Chammy Moéness

FORTY DEGREES CELCIUS!!
I had to endure 50km/h hot winds with the sun blazing down my backside as I crawled to the post office to pick up an equally hot figure.
Behold, cutely-sexy Cham Cham~

Thanks to Tokyo Hunter for listing this item.
This Cham Cham is the Queen’s Gate version of the Samurai Spirits character, illustrated by Blade (here’s his Pixiv).
The figure is a collab of Hobby Japan and Clayz, and as with most Hobby Japan exclusives, they’re pretty decent quality.

So, without further delay, here’s some photos.
Sorry that these aren’t nice outdoor shots… I’ll have to get around to another proper photoshoot sometime ^^;

Also, Happy New Year! :D
Let’s see how many figures I’ll get in 2011 OTL…

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

Fate/stay night

Saber

Aaah~ The proper Saber that spawned the infamous Sader. Well, this figure is of my friend’s again (seems like I’m just leeching his stuff…), and this is an old one he had, before that hellspawn showed up on the vast information highway.

These photos were taken a day after the previous two posts’ figures, and it was another sunny (and hot) day. I decided to head to the Royal Exhibition Building located on the outskirts of the CBD and next to the Melbourne Museum/IMAX theatre.

These photos turned out a lil less than expected…

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Location

Royal Exhibition Building, a magnificent piece of architecture from the 19th century, one of the few major buildings surviving world wide. I thought it’d be a fitting place to take some pictures of it with Saber as the focus. Fun fact, my high school and my university also uses the building for exams.

We walked to the site from the tram stop, but on the way I stopped by at the strange ruins, I say ruins but not exactly, they were placed broken blocks of buildings randomly in a small area of the grass, looks nice too. The first few photos of Saber were done here, and there wasn’t too many people except for the occasional passerby. There was a guy listening to the radio and relaxing on the grass near us tho.

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Setup

Once again, we brought along the trusty white paper. It was a bit difficult with Saber as she has a tendency to topple over without a base. The base, looks crap. Saber did fall over once tho, it was a bit of a worry but she sustained minimal damage, where was Avalon when you needed it…

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Figure

Made by Clayz, sculpted by T’s system, somewhat expected a lil more. Saber did feel a lil lacking in some areas, the detailing of the figure sculpt was ok. Fabric flows and creases were shown, but the detail of the hair was pretty lackluster. More could of been done.

The paint could of also been a tad more delicate, as you can see some overlapping and noticeable “runny” colours. What does look great tho, is Excalibur.

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Thoughts

The camera work I had was absolute trash! Most of the photos turned out horrible, it was the white balance setting I was testing out, obviously it didn’t work out too well. The first part of the photos were at the ruins, and they turned out “ok” but the ones at the Royal Exhibition Building were so bad, it was disgusting. I had to really ‘shop them hard to make it look decent for the human eye to withstand. Ugh, at least you learn to be more by failing than being perfect.

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Summary

A complete mess, but a lesson well learnt. Saber could of been shining through the photos if I didn’t screw up. The day was also hot, I developed a rash on my back from the sweat I had as well, which generally was a downer. I also shot 3 other figures on the day, one of which is Nao from the previous post, and the other two were Miyanokouji Mizuho and Himekuri (again), more details as I post their photo shoots later on.

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Details – Photo shoot

Camera
Nikon Coolpix P2
Date
12th October 2006
Location
Outskirts of the Melbourne Museum, Royal Exhibition Building

Details – Figure

Name
Saber
Series
Fate/stay night
Maker
Clayz
Sculptor
宮川 武 aka T’s system
Scale
1/6
Release date
2005
Place of purchase
eBay
Retail price
6,720 yen
Bought it for
$56.60 AU
Availability (at time of writing)
Can’t find it anywhere anymore o_o;

At least it isn’t as bad as this…

Bonus

As a lil bonus, I tried to create something from the horrid photos, so I made a wallpaper of Saber.

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