Got the soft box for a few reasons – first of all wanted more lights to attempt some white bg stuff in the future.  Second of all wanted the more powerful bulb it came with (listed as 75W but found an 85W in the box! my current bulbs are only 25W or so).  Thirdly got this one ‘cuz it was dirt cheap (relatively ^^;)!  $40 and it came with the bulb!  (no stand though)

Though I was interested in trying to do better with white, ended up using the soft box as my main light and was fooling around to see how it would turn out.

I think ‘cuz of the distance I was able to manage between ymir and the bg it looks a lot better than my previous wrinkle-filled shots.

Wrinkles are still there but out of focus, personally I think it even manages to make the shot more interesting.

Since the softbox has a flat surface I decided to try some silhouette shots for fun.

I guess it turned out as expected… but it’s really a lot more interesting when your background is interesting ^^;;;

Was bored and threw some photoshop at it ^^;

Sorry loli lovers, no cast off shots today :P

Was really pleased with the purchase.  The bulb is bright as all heck, before I had to be f/2.8 or f/3.5  to get 1/10-ish shutter speeds… now I can get that at f/5.6! ^^  Light’s nice and well… soft :P, now I just need to free up more time for more pics!

Blowfish has a real review for you, including a detailed look at her cast off features for those interested ^^ did i mention she has fancy pantsu?

One last thing before we get to the mini-”review”… oppai warning!

Resized you can’t notice the noise as much but still not the sharpness I aim for ;_;

Also I can’t enjoy the pics at wallpaper resolution -_-  Ah well.  Must remember to switch it up next time.

Chose nyx for these shots ‘cuz I discovered a spider had left it’s mark on her!  ;_;  washed off a couple bits of web and ended up giving her a thorough cleaning so the time was ripe for pics

Do not plan on switching her back and forth between clothes and no clothes.  I’ve had her outfit on for the past… oh say 10 months or so?  The results:

oshiri too ;_;

For my display purposes it doesn’t matter I guess since her outfit covers it, but still annoying.  Drop of water on her shoulder from her bath, not related to damage or age :P

Kinduva a rushed set of pics and my first time out with the new tripod so framing wasn’t quiiite what I was aiming for on some shots.

out of focus oppai

If you were wondering what I was complaining about in the beginning in regards to image quality… here’s a 100% crop of nanoha with this iso 800:

(errr dang, resized to 550 due to my theme ^^;;) you can see the pixelation, especially in the shadow caused by her bangs.

100% crop from a saber pic.  Much more smooth.

Final random shots.

I was actually able to manage a full body shot of nanoha with a portrait orientation! ^^ (with my 100mm ^^;)

Nice to have the full range of angle available again ^^

Hmm, I guess since this is technically my nyx review I should throw in a few more comments about her ^^;

Nyx was released… almost 2 years ago now?  ^^;  As far as her details and pose go, nothing jaw dropping… I’d say she’s pretty average… But I really liked her character design so that’s what really got me in the end ^^;  Long hair, quite a nice outfit, oppai, what else could you ask for? :P  Tentacle thing is a little weird but oh well.

Reviews posted long ago await you if you need more pics.  Post necromancy engaged!

• blowfish!
• tommy!
• sonic!
• foo-bar-baz!

以上！

Megahouse’s new G.E.M. line of figures has delivered! I finally have my hands on a nice scaled code geass figure!

If you’re familiar with the series, you’ll probably agree that this figure captures the lulu spirit perfectly.

I’m not super familiar with their work lately, but from what I remember you can definitely see the CLAMP character design oozing from him.  Lanky limbs make for very dramatic poses ^^;

Love how the cape turned out.

…but if it displeases you it’s removeable.   ^^

You can see above his other set of arms, along with sword, mask, and non-geass head.  Lots of display options.  Think I again failed to push his arm all the way in though ^^;

On his sword is a real metal chain, very nice touch.

Too bad you can’t remove the sword from its scabbard… but it’s still a great accessory.

A final closer look…

Coat tails!

Haven’t dressed up for Halloween in forever, but it would be awesome to go as Zero :P

Above is how I have him on display at the moment.  Maximizes use of parts ^^;

Base is ok I guess.  Think I would’ve preferred a huge geass symbol by itself over the entire base rather than having his name.

kao

Hmm, perhaps I should leave the photoshopping to more artistically inclined folk ^^;;

Great from any angle, the sign of a good figure.

Some more of the few white bg shots I attempted…

Haven’t decided if I like the below pic or not yet.

Dang, just realized this was one of the only shots I took with his mask ^^;

zero no ichigo miruku :P

Apologies to any wanting low angle shots :P

The definitive Lulu figure as far as I’m aware.  Highly recommended.  Now I need an awesome CC to match…

hmmm didn’t see any reviews out there yet.  Let me know if ya got one~

Update: A review at Des Trèfles en Folie for your viewing pleasure!

以上！

Above you can see I tried out the fabric background again, curious if the new lights would help in that endeavor.  I guess it did, however my lack of ironing again rears its ugly head.

Maybe I’m just getting lazy with the black bg since in that case the lack of light just helps me ^^;

Simple increasing exposure time has a limit before things start getting washed out…

Ah well.  Need to experiment more including trying posterboard again…

Metatron review will actually be my next I think…

Followed by lulu…

Then… probably horo?

And finally aschen.

Again apologize for my lack of comments outside this blog.  My current priorities are posting, responding to comments here, then commenting on to 50+ blogs I subscribe to.  Unfortunately I’ve been having trouble allocating time for the last part orz.  To deal with my insurmountable reading backlog I think I’m gonna try a new system… sorting by most recent post and then just working my way back in time.  (currently I generally go through blogs one by one and catch up on all the posts I’ve missed before moving to the next one)

以上！

Nanael + new background!  Lovelyduckie’s recent acquisition reminded me it was about time to make some progress on my review setup… Headed over to… Joann fabric & craft ^^;;  Never thought I’d walk into one of those stores by myself -_-  Was hard to guess how the different fabrics would behave as backgrounds… some seemed too thin, others seemed like the light might reflect weirdly… Wish I could take my camera and try all the different options ^^;  In the end I walked out with some black and white satin.  What do you use for backgrounds?

Packaging and some pics on my usual white background can be found here.

First off, let me mention that I didn’t iron (which evidently requires some special handling) so if you click for the higher rez, you’ll notice some seams and stuff ^^;

Another thing about this review is I was experimenting with the lighting.  Turned off my room lights for once and tried to see what kind of results I could get… Still have a lot more work to do in that regard…

At any rate, back to the topic at hand, Nanael!  koumei no tenshi!  Lots of sites seem to translate her full title as Angel of Light, although it seems that the literal translation is Angel of Glory/Hope or something like that.

Another nice addition to Megahouse’s Queen’s Blade lineup.  Looks like there’s some imperfections in her wings but other than that I’m pretty satisfied.

Polka dot fans will be pleased ^^;

I think I shoulda switched to a white background for the above and below pics… or fixed the lighting ^^;

Love her outfit, and the pose.  Griffon seems to have a release of their own planned, and while I also like the pose they chose… don’t like the face at all ^^;;

Mixed feelings on the sword…

Guess it’s not bad to have it floating to be faithful to the source material, but if I had a choice I’d more likely choose a pose that didn’t involve support bars.

Forgot to pick up some tracing paper to make a make shift filter… ;_;

Nanael’s little milk belt is cast off… along with the rest of her outfit.  Think I’m too lazy to keep up with making sfw censored pics so from here on out, I’ll just be posting bare eyes in all their glory.

Hmmm lighting again didn’t quite turn out as I wanted.

Cast off is pretty easy to work with.  Belt detaches easily at the buckle, dress opens up on the side.  It’s a little hard to get the top part of the dress back together, but out of all the cast off I’ve worked with, Nanael’s still ranks among the easier ones.

I apologize to those not interested in the full cast off, but I have a duty to fulfill :P

In case you don’t have anywhere to keep your extra figure parts…

At the beginning of the shoot I tried using a reflector, but didn’t really see much of a difference on my camera’s screen… later when I actually looked at the final pic… yes, it made quite a difference. Unfortunately that realization wasn’t until towards the end of my review, so I think a bunch of these pics were taken without a reflector up ;_;

Compared with pics from my previous setup…

Alrighty, back to her more modest mode. ^^;

In the high res version of the below pic you can made out some weird marks in the middle feathers of her wing…

Very kawaii all around, definitely recommended for Queen’s Blade fans and err… angel fans? ^^;

Another great benefit of my new backgrounds is that I have soooo much more room to work with!

Lighting still leaves a bit to be desired, but the main point is that before, I never woulda been able to fit everyone for a shot like this.

If you’re looking for some Nanael art, a simple search at gelbooru should take care of ya.

foo-bar-bazさん has excellent coverage as usual, also stop by ELTWorld for nanael love!

以上！

1.) Fauna到着

Fauna arrived!  Actually arrived earlier… but after picking her up from the post office… I left her at the office ;_;

Definitely kawaii, but don’t think she makes it to the top of my list like she does for danny ^^;

As always… full review later… *sigh* orz

2.) Nyxパーツに付いて

A little preview to Nyx and PSA regarding her outfit, here’s a humble effort to explain how to get her damn thorn thingies attached ^^;

Forgive the over exposure, but wasn’t really focusing on that sort of thing for these shots ^^;  So here we see her left thorn thing… when attaching it, keep in mind you shouldn’t have to to stress the pieces to get it in place.  Basically once you’ve figured out the angle and right piece to attach, it should fit in place pretty easily.

From a slightly different angle I believe this shot also lets you differentiate between the two pieces (somehow it took me forever to figure out which piece went on which side ^^;;).

From the other side, this piece also fits in between the layers of her clothing, fitting around her arm.

Yet another angle for reference.

As I mentioned in an earlier comment, the key is simply getting the orientation right, and you might want to try fitting the pieces on the dress while it’s cast off to get a feel for how the pieces should fit in.  If you need more full body shots for reference, check out foo-bar-baz ^^

3.) 日本旅行

JAPAN!  Finally got my trip finalized!  Will be in Tokyo from 2/12 to 2/21… well 2/13 since it takes a day to get there ^___^  Anyone else gonna be around?  We should hit up an izakaya ^_^

…or a maid cafe ^_^

Last year I was able to go about in time for 花見 {hanami}… which I’d love to do again… but unfortunately my company has been having forced vacation time pretty much every quarter to cut costs or something…  This quarter is February, so that’s when I had to plan my trip -_-;

Believe a friend called this a weeping cherry blossom tree?

Luckily akihabara is available for enjoyment year round ^_^

Since the violence earlier this year, they’ve restarted the Sunday road closure I hope?

Experienced it for the first time on my last trip, and I must say… akihabara is paradise, but on Sundays it’s twice the fun ^_^

Bonus Japanese vocab lesson:

到着　－　とうちゃく – touchaku – arrival
パーツ　－　ぱあつ　－ paatsu – parts (don’t confuse with the similar looking パンツ :P {pantsu})
に付いて　－　について　ー　ni tsuite – concerning
日本　－　にほん　ー　nihon – Japan
旅行　－　りょこう　ー　ryokou – trip

以上！

Queen’s Blade (figure) fan?  Megahouse afficionado?  Been looking for Nyx?  Looking for a deal?  If you answered yes to all of those questions, head right over and go buy Nyx at hlj now.  Seriously, stop reading and go buy her.  She’s on sale for only 2500￥.  Dunno if that’s old news, but the instant I saw that price all I could think was wholy crap, and the next thing I knew my order was placed.  Even if you only answered yes to a couple of those questions, still worth considering because of the discount.

Don’t quite understand why they have her at such a low price.  That’s basically 50% off, right?  Was she not a popular character?  I mean, she’s not the greatest PVC out there, but the quality is very decent and the elegance combined with weird tentacle monster accessory ^^ …umm, btw, another preview this is, gomen m(_ _)m

Hlj has a whole section of sale items that you may be aware of. It’s sorted by category, and you’ll find Dolls/Actions figures starting at around page 12 and regular figures at about page 14. They go on until page 27! Alternately, use the radio button to switch to list view and you only have to go through pages 3 to 6. Another nice thing about the list view is that you can see the manufacturer easily.

Lots of stuff to sift through there, and perhaps Nyx isn’t for you, but hey, when the potential for a deal this good is out there, I don’t mind spending a little time window shopping. Getting back to Nyx, she’s cast off like the rest of the Megahouse Queen’s Blade gals.  Click for the uncensored version, as usual.

Should’ve been cutting back on my spending but with that kind of bargain (on a year old figure I had kinda given up on, no less) I went for it. Decided to move Narika to my desk so the Queen’s Blade girls were all together.

aaaaand yet again I’m up later than I want and still no progress on my Hayate review ;_; …and I have an early meeting tomorrow. ;_; Aaaah, sorry, enough complaining out of me. ^^;;;

以上！

Pictured above are some new arrivals, I’ll be wrapping up this post with the oppai omake so scroll to the end if that’s what you’re here for ^^; I guess suzu qualifies for oppai omake material but narika is definitely pettanko ^^;; At any rate, really happy to finally get these two as it brings to a close another long drama with Kid Nemo. As you probably know, both of these figures were released ages ago and after recently asking for an order status update, all I got back was, release date TBA. I’d had enough so after a cancellation and order at hlj, had the figures in about a week.

I’ve got this whole week off (forced vacation… so I get paid… but had to use up some vacation time -_-) so I’ve been able to make more progress than usual on reviews. Vita will be next…

Followed by Human Mage.

Thanksgiving is coming up and I’ll be heading back home to spend some time with family so I’ll probably be off the radar later in the week.  Also working on the next Japanese reading lesson which will cover 15 kana!

Alrighty, and now for oppai omake!  Wasn’t sure if I should censor or not, ended up doing so – click the pics to get an uncensored full size version.

First up is our mage, you may already know that her eyes have no pupils!  Very strange decision, makes me wonder why they bothered with the cast off at all… I suppose you could keep her top on and display her without the skirt?

Next up is Kanu. The cast off is actually pretty simple, her shirt separates into a front and back half which is (relatively) easy to then get off. Kanu shows us oppai done right.

Kanu’s got an unsightly seam at her waist to get her skirt off, so if I were gonna display her impressive oppai, I’d probably leave the skirt just like the above pic.

Finally, Airi!  Again, I must say I was pleasantly surprised with her.  She looks great, instantly made a Megahouse fan out of me.

At first I was sad I couldn’t find her black outfit, but ended up very happy I got this version. Love the hair color.

Pantsu for good measure.

Well that ended up being longer than I intended. Must sleep and finish more reviews!

以上！

Hime caught my eye when I saw the preview pics, on a whim started watching the anime recently and that pretty much sealed the deal.  Was kinda confused when wcloudx proclaimed how huge the box was (after all, just seemed like your standard 1/7) but indeed, surprised me a bit when I got it.  Like hime herself the box just kinda has a commanding sort of presence ^^;

Again, sorry to tease, but still working on reviews… was hard to keep myself focused.  Decided to get everyone out of their boxes… didn’t quite make it though.  Gads it’s almost 3 am and nida will have to wait another day.  I think she’s the last one though (well… i had to leave mei feng in shitagi mode because i figured it was gonna take an hour to get her clothes back on ^^;;;).

Airi, Another Blood, Ymir, Hime all made it out, and it was great!  Airi and Ymir are my first Megahouse figures and damn I’m impressed.  I love the hair on both of ‘em and amazingly the cast off on Airi wasn’t insanely frustrating!

hawt.

Next review will most likely be haruka though I may end up taking some more shots which would delay it a little more ^^;

Really need more time -_- If I didn’t have work tomorrow I might’ve stayed up another couple hours ^^;;

Oh yes, one last thing… the base for hime is awesome.  Really solid feeling and looks great.

gyaaaa, ok, must sleep.

以上！

Image from Akiba Hobby's Alter coverage

Today’s images will link back the sources mentioned in the caption, rather than to a full size image. After all, I’m shamelessly borrowing them so I figured it’s the least I can do ^^; Danny has tons of articles of course, and I found Akiba Hobby‘s articles sorted by make to be useful.

So yeah, that’s an awesome Teana I’d like to get… And this…

Image from Akiba Hobby's Alter coverage

…is yet another Fate I’m definitely going to have to add to my collection…

Vita, Hayate, and Signum are already on my preorder list ^^;

Image from Akiba Hobby's Alter coverage

Image from Akiba Hobby's Alter coverage

Image from Akiba Hobby's Alter coverage

…Don’t think I’ll be able to turn down this Louise.

Image from Akiba Hobby's Alter coverage

Wouldn’t mind having another nagato…

Image from Akiba Hobby's Alter coverage

And I think I’ll be looking for this KOS-MOS for the hair alone…

Image from Akiba Hobby's Alter coverage

These pics of haruka look a little off from the prototype I remember… I’ll have to check up on that later, but I doubt I’ll cancel my order.

Image from Akiba Hobby's Alter coverage

Same with this Rei, doesn’t look quite as nice as the prototype pics, but I’m guessing the lighting wasn’t spectacular at the show…

Image from Akiba Hobby's Alter coverage

Figma Hayate anyone?

Image from Akiba Hobby's Good Smile Company coverage ('course it's a Max Factory figure, same difference :P)

Painted Exelica nendoroid is sooo cute!

Image from Akiba Hobby's Good Smile Company coverage

Will probably be picking up Nanael when she’s available for preorder…

Image from Akiba Hobby's MegaHouse coverage

Not sure if I need an additional Alice though ^^;

Image from Akiba Hobby's MegaHouse coverage

…So yeah… that’s basically my wish list from the summer WF2008 … so far ^^;;; back to reading more coverage…

Anyone else freaking out because their mental wish list is growing exponentially? :P