and lower body together and her head onto her shoulders…And…That’s about it.

The first is a spray of Testor’s Skin Tone, Base…Sigh, my second bottle is running out and need more but eBay is now charging an arm and a leg for whatever is left over since Rustoleum has killed the entire Model Master line. After that, it’s just a sequential dry brushing with Tamiya Flesh (Vallejo works too in this case) into her skin fold joints (armpits, leg bends, down the chest line, and around the bottom of her breasts etc. After that is dried, I used Testor’s Skin Tone Warm to highlight the really “deep” parts such as the armpits and leg bends. For her exposed muscle areas, leg and top of the breast, Apple Barrel Sunkissed Peach was used to lighten the skin using dry brush. Afterwards, all the exposed skin areas were wet brushed with artistic cream to bring everything together. Same was done to her face, although not nearly as much since again, she’s anime and there just not a lot of facial details. After the paint is dried, I cut out two eyes off of my E2046 Decal Set E and put them on. It’s a very natural fit and look the part when dried.

Next is her hair, I just used Apple Barrel “King’s Gold” to color it. Again, anime so did not do any shadowing and shading. Anime hair is pretty straightforward and a single tone…Don’t believe me? Just look at Sailor Moon and find out!

The most complicate exercise in this kit is her outfit. Simply put, a lot has to go into it since there are a lot of pieces and require multiple passes and different colors. The major colors are the artistic “Pink Blast” I bought from Michaels and “Concord Grape” color from Apple Barrel. The pink blast color is the main pink color for the outfit. The concord grape is a purplish offset on the edge of the outfit and the strings on the back of her corset. I started off with a thin coat of pink blast and painted it on, waited until that is dried before another coat. This has to be very carefully worked around her panties since they are molded onto her lower body. It took three days before I was happy with the color and coverage. Next, I used concord grape and highlighted the very edge of the corset, the strings on the corset back, and her panties, again, have to be very careful around the panties edge. For her garter belt though, I decided to use light pink instead to contrast the colors. Again, same thing, have to be very careful with the concord grape edge.

Next are the two arm bands and the leg bands. I used pink blast on the inside center and white on the outer edge on the arm bands and concord grape on the inside edge of the leg bands and the details. With the majority of paint done, I waited until all the paints are dried, then onto final assembly.

Final construction just involve bringing everything together. The first to go on are her hair. It’s in four pieces and I have to carefully assemble them together. Unfortunately, there was a slight central seam which required to be puttied up and repaint. Afterwards, I took her crown, which I painted gold, with various jewel colors and superglue it on. It kept on falling off until I found the correct setting to allow the superglue to “grab” the surface so the crown can stick to her head.

Next are her arms. I first carefully cemented on her arm bands, then carefully inserted the arms through, adjusting the arms a bit so they are in the correct place, especially in concert with her display stand.

Legs are next. Again, have to insert them through her leg bands. With her legs though, I decided not to paint it exclusively pink blast. Rather, I wet washed them with the same paint so they would look as if she’s wearing pink panty hoses. This is because she does have her garter and garter belts also, which I painted pink in the center and white outer edges. Had to heat the belts a little so they would go in properly. I also painted her heels red with purple roses.

Finally, her garters. Again, since it’s split in half on purpose to make this part easier, after assembling it on, I had to go through the seams with putty and repaint again. It’s a bit of a hassle but not as nearly a big of hassle to try and insert her body halves if doing it as a single piece. It also allowed me to adjust the figure a bit to cover up her leg bends, the left one again, was razzled because the resin did not pour into it enough.

Ahh yes, how could I forget, the figure now is pretty much done but I also did her display stand, the super… “Phallic” mushroom?...Yes, that’s what it looks like! The body I sprayed with Dark Yellow and washed with Apple Barrel Caramel and Light Mocha. The top I sprayed with Tamiya Red. However, I did goof a bit on the white spots on the mushroom head. This is because the indentations for the white spots are pretty shallow and didn’t showed up on tape pretty well so I missed cutting some spots. And because there were so shallow, I also missed while cutting, leaving the edges rather razzled. This meant I went back with red and hand painted it. Next time, I might just putty up the indents and just cut out some circles and do it on my own.

Other than that little mess, the mushroom was done with black eyes and mouth. I set the figure on top and DONE!

CONCLUSIONS

To say she’s cute is to say the least. I had to heat the top to have it conform to her chest and I used tape to tape up the inside so they can “grab” on better but you can indeed have her “indecently” exposed if you want to! Still, she may not be kid friendly anymore, but the instant you go past her sexy nature, you can instantly tell this is indeed Princess Peach of Mushroom Kingdom.

KIT #:	FG6275
PRICE:	$55.00
DECALS:	None included or needed
REVIEWER:	Donald Zhou
NOTES:	Advantages: Extremely detailed, Excellent resin casting, Very sexy figure of Princess of Mushroom Kingdom. Disadvantages Parts are rather crispy, Frontal covering does not really fit the body, and maybe a bit small for some people.