Alright, so these two really seem fresh, right? At least as regards the Piececool Q Series. Sloat / Xiao Qiao (in the blue and purple dress) and Widener / Sun Shangxiang (in the red and gold dress) are the first female characters I’ve built (at least, as far as I can tell… I guess I’m kinda assuming gender based on garb, which might not be correct…).

As you can start to see, they have a lot of differences to them, both in design and construction, as compared to the previous models I’ve build and reviewed for you. And by golly, they have a lot more delicate and “dangle-y” bits!

And they are gorgeous, to boot! There is a lot to sit and absorb as you look at them. Lots more curved and decorative elements to these two than I’d gotten used to with the rest of this line. And a lot more hair details (not just ornamentation on the hair, but the hair itself). But I really think the star element of these models is the crowns/tiaras/whatever. They are just gorgeous.

These build mostly like the other Q-Series models, with the main exception being the “legs” being replaced by floor-length dresses. And I rather like them that way. Forming the dress bottoms is rather simple, though it does become a bit of alignment juggling if you decide that you want the tabs hidden on the inside. Even then, it seems much simpler than the legs for the male character models.

What wasn’t easy was figuring out exactly what the instructions were saying to do with the little ribbon things that encircle both of these characters upper arms. Particularly the last part, where it seems to say to curve it around backwards so the colored side ends up facing forward. For the first one I built (Sloat), I tried to literally “curve” it around, though I think I may have done it forwards. but I left a bit of “depth” to the curve. However, as I progressed to attaching them, and subsequently the arms, I began to believe that the swirly arrow is just suggesting a direction, and really you should just fold the ribbon underneath the slot, which is what I did for Widener. Also, I found it easier to figure out the position/angle of the hanging end of the ribbon after attaching the arms to the torso.

The other major challenge, at least for me, in these two models was forming the head. It’s done quite differently than the male characters, largely because of some additional layers of hair (which I liked having in the model, don’t get me wrong). But, if you are, again, trying to hide as many tabs on the inside, these hair bits make that extra difficult. I was able to convince it to happen, but it was kinda risky, the way I pulled it off. Kinda just bend this section one way, then force that one here, then fold them back at the same time, while aligning and slotting tabs in the mix. And some of the results didn’t necessarily look that great (though, thankfully, the hair ornamentation covers up some of it).

Another thing to watch out for with forming the heads is to make sure that you curve the longer parts of the hair that hangs down so that they don’t collide with the shoulders when you go to attach the head to the body. Plus it’s nice to add a little curvature, anyways. It adds depth and flair to the characters.

Speaking of adding flair, there are a lot of options for doing so in these builds. One part that stands out in my mind was the fan-like part of Widener’s hair ornaments. I decided to add a slight “pleating” to the fan (folding back and forth), and I think it really makes that element pop a bit more. Plus the tiaras/crowns/thingies and ribbons are all crying out for some additional flowing curve love and whatnot. Though Widener’s headdress thing did throw me a bit, cause I had to curve the bottom of the upper half out some, just to get it on there. The instructions only indicate the hanging lower half (and the “chain” holding it up) as being curved forward.

Anyways, that’s about it for these two. They each took me roughly an hour and a half, and you can enjoy the usual silent build videos if needed, shared on YouTube in the videos below: