WIP
Finally—after a mecha-mermaid and a ship-girl, I finally have the Nuke Matrix Eula Fox in my hands, which I scored for $67 on Gundamit ($70 - $3 new account coupon). Unfortunately, but expectedly, it doesn’t come with any of the first time bonuses, but I didn’t mind, as I already had in mind that I was just gonna borrow Lirly Bell’s bonuses on the Fox anyway.
For the Fox to be somewhat of a holy grail for me, she doesn’t come with any surprises. This is my 3rd Nuke Matrix kit, so I’ve known what to expect. She has an inner frame exactly like Lirly and shares the limbs with the Siren, the spine looks absolute metal but is a hassle to deal with, her armored form is very similar to Lirly’s, but at least for the Fox only, she comes with an assortment of weapons that the other mecha girls lack.
Now while the Fox’s build doesn’t one up my shock what mecha musume kits are capable of, one thing I can say for sure is that the Fox is everything I imagined it would be—hella badass. From her heterochromia, her mechanical frame, her outer armor and the color scheme, her weapons that consist of a rifle, a sniper, a beam saber, a combat knife and a giant fucking cross as a shield, the Fox alone can do something that most others can’t: she looks meaner than most Gundams, and that was the reason why I decided to dig myself deep into this rabbit hole.
And I’ve only just snapped everything together. She already looks flipping amazing out of the box like most NM girls are, but as always, I’ll be painting, panel-lining and decaling her up to unveil the full potential for how good she can look. I’ll see you in a bit!
Completed
Well that took much quicker than I thought it was gonna be. Eula Vivienne Hayha is complete and I’m in absolute awe at the finished result. The Fox already looked good out of the box, but with her and her weapons painted and decaled up, her looks go way beyond, looking better than any Gundam kit that I’ve done this year, no contest, without a doubt.
While the Frame Arms Girl Kongo felt like a test on the skills I’ve learned this year on modeling— giving me such great pains while doing the painting, panel-lining, decaling and topcoating to perfect the look of her—spicing up the Fox feels like a victory lap as the kit out of the box looks nearly identical to the box art, but still having many places to paint anyway, decals come with the kit and suffer no fitting issues (cough cough Siren), and I had just bought a new can of topcoat, so I breezed through the detailing process, which is crazy. Kongo walked so the Fox could run…
As usual, I used an assortment of different paints, but I’m really glad how much the red paint added to this kit, and how the dash of lime green on the sniper rifle adds a lot to the weapon, albeit making it busy, but you know me. Decaling was so easy I finished the ones listed in the manual in 2 sittings in 1 morning, and when I got back from work, I decided to topcoat the Fox as I discovered it hides the ‘cheapness’ of Nuke Matrix’s metallic gray, if you know what I mean.
But holy shit, did it all come together once I was finally posing the Fox. Like Lirly, the spine was at its breaking point while posing so I did the inner frame pics as quickly as possible, so I could get to the main photoshoot of the Fox in all of her glory. She looks so good in her helmet, but then one-ups herself by looking even cooler… out of it, but somewhere equipped in her arsenal. She does great poses even with her sniper rifle unit just stored in her backpack, but as soon as I got the sniper rifle in her hands, I didn’t think the Fox could even look more badass than she already was. The sniper even balances out the back-heaviness of her tail, so I don’t even have to use the stand for basic poses with her rifle equipped! And I can’t forget about the Holy Shield™, which either equipped or stored, it adds a lot to her silhouette, no shit.
Finally, I got her posed with Lirly Bell. If Lirly’s supposed to be the Fox’s support unit, well I thought they could support each other in different ways. Anyway, the Holy Railgun™, it’s giant and extreme, but surprisingly not a nightmare to pull off. As you could tell from the poses I did, I had very fun with how silly I could get posing them together, and they are indeed a pair of kits that should be on the shelf together. Their colors feel very apart from each other, which makes the dynamic great when posed together.
I’m very glad I’ve gotten the Fox now rather than earlier. While Lirly Bell still holds that special first time I discovered what mecha musume kits are capable of (sorry Neverlia), the Fox is the culmination of what I’ve learned building mecha girls, and she’s easily become my favorite mecha girl (Kongo’s still probably the best girl I’ve made). Now that I have the Fox obtained and finished… I guess it’s the end of the journey… is what I would say if I hadn’t impulsively bought Yefuna Malkina for $66 shipped on Gundam Central (she was selling out quickly). It’ll take a while for her to arrive on my doorstep, but, I think I’m done doing any sort of model kits for the rest of the summer. This has been a long post. Thanks for reading if you’ve made it up to the end!
