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 ^^;

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

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

GOOD APPEAL!!

Japan Packages

Today, I got what I wanted for a whiiillee~
I have a friend who’s staying in Japan for a year on the JET program (teaching english etc). Now, he’s also a fairly obsessive otaku and a kind one at that, he’d get stuff that I wanted from Japan that would otherwise be unavailable, or too costly for me to get.Today two packages came in the mail from him :3

This is all the things he managed to get for me during that whole summer event period in Japan, I wish I had given him more money…

Again, apologies for crappy indoor shots~

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I glee with excitement, my mouth salvating, my fingers wriggling, a gun in my pocket…
That’s how it was when I got home with the packages, I opened then up and began my exploration and documentation of the items for both this blog, and for my database of all things otaku (this is going past 14k AUD…and I still haven’t included some items…).

Aaah advertisements, I love the ones from Akihabara :3

Gao~! Finally got the Illya + Berserker plushie I’ve been trying to get for some time, and also the Saber Lion from Fate/Tiger Colosseum which is a Wonderfest Summer ’07 exclusive.

Rawr~! Nendoroid Saber Alter and the non-scale Saber & Irisviel of Fate/Zero, both by Goodsmile Company (MY BOX, MY BEAUTIFUL BOX~!!!!), both exclusive to Wonderfest summer ’07.
It’s possible that I’ll be bringing the Saber & Irisviel to Manifest for a photoshoot~ I’ll be scouting for places this Friday.
I’ve been so busy today that I haven’t even opened the figure boxes yet >.<

( ﾟ∀ﾟ)ｱﾊﾊ八八ﾉヽﾉヽﾉヽﾉ ＼ – ＼- ＼
I managed to nab myself a super limited edition of Lucy Maria Misora maid version. The regular is pictured to the left in a white and red with green trims outfit, the boxed version is the white and black with gold trim. Only 950 were produced, 400 for Wonderfest Summer ’07 and 550 for limited online orders. You can check the site at Wave, although you can’t buy it anymore…
Excuse me while I drool all over the box…

The two Fate Fantasm Boxes come choc-a-block full of goodies that just shouts ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!! The first is Illya, it comes with a book with character illustrations and other articles, and the second half has some fan manga which was fairly cute. The box also includes Fate Character Trump playing cards, a bust of Illya with blood and a BerserCAR! >:3

The second box is Black Saber, my favourite, the book contains the regular stuff but the fan manga is so cute :3 Along with this box comes a Black Saber tapestry weighing approx 50 x 65cm, a Black Saber eyemask bust and a flashing LCD keychain

I now have three busts, from left to right, the one I got with Computiq magazine and also weathered, the Black Saber eyemask version, and the Illya + Berserker with blood.

Also, the BerserCar lights up it’s right eye when you push Illya down XD

YES! Ito Noizi’s new artbook which everyone and their uncle has, it just oozes（；´Д`）ハァハァ with all the Shana art and her other works, it also includes other characters such as Alulu/Elulu, Bridget, the Melonbooks mascot and much more. Like the previous artbook GU-RE-N, KA-E-N comes hardcovered and a beautifully illustrated jacket. My friend also managed to grab me a poster with it but he had to send it another time =/
The KA-E-N came with this photocopied sheet by Ito Noizi for animate, a chain store in Japan :3

Now onto the two doujins (he would of gotten more if I gave him more money beforehand…) that my friend managed to get from Comiket 72. I requested for iDOLM@STER and he delivered on the goods.

First up is NORTHANM@STER by Ojo-Noyokusitu.
It’s a Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star) cross iDOLM@STER parody! I know i know… but trust me on this, it’s hilarious! I laughed for a good few minutes and now my stomach hurts (although it’s prolly rather to do with what I ate…). My Japanese language skills aren’t that great, so I couldn’t really understand the whole story =/

Enlarge to clear censorship

Second is i.D.M side A by U.R.C
Yes, it’s a H doujin, and a full colour one at that o_o
Story goes along the lines of the Producer having to interview candidates for a new idol group, he gets the first five girls details and goes off to “interview” them.
After “interviewing” he goes back to the manager and eagerly asks for the next batch… *drools*

There ya go, all my stuff I got today in the mail, time to stroke my e-penis…I mean open up my figure boxes ^^;

P.S. I’m gonna have small post images for non-photo shoot posts from now on so don’t think there’s something wrong with the small one :3

Nintendo DS

NDS Skins

Ok, so I lied =/ Sorry that this isn’t a post of a figure shoot, that’s planned for this Sunday/Monday.

Right… I splurged more money… Story goes (it’s a short one) that my friend who visited me at work brought along his DS like usual, cept this time he brought what we both have been waiting for a while. Doki Doki Majou Shinpan, that’s right, it’s the game that makes touching good~
Anyway, I caved in, there’s simply more games on the DS I want to play than the PSP =/

Now, a NDS isn’t a cheap thing (comparative to figures…) but at work, I found a customer who actually worked at EB Games at DFO. He offered to help me get a discount on the NDS which was fine by me.

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R4, Revolution for DS, a flash cart for the NDS, it lets you play er, “homebrew” games and other multimedia files. You can also skin the interface to your own liking which is what I have done. Here ya go, these skins work on the R4 and apparently the M3 as well, go ahead and try them out if you own either of those flash carts.

LucyRuu

A ToHeart2 skin for those Lucy and Reona fans. Both images are from Kantoku who has been featured in the previous post Moe Moe Overdose. A nice skin for those who have a pink DS and want something appropriate with it.

Mecha Musume

ACH TUNG! Shimada Humikane‘s work in a skin :3 For those who like a more darker skin to match their black DS.

ARIAn

ARIA, who doesn’t like a cute udine~ Gorgeous artwork from Kantoku again. Great for white DS owners I guess~

Yayoidolatry

Aaah, Yayoi Takatsuki. One of the goddess’ of my moe world ^^; The first picture is still a mystery to me of who drew it. The second is by Yomogi.

Oh well, there’s my lil creative output for the NDS for the past day or so. Enjoy~

Details

Name
Nintendo DS Lite
Colour
Black
Place of purchase
EB Games Melbourne Central, Melbourne, Australia
Retail price
$199.00 AU
Bought it for
$165.00 AU
Availability (at time of writing)
Plenty :3
Links
NDS Themes
My NDS themes page