By Harith A.R.
Edited by Wan Nur Amrina
Most people would have at least one toy in their lives, however, did you know that you can build your own dream toys through the hobby of building model kits?!
Plastic model kits, or plamo for short, is a hobby that generates and sparks creativity! Like LEGO, a plastic model kit consists of a few plastic frames which require a person to cut these small intricate parts off the frames and combine them to become one perfect figure. In the older times when model kits were first introduced, you had to join each part together with glue but as technology progressed over the years, the engineers have found easier and more fun ways to build your model kit by snap-fitting the parts together!
As years pass by, plamo technology evolves by incorporating more multi-coloured but also simple-to-build frames such as the process of “Insert Molding” where one frame of runner can be multi-coloured instead of single-coloured. Today, you don’t even need any extra tools to build your model kit, companies like Bandai and Yolopark have made sure that most of their newer model kits are beginner-friendly, like some you would find among the Entry Grade tagging, aiming towards people who want to delve into building their first plamo!
The process of building a model kit which is made up of combined parts.
Image courtesy of BandaiHobby Official Facebook Page.
But you may ask, where should you begin and what are the options? Well, it depends on what exactly you like and what you are looking for. For instance, most beginners will start their model kit hobby through the Entry Grade series as it is much easier to get into and they are also fairly cheap and budget-friendly. The Entry Grade series consists of many popular anime series like Doraemon, Demon Slayer and Naruto. There will be more to come!
A promotional picture of Entry Grade Doraemon and other entries from the lineup which you can find here!
As someone who has built a plethora of model kits, there are a few options that I may suggest if you are looking for greater challenges. For example, if you like the Pokémon franchise, you can find the PokéPlamo series on the market which has a great range of Pokémon to build! It is also produced by Bandai and has higher difficulty than the Entry Grade series as it requires more skill to build it.
Poké-Pla series which offers a great variety of Pokémon you can build on your own!
Image courtesy of Wonder! School.
Aside from Pokémon, there are also a few other options to choose from such as the Digimon series, Demon Slayer, Star Wars, My Hero Academia, Mobile Suit Gundam, Ultraman, and Kamen Rider. Bandai can be considered one of the best plastic model manufacturers as it caters to a lot of people with different interests.
Other than model kits produced by Bandai, there are also characters from other franchises such as Iron Man and Spider-man from the Marvel series produced by Morstorm and the Transformers series by Yolopark. If you want to go old-school, there are also military vehicles and cars produced by Tamiya, though these require extra tools such as a nipper, tweezer, paint and more to bring out the best finishing to your build.
There are so many options and model kits to choose from a plethora of franchises and series you love and adore. With this guide, I hope you will be able to find, build, paint and even customise your own model kits that you dream of!
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