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!

Sakura and Arturia

In this photoshoot, I decided to re-visit the location used for Alter’s Saber Alter and the solo Arturia. Instead of going at it alone, Arturia is accompanied by a friend’s Dark Sakura!

For those who don’t recognise the location, it is St.Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne. On my previous photoshoot with the two, you can see that the weather was quite uncooperative that day. We decided to come back another time. This time, the weather was too good… The harsh sunny conditions provided bright reflected light from nearby buildings, which created a weird mix of shad with highlights =/

Anyway, onto the photos!

I’d like to point out that about this time is where those inquisitive Chinese tourists arrived, mirorring what happened the other times I was last there. A group of children ran up and started to stare in amazement, one yelling to her mother “Barbie! Barbie! Barbie!” a few times ^^;

To be honest, I’m not really 100% happy with the last shot as it doesn’t have the same impact as the first. The weird lighting on their faces was due to a building nearby which was cream in colour and reflected most of the light from over the hedge to their heads @_@;

Anyway, that’s that! Hope you enjoyed the photos~

Stereoscopic images

3D vision, the new consumer sensation. You see it everywhere, from the big screen cinemas, to smallest hand held console, it seems to be everywhere all of a sudden.

Some of you may have encountered some images in the past that have two images side by side. These are more likely than not, stereograms. For this specific type of image, one needs to cross their eyes so that both images merge into a single image in the centre.

During my outdoor photoshoot of Arturia and Sakura (which will be posted soon!) I took a few photos of them together, with a slight shift in angle. Once I was at home processing the photos, I noticed that they had a similar quality to stereoscopic images I’ve seen, so I tested them out. To my surprise, they worked! I’ve created my first accidental stereogram!

If you’re new to all this, before you click on the image and try it for yourself, I’ll let you in on my little technique which seems to work for me. Here’s a few steps:

• Focus on centre of the image, it’s best to keep the image small so make it easier on your eyes if it’s your first time.
• Put a finger in front of your eyes, between you and the image.
• While still focused on the image, you’ll notice that your finger is out of focus and that there’s two of them.
• Align the out-of-focus fingers so that each finger is in the middle of both sides of the image.
• Now here comes the tricky part, focus on the finger.
• You’ll now notice that the now out-of-focus image has combined.
• You can now move the finger away, but try to keep your eyes slightly crossed so that the image is still combined.
• Focus on the image without un-crossing your eyes and enjoy 3D!

Hopefully that helps ^^;

Now onto the accidental image:

Now, I tried to reproduce this with a figure on my shelf. It was quite a challenge without any specialised gear, or a tripod…

Hope you’ll enjoy those images :3

Sakura & Arturia’s playtime

Here we are at home, with a visitor of my friend and his Sakura to play with Arturia. Since they both have aprons of sorts, why not exploit it?

Not much explaining to do with this photoshoot, other than the backdrop could of been a little more classy… sorry about that ^^;

Again, with most of the photoshoots, I could really use a tripod.
Unfortunately for me, most of my spare funds go into figure collecting and bills.

Earlier in the day we were supposed to go outdoors with another friend (who is a regular on my outdoor photoshoot trips) to take some photos….but Melbourne being Melbourne, it was raining slightly throughout the day. So we had to cancel the photoshoot and do some other errands before going home…in the last 20 metres to the door it was raining cats and dogs @_@

Next up is the rescheduled photoshoot of the two lil girls in better weather conditions~
Look forward to it!

ToHeart2 Dollfie Cosplay

A while ago Danny Choo hosted the Miss Dollfie Summer 2009 event, and he has managed to secure some items as prizes too. One of which was the ToHeart2 clothes set by Azone courtesy of Hobby Link Japan.
Today we’ll be seeing Evelyn and Arturia as they try on some clothes they’ve never been in with the help of each other :3

I must say, it was quite embarrassing taking these photos, even when no one was watching me like the usual outdoor shots ^^;

Dollfie Photoshoot

Today we’ll be seeing Arturia Pendragon, a Volks DollfieDream2. These photos were taken waaay back when Danny Choo held the Miss Dollfie Summer 2009 on figure.fm. So, here’s the entries for Arturia who managed to claim 1st place. Grats to those who also competed!

This photoshoot was taken on the 5th August 2009 at St.Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne. For those who remember (possible none of you) I’ve also used this location for some other photoshoots in the past. One of which was the Saber Alter figure by Alter.

My photoshoots will prolly have a much more relaxed write-up thesedays, so I’ll only rant on things that I think should be addressed.
The photo above was actually being taken while a bunch of school kids were looking at me from behind. This is why I bring a friend, so he can get embarassed/deal with onlookers while I’ll just focus on the subject at hand :3 (I don’t wanna be lonely ;_;)

The above photo is most like the winning shot. It seems that everyone loves that particular photo, and it most likely comes down to the elegance it captures with the use of some photographic handiwork, especially depth of field and the rule of thirds. It’s still one of my favourite photos I’ve taken ever.

Now, I can’t remember the rules for entry, but we had to take some specific photos to be elegible for the competition. So below are some indoor shots along with the “bikini/underwear” requirement…

So there’s the photoshoot, and if you want to see the original post on figure.fm, just follow this link. Lastly, I’ll leave you with Arturia cuddling …herself?

Oh no! D:

Lengthy delays

*sigh*
It’s come to my attention that I can’t really keep this site as updated as I used to because of uni work.
While the blog isn’t dead, it could sure be much more lively lol.

So what can you expect?
Well, the blog will continue in this dreary path for perhaps the rest of this year. I’ll be sure to post more often once the heavy load of my studies subside. OTL

On a side note, as some of you may know, even more Dollfies announced by Volks.

Doll’s Party

New Dollfie Dreams!

For those who are super fans of StrikerS Nanoha, or Illya, the dream has come!

For those that don’t know, there was also an Escalayer Dollfie Dream Dynamite released not too long ago, for more info, go here

Nanoha in the Dollfie Dream II body. I’m personally not a huge fan of it, but the clothes are really nice, and not to mention Raising Heart :D
Comes at a healthy 75,600 yen price tag @_@ (Arturia only cost 54k)

Now, I’m also a huge Illya fan, but luckily I can manage to resist ANOTHER Dollfie unlike a certain other. Illya comes in a Mini Dollfie Dream body, making her quite short. She also has some optional dresses which also look great.
Comes at a 48,300 yen price tag ^^;

I think these will be enough for me… but that Illya does looks tempting… *sigh*

Happy Valentines~

Evelyn & Arturia

For those with a significant other – Happy Valentines!
For those with no significant other – Happy Singles Awareness Day!
For those with a significant dollfie – Happy…??? Happy~!

Dollfie Dream II – Saber Alter

Arturia Pendragon

ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!
Here she is, the Volks’ Dollfie Dream II Saber Alter.
It’s been a long few months agonising about her. I even had a bloody dream about her @_@; If that’s not an unhealthy obsession, I don’t know what is. I had to wait a day to take these photos because I needed natural sunlight, and even then, the photos are quite messy. So I tried hiding it with my trusty photoshop >.>

Saber Alter, or what I’m just gonna call her, Arturia, has had a substantially larger effort to attain than Yuki Nagato, or what I’ve been calling her, Evelyn. I had to pray to my god, Hectic3, who is in Japan right now to make the arduous trip to the Sendai Volks Showroom in the freezing snow. Arturia is also significantly more expensive than Evelyn, due to the Aussie Dollar being so weak to the Japanese Yen.

As you can see, the Saber Alter dollfie has the white skin type of body, unlike the Yuki which has the normal skin type. Saber Alter also comes with her clothes, and a pair of adorable boots. The clothes have a very nice satin feel, and is especially noticeable with her sexy stockings. You may even see the “feel” of it.

Getting her dressed was a lil more difficult than getting Evelyn dressed, but I admit it was fun XD
Her legs are just magnificent. I really appreciate Volks’ detailing of the Dollfie Dream bodies, it paid off.

The more I look at her, the more I’m entranced by her beauty. But there is one thing I need to do, and that is to get some hair products, she looks a lil blinded by her hair and I know how annoying that can be ^^;

*sigh* some very boring photos there =/
Hopefully I’ll be able to take some photos of her at the same location on my last Black Saber photo shoot. But it won’t be this week, my city is going to experience a heat wave that hasn’t been recorded as being this bad for approx 100 years. I’m actually quite worried about my figures since I don’t have any air conditioning.

Evelyn meeting up with her new roommate. I hope I won’t be tempted to get more, this place is already overcrowded @_@;

Details – Photo shoot

Camera
Nikon Coolpix P2
Date
27th January 2009
Location
My room!

Details – Dollfie

Character Name & Series
Saber Alter – Fate/hollow ataraxia
Doll Name
Arturia Pendragon
Birthday
10th January
Dollfie Series
Dollfie Dream II
Maker
Volks
Sculpter
Serika Misaki – Zoukei-mura Inc.
Dress design
VOLKS Doll Design Department
Head
“Saber”/”Saber Alter” Original Head
Wig
“Saber Alter” Original Style, DD size
Eyes
Acrylic Eye 22mm Metallic Animetic (“Saber Alter” Original Design)
Body
DD Base Body II, White Skin, M Bust
Accessories
Boots, Dress, Corset, Panties, Knee-High Socks
Release date
Limited edition sales at Dollpa20 (23rd December 2008)
Limited edition sales at Dollpa20 After Event (10th – 12th January 2009)
Limited edition sales at Volks USA website lottery (December 2008)
Place of purchase
Sendai Volks Showroom – Dollpa 20 After Event
Retail price
54,600 yen
Bought it for
(;ﾟдﾟ) OMG!

Excuse the extremely cheesy photoshopping XD