Category Archives: Random Thoughts

Partial Loot

written on July 6, 2009 by Tier


I didn’t get everything I expected today. How tragic. I did get three things though: the Hustler (they should’ve given her a real name rather than naming her for a porn rag) and Mikuru from HLJ and an Itsuki Kannagi dakimakura cover from Hobby Search. I’m still expecting stuff from E2046 (which was shipped by SAL so I guess it’s not surprising that the package is delayed), Amazon (selected free shipping so I guess I’m getting what I paid for), and Kid Nemo (well, it’s Kid Nemo, so this ain’t surprising. I wonder if they’ve actually shipped my figure?).

The Tonberry was not part of today’s loot but he insisted on being in the picture anyway.

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Random Thoughts IV – BlazBlue Impressions, Figure Photo Reshoots

written on July 5, 2009 by Tier

2009 is a good year for fighting games, with Street Fighter IV released for consoles earlier in the year, The King of Fighters XII scheduled for later this summer, and now we have a spiritual successor to Arc System Works’s Guilty Gear X in BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. Players of Guilty Gear will feel right at home with BlazBlue, as many of the basic game mechanics have transitioned to the newer game. I’m not very good at BlazBlue (or any fighting games, really), so I can’t speak to the more advanced fighting concepts. Thus far I’ve played primarily as Noel, the ever-polite, painfully shy grammaton cleric, but from what I’ve seen each character possesses his or her own unique moveset and quirks. This is a good thing since unlike other contemporary fighting games, BlazBlue’s playable roster is comparatively short at twelve characters.

The game uses character sprites rather than 3D models like Street Fighter IV, and they look superb. Even better is the game’s audio. The game features surprisingly good English voice acting; I usually prefer Japanese voices for Japanese games, but this time I’ve kept the language set to English. The music is awesome and is of the same theme as Guilty Gear – that is, the soundtrack principally comprises thrashing, churning operatic heavy metal. Oriental Flower – Litchi’s theme – is my favorite song, but the soundtrack is outstanding in general. Aksys Games has generously included a copy of the soundtrack with the first production run of the game.

I spent some time this holiday weekend reshooting some more old figures to replace some of my poor-quality pictures. Old and new pictures of Gwendolyn:

Gah. Jesus that looks awful. Newer picture uses the black background that is in almost all of my recent figure reviews:

Old and new for Sasara:

I wonder what I’m going to do with all that fabric. On a happier note, I think I’ve figured out how to get a decent white background without massively blowing out the highlights on my figures:

I’ve got a bunch of stuff due in on Monday. I hope the post office guy is driving a pretty big truck.

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Random Thoughts III

written on June 22, 2009 by Tier

This figure of a disheveled maid in a state of profound distress (and undress) has gone up for preorder recently, and I’m contemplating putting an order in for her. The problem is that she’s currently only available from Native’s website, and that means I’d have to go through a deputy service. In my experience, the markup for doing so is usually around 50%, so at 8000 yen, I’m looking at a final price of around $120. That’s a lot of scratch to drop on a 1/7 scale figure. On the other hand, money comes and goes and comes again but opportunities to get a figure like this are ephemeral indeed.

That said, if I do order her, I’m going to feel rather foolish if she gets a domestic release like Kotone Osaka (NSFW link).

Everyone’s seen pictures of Shoujo M already but in case anybody missed her, more pictures are up on AkihaHobby and Moeyo. Needless to say, both links are NSFW.

A bunch of reviews of Good Smile Company’s 1/4 scale Nanoha went up recently and I really like that figure, and since I like Fate better (with respect to character design, as I haven’t seen the anime), I was looking forward to seeing Nanoha’s counterpart. This image was the first picture I saw of GSC’s 1/4 scale Fate, and something didn’t look quite right with her. I once saw pictures of a strange form of cosplay, where people not only dressed up as anime characters but put on masks so that their faces looked like anime faces. There’s a Japanese term for this practice but I don’t recall what it is. Anyway, that’s what this Fate figure sort of reminded me of; she looks like a female bodybuilder wearing an anime cosplay mask. Maybe I’m seeing things that aren’t really there but my enthusiasm for this figure has dampened.

For someone who spends so much money on anime-related merchandise, I don’t actually watch a great deal of anime. The last series that I viewed in full was Beck, which curiously could lay claim to having both the best half-season and the worst half-season of any anime series I’ve watched, and the only show I’ve followed this year is Sora Kake Girl. I started watching Ga-rei Zero the other day and it’s a fun show so far. The first two episodes were rife with dramatic combat and the wanton spilling of blood and the third and fourth episodes spin the show’s direction into a much more lighthearted study of how the two main characters grew up together. I’m guessing that the show wasn’t super popular, judging by the lack of merchandising. More the shame, that.

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Random Thoughts II

written on May 25, 2009 by Tier

Strike Witches

Today is Memorial Day in the United States, a day of remembrance for the men and women who have served in the military. Spurred on by Alter’s recent unveling of a Yoshika Miyafuji figure, I’ve decided to pay homage to the combat veterans of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing by watching the first episode of Strike Witches.

The opening story reminds me a lot of the beginning of Robotech (or Macross, if you prefer); you’ve got enigmatic, technologically-advanced alien invaders, a young, innocent civilian who shares a tenuous yet deeply personal bond with a high-ranking member of the military, and a wacky, wildly-impractical aviation system. One difference is that Yoshika does decline a chance to take a spin in the Striker Unit, and another departure is that the 501st’s pilots are loli girls. Who wear no pants. In fact, none of the girls in the episode wear pants, it seems. This prohibition on wearing pants is definitely a policy initiative that I can get behind.

One reason that I hadn’t watched Strike Witches when it was first aired are the animal ears and tails. I really don’t like them, and I’m sort of hoping that Alter’s figures have the option of removing them without me having to resort to a Dremel. It’s kind of like when I cook gumbo, I usually add whatever I’ve got. Celery? Sure. Seafood? I never have it around, but if I do, it’s great. Garlic? Absolutely. Baker’s chocolate? Hell no. You can have a great gumbo cooking with a variety of flavors but if you add one wrong ingredient, you’ve screwed it up. That’s how I feel when it comes to shows like this which try to pander to a multiplicity of fetishes; if you don’t like one aspect of the show, it makes it difficult to watch the whole thing. It’s a bit of a shame, as I like a lot of things in this show, such as how they placed the Akagi’s island on the port side and how they based the characters on combat aces, but man, I wish they didn’t have the ears and tails.

On a completely unrelated subject, I’m slowly going through and re-doing some old photos. I’ve got Cammy re-shot, and I’m probably going to re-do Sasara’s gallery next. I’m concerned the whites in my photos are excessively blown out, so I might have to revise my processing techniques.

Sasara Kusugawa

Strike Witches

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Playing With a Lightbox Part 2 (now with more Photoshop!)

written on May 23, 2009 by Tier

I started this blog in February to motivate myself to learn more about photography. I had picked up a new camera shortly before that to replace my seven year old, two-megapixel Canon A40, which sadly wasn’t up to the task of taking pictures at the size and quality I desire. As I quickly found out, my photographic knowledge and abilities weren’t up to the task either, and after looking back at my earliest sets of pictures, I think I’m going to re-shoot them. I’ve already taken some pictures of the Dark Magician. Here’s an old picture of her:


Dark Magician Comparison

Yucky. The cloth background just doesn’t work. New picture:

Dark Magician Comparison

I’ve been playing with the lightbox a bit more, having added another lamp, and while the results aren’t entirely what I’m looking for, I think they’re an improvement from what I had. I also came across a useful article on lightening the background using adjustment layers in Photoshop. I’m not sure if this is the best way to do it – my guess is that it’s not – but since it’s an improvement over what I had before, I suppose I’ll keep using it.

New Kokoro Picture

I was going to shoot Kokoro’s set and then I realized that one of the string ties on her bikini had fallen out. That’s the problem with cast-off figures, I wind up losing the parts that come off and I can never find them when I need them.

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Playing With a Lightbox

written on May 17, 2009 by Tier


I’ve only been taking pictures for a few months, so I’m not all that expert at photography. My photoshoots are mostly trial and error (a lot of trials and almost as many errors) as I shoot off a few pictures, change a setting, shoot more pictures, and then transfer them to my computer to examine what’s different.

I’ve wanted to experiment with a light-colored background as an alternative to the black cloth that I use for most of my pictures. I tried using a sheet of white muslin as a backdrop in some of my earlier pictures, but the results were so poor that I’ve stuck with the black background. Years ago, I read an article detailing how to build a lightbox, and I tried it out then and it didn’t work too well for at least a couple of reasons: one, I only had one lamp, and two, I had no idea what white balance and exposure were.
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Adding Lighting to a Detolf Case

written on April 30, 2009 by Tier


Like many figure collectors, I own one of Ikea’s Detolf display cabinets. It’s a popular choice, and for good reasons; it’s compact, shows off figures very well, and most importantly, it’s ridiculously cheap. That’s not to say it’s perfect, however. It’s rather heavy, somewhat shoddily designed (like most furniture from Ikea, I find), and it doesn’t have lighting. While I can’t do anything about its weight or construction, I can do something about the lack of lights.

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Loot

written on April 23, 2009 by Tier

Because the economy isn’t going to just save itself.
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Random Thoughts

written on April 19, 2009 by Tier


In the past, I have sometimes been asked, “What were you thinking?!” In this post, I reveal just that, without organization or coherence.
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Today’s acquisitions

written on February 25, 2009 by Tier


I got new stuff today. I’m hoping Star Ocean is as good as Tales of Vesperia, but I have this feeling that I’m going to be disappointed.

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