New Acquisition! Senjougahara Hitagi 1/8

It's been a while since I've posted something. I'm still alive...

After having neglected the blog for a while... I finally have some newsworthy material.

It's a new acquisition in the form of Senjougahara Hitagi Good Smile Company edition.

It looks great, details are incredible, gradients on the correct places make it look even better.
Putting on the stationary required some effort, but the end result looks great. Definitely worth the yen.

As you can see on the pic, her profile is very well sculpted to the detail of her mouth. The small details on the stationary are all perfectly painted. Even the notches on the box-cutters are in there.

Also, though not visible on the pic, her pantsu are also correctly detailed as in the anime ;)

Wonderful figure, a must for every Bakemonogatari/Hitagi fan~

More pics later when I have some better light.

Reimu Hakurei Nendoroid

Mikatan's blog brought some great news!!! A Reimu Hakurei Nendoroid~

Do want very much~

There is just one problem. It will be released at Comiket 76 exclusively ;_;
So I'll be looking for people going to C76 that can get me one >.>

Check the post for images of a very cute Reimu nendoroid
image via konachan

1/8 Meiya Mitsurugi review

So I have finally taken some pictures of the Meiya I got last month. For people that don't know the character, Meiya is a female main character from the game MuvLuv made by âge who also made Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. MuvLuv is actually split into two games Extra and Unlimited which take place in two universes. Extra is a normal one where the main characters are schoolmates and one where aliens invaded and humans are fighting them off with giant mecha. Meiya happens to be a pilot of such mecha in the Unlimited universe, hence the skintight pilot suit. The figure is actually based on the sequel Muvluv Alternative which also takes place in the Unlimited universe. It has a great story though some might find it depressing. Also it has some welcome cameo's from KimiNozo.

Enough about the game, on with the figure.
As said before the figure looks great and was modeled well after the original character designs. The suit is painted with glossy paint giving it a shiny finish whereas her head end hair is painted matt using white for highlights. The hair looks great as her hair and hairribbon are modeled in an active pose showing the many layers of her hair.
Though there are some imperfections that are visible when you are looking for them. Her left knee's paint is a bit "chipped" and some casting lines are still visible.

A pic of Meiya in her natural environment. The cardboard backdrop that came with the box.

After some miserable attempts to take pictures in my poorly lit room with a compact camera I decided to move to a more bright environment.. the bathroom.
With plenty of light and bright walls the pictures turned out much better as no flash was needed. Though some exposure adjusting was needed.
Here Meiya was exposed more giving the picture some bloom effect. Her hairribbon disappears into the background.
Frontal view showing her shiny suit.
Side view where if you look closely at her left knee, you can see some paint chips probably caused by removing masking tape.

More pictures of painted 1/7 Lily Saber

Mikatan posted some pictures of the painted version of the 1/7 Lily Saber that will be up for preorder soon. Release will be in june. I must say the figure looks even more gorgeous after some paint. The new pictures show Lily saber from more angles now. A behind and above picture is available now. The motion and flow in her pose is very well captured in her dress. You can also see how Avalon(the sheath) is floating midair.

update: more pics added. More close up pics with some details of her corset, dress and stand.

Find the pics at mikatan

New Loot

Some loot finally arrived. It arrived last week but I was too busy/lazy/distracted to post about it. This time the order contains another issue of megami creators. This time it is vol 08. I just put a megami creators in every order until I get them all. It got a nice poster of a nurse mecha girl and several foldouts :3 more on megami creators in future posts.
I also got several figures. With figma Miyuki I now got all main lucky star girls complete. Also got two haruhi third set puchi-nendoroids. Never had much luck with puchi nendoroids. I Kept getting the same one when I was in Japan last summer -.- Luckily enough this time I got two different ones. The Haruhi and Nagato in concert outfit.
But the thing I was anticipating moest was my first 1/8 sized figure: Meiya Mitsurugi of the MuvLuv series. I must say she looks very nice. There are some small things that are not entirely perfect but not anything to fuss over. More on it in a review of her which will be posted in the future when I find time to make decent pictures.

I'm quite happy with the purchase this time. Only I'm just realizing that besides Meiya there are two other figures in the MuvLuv set. Somehow I get the urge to get those too though my wallet is complaining as it is quite empty now...

More Haruhi Extravaganza figures releasedates announced

The releasedates of Haruhi and Mikuru were announced before to be March and April 2009 respectively. Now the releasedate for the Yuki figure has been announced to be May 2009. With this the releasedate of the all of the extravaganza set have been announced. All are still available for preorder on HobbySearch. With 7057 yen per figures it would be too much of an assault on my cash reserves :(

Also a cute MikuMikku Kagami nendoroid from the Lucky Star OVA was announced.
pictures and info at Goodsmile and Mikatan

New Arrivals

Yesterday was a very good in terms of figures. An order finally arrived~
Figma Hatsune Miku, Figma Kagami, Xenosaga Legend ep 2 figure, 2x Melty Blood pretty collection, Hayate the Combat Butler vol 9 and and issue 11 of Megami Creators Magazine. For the Xenosaga figure I got Shion. She will stand nicely next to the Kos-Mos I fetched in Japan. For the Melty Blood collection I got black Ren and vampire Arcueid. The two twintail figmas are very nice. The twintails both have joints so you can play with the hair giving it much more dynamic poses.

Also, a week ago something else arrived. The VF-25F Alto custom.
It was sold out at most places when I wanted to order it. So I had it preordered for the rerelease at rainbowten. The transformation sequence looks interesting, I will build it when I'm done with my current plamo projects. It got 2 sheets of decals. You can choose to use water transfer or transparent stickers. Will decide on that later.
With them new figures my desktop became much more filled with figures~

New Suzumiya Haruhi figure

A new Haruhi figure set has been announced by the folks at MaxFactory. It consists of the convert version of the 3 main female characters. The Haruhi figure will be released in March 2009. The release dates of other figures are not known yet. I'm glad the sculptor did not just copy the pose entirely from the original image. The dynamic pose looks good and the expression look well captured on the pictures. Also love the details like haruhi holding the guitar pick and the highly detailed clothing. If the price wasn't too high for my budget I get one... :(

More images and information at GoodSmile and Mikatan

AR-Figure

Augmented reality, combining digital data with the real world using web cams, has found itself a new application, the AR figure. Not very long ago Geisha Tokyo Entertainment released their first AR figure. You just need a web cam and a computer running the software. Using the software and the cube and paddle that comes with the package you can have a virtual figure walking around on your desk. The cube and paddle have special print printed on it so the software recognizes the cube when being filmed with web cam. You can interact with it using the paddle. Depending on the print on the paddle you can poke or even undress the figure... Using other cubes and cards with different print you can also give presents to your figure. Somewhat scary how the first thing you can do to a virtual figure is undressing it...

Demo movie(mind the volume):

More at Geisha Tokyo Entertainment

Good Smile Company english website

Good Smile Company, well known for the high quality figures it produce, has launched a new english website. I must say it looks great and with the large images, it is great for deciding what figure to get when the amount of money you got is limited. The next step would be user reviews and overseas ordering facilities. For people that know dannychoo.com it will look familiar as it is running on Mirai Gaia the platform created by Danny Choo.

more information on the site here