Nico-Nico-Nii to Your Heart! ~☆ [GK Yazawa Nico Maid Cafe ver.]

Hi, everyone!

I spent a very long time meaning to write this post (and a very long time painting this kit), but the story itself won’t be long.

So, what do we have here? Love Live, yep. I really like the Maid Cafe series, and at first I foolishly decided I could paint all of them, but after finishing Eli and receiving a recast of Nico with all the details blurred, I decided three would be quite enough. Well, to begin with, at least… and let the full BiBi trio grace my shelf :3

I was lucky enough to get an original Maki, so here’s a little comparison.

Nico is an E2046 recast; Maki is an original by Cerberus Project, caught on Yahoo Auctions Japan.

Have a look:

More peculiarities that make a recast impossible.

The slightly yellower resin is the original; the pure white one is E2046’s. Yes, they’re different kits, but just look how badly the recast’s detail suffered…

This is simply magnificent:

Well, after grieving over it for a bit, I decided not to buy any more recasts from E2046 (though I already have quite a few of them anyway, heh).

I have to say there were very few process photos this time. I worked on her meditatively and without rushing for roughly… hmm, three months? In any case, the build never became a chore, and no sleep was sacrificed

Parts destined to disappear forever:

The hair got an extra sparkly layer to give it a different tint: SMS Black Currant.

My favorite part: painting the eyes.

Are you going cross-eyed, young lady?

Doesn’t look like it…

Let’s assemble whatever can be assembled.

ARMLESS

And now for an exercise in growing some Zen. This time, though, I got the hang of carefully cutting along the existing grooves with a knife, which saved a great deal of time.

And there we are: both the skirts and the bow are finished. The chain was so badly blurred that, just as I did with Eli, I replaced it with beads.

That’s where my process photos run out, so I suggest we take a look at the result)

As expected, the microphone was hopelessly crooked, so I replaced it with a metal rod. The hat also somehow escaped the WIP photos—I no longer remember why.

Here’s how she turned out:

I’ve finally gotten around to starting Maki, so hopefully there’ll be a post about her soon too :3

Thank you all for looking, and have a lovely day!

P.S. Garage kits based on SIFAS art when??