F.S.S. Maximum Holtfors 1/8 scale by Volks

Oh, my F God.

About Maximum Holtfors AKA Ballance Kaien

Ballance Kaien is the son of Daugulus Kaien and Meeth Silver Ballanche. He is essentially Chrome Ballanche’s 46th and final project.

So far, he has made two brief appearances in volume 11 and 16. Therefore, not much is actually known about him. One thing is clear though. He is supposed to be a super character.

In the default time line, Meeth is currently pregnant with the child by volume 16. Ballance Kaien is likely a given name by Meeth. Maximum Holtfors is likely his adult name he took upon coming of age. We just don’t know clearly yet. There is virtually no story about him.

The kit

Volks have been releasing stuff from F.S.S. for a few years now. They started with mortar headds and then moved onto figures. To be clear, Volks used to do this 20ish years ago. Then they stopped it. Then they’ve come back doing bits for F.S.S. again around 2020.

I missed out the first set which were Decors Weiszmel & EST. On the second set, I have him here but missed out on Christine V which became sold out as soon as it went live. I will eventually acquire Christine V figure and others. Either way, it seems clear to me that they are focusing on second generation characters who are a lot more marketable.

This is a white resin kit, and I found it surprising that eye decal was not included. Volks have usually included eye decals. It means I either have to draw the eyes manually or source eye decals from elsewhere.
I am going to try drawing first.

This kit shouldn’t be too hard. ( … How wrong I was.)
One thing that stands out is that his tights which is to be painted with metallic blue. I’ve never seen a male wearing a pair of metallic blue tights. Perhaps some women in a night club though. Regardless, that’s the default color scheme and I’ve chosen to follow that simply because I am curious as to how this will turn out. I even purchased a metallic blue spray paint just for this.

The pieces are of good quality as expected from Volks. It requires minimal sanding. It includes even a base which is pretty rare for garage kits. Sadly, the sword is bent. There is no way to straighten it.

On second thought, the bent sword might work anyway. It shouldn’t really matter in the end.

Hmm, you know what – the metallic tights, it’s … not too bad. Though… I am finding it really hard to accept that this is a male figure. Yes, there are no boobs, but the body shape… That ain’t a man’s.

However, given a fact that he is Dr. Ballanche’s project, his body is likely based on a fatima. This does explain his overall slender body. In fact, Ballance does indeed calls himself “46th fatima”.

Now, for the eyes and eyebrows, I was going to draw them and I did. I failed horribly to a point that I used paint thinner to wipe everything out on his face to start over. I didn’t even bother taking a picture because it looked like an elementary kid drew them.

Yes, starting over meant clean paint out, airbrush skin tone again, let it dry and give another go. On my second attempt, I was no longer confident and decided to use decals I’ve collected. I have lots of them.

Overall, his face has given me moments of nightmares. I really dislike when a resin kit comes with hair and face molded together. It is really hard to draw the line between skin and hair especially if the hair is dark-colored.

That is because skin and black are basically white and black, two completely contrasting colors, meaning no mistake is allowed. To make the matter worse, his hair on his forehead has a kind of arching gaps which makes it virtually impossible to paint some parts of his hair without leaving black lines on his skin without a specialized tool.

In the end, I didn’t quite complete the hair on his forehead.

To make the matter even more worse, I’ve also failed at attempting to draw the red cross incased in a circle emblem on his skirt. After 3rd attempt, I gave up and couldn’t completely erase the red paint. I should have really left it alone and look for a decal instead.

In the end, this figure is a failure. It may look okay-ish on surface but I consider this an utter failure. Because of that, I’ve not glued parts permanently except for legs and torso. Almost every part can be taken off again in case I’ve come up with a better idea on how to deal with the issues I’ve faced in this build.

Purchasing another kit is an option but I do not see a point in that. The issues I’ve faced, it’s not something I can overcome by trying again blindly.
The cross on his skirt can be solved by finding a proper decal. The issue on his face requires a specialized tool which I am not even sure what it is called. I need some kind of a very thin black pen … that lets you use only one side to draw a line. Another method could be covering his face with some kind of …cover to prevent leaving black paint. The latter seems doable although I am not sure which material to use without damaging the skin paint.

Either way, the solution doesn’t seem easy. In the end, a failure is a failure. I am not going to scrap this figure, yet, but it will be trashed at one point.

See you next Sunday.

A month later

About 4 weeks later, I’ve made a repair attempt. It is moderately successful.

My biggest issue was his hairline which has been corrected somewhat. I made myself a unique brush which was basically I cut off a lot of strands and used superglue to harden it to make it very sharp and rigid while leaving its tip as is in order to soak in paint.

I also removed his giant ribbon thingy on his butt. That ribbon made no sense whatsoever to me. It was also a block of resin which was heavy, meaning it made the figure balance a bit unstable, so I removed it.

Finally, the emblem on his skirt has finally been drawn again. It’s not perfect but, with the new brush, I was able to draw it somewhat … satisfactory.

In the end, the repair attempt is somewhat successful. I don’t think I will make another repair attempt. Therefore, I’ve glued parts permanently this time and closed the gaps between two skirt pieces with paste.

The hairline remains to be an eye sore still but it is better than before.

See you next time.