New Year

THE STRONGEST YEAR

Happy New Year…ok so it’s the 2nd here, but it’s still the 1st somewhere right??? ^^;
I hope you all are having a fun time to celebrate the new year!

Newish stuff

Figures everywhere!

Since this blog was inactive for quite some time, I think it’s a good idea to show off some of the new figure additions! This also gives me a chance to ask you guys which figures you would like to see featured in future photo shoots as well. Some of these figures can be classified as “old”, but I did receive them within the last few months ^^;;

Before I start I’d like to take this time to thank pp of Otakurean for sending me this lovely clearfile of Yoake Mae yori Ruriiro na (The bright blue light before the dawn). I know it’s been months since I actually got this prize, and it’s been a looooooooong time coming. So, thank you pp~ :3

Figure Acquisitions

Since I have some spare time, I decided to show you guys the new stuff I’ve gotten over the past few months. Surprisingly I’ve managed to keep the figure purchases steady, I had to cancel a few figures since I was running low on cash and not to mention the falling Aussie dollar =/

Mikumikumiku, I snagged the Max Factory and Volks figures of Miku, but in the end I parted with the Volks to a friend of mine. I still hope that Max Factory could make a Haku Yowane figure ;_;

Blanc Neige was kind of an impulse buy for me, but her hips are…are just so distracting! She accompanies the old Max Factory Kureha on my shelf. Seriously… look at those hips! *drools*

One of the most expensive and biggest figure in my collection, second only to my Dollfie. Asakura is part of the FREEing 1/4 scale bunny girl set of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi series. She was shipped, and subsequently paid for on the day that the Aussie dollar fell to 55 Japanese yen… ;_; paincakes were had.

Griffon figures can be hit and miss for me, so this Sasara was a pleasant surprise to me when she arrived in her school swimsuit and maid apron. Her delicious pose just makes my skin tingle with anticipation….of…something… o_O

Nekomimi Nono Nekomiya in mizugi. I just LOVE cats, and thus nekomimi has a special place in my heart, so I couldn’t resist this figure. Now, some of you may notice a school swimsuit trend, but I assure you it isn’t a huge fetish of mine XD

Shana’s first appearance in my figure collection! With this particular figure, they released a regular version, and two store exclusive versions. The regular was the black haired beauty, one was a pink haired and blue uniform with striped stockings which has a resemblance to Alice in Wonderland. This version you see is the Strawberry Version exclusive to the GEE! online store. Not sure why strawberry as it could prolly be more appropriately be called Cherry or Peach…. but oh well~

iDOLM@STER

Alter released the second half of the FA4 iM@S trading figures a while back, so now I managed to grab myself a full set of the girls! Well, at least the black version of the set ^^; These trading figures are quite the build, and I must say Alter has done an excellent job on these.

Max Factory has also released Miki Hoshii in two versions, the blonde in green, and the brunette in blue. I opted for the blonde since I’m a sucker for Miki in blonde. The friend who has been supplying me with most of these figures went for the brunette, so if we ever get bored we could always trade XD

Kaiyodo’s latest iM@S Fraulein girl to take the stage is also Miki Hoshii. I had to grab her to produce the various poses I had imagined. She comes with an additional head for those who love the brown, and since they are using the Revoltech joints I used a spare Saber Alter body XD

Nanoha StrikerS

Reinforce Zwei! I love this lil figure and it’s mini-ness. It’s like a 1/1 scale of her XD I’m not a huge fan of the StrikerS season, but Reinforce is so cute!

Hayate has recently come out as a figure as well, and in my opinion she’s aged the best >.> She also comes with a mini-mini-boss! Reinforce is even smaller now. Alter has done a nice job of sculpting and painting the really tiny figure, it’s about the same size of those Warhammer miniatures! Hayate’s box is also a force to be reckoned with. It’s even bigger than the massive Fate Testarossa box!! Now where to find space to put the box…

Alice in ???

Alter has been doing the 3D incarnations of the POP Wonderland series, and I decided to pick one up! The photo is a lil bland so it does little to bring out the wonder~

Alice from Queen’s Blade was love at first sight, I remember picking up the Hobby Japan magazine…or was it Dengeki Hobby… and seeing the first unpainted prototype. That point on I was watching the pre-order scene with the eyes of an eagle. And here she is.

Queen’s Figures

Speaking of Queen’s Blade, Ymir has been released as a black coloured princess now. I couldn’t resist at the time, so I had to pay for her presence. As like the regular version, she can undress nearly everything, even her pantsu! o_o

Next up is the Hobby Japan magazine exclusive Queen’s Gate Ink-tan from Moetan! I had to cut a tiny lil stamp out from the Hobby Japan magazine and send it to a friend of mine in Japan….express…since the cut off date was approaching. Which means that huge envelope in the background with ALL THOSE STAMPS was used to deliver a stamp the size of my thumb…

Queen’s Gate Ink-tan is awesome! Lots of her armour is cast off and it shows, her armour was practically falling off when I try to get her to grip those button batons. It’s highly distracting trying to do something when you get constant mune flashes @_@

Mecha Musume

Aaah, how I love Mecha Musume~ I just had to buy these two figures when I saw them, not to mention they’re both based on Shimada Fumikane’s artwork of Sky Girls/Strike Witches fame.

The M4A1 Early Type Sherman “Elizabeth” has a lot of accessories, you can even de-mechanise her but…why would I do that? o_O Her nonchalant expression is big boon for me :3

The Kawasaki Ki-100 Type 5 Fighter, the main appeal was admittedly the cast off feature >.> BUT her fierce gaze was also appealing for me :3

Blackout

A few months ago my apartment had a blackout and I had nothing to do… so I decided to take a few photos for the hell of it. My room has changed a bit since then…more figures…less ceiling space for posters… I also took a few photos of Saber, and it turned out somewhat ok, so I decided to share it here too~

Photo shoot choice

With all these bland photos, I was wondering which of these figures you people would really like to see in a photo shoot, mind you, I tend to do outdoor ones XD
I’ve updated the poll which should appear shortly on the blog as well, so please have your say :3
I’ll see which figures on the poll have a higher demand so I’ll place a higher priority on them when I decide to go on a photo shoot~

Again, thanks to those who visit regularly too~ :3

Volks

Doll’s Party 20

Long time no post!
Sorry about the lack of updates, I don’t really have an excuse other than having to grind at Uni >.<
Unfortunately my work isn’t too “moé” so I don’t think it’ll have a place on this blog, but maybe one day XD.

Today I’m showing you guys that haven’t heard the new Dollfie Dream lineup that Volks will be showcasing at Doll’s Party 20. The event is held at Tokyo Big Sight on the 7th December 2008, a tad earlier than the usual date of Christmas. So, without delay, here they are!

Before I continue, for those that have no idea what a Dollfie Dream, let alone a Dollfie or ABJD is, visit an earlier post for a very brief rundown: Dollfie Euphoria.

Dollfie Dream Dynamite

First up, Volks are releasing a new body line for Dollfie Dreams, dubbed Dollfie Dream Dynamite. Two anime series will be featured for this new body, Ikkitousen Great Guardians and Beat Angel Escalayer.

Volks hasn’t released any photos of the Escalayer to my knowledge, so we’ll just have to wait a lil more. For those who want to see the actual base body of a Dollfie Dream Dynamite and compare it to the others, visit Volks’ official base body page. I’m not really a fan of the new bodies, I think they’re a lil too much for my tastes, but it does look quite nice.

For more Ikkitousen love, visit the official page:

Saber Alter

OH MY GODDESS!…
No words can express the emotion I feel when I saw this. As most of my friends know, I’m quite the fan of Black Saber so it was quite a shock to see that Volks will be producing one. I shouldn’t be so surprised tho, after all, they did release the regular Saber >.>

But in any case, here’s a few photos from the Volks USA site. The link for the official Japanese site is below.

I’m… I’m actually going to try and grab myself one with the help of my friend in Japan (I love you buddy) so there goes my money… and I’m supposed to be saving up to go to Japan ^^;

Volks is also going to release a new dress set for Saber, her casual wear with a Dollfie Dream sized plushie lion >:3 Adorable!

For more, visit the offical page:

Time out!

So, let’s take a lil time to discuss the future of this lil blog. I’m aware that I haven’t updated for about THREE MONTHS, and it was a mixture of uni, work, games and good old laziness to blame. I’ll try to post more often now since I’m in my end of year holidays.

I thank those who come here regularly and apologise for the lack of updates ^^; I also noticed people want a higher photo shoot content, so I’ll try to fit that in as well, rather than random posts.

Peace@Pieces

Death Sensei

Super big large huge delay! It’s been a while since I updated this site with actual content. But I digress, today I’m bringing you Death Sensei! I received her a while ago as some of you may remember from an earlier post, and I felt that it was a good idea to keep up to date with the Peace@Pieces series of figures from Alter.

So, after a long wait, a new photo shoot!

Death Sensei, one of the characters that I find appealing, if only for her name. There’s something that I can’t put my finger on, but this type of character really tingles my moé senses. Perhaps the way she looks at people? Maybe the elaborate hair? I can’t really tell… Whatever it is, I like what I see XD

Location

This will sound somewhat vague, but I took Death to one of the buildings in Southbank, which is across the Yarra River, opposite of Flinders Street Train Station. As it was some sort of business building, it was quite modern, with large window panes and somewhat post modern decor. The ground floor was the place of interest, having a lounge area next to a cafe :3

Setup

Everything was fairly straight forward, though I did forget to bring a reflector. I had to make do with scrap pieces of paper ^^;

There was a small problem with the camera position though, the seats are squishy so it was hard to keep the tripod balanced.

My camera is giving me a hard time, I’m finding that I’ve been post editing the photos more and more these days. I’m starting to feel that my camera is showing its age…. I would like to get a DSLR but right now I’m still low on money with spendings, but that’s a story for another post ^^

Figure

Mysterious Death~ I haven’t played Peace@Pieces before so I’m not sure on the whole story of any of the characters, Death included. Morikawa Hiromitsu has done an excellent job of depicting Death. Her pose gives off a nice elegance and the paint work of Alter is top notch. There are a few seamlines but they are mostly kept out of way whenever possible. The detailing of the model is not too overly complex in style which keeps it in tune with the game, which I think fits very well.

Thoughts

Frustration. That word sums it all up. I was frustrated that it took so long to get another photo shoot, frustrated that it took so long to process it, and frustrated that it required so much work. However the photos turned out decently I think. I had to colour correct quite a bit more than normal but hopefully it looks ok for you people~

Also, I am a lil worried about the noise I can see in the images, I guess this new LCD screen is good for something at least o_o;

Summary

A great figure to have. If you already have the previous Hikaru and Nagi, then this Death is a must have XD Just like the other two figures by Alter, she’s superbly done and deserves to be in anyone’s collection of Peace@Pieces figures. I’m hoping that Alter will do more of the characters from Peace@Pieces, but only time will tell.

I had a fairly relaxed time while taking the photos, the lounge area had carpet floors, and it was quite cool inside compared to the heat outside (yes…it was back when the weather was hot).

So, after a long wait, I hope you guys enjoy this photo shoot. It was taken a long time ago as well, so the delay was a really long one @_@

Details - Photo shoot

Camera
Nikon Coolpix P2
Date
23th May 2008
Location
Southbank, Melbourne

Details - Figure

Name
Death Sensei
Series
Peace@Pieces
Maker
Alter
Sculptor
Morikawa Hiromitsu
Scale
1/8
Release date
December 2007
Place of purchase
HobbyLink Japan
Retail price
6,300 yen
Bought it for
$63.00 AU
Availability - HLJ (at time of writing)
Discontinued :(
Links
HappySoda’s entry ENG
lu-k’s entry ENG
Shinohai’s entry ENG

End Note:
Ok~ Time for a lil update chat since I’m currently on my last day of trimester break @_@

Otakurean owner, pp, has sent me an August soft/Aria clearfile folder as a giveaway prize. I recieved this MONTHS ago but had no time to take a good picture of it yet. I’ll try to update this asap as I feel somewhat guilty of not doing so.

As most of the regular readers would know, my update frequency is low as ever, going as low as 1 per month, and those posts aren’t even proper ones! I’ve been super busy with my studies so far as this is a fast tracked course (3 year studies into 2 years) so I’ve been doing most of the work >.< Perhaps I’ll show you the 2D/3D work one day?

Also, I’ve updated Wordpress, which has given me a lil more trouble but so far so good… except for IE 6 users, the right-right sidebar seems to be …down further than usual ^^; I’m not sure how to fix this, and right now I don’t have time to fix it @_@ So I’ll see what I can do within the coming weeks (the earlier weeks in a trimester are usually less loaded with work…usually…)

I’m going to have to say that I’ll prolly won’t be updating this blog as much as when I first started. This isn’t due to my lack of interest, on the contrary, I would rather be updating my blog, but uni work takes priority, and unfortunately, it takes a lot of my spare time… So I apologise to the regular readers who may be disappointed with the less updates >.<

iM@S Birthdays

Congratulations!

Happy Birthday Makoto Kikuchi! :)

iM@S Birthdays

Congratulations!

Happy Birthday Azusa Miura! :)

*sigh* It’s quite dead aruond here =/ I’m still in the last few weeks of my trimester so I’m even busier than before >.<
I’ll update with another photo shoot in my holidays, and I’m terribly sorry again for the lack of updates.

iM@S Birthdays

Congratulations!

Happy Birthday Ritsuko Akizuki! :)

Also, a small notice. I apologise about the lack of updates, uni is killing me with all sorts of assessments. I do have a photo shoot to process to show you guys, I hope it turns out well!
I’ve also recently finished upgrading to a new PC, the last part needed was a video card which was purchased a few days ago. What this meant was I had to format for the new PC which took a bit of time to configure. I’ll be busy for a few more weeks to come ;_; so once again I apologise. Look forward to the next photo shoot!

iM@S Birthdays

Congratulations!

Happy Birthday Ami & Mami Futami! :3 :3

Volks

Dollfie Dreams

Okies! Time to revisit the Dollfie Dream scene!
Today I’ll be showing you some of the newer dollfies that I haven’t really talked about much.
We’ll be looking at the Fortune Arterial, Super Robot Wars and Fate/hollow ataraxia.
Please note, all these dollfies are limited editions, so… Good luck!

Some of you may remember reading about Dollpa, or known as Doll’s Party, an event held by Volks to showcase and sell their new products, and also a place where dollfie lovers can go and sell their own items. You could say it’s a dollfie version of Comiket. For more info you can either google it, or visit some of my earlier posts: Euphoric Temptations and Dollfie Euphoria

Fortune Arterial

First up is the Fortune Arterial dollfies!
Volks has decided to continue their eroge based dollfies with August Soft’s latest work, Fortune Arterial.
Two dollfies from the series has been released at the Hometown Dollpa Kyoto 5. Click on the images to go to their respective sites:

Here we have cheery Erika, I love this one and I’d buy it if I had the money at the time… The uniform looks gorgeous as well, I’d much prefer this than Yuki Nagato’s but oh well ^^;

And here we have Kiriha, her beautiful black hair is so appealing to me, along with her sexy black stockings compared to Erika’s socks.

This isn’t the first time Volks has done an August Soft game dollfie interpretation either, their earlier works can be seen at the 夜明け前より瑠璃色な -Brighter than dawning blue- official site.
Both images are from their official Volks site.

Super Robot Wars

Next up is the Super Robot Wars series!
For those who don’t know, the SRW series has been around for quite some time, featuring various mecha shows such as Getter Robo and Gundam separated into two distinct categories, Super types, and Real types. With the series, there are “original” characters not from an existing anime/game, and they’ve grown so popular that they’ve spawn their own game, Super Robot Wars Original Generations. The featured dollfies are two characters from the SRW original cast, both were sold at a special event on 3rd May 2008.

A mature looking dollfie, for those who like their women a lil more experienced~ This is one of the few Dollfie Dreams I’ve seen that has a fairly visible lip, making her look more like a Super Dollfie.

Latvnyç, or Latun, or Latune, or Latourni, I don’t know…
A new addition to the Volks MiniDD series. While I adore the character, I feel that the dollfie doesn’t quite feel right =/ But as always, the clothes are beautiful~

Fate/hollow ataraxia

And here we are, Saber, the bane of my dollfie hobby. Ever since she was announced I was killing myself at the thought of actually regretting that I bought Evelyn, the Yuki Nagato DD. The feeling has passed, though I still wish I had money for such a extravagant Dollfie. As far as I know, this Saber is the most expensive one yet, not to mention her box is also quite unique, putting aside the uniform look of the dollfie boxes for a more elegant and stronger box to carry all her gear, and believe me, she has quite a bit. Saber was first released only a month ago at the Dollpa 19 event on 27th April 2008. She was also released at the Dollpa 19 Afterparty event only a few days ago on 17-18th May 2008.

Here are some scans I did from the Dengeki Hobby magazine… or was it Hobby Japan magazine?…I forgot OTL, was scanned a few weeks back for the Den of Angels forum (go here for lots of info!)

Volks have also released 2 clothes set for Saber, the holiday dress and the maid dress. For more info you can visit the official site at:

There is one owner that is a very happy and poor one now, you can visit their blog to see much more photos of Saber in her brand spanking new box, along with her clothes and accessories! Quick! Go to KitsuneSuki!! NOW!

The End

Well, there’s the lil post on the new Dollfie Dream releases, I’m not sure if any of you will be able to buy, or even find, the above dollfies, but I wanted to let you know what Volks have been up to :3

Admin

Announcement

I’m pretty distraught…
I’ve just lost a family member!!

MY MONITOR DIED ;_;

It served me faithfully for 6 years, bringing me it’s 17″ CRT quality at 1600×1200 resolution for that time…
Sunday morning, I woke up as usually, preparing to go to work. I turned on the monitor and she slowly showed her glowing brilliance. I went to make breakfast and came back….it was black. The monitor was off, completely, not even the standby light is on, which it normally is. I checked to see if the power was plugged in, it was, I checked to see if the power cable was working, it was, I checked the power board if it was working, it was…

All I heard in my head was “Isn’t it sad ;_;”
I then had to use the secondary monitor for that day and night, researching the most suitable monitor to get next.

The next day, Monday, I went out and bought myself a new LCD…now, I hate LCDs for various reasons and I wont dilly-dally into the details of why, but I didn’t really see a choice, plus they do have advantages…
Welcome the new Samsung 2253BW!

Isn’t she cute? :3