Snow trip!

While it’s blistering hot in Japan (presumably), we’re enjoying winter down in Australia, or at least, some parts of it that aren’t in constant “summer”.

We’ve taken this opportunity where some friends and I were free on a weekend to take a trip to Mt.Buller, a popular ski location for locals and foreigners alike. It’s a 4 hour drive from central Melbourne to the mountain, so we did a one day trip, with dollfies in tow. Three to be exact, I’ll be introducing a new friend, Rina. Over the course of many months I’ve managed to convince a friend of mine to also be a proud owner of a dollfie.

The trip was quite tiring and it didn’t help that the weather was being especially unruly. It was raining, overcast, and misty. The rain was the problem, but we’ve found that the Volks’ violin dollfie carry case are especially hardy in keeping the dollfie dry, but the case itself was one soggy piece of equipment. Thankfully it dries out fairly easy.

Anyway, less blabbing, more photos.

Here’s a stereogram for good measure, left image is slightly blurry tho =/

Sorry about the relative lack of photos, the weather wasn’t happy, and we were tired and hungry :(
Hope you enjoyed the photos!

ToHeart2

Lucy Maria Misora Maid ver.

Ruu~! It’s time to serve the customers~!
I finally finished processing the photos for Maid Lucy from ToHeart2.
As a fan of Leaf/Aquaplus’ work, I’m quite happy that I was able to feature this Lucy :3
Read on to see more!

As you may know, Lucy is an alien on a journey to discover Earth, As such she has some quirky character traits which would appeal to some people’s sense of moé… like me :3 I’ll be featuring the 2 version of Wave’s rendition of Maid Lucy, the normal red version which appears in the game, and the limited black version which was released exclusively for the summer Wonderfest ’07 event, and also for their online web store. Only 950 pieces were made @_@;;

Location

While this is technically an “indoor” photo shoot, I’m considering it an outdoor one for a few reasons. The photos weren’t taken in my room, and there wasn’t really any lighting setup at all. Where was the photo shoot at you say? It was at the Westin Hotel Melbourne, and it was quite an experience taking photos of figures in a high class environment @_@

We were seated in the middle of the lobby hall where the cafe served us and Lucy was perched upon the tiny stool table thing ^^;

Setup

Because this was an indoor environment, I had to find a seat with enough lighting. A friend and I went to a side seat in the middle, it was right at the huge window panes, overlooking Swanston street. I had to take a reflector with me to try to get more light on the other side of Lucy. It was a lil hard to get good non-blurry shots since I had nothing to keep the camera still with besides my own hands =/

I tried using the other tiny table but it was at a different height and didn’t really help either =/ There was enough light to keep it manageable I guess, but I think my camera is getting weary and I’m afraid it’s loosing the touch, I need to get a DSLR sometime >.<

Figure

Oh god, I saw the resin cast figure of this Lucy in person way back in the summer of ’06 at Wonderfest. When it was announced that they’re making a PVC cast of this I had to get it. And I did… then they revealed the limited black version, I had to get it ^^; So now I have both, though I am trying to sell the red version.

The figure is an excellent sculpt, Atsushi Yoshino (Carrey) manged to give Lucy that petite figure while still showing those sexy legs. The dress is a cast off but the absence of the skirt makes the top fabrics above the waist look too thick for what they are. The paint is also nicely done, the details are mostly clean, and the line work is excellent. I know some of you don’t like shiny stockings, but this figure has them. The shine is almost pearlescent but I suspect it’s just good shade work with a gloss top coat to give that illusion. Oh, and her shoes are awesome :3

Thoughts

Could be better, I tend to think that way with most of the photo shoots now. I’m starting to think that this snapshot camera is limiting my potential growth in skills, but with my monetary constraints, I can’t do much.

This Lucy is possibly one of my favourite figures in my collection. Though I’m not sure if it’s because of the figure, or the fact that it’s a limited edition.

I tried to give this photo set a more sophisticated look with the look, originally it was going to be a dark brown/orange tint to the edges but it didn’t feel consistent throughout the set, so I went for a more slick style. This is an example of the “arty” steps I’m trying to take to help compliment the photos ^^; Hope you guys like it.

Summary

I’m pretty happy with the turnout of the photos, for what I had to do to get them done… I notice with my recent photos I have needed to photoshop them more heavily than usual, I suspect my camera is kinda showing it’s age ^^;

I quite like this set of photos, I hope you guys will too :3

Details – Photo shoot

Camera
Nikon Coolpix P2
Date
27th March 2008
Location
Westin Hotel Melbourne

Details – Figure

Name
Lucy Maria Misora
Series
ToHeart2
Maker
Wave
Sculptor
Atsushi Yoshino (Carrey)
Scale
1/7
Release date
Regular Red: July 2007
Limited Black: August 2007
Place of purchase
Regular Red: HobbyLink Japan
Limited Black: Wave (Thanks to Hectic)
Retail price
4,900 yen
Bought it for
Regular Red: $51.00 AU
Limited Black: $55.00 AU
Availability – HLJ (at time of writing)
Discontinued :(
Links
Otadesho’s entry ENG