pyoko´s realm

Modelkit: Little drow

2011-07-12T14:42:00.000+02:00

Hello there everyone. Yep, I am actually writing something again XD
I don´t really have an excuse for not writing so long, it´s just that I don´t felt like it. I will try to write a pixiv navigation post in the next weeks.

For now; I recently finished with my 3. kit and want to show it to you.
(1.kit here,only one pic though and my 2.kit with lots of pics)
The original kit is thought to look like this. I am not so fond of pink hair and the more pink-haired elfes, and so decided to give her my own colour scheme. Since I am into roleplaying games too I decided it would be nice to make me a drow that for once does not have a gaze like a murderer XD
Drows are coloured pretty differently throughout the net, I orientated myself on the art of an online fantasy comic I like a lot, called yafgc.

So here is the colourscheme I took as orientation. Dark-grey for skin, red eyes and white-light grey hairs.
Oh, and go and read the comic after finishing looking at my elf :D

I must admit that I am very proud of the eyes.

I am happy with how she turned out, but I still have a lot to learn. Made so many little mistakes >.<

Pixiv Tutorial: Registration+ Login/Logout

2011-02-15T12:49:00.002+01:00

Maybe some of you noticed that the pixiv design changed some months ago. Back than I thought about updating my tutorial, but no one was interested. However now I was asked to make an update and so I do :D

How to register

1. Click on the orange button (see picture above)

2. Fill in form for registration (looks a lot easier than before)

See description on the screenshot for what to fill in where. Some more help:
(took this from my old tutorial, it is possible that something changed)
pixiv ID: 3 - 32 characters long, alphanumeric characters, hyphens and underscores only. Uppercase characters will be converted to lowercase. You cannot begin or end the ID with hyphens or underscores.
ニックネーム (Nickname): The name others will see you as. 15 characters max.
パスワード (Password): 6 to 32 characters long. Fill in both with the same password.
性別 (Gender): first one "no information", second "male", third "female"

When done click on the orange button. Since I am already registered I can´t do this once more, so I am unsure what exactly will happen. I guess you should get an "registration done" e-mail, like it was with the old pixiv too. In case you get some error try another nickname or change the ID or the password.

Congratulations, now you can log in with your ID + password and browse through pixiv!

How to Login and Logout

On the top right of the site you will find the login menu. Click on the drop-down arrow in the circle. Type in your ID and your password and click the button (or hit the enter key on your keyboard).

To log out click on ログアウ on the very top right. (see screenshot)
Would recommend you to remember that^^ (when clicked pixiv asks you if you really want to leave; just click OK)

Beside the logout you will find the "R 18" rated section. I am unsure if this will appear for you, I think you will have to unlock the area in your settings first. And honestly - no idea where to do so. I will search for it and tell you in another post.
Between the "R18" and the "logout" you can see a link to the "help" section. Noch much of use to us non-japanese though.

With the help of the search field -or by just clicking around- you can now already surf through the pictures a little bit. Next pixiv post will be about the navigation.

I hope this updated tutorials are of some use^^.

Wonder Festival 2011 (winter)

2011-02-15T11:40:00.000+01:00

Some new figures I put my eyes on. Thanks god I didn´t see too many that I really want.

Alter - Guilty Gear XX - Dizzy
Ok, this one isn´t new news, but she is stunning and I already preordered her :D

Alter - Starry Sky - Kinose Azusa
Exclusive run *sniff* I want him, but he will be expensive..will have to think about it.

Kotobukiya - NGE - Kaworu Nagisa
How cruel, to anounce this just after I paid for my Megahouse Kaworu.. I hope he doesn´t looks too good, really don´t need another Kaworu. *must resist*

Kotobukiya One Coins
Made to make the female collectors poor. There are still many older sets I want..

Megahouse - Gintama - Takasugi Shinsuke
Must have, can´t wait to see it coloured

Megahouse - Gintama - Katsura Kotarou
May buy him, depends on how he looks when coloured. I hope Megahouse brings us more Gintama characters, I want a Kagura.

Megahouse - One Piece - Ace (Strong World vers.)
I am a big fan of Ace, so almost a must have. Just don´t really like the face. AND he sold out instantly mostly everywhere, like it was with Perona too @.@
Do Megahouse produce their figures in lower quantities now or what´s up with their recent releases selling out so fast?

Good Smile Company - Lacia
Looks like it´s gonna be expensive, so I will possibly skip it in the end. But looks lovely so far.

Good Smile Company - Vocaloid - Nendoroid Snow Miku (Snow Playtime Ed.)
awww, she is so cute, and of course exclusive >.< This sucks..

Good Smile Company - Touhou Project - Nendoroid Cirno
I am looking forward to see her painted.

Good Smile Company - Disgaea - Nendoroid Etna
LOL XD Etnaaaa *yeah* why now? who knows. who cares. Must have.

I also saw some more news for Griffons Touhou figures. Why must they all look so good >.< I am weak against the Touhou costumes/outfits.

Like with every WF Nekomagic posted a great overview of all the manufactures and also the different GK circles. It´s worth to have a look!

Vocational school is over, but..

2011-02-09T18:01:00.000+01:00

Hi guys. My 5 (!) months of vocational school are over since last friday. This means I finally will have some free time again! Life has me back!
That´s also good news for readers of my blog (are you still there?), because now I have access to the internet during the week too! It was quite hard to live through almost a half year without that, I tell you.
The next weeks won´t be too busy for me and I guess I should be able to post more regulary :D

So where is the catch to this good news?
"Catch" is the right word, I catched a flu :(
A pretty bad one too, had over 39grad fever on Sunday evening. Lots of sweating, headache, sniffing, coughing and so on. I feel a bit better now, but this nasty flus need there time to cure.

When I feel better I will post about:
1. WF 2011 figures of my interest (can´t I skip that^_^)
2. new pixiv design-> update of my tutorial as requested by a reader ( I won´t make it as comprehensive as the first one, but I´ll try to include to most important things)

btw. some other good news for me; all my long awaited figures I posted some time ago arrived in the meantime^^ (But had to pay lots of taxes =.=)

Going back to bed now, see you.

Random talk

2011-01-08T18:14:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone, how have your holidays been? Or did you have to work?

I had two weeks of vacation, but I was pretty busy. There was so much stuff I planned to post, but never did..sorry^^"
read on for some random talk..

Since I didn´t have much time left to spend with my friends during vocational school I spent a lot of time with them during the last two weeks.

We mostly played our Role-playing game (pen and paper). It follows a system out thought by a friend of mine and the game master is my best friend. It´s her first time of leading a role-playing game, but she is doing fine nonetheless.
I guess for people who never played that kind of stuff themselfs it´s pretty hard to figure out what it´s all about. Or at last my mum doesn´t understand how an RPG works with only some sheets, dices and a laarge portion of fantasy XD

I am playing an elf rogue, you know.. lots of sneaking around, trap disarming, opening locks, teasing our groups paladin... just the regular stuff XD

On Monday I will have to return to vocational school. Since I was ill the last schooldays before christmas I missed out on two exams, because of that I will have to take them right after this weekend. So I spent my last 4 vacation days with studying *sob*

Some other thing; I have about 4 parcels out there that seem to got lost in christmas period or so.. I am waiting since quite some time but none of them arrived so far.. one of them is the Alter Hideyoshi *want so badly*

wtf, I mean, It can´t actually be that 4 parcels of the same person get lost? Can it?
Please tell me that it can´t happen >.<

*continues waiting*

~ Merry Christmas ~

2010-12-24T19:15:00.000+01:00

Christmas time!! yay, this means 2 free weeks for me! >w<

I wish a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all of you!

Fröhliche Weihnachten und ein gutes Neues Jahr!

楽しいクリスマス !
Noël heureux !
natale felice !
feliz Navidad !

Modelkit: 1/8 Nia Teppelin in swimsiut

2010-11-27T14:55:00.000+01:00

And on it goes :D

I talked more than enough, so now enjoy the pictures.
And because it´s such a lovely shot and the more because I forgot to make more front shots; once more the same pic XD

Btw, before I forget, I bought Nia from e2046. It is a site that sells recasts of kits, of course cheaper than the original. I hope that I will be able to buy some original modelkits trough yahoo.jp someday, but for now I am happy with recasts.

Remark: If you are interested in this hobby I recommend to look for a forum that will provide you with some information. It is better than starting without any clue, believe me.
In case you happen to be German-speaking I can recommend you the modelkituniverse forum. It helped me a lot and I am sure it will continue to help me :3

Modelkit: 1/8 Nia Teppelin in swimsuit

2010-11-27T14:37:00.000+01:00

As promised here finally comes my talk about my first kit Nia.
You may have noticed (if you are a regular reader) that I already built a small kit at a conventions workshop. Still I can´t bring myself to see Nia as my second kit, because there simply were too many questions left open and too much material still to be bought. And figuring it out all by yourself is quite some work, I tell you.

I am very tempted to talk about this new hobby of mine, befor showing more shots of the finished Nia.

So let´s start from the beginning:

That is -somehow- what you can call my transportable working place. The tablet was given to me by my mother and it is very useful to carry around the parts and the other stuff. Since I do not have a lot of space in my room it is good that this speeds up the cleaning and helps to store the parts away quickly.

Btw. don´t buy that "Revell Plasto" stuff, it´s horrible to work with. It dries very quickly and so you can´t really use it. (it dries away while you are still applying it >.<)

This are the work-steps you go through before painting:
1. make sure all the parts are there and that they all are unharmed
2. pinch off the molding grates and biger plastic thingies that don´t belong there (whatever you call these)
3. sanding the seamlines, make sure everything is smooth at the end
4. correct big caps with putty; sanding
5. (can also be done earlier) drill holes for wire-pieces that will later hold your model together, and also can be used for pinning it on skewers for painting.
6. Pinning; you put your parts together to see how the finished kit will look and to see if there are gaps that need putty. I am still not very good at pinning (didn´t manage to do it with Nia), so I can´t really tell how it exactly works..

7. Everything sanded and no gaps left? Time to pin the parts on the skewers. I used a bit of glue to make sure they stay in place. (It wasn´t a problem to remove them after painting despite the glue, simply don´t use a too strong one)
8. Priming (already done with the parts on the above picture)
Don´t try to paint a kit without using primer; I tried it a long time ago with Nia and the paint slipped of like nothing. I used a no-good primer; will need to buy a better one. Also I did use far too much of it *sigh*

After the pieces dried we can start painting

In general all acrylics can be used, though professional painters recommend the one or other brand and of course some are alot better suited than others..
What I got told alot is that it is important to paint very thin layers of paint, to make sure you won´t see too many brush strokes.
Oh, by the way; since I am a newbie I paint by hand using different brushes.

Many people use an airbrush for painting, but I can´t tell you if that is easier or not.
I may be able to try it out in February next year, because I will visit someone who uses one then. In case I like it I may buy one for myself.
The biggest + for the airbrush, I guess, is that you only need one layer of paint, while when doing it per hand you will need many..
As for - I believe the maintenance of the airbrush will take more time than washing regular brushes..

Close up of the eyes (of course I gave Nia her trademark pink-dot-thing-eyes :P)

If you look close you will be able to see the sloppy paintjob of the skin >.<

Those curles gave me hell @.@ It was very hard to paint them properly.. (on this shots there are still some bigger mistakes, I later corrected them)

When you are done with painting:
You can add some shading with pastel chalk, or with the brush.
Not really my strong point; my 3-dimensional thinking sucks even on a 3-dimensional model >.<
Btw. I needed a lot of chalk to make some effect. You can see the outcome on the drill. (Skin and swimsuit is shaded too, but you can barely see it on the pics.

After you are done with shading you use varnish to make sure the colours don´t rub of and, of course, you can finally glue+pin everything together!

Since this post is already very long I will continue in a seperate one. A lot of shots of the finished Nia await you!

Proxy Service Experiences: Goody Japan

2010-11-14T10:58:00.000+01:00

I always tried to keep away from using proxy services. It all looked far too complicated and too expensive. Some weeks ago I gave in. Curse all the interesting Doujinshi releases from Comiket 78.

For those of you who don´t know what a proxy service is/does:
In short it is a middleman (company) which will help you to buy goods you wouldn´t be able to buy by yourself. It is mostly used for shopping on yahoo.jp I guess.

However I used it for buying some Doujinshis from Toranoana and Melonbooks.

The proxy I decided to choose is Goody Japan.
Why did I choose them?
The site looked easier to navigate through as for example shopping mall japan ones. I also heared good things about their service and that they aren´t overpriced.

The procedure:
1. Ordered doujinshis through the form on their homepage. At the very moment you do that you will have to pay the goods worth with paypal. (They only process your order when you paid.)
The rest of the cost (Bankwire fee, domestic shipping, commission and international shipping) is to be paid when the goods are ready to be shipped to you.
2. One day after I ordered and paid I got a confirmation mail which declares that they ordered the goods for me.
3. Waited about 2 weeks, then I decided to ask about when the items will arrive at their office. Got a reply two days later which said they will be ready soon.
4. Three more days waiting and I got my final bill. After payment the goods shipped on the next day.

What I liked about them:
+ Good service, they always replied in an accurate time to my mails
+ I like their system of payment; first pay for the goods and then a seperate bill for the other expenses. That splits up the cost and, for me, make payment easier.

What I didn´t like so much:
- I had to wait over two weeks for the goods to arrive at their warehouse; I don´t think domestic shipping really takes that long
- The commission, but thats something every proxy has :(

I guess the next time I need some Japan-only goods I will use them again.

And now my statement of costs:

Doujinshis from Toranoana:     9.490Yen
Doujinshis from Melonbooks: 3.445Yen
Sum Goods (13 books):            12.935Yen (115€/157USD)

Bankwire fee:                            300 +300Yen
Domestic shipping:                    600 +625Yen
Commission:                          1.424 +750Yen
Sum Service:                                         3.899Yen (35€/48USD)

Doujinshis+service:                   16.834Yen (150€)
International shipping (SAL)       1.980Yen
Total sum                                18.814Yen

So what I paid through paypal for everything together were 170€ (~233USD) @.@
I shouldn´t think about it too much. Doujinshis are far too expensive >.<

I am currently thinking about reviewing the one or other of the books. However some family issue will consume some of my few time, so please be patient.

I am still alive

2010-11-07T15:25:00.000+01:00

The last weeks have been busy for me. Even now I should already be doing some studying..

I thought it would be a good idea to let my readers know that I still will be writting post and that I even have some nice ones planned already^_^

I hope that next weekend I will have some time to post something.

This is planned: My first real take on modelkits - Nia Teppelin in swimsuit
                         My Experience with Goody Japan (proxy)
                         Review of Sai Nyan figure (Queen´s Blade Rebellion)

And maybe some Artbook or Doujinshi review.

Male figures of my Collection

2010-10-03T12:56:00.000+02:00

Inspired by a post I have seen more than a year ago I always wanted to make a post showing of the guys of my figure collection. But I so far didn´t find a way to do it. (or I was just too uncreative)

Recently I came upon a new function on tsukiboard titled "my category". With the help of that I can now proudly present you my growing collection of males.

First some words ahead:
As a female collector I am always on the lookout for more male releases. Though it seems the figure industry still prefers to release tons of female characters, I feel it is slowly getting better and they start to recognize that girls are easy to rob of their money too.
Still (so far) most of the male-part of my collection consists of Nendoroid Petits, some Megahouse - One Piece releases and different trading figures.

And as a little extra - the traps of my collection :D (in the end they are boys too, aren´t they?)

mmhh..I guess I need more traps XD

Fun with Nendos 7

2010-09-27T17:57:00.006+02:00

Here come the other pictures. Again many Remila parts swapping around.

I looove this combination O.o
(I did try other settings for this one too, see at the end of the post.)

It is the very first time for the young demon to spread out her wings and fly! she is a little bit nervous about it. *sooo cute >///<*

I like the pose of her.

*sparkle*..*wipes a strand of hair out of his face*..*sparkle*
Kaito - he decided to polish up his looks to win a competition

But he lost. Remilia wanted to comfort him, but he was too disappointed..

Youth violence is a hot topic at the moment. With that teddy and all that it fits Rin quite nice, strangely.

And know some variations of the opening pic (as announced):

Hope you found the one or other shot appealing^^

Fun with Nendos 6

2010-09-26T12:54:00.001+02:00

Yesterday my Remilia Scarlet Nendoroid arrived.^^
She really is one of the cutest Nendos I have seen so far.
I love her blood-red vampire eyes. Couldn´t withstand to try how they would look on other Nendos.
While I was at it I also found other nice combinations eg with her dress or between other Nendos I haven´t swapped before.

So here come the results. hope you like them^^

Tsundere Remilia - so adorable *dies of cuteness*

The pink demon. Horns+wings=win

What could she be planning to do with that leek? evil cuteness XD

Red eyes make even Kureha look like a queen of the evil :D and this combination fits together so nicely too.

*ey, Marisa*..*Marisa, come back here!*..*what the heck am I supposed to do with this?*

Remilia - Cinderella version (dreaming of a better life)

A new Vocaloid discovered? She looks a little bit like a doctor to me O.o

Kaito, singing only for me :D *chu* >//<

Kaitos smiling face suits other Nendos too. She seems to have fun.

Btw this time I tried to find better backgrounds for my pictures, what do you think of it?

There are even more pictures. I will post them soon, so look forward to it.

Curse that rainy+cold week

2010-09-18T11:17:00.000+02:00

Seems like I catched a cold =.=
I feel dizzy and I am tired. Not to mention the headache and sore throat.

The best thing is that I have to go to vocational school since last Monday.
Because of that I am stressed too >.<
I still have to decide if I want to rest at home or go back to school on the upcoming Monday. Your always missing out on so much contents if you skip parts of vocational school, even if you are away for only few days.

I will now go to bed and sleep a little bit.

Aninite 2010: loot + my cosplay

2010-09-11T15:16:00.001+02:00

Hello there.
Since my friend took her time to send me the picture I am again somehow late with my post.

But lets start with the loot:

Background: cushion with very cute chibis. As far as I can guess they are Austria+France from Hetalia.
Glass: Hideyoshi ^_^ I love baka to test, it´s a very funny anime.
On the left: Rolled Ace Wanted poster. With my current Ace-mania I definitly needed that.
Figures: Nojiko (One Piece), Lineage Elf, Nakano Azusa (K-On)
and a small Totoro plush keychain.

I must say I was surprised to find so much nice stuff on a small con like Aninite.

And now to my cosplay^_^ *tadaa*

I looove my anti-Izaya sign :D

Aninite 2010: talk + cosplay pictures

2010-09-03T18:43:00.002+02:00

The Austrian convention Aninite was held from 27.08-20.08. 2010 in Vienna.
Of course it isn´t one of the big players, but still a very nice convention.

There were some nice lectures and workshops like: "Fun with Kanji", "Making AMVs", "Cosplay Sewing", "Japanese Sweets" and so many more. You do not find so many possibilities at every con.
There also was a lecture about Japan, held by a guy who actually spends time in Japan. His lecture was very funny and informative too. and more than a little bit NSFW XD

Since Merchandise shops are rare in Austria there weren´t many good shops at the con. And also more the keychain/pillow/other small stuff department. Very few Artbooks and some figures.

Some of the sold figures were definitly fakes, I guess that´s normal on small conventions. Not a very good cheking of fake dealers I have to say. Good thing I am more or less able to tell original and bootleg apart.
Nevertheless I managed to find some nice stuff to buy, even some figures. ^_^

Like on every convention there were cosplayers too, so here come my top 5:

As you know (if you are a regular reader) I cosplayed too. A friend of mine took a picture and should be mailing it to me soon. It will be revealed together with my loot in one of my next posts.

Some Animagic 2010 Cosplay pictures

2010-08-27T18:35:00.001+02:00

Time to post some of my shots, though only a "best of". and a very late one too >.<
So here are my personal top 10 of the ones I took pictures of. (there were so much more great cosplayers) (Shots are in random order)

Two little specials beside my top 10:
A very good Jack Sparrow and Anne of Green Gables (!!) Nostalgia factor +1.000

Attention!
In case you are one of the shown Cosplayers and are not okay with me showcasing your picture here please simply leave a comment telling me to remove your picture and I will do so.
To everyone else; I do neither own the shown characters nor the cosplays (of course) , but I do own the images. So no stealing please!

Some little extra to end this post; as you know I cosplayed too.
Since another Shizuo cosplayer was nice enough to lend me his sign shortly a friend made a picture of me+sign! Though I completly forgot to put on the sunglasses its still a very good one in my eyes. (Don´dare to say something different :D)
Oh, and yes, I know I am no beauty queen, so no unfair comments. (though I do not think that bad of you guys, but you never know..) Maybe I should put one of this nice black censor bars over my face.. *does not like showing herself to the whole internet*
aaand...WTF..I just recognized that I look quite manly on this shot O.o

LOL.. with that guy in the back + my grin and pose it looks like I am going to spank his ass with the sign XD

Btw, for Aninite (held this weekend) I have an own sign! and it´s a great one! yeah^^
Look forward to see it, I will post it sometime next week.

Hello to my new special acquisition ~Lien~

2010-08-15T16:27:00.000+02:00

As I wrote in my Animagic report I bought there something special. Now say hello to my cute little darling^_^

You have to know that I promised myself to NEVER end up buying a doll. I swore it.
But I failed.
And I do not even like dolls in general. These Pullip ones are creepy in my eyes and many other remind me of Barbies and nothing more.

I assume my resistance was lower than usualy, because I spotted her on Sunday and not only immediatly fall in love with her, but had still more money left than thought.
Though I regret it a little bit now and then..
It´s like "why did I do that.." *looks at her*.. "awwww, so cute.." XD

But why are dolls so expensive? She is not even one of this big DollfieDreams or Volks Dollfies but just a small (~23cm) Azone doll. Still she robbed me of 142 hard earned € :(

I guess now I will have to try to not fall anymore and to not buy another one. I need my money for figures, damn it! XD

But first she needs some new clothes! *ähh*..nooooooo >.<

That´s such a cute shot >.< *waaah* even my mum likes her, though she does not like any of my PVC figures O.o (good thing she do not know Liens price)

What do you think? Should I start to refer to her as "daughter"? XD
(In case you don´t get that one; most doll/dollfie collecters call their dolls daughters eg "today I took my two daughters out for a photoshooting..".) I think talking like this is quite hilarious..

So no new daughter for me :D feel far too young for one anyway.
Though I think about at least properly naming her..

Few more shots:

I am back + short Animagic report

2010-08-14T18:50:00.002+02:00

Here I am, back from Germany^_^

(just some random Japan -chibi for the start.)

In case you wonder why my convention report comes so late (Animagic was held from 30.07.-01.08.):
Right after the con my familiy+me visited some relatives in Germany, so I only came back last weekend. And during the week I didn´t have much freetime, so I only right it today.

So here comes my little, and late, report:

The journey started on Thursday, because I had to get (mum driven me) to my friends home first thing. She lives about 3hours away, but on the way to the convention. (from me to con would be ~8-9hours from her its 6)
So we met at her home and then drove onwards from hers on Friday.
Not much to say about Thursday..my friend was still busy with her cosplay, so I went to bed early.

On Friday morning her whole familiy +me got into the car and we went to Köln/Bonn.
Can´t say that it was fun; imagine three people on a small back seat for 6hours and you should get the idea.
When we arrived we first went to check in at the youth hostel. Since my friends family are four people they took one room and I had to take a single room which added some extra cost for me..but hey, I had a cheap lift.

And then we finally went to the convention:D It was already a bit late (about 15:00) when we arrived there. Considering we planned to arrive between 11-12 o´clock that was pretty late. curse that traffic jam >.<
Since we were worn out from driving we didn´t stay long. I guess I didn´t do much more than eating something and walking through the dealer room once.

Saturday was, like it always is at a con, the main day. There were alot of people and dozen of cosplayers. I too cosplayed Shizuo on this day, but beside another Shizuo cosplaying girl no one noticed me. However I guessed so from the start :D
I don´t think cosplaying is something for me; you sweat alot, the making is expensive and a lot of work + I suck at posing.

And I am already being attracted by another hobby, Modelkits!
On Saturday there was a Modelkit Workshop and since I have been interested in this hobby for a long time I joined in.
I spend almost the whole day there (11:00-17:00 ) making me this little darling:

When thinking about all the shows I missed because of that I could cry =_=. On the other hand it was very interesting and I really enjoyed it, so it was worth it.
I am already working on a kit on my own since I am back at home. I had bought it long ago and back than splashed colours on it without much thinking, so I first had to get the colours of it. Wasn´t easy..
Even worst is the fact that it has many scratches all around, because I back than used far too rough sanding paper. Lots of work awaits me!

After the workshop I went to watch Summer Wars, an anime movie airing on the conventions anime screen.
It is a great movie! Very funny and a nice and fresh story too. The characters are also very likeable. I think everyone enjoyed it alot, I am happy I took the time to watch it.
I really highly recommend Summer Wars to everyone!

WT..and now it was Sunday already >.<; as you can see I didn´t do much till now.
There weren´t any (for me) interesting shows on this day so I went around and took some pictures. (I also made a few on Friday and Saturday, but really not many)
I bought most of my buyings on Sunday. Strangely I did not buy many stuff at all.
For example I did not buy a single figure! O.o
Maybe because I know of too many upcoming nice figures I want and so I wanted to save my money? Or did I feel like buying online would lead to lower prices? whatever..

What I bought are 5 Artbooks, some small stuff and something special. Will keep it a secret till my next post, so stay tuned :D

Here my loot picture:

Artbooks: Naduki Koujima - Kids Paradise, Yuu Shiina Illus. 1, Pixiv Girls Illus. 2010, Vampire Knight Artworks, Itou Noizi SO-U-EN

Small Stuff: Remint food, Remint Kotatsu (ups, forgot to include that in the picture), a badge+keychains, Poster (see picture bellow)

What I also got are some new Illustrations for my con-hon ^_^
(A con-hon is a small book with white pages you bring with you and let other people draw something/make an entry. eg they than also add something like "happy I met you at Ani 2010! hope you have fun and to see you again." Beside the people you meet by chance and your friends, there are professionals on cons too. Many of them are willing to make entries during their signing hours. Of course depending on how famous they are, or how many fans want an entry.)

On Animagic there were professionals too, so I joined the one or other queue.

The Illustration on the left is from a friend of mine. Hard to believe she is only a hobby drawer. The one on the right is from Nana "Yoa". I really like her art style and I like Kurapika so luv that image! thank you so much^^

My favourites though are the two pictures from Lancha. I had not heard of her before, but I felt in love with her poster (you can see it above) and because of that joint in her queue when she was signing/drawing for her fans.

To let everyone know which character she can draw from what series she had a piece of paper laying there telling you your choices. I think that was a pretty clever idea, she spared herself lots of "can you draw me .." questions.
I was very happy to see my favourite couple Izaya+Shizuo (Durarara!!) on her list O.o
I decided to let her draw Izaya. I really liked the picture alot, so much that I wanted one of Shizuo too. I asked if it would be possible to draw him too, if time allows it for her and no one else wants an Illustration of her, and she said.. yes!
I then politely and silently waited somewhere beside the desk and crossed my fingers for the queue to not get longer; and I was lucky. No one else joined in and so she drawed Shizuo for me too.^^
I guess that´s the good thing with artists that do not have a wide fanbase already. :D
(Btw; I do not think that a professional has to be well known to be called one. I am sure there are many good artists no one knows of..)
Aren´t they looking great? X3 *happiness overdose*

I love how they both say something fitting their characters :D
(For the non German speakers; Shizuo says "Oy! Why is this pig on page before me?!")

Of course full credit to the creators of the con-hon entrys! (I wrote their names above too.) Please do not steal their images! Oh, and of course, if one of you happens to be one of the artists and do not want to show the picture here please simply tell me and I will remove it!

-------------------------------
I am at the moment deciding which pictures of the convention I want to show you. Anyone knows how copyright works with cosplay pictures? Anyway, expect some shots for one of the next posts.

We left the convention Sunday evening (~16:00) to get back to my friends home. On Monday morning my mother picked me up there and we drove to my grandma, where we stayed one week.

That was my little report of Animagic, see you on my next post; revealing my little special acquisition I mentioned earlier.

Short Announcement

2010-07-29T11:05:00.000+02:00

I will be off on vacation from today till 07.08., so do not expect any posts in this time.

First I will be at a convention in Germany, Köln, called Animagic.
I guess I will post about it when I am back.

Btw, I already gave hints for what I will cosplay there and I think it is now time to reveal it to everyone:
Shizuo from Durarara!! (without traffic sign, didn´t have an idea for what material to use)

I guess you got an idea now^^

After the con -weekend we (me+familiy) will visit relatives in Germany.
Not really a vacation, but it is nice to see your grandma once every year^^

So, I am off! *takes suitcase*

Wonder Festival Sommer 2010 - Figures of Interest 2

2010-07-26T15:12:00.000+02:00

Yesterday Wonder Festival was held once more in Japan and shows us tons of new, upcoming figures.
I am not going to do a full coverage, just figures that catched my interest. (still a lot..)

Pictures source: tsukiboard
There are other blogs doing coverage, for example nekomagic is doing a very good job on it.

I parted the figures into two posts;
1. Females
2. Males (finally more male figures! they simply screamed for an own post)
~~3. Hideyoshi..~~
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Figma (Max Factory)

Bakemonogatari - Araragi Koyomi (will be released 02/2011)
I do not know the series so far, but he looks very promising.

Nendoroid (GSC)

Sengoku Basara - Date Masamune + Sanada Yukimura (2010)
They look so cute X3

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu - Kinoshita Hideyoshi (2010)
Must get! Hideyoshi *hiyaa* :3

Hayate no Gotoku - Ayasaki Hayate (MaxFactory, not GSC, 12/2010)
In that outfit ->trap =instant get, also interested in Nagi and Hinagiku if funds allow it.

Completed Models

Tales of Vesperia - Yuri Lowell (ALTER, 12/2010)
Looks good. Eyes are a bit too big for my personal taste though. No real interest in the chibi..

Naruto - Hatake Kakashi (MegaHouse, 11/2010)
This has to be the most surprising release of the whole year O.o

Shin Seikei Evangelion - Nagisa Kaworu (MegaHouse)
Interesting choice for a release.. not a fan of the pose or the suite (like normal outfit more) and not even really an Evangelion fan.. However I like Kaworu.. I will decide when it´s coloured.

Summer Wars - Ikezawa Kazuma (ALTER)
No pictures so far. It seems Alter plans to release lot of male figures. I am watching this with a happy and a crying eye..

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu - Kinoshita Hideyoshi (ALTER, 12/2010)
Hideyoshi! OMG, they choose THAT pose XD But, whatever, its Hideyoshi+Alter so instant get!

As you see males and traps are getting more. *poor wallet*

Wonder Festival Sommer 2010 - Figures of Interest 1

2010-07-26T14:57:00.000+02:00

Yesterday Wonder Festival was held once more in Japan and shows us tons of new, upcoming figures.
I am not going to do a full coverage, just figures that catched my interest. (still a lot..)

Pictures source: tsukiboard
There are other blogs doing coverage, for example nekomagic is doing a very good job on it.

I parted the figures into two posts;
1. Females
2. Males (finally more male figures! they simply screamed for an own post)
~~3. Hideyoshi..~~
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Figma (Max Factory) Touhou Project - Shameimaru Aya
I don´t even like figmas alot and still I keep buying them.. and she looks so nice too..
But I in the end I never really pose or play around with them, and that is what they are thought for, aren´t they.. *haha*

Nendoroid (GSC)

there are so many news for Nendos @.@, really GSC releasing alomst everything and everyone is kind of nice, but very expensive too..

Touhou Project - Flandre Scarlet (2010)
Will be exclusive, but if otacute gets her I probably will buy. Remi would be lonely without her.

BRS - Death Master
Probably will buy, may skip the Figma instead.

Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai - Kousaka Kirino
Cute, will depend on the other faces though.

Steins Gate - Makise Kurisu (12/2010)
Is this game popular at the moment? Since there already is a Kotobukiya figure up for preorder and a Figma anounced too, I guess it is.

Completed Models

BRS - Black Gold Saw (GSC)
GoodSmile is evil! Riping us of with new BlackRockShooter characters..
completed model+figma+nendo = their way of killing us *cries*

Vocaloid - Hatsune Miku (MaxFactory, 01/2011)
*ahaha*..why a Tony Miku..it is possible I won´t be able to withstand..

and "Love is War Miku" (GSC)
At first I didn´t liked her,that was when she was still unpainted. Now she looks very interesting.

Shining Wind - Houmei (ALTER)
This will be expensive..

Dance in the Vampire Bund - Mina Tepes (Kotobukiya)
Loli vampire^_^

Tradings

One Coin Figures of YuGiOh! LOL, WTF
If there is a Bakura and a Marik I may actually buy this.
(Since I guess girls will be in it too I posted it here)

And then there are still all the ones I am leaving out..
I am just glad that I am not a Bakemonogatari fan. (very beautiful figures anounced, may end with buying one)

Artbook Review: La Soirée

2010-07-25T15:34:00.015+02:00

Complete Titel: Otomate Usuba Kagero Selection - La Soirée
Artist: Usuba Kagero
Games: Will ó Wisp, Edel Blume, Wand of Fortune
Format, Pages: A4, 143 (All in colour)
Published: June 2010
Extras: a 22x17cm print of the cover Illustration + a greeting card from the artist

After just reviewing Otomates Yone Kazuki Artbook this time it is Otomates artist Kagero Usuba whos in the spotlight.
(One thing ahead: I am sorry for the bad quality of the pictures, it seems that the colouring of the book makes it hard to take proper pictures of. (or maybe lightning sucked, I am not sure))

The book starts with three new Illustrations, one for every series, aswell as a repetition of the cover art.

After that the book is parted in three sections, one for every series.
The biggest part is that for Will ó Wisp with 58 pages, Edel Blume has 24 and Wand of Fortune 42 pages.
(Please be aware that the order of the Illus. in my review is mixed, and not sorted by series or section!)

Most of the time there are two Illustrations per page. Though there is a mentionable amount of full page Illustrations too.

Aswell as some smaller ones occupying a full page and leaving some white space, but with the total amount of Illustrations you get for your money that it is overlook-able.

One disapointment is the remarkable noise in some of the Illustrations; I am unsure if it is because the pictures were printed bigger than in there original context or it have another reason.
With this some images look blurred, especially the shadowing in the Illustrations.

Something to note aside from quality is the fact that some fans of bishonen-guys could be disturbed by the fact that the games respective main character (= girls) do get a lot of attention too. Since they have a nice design, I wasn´t disturbed by it. (Though I liked the "almost girl free" attidude of the Zanka Artbook ;) )

My favourites are the Illustrations for Wand of Fortune. I like the design of the boys more than in the other two sections and the pictures look more colourful and lively to me.

Btw; this blond haired guy in Wand of Fortune; that simply has to be Ouran High School Host Clubs Nr.1 idiot Tamaki XD anyone agrees?

Didn´t they even have a scene similar to this in OHSHC? XD

At the end there is an Interview along with some b/w versions of pictures. The book closes with something I guess was a B´s-LOG magazine extra, eg a calender, since there are months written down.

Overall La Soirée was a very nice purchase, though the noise takes away a bit of the viewing pleasure. However if you do not look to close it will pass.
And it is not an issue with all pictures, only with some. Maybe it is even only my perception..who knows :D

A few more samples again to be found in my photobucket gallery.

5.000 hits + pixiv design changed

2010-07-23T18:03:00.000+02:00

(by エトウ)

Yay, 5.000 hits^^ thank you so much :)

Btw; pixiv has a new design as it seems. Looks very complicated..will need my time to look through, everything looks different now.. *cries*

I thought I was through with the pixiv tutorials, and now this..shame on you pixiv, why do you make it so complicated..
I may post some infos about what changed, but thats gonna be a lot of work, so first:
is there anyone interested in it?
If you want to read about the changes, please leave a comment so that I know at least one person would like to read a tutorial-update.
(yes, one person telling me to do it would be enough XD)

Artbook Review: Zanka

2010-07-11T20:08:00.006+02:00

Artist: Yone Kazuki

Games: Hiiro no Kakera series and some others

Format, Pages: A4, 127 (All in colour)
Published: Feb. 2008

Extras: fold-out poster

Yone Kazuki is one of the game designers for Otomate (part of Idea Factory). It is one of Japan's premier developers of dating and adventure video games.
An Otome game is (taken from wikipedia): "A Video game that is targeted towards a female market, where one of the main goals, besides the plot goal, is to develop a romantic relationship between the female Player player character and one of several male characters."

With the airing of the Hakuoki anime Yone Kazuki has gained some popularity as he is the original game designer of Hakuoki too. (This Artbook does not have art from this series though)

Since I can´t understand Japanese I never played any of their games, but I fell in love with the cover art of Zanka immediatly and ended up buying it. Since I do not kow a lot about the series shown in the book please excuse me in case I made mistakes.

The book itself features mainly Illustrations of the different Hiiro no Kakera games. The pictures are printed on sturdy, thick paper and most of the Illustrations either obtain one page or there are two or three printed on one page. I guess that is something very common with game artbooks, because of the nature of games often have smaller artworks too. Quality of the prints seem to be high, since they don´t look pixelated even when viewed from close distance.

There are also a few Illustrations shown twice with different coloration.

If I am not wrong with it, the Illustration of Hiiro no Kakera take up about 70 pages. At the end of this section there are also some b/w artworks and sketches aswell as some text. The text take up about 10 pages, that´s just a wild suggestion because the text shares the page with sketches most of the time, so saying it is only text would be unfair.

While I cannot read the text I enjoy rough sketches aswell as finished linearts too, so I don´t feel like this pages are wasted. And even without the text+design sketches part you still have ~100 pages with Illustrations.

After this section there follow some, as it seems to me, older works from Kazuki Yone aswell as Illustrations of different other games, like for example Fushigi Yuugi. However I do not like this Illustrations as much as the Hiiro no Kakera ones. The style is strikingly different here.

At the end of the book there are some girls too, or mainly a blond haired one which seems to be a main character of one of his games. While the style is different I like those too.

I can really recommend this Artbook to everyone who likes the sample pictures, I promise you won´t be dissapointed.

I even have some more samples for you here in my photobucket gallery.

Site Update-Links Introduction

2010-07-09T14:04:00.001+02:00

Some new links for my sidebar^^ (pls go there to click, I am too lazy to ad the links to the post)

I hereby present you:

Nattoli

A great blog that features detailed Artbook and Illustration-Doujinshis reviews with sample pictures.

amiami

One of the biggest Japanese Onlinesores and it ships internationally!

Very good prices and lots of figures. If you do not already know this site I recommend to have a look.

amiami is since some time my personal Nr.1 for buying figures.

Archonia

A big EU shop (belgium) where I bought many of my figures. They have high prices, but sometimes good deals show up. What I like at their shop is how easy you can handle your orders all by yourself; merging together is no problem, delaying orders can be done without having to ask and you have one whole month to pay for your order!

New Affiliate - beNippon

2010-07-09T13:20:00.002+02:00

Today I want to tell you about pyokosrealms very first Affiliate beNippon.
beNippon is a shop that features many different Merchandise, like tons of Artbooks and Figures. Beside that it also have other japanese goods like Electronics, Chibli plushes and much more!

And not only does it sell products at a fair price, but it also sells second hand books&figures, which sometimes can be already hard to find collector-items.

They offer the typical payment options (paypal, CreditCard..) and for shipping you can choose between cheap SAL and the save EMS.

So do not hesitate do click their banner in my sidebar from time to time and buy something there.

At the moment they even have a SALE running! Some very nice deals there.
EDIT: I don´t know why, but something is wrong with their sale. The prices were very low when I checked when writteng this, but now they seem to be back to normal (higher) again.
EDIT2: The link does not work, but they seem to still have reduced prices and there is just an error so that it sometimes show unreduced price; don´t know. Just surf around a bit and you may find some nice deals. To bad I do not have money left for spending here.. would liked that Nojiko childhood figure for 6€.

~ 1st year anniversary ~

2010-07-05T17:36:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone! It has been exactly one year since the very first post for my blog now.

*throws tons of confetti*

(pixiv artist: 50円)

Wow. can´t believe that really a whole year passed.

So whats happened during the last year?
As for my blog I don´t think it changed a lot from the concept I had at the beginning. The most significant modification would be that of the language; while I started with German I am glad I back then decided to change to English.
I am also very happy that I managed to modify the layout to my liking. It really looks a lot better than at the start. It also has more of a personal touch now than with the template I used the first months. And it was far to pink back then XD

As for hobby related changes I have to say that the current € -Yen exchange rate is killing me! Not only that figures got expensiver in general but with that horrible rate most figures cost me 70-90€ nowadays. That reminds of last year, when a 50€ figure already was expensive in my eyes.
I pray to the otaku-gods for this hobby to get cheaper soon.

mmhh..what else to talk about..I guess in an anniversary post it´s natural to bring out some statistic?
So far I have three counters on my blog. (counter-statistic at the time of: Monday, 5.Juli, 17:30)
One is showing me how many people are online and give me an idea of what they like to read. (no real statistic here)
The other one is running since the very start and now brings it to *tadaa*

4678 hits !

That are ~ 12 hits per day.

Recently I added a third one, a flag counter. I find it nice to see so easily which countries my readers are from. And somehow I think it´s quite amusing too^^

As you can see it was a very good decision to write in English, since most of my readers are from the USA.
It is nice to see Germany as Nr.2, because that means that, though written in other language, they still read my blog.

To be honest I never expected to reach over 4000 hits. I guess it´s not a lot if you compare to all the other blogs out there, but I never planned my blog to be "a big hit" from the start.
It is there for me to write about whatever I want to write about, it gives me the opportunity to show off my collection, to give people with the same hobby the one or other hint for nice merchandise and to simply share my mind.

I know, because of my not so good English, my post may not be so much fun to read (grammatic must be horrible and vocabulary usage that of a 8year old native >.<).
Still I hope I will be able to bring you the one or other interesting review or small talk and that the one or other of you will visit my blog on a regular basis.

I am looking forward to another year with reviews, pictures and, I hope, some improvement..and a 5000 hits post :P

My current preorders

2010-07-04T13:51:00.000+02:00

It has been a long time since I posted an up-to-date list of the figures I preordered.
And I have lots of preorders.

Glorious Natsume figure and the first release from Alters new male figure line Altair. amiami exclusive. Since you can order there easily the "exclusive" thing don´t hurts too much. He is still available!

Remilia Scarlet Nendoroid. Only available through some japanese onlinestores. However I bought her from otacute. This shop offers a lot of limited, exclusive and/or Japan-only figures. If you want her too, they still take preorders as it seems.

Touhou Project Nendoroid petit vol.1 (3 sold together)
Also only available at some japanese online stores. Again ordered at otacute. I love you otacute :P
They are already sold out, but there will soon be a vol.2 set.

Yagyu Jubei re-release.
I missed her first release so it is very good news that they will re-release her.

Black Rock Shooter Figma and Nendoroid
I really like the design of BRS and the striking blue eyes combined with the black outfit and hair.

Ace Super DX figure. Not many places to buy him. Ordered at a shop I do not know if its thrustworthy, but I hope for everything being ok.

Crocodile from One Piece. He was so cool in the Impel Down arc. He is already released, but e2046 is lame sometimes. Last time, for my Nel, I had to wait about 2months longer than release date.

One more Crocodile. This is one of the cheap Banpresto One Piece figures.
This figure looks great, someone on tsukiboard commented the following: "He looks like he's part of an armani fashion show!"
I totally agree on this :D

Arriving soon

(some already shipped, others will need some more time)

Hijitaka from Gintama. Already shipped and should arrive soon. Also I can´t wait for Okitas release, they will go nice together.

Mercedes. Already In Stock, I only still have to pay for it.

Gintoki from Gintama, re-release. Is In Stock together with Mercedes waiting for payment.

Lum-chan :)
Again one of this hard to get items. I had to order her with a proxy since no shop had her. I really hope she was worth the extra money. She is already on the way and maybe will arrive till the end of next week.

Long awaited Smoker re-release! Already paid for him, only needs a shipping notification.

This figures were already released, but I will need to wait some more time, because I ordered them at an EU shop that likes to take its time to get figures..(Often they get them months after japanese release)

Elwing Godess of Forest vers.
She looks so stunning on the promotion pics, but I already saw some real shots and that, sadly, the quality is Kotobukiya averrage (eg flaws). I still think she looks nice though.

Cheap Akira (Lucky Star) SEGA figure. While I did not liked the series enough to keep on watching I like Akiras character alot.

Trafalgar Law, one of the newer One Piece characters. I like his outfit.
And what the heck! Whats up with the tons of One Piece figures in my preorders and also on my wishlist; I do not even like the series that much..
I guess it is because there are so few male figures that you buy what you can get :P

Natives Shoujo S figure. This is the very first time for me to buy en ero figure. I will never be able to explain to my parents..

There still are tons of figures on my wishlist and many will find their way into my preorders, but first I will have to rob a bank.

Shizuo+Izaya glasses get

2010-07-03T11:54:00.000+02:00

I do not often post about my newest stuff, but this time it´s something special.
My very first anime/manga glasses arrived some days ago!

Strangly one was stated as "Housewares" and one as "Collectible Goods" on the invoice on the parcel. I wonder which one was counted as what and why XD
I mean, exept for the motive, they are the same product..

For the fact that glasses break easily amiami did not go through much trouble with the packaging. But nothing happened to them, so I guess it was enough care^^

I am not a lot into the division of mugs/cups/glasses merchandise, but for this two I made an exeption.
Durarara!! is one of my favourite series at the moment, mostly because of its characters. And from all the interesting characters Shizuo is my Nr.1 and Izaya just has to be bought to put them side by side :)
Also I like the image of the Izaya one more than Shizuos, but both are nice. And they are bigger than expected, I alway thought cups-stuff to all be very small.

I am not sure how much water (or whatever) goes in there; I gues something between 0,3l and 0,5l.

Beside the close ups they also have a whole body -picture on the other glass side. (Sorry, for the picture to be blurred)

In case you are interested in the glasses, they are beeing re-released at the end of July and you can, for example, order them at amiami.

To go with this small post some striking news! I will soon go to a German convention (Animagic) and there I will be the very fisrt time cosplaying! Guess who.
Yep, it will be one of them.
This quote is a little hint: "I hate violence". Fans of Drrr should now know ^_^
(Everyone else will have to wait some more time)

Pixiv- some more advices

2010-06-13T12:09:00.000+02:00

When I wrote my other pixiv-guide posts I pointed out that there still are some things I do not know how to do myself. Recently I took the time to try out some options.
So now I can bring you the last one of my epic guides :)

picture by やじるし (the duck! LOL XD)

This time covered: Adding tags to fav. images, deleting fav. images and deleting artists from your watchlist +more

How to add tags to (your favourited) pictures

Very useful when you already have many fav. pics. If you add tags to them you can browse the pics by the specific tag. Surfing your favs gets a lot easier with this.

1) adding tags when favouring a picture:

When clicking on the "add this picture to my favs"-button you get this page:

The red arrow shows you the row where you can type in tags. Circled in green are the tags of the picture, you can click one of them to use it as your tag. Beneath the pictures tags you will find a list with the tags you choosed on other pictures. (Mine hidden under the black line)
Of course the tags are only for yourself, so you do not have to use Japanese.
If you want more than one tag do it like this: "Vocaloid Miku Cute Whatever".

2) adding tags to already faved pictures:
Go to the picture and click it.

As you can see the "add to favs" button isn´t there anymore. (of course..)
The writting circled in green says "compilation", click here. You will be linked to the same page as when first time adding a picture. See 1).

In the navigation of your faved pics there also is a option (at the bottom of the page) for taging more than one picture at once. Will talk about later.

How to delete favourited pictures

Only ading would lead to overload, don´t you agree? Also taste changes with time, so it is a good thing if you now how to do this.

Go to your fav. pictures. You already know what you can do with the top menu. (eg change between visible and hidden pictures)
Scroll down. At the very bottom you can see some art that has the same tags as you use. (or that is what I think)
Above that, and beneath your pictures you will see this navigation:

1) Add tags to all images with checked boxes
This is what I was talking about earlier. Choose all images you want to add a specific tag to by checking the boxes you see beneath each picture. Type in the tags and then click the button.

2) Move or Delete your images
Be careful here! Do not confuse this two buttons!
The LEFT one will move the picture(s) to the other section. Means if you are in the "Visible to everyone pics" section a click on this will move the picture to the "Hidden pictures" section. And the other way round.
The RIGHT button is to delete checked images from your favs. When clicking pixiv will ask you if you really want to delete.

How to delete artists from your watchlist

Almost the same as with pictures. You will find this options at the bottom of the "watched artists" page:

Again LEFT one moving to the other section and RIGHT one deletes an artist. (if the box is checked)

Some more navigation knowledge about surfing your fav images:

The tags you added are listed on the left. (see green circle) I put a grey area above mine, hope you understand. (I left two as an example)
Beneath your tag-cloud you see the number of taged and not taged images eg the ones in visible and hidden section.

In red:
First one: Surf your fav. pictures
Second: Surf your watchlisted artists
(3. Shows usere who faved pictures of you)

Searching a user by his/her ID

You can use this url: http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=......
Just copy&paste or type in the ID of an artist you want to look at. I already posted some IDs of artists here. (opens as a new page)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

And to end my pixiv-guide posts;

Some reminders of the most important stuff I covered:

Don´t forget about the Rankings at the right site of pixiv, they show off the most often looked-at pictures so you are sure to find good stuff here.

もっと見る (=see more) since we always want more don´t forget it :)

Still remember how to ad pictures and artists?

Where can you surf your fav. pictures aka your fav. artists?

Don´t forget that you can see the latest works of your aded artists at your HOME page, at the bottom.

Hope I at least helped one of you with my pixiv guides :)

It´s likely that there will be more pixiv posts in the future, not about navigation and that, but featuring artists and showing samples.

Figure Review: Fuura Kafuka+Kitsu Chiri

2010-06-13T10:07:00.002+02:00

Name: Fuura Kafuka and Kitsu Chiri
from (series): Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Manufacture: Pair-Dot
Scale: None (both ~ 16cm)

Todays review is about two lovely girls from one of my favourite animes Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. It is a very funny series, though the way the story is telled and the art-style may not be the taste of everyone.
Kafuka is a exceedingly optimistic character and Chiri demands all things in her life to be precise, equal and conforming. They both visit the same class, teached by "Mr. Despair" Nozomu Itoshiki. The anime is quite absurd and got alot of slapstick.

Somehow I did not manage to take a pic where they look at each other..
I later made one of them when they stand in my showcase, and had more luck:

The bench and the poles are nicely done, but very fragile. (As you can see the ropes are thin, hard plastic and not soft PVC, same for the leaves.)
I wonder whats written on the papers.

Here a close up of the Itoshiki doll. I love the idea of including this with the figures XD It resembles the "spirit" of the series quite well. However, his rope is very fragile, be careful. I broke mine :(
It seems I managed to glue it somehow, but I am only waiting for it to fall down..

Since the manufacture of this two was not known to me before I was unsure what will await me. I have to say I am happy that I gave it a try.
The main attraction of this two, at least for me, was that they wear Kimonos. Strangely not many figures wear traditional japanese clothing, I really wonder why.

As you should be able to tell from the pictures (click for biger images) the kimonos are nicely done. However, Pair-Dot is no Alter, so don´t have to high expectations.
For example; there is no real shading on the clothing. However that is no big deal since with its folds the clothing still creates a dimensional look. There also are not much of the details a manufacture like Alter would have ad; eg no paint on their nails.

Beside that I can also spot the one or other flaw, but I had to look close. Thanks to the folds and natural seam lines of the kimonos the production seam lines almost vanish. And don´t get me wrong, it is not like they got many flaws, just some. I would say not more than your averrage Kotobukiya figure, maybe even less.
The plastic they used is nice, not shiny or cheap looking. If something to complain here it would be that it is very stiff. (like already said that leads to easy breaking of the thin parts. Though the two girls themself aren´t affected)

I love how good they pinned down the kimonos. The patterns, the colours, the getas (their shoes) and the Obis (the ribbons around their chest).

Beside the surprisingly good quality they also did a good job at catching the characters. The poses fit their personalities; Kafuka joyful and open, Chiri straight and closed.
They also have the same elements of the art-style the anime has. Long necks, big ears, pointy nose + chin.

Overall I really like this two. They are a liitle bit small, but very lovely done.
If you are a fan either of the series or traditional japanese clothing Kafuka and Chiri won´t disapoint you.

Birthday Loot

2010-06-08T18:34:00.001+02:00

Can´t believe I am already turning 22 today. Time sure is running quickly.

As you can see I got quite some stuff^^
However, they are more like a present to myself. I mostly got money for my birthday. (My parents know I will be happiest when to decide what stuff to buy myself, or better said they do not know what they should buy so they leave that decision to me)
I just went and orderd some stuff from Archonia, so that it will arrive today. Some preorders of me happend to be available too.

From left to right:
One Piece - Strong World Zoro (MegaHouse)
Queen´s Blade Rebellion - Ymir (MegaHouse)
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei - Kafuka+Chiri (PairDot)
Urusei Yatsura - Figma Lum (MaxFactory)
Vocaloid - Miku (SEGA)
And a small Ace figure aswell as 4 blind boxes of Spice and Wolf tradings. I happend to get the secret :P

Zoro and Ymir are typicall, very good quality, MegaHouse figures. Lum-chan is nice, she will definitly be one of my favourite figma. The Sayonara Z S ones are better than I thought, however the used PVC is very fragile. I broke Itoshikis rope :(

Btw; I think this bathroom window may become my favourite place for taking pictures. Natural lighting seems to be good there and it makes a keen background.

Since this is some kind of loot post I want to mention that recently two other figures arrived too:
Touhou Project - Eirin (Griffon)
Odin Sphere - Velvet (Yamato)

Both a very nice buy.

So, I am looking forward to another year full of figures, real life adventures and whatever to come. Since I soon will have to find a real job (at the moment still in trainig) it may get a though year.

Collection Shots 2

2010-06-01T19:04:00.001+02:00

Here come the pictures for my bigger showcase. There is also non-manga/anime stuff in there, as you will see.

Below the glas-part there are also some shutters, but I didn´t take pictures of them.

Tons of Nendo petits. And yes they are standing on an empty Nespresso box. - what else XD
LOL when looking where to put my new Shana I came up with the idea of letting her ride an animal. Was quite surprised that it worked out so well. Sitting on it as if it was made for that purpose.
And Jun-chan!! I looove this figure. It´s the most perverted male figure I own XD

The two drossels are cute together :3 (bought the smaller one so that drossel-figma has someone to tease)
Let´s play a game - who can spot the two traps ?

Gorgerous wooden dragon, a present from my aunt. Also gorgerous; my Raquel Gathering.
One more game; spot Garfield XD nice place to relax XD

Not many figures at the bottom. Took me ages to make Marisa fly like that. (kept falling down all the time)
The picture behind them is self-painted :)
And that dagger reminds me of The Little Mermaid.

Too bad I do not have more room. Still better than nothing I guess :D

Collection Shots 1

2010-06-01T18:20:00.001+02:00

Yesterday I finally got a second showcase. So I thought it is time to show my collection around^^
Though, sadly, still not all my figures are on display. To few space :(

Since my room at home is only 12m² big I only had room for smaller showcases. I am still surprised the second one (white one) even fit in..
Now, if I want more space, I will have to move out..

About the showcases: larger one 190x71x34 / smaller one 200x40x28 Billy from Ikea
(other one is already quite old..don´t remeber where I bought it.)

Since there are a lot of pictures I splitted them into 2 posts. This one is for the new showcase^^

Still not decided what to put in at the buttom..most likely I will fill it up with Mangas.

Close-ups:

Gwens wings are soo big, taking away a lot of space >.< Oh, and Velvet is a beautiful figure.

My One Piece Collection. I love them. give me more Male figures ^-^

Finally a good place to show-off the Miku. And I still can´t believe that Rei is a Kotobukiya figure, her quality is very good.

I own far to many Nendos..have to think out some staircase-system.

And below them some stuffed fellows:

Behind Hitsugaya a Mokona is hiding. Isn´t that Stitch plush super-cute? I really like it.
The pink bunny resembles Honeys in Ouran HighSchool HostClub and also the one from Gravitation.

Pictures of the bigger showcase in the second post.

Fun with Nendos 5

2010-05-29T14:07:00.001+02:00

Here come the very last Nendo pictures from my shooting some time ago. After them I will have to make some new ones :D

NEVER mess with Shana-Lily

By far my favourite shot of all from my Nendo shoots. I always have to smile when looking at it XD It´s also the bloodiest picture of the bunch :)

Tadaa! Magical -leek sprouding!

*sparkle!*..WTF..!?

I first did not like this one so much, but now I think it is very sweet. Rasp-chan gives her meal to Voca-sensei :)

Those green backgrounds suck..XD ok, my own fault I believe..
Really need to find better background next time.

Figure Review: Neliel from Bleach

2010-05-10T18:03:00.001+02:00

Name: Neliel tu Oderschvank

from (series): Bleach

Manufacture: Alpha x Omega (Alter+Megahouse)

Scale: 1/8

I really love Nel in the Bleach series. Normally I am not into big-breasts girls, but I will make an exception for her^^

I really love the close up at the beginning of this post, though you can see there that her boobs really are hilarious big XD Still they look more realistic on her than you would think. It may be because of the fact she also has wide hips and her overall appearance is curvy enough to explain them.

If you would ask me to tell you something bad about this figure you would give me a hard time.
Colouring is superb (lovely shading done with her skin) and I can´t spot any flaws.

I guess, maybe, her pose still looks a bit strange to me, but I am getting used to it. Beside that I also needed some time to be ok with her hair, since I felt it to be a bit too blue and too much floating in mid-air. Also her skull is smaller than I would liked it to be.

That are just some very small things that bugged me at first, but when I look at this picture I can only be stunned:

I sooo love her face.
I really was lucky with this shot. Didn´t thought it will look this good. It seems I caught a quite cool expression on her face that I did not notice before. Seems it make a difference if you take lower or higher angle shots of her face.

Sculpture is also very good, and as you can see they also did not forget about details, like the "3" on her back.
Oh, and in case you wonder; her pants are white. They are very easy to spot thanks to her *ähem* short outfit.

(This time the pictures are a bit big, but I was too lazy to make them smaller..*cough* forget to make.. *cough*)

Pixiv IDs of well known artists

2010-04-29T18:20:00.004+02:00

As I already told you there are many well known artists on pixiv. Some well known because of Artbooks or Doujinshis, and other because of the sheer amount of their images floating around the internet.
You just need to search for them. Or have the luck too stumble across them, like I had with some.

Yesterday I accidently came across a side which offered a wiki of artists, and with it also, if available, the pixiv link to the artists.
Thought I should share some with you. and if only to make your mouth watered :D
Link is always like this: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?id=.....

Bellow I give you the IDs, you then just have to copy&paste them in the .... part at the end of above link-form. So I do not have to make so much links *hehe*

Beforehand: Please don´t forget to log in on pixiv! If you do not already made an account, but have interest to do so now, check out my pixiv guides. (How to get started on pixiv)

Here some big names:

Ashito Oyari (Little Witch) id=13135
Blade id=72357
Carnelian id=60274
KEI id=4088
Kaori Minakami id=285506
Goto-P id=667250
Koge Donbo id=106417
Huke id=9794
Hato Rami id=209075
Nao Gotoh id=505278

These ones will more likely only be known by those who really are into Illustrations and the like (mostly Doujinshi artists):

H2SO4 id=60263 (opening picture to this post from there)
Redjuice id=3446
Dmyo id=28701 (circle Snow Ring)
Sakurazawa Izumi id=125969 (circle Chronolog)
TNSK (circle Chroma of wall) id=74093
Kantoku id=1565632
Cuteg id=103130
Vofan id=51536
Seneka Alto (part of Venom) id=192571
Nardack id=341433
Tearfish id=84644 (did the cover for the pixiv girls artbook)

Some I did not hear of before and so cannot really tell if they already are well known:
Shingo id=6527 (circle Missing link)
Akira Sakuragi id=149758 (circle CherryBerry)
Kazumi (circle Plastic Moon) id=999031

and tons of others I do not like so much and because of that skipped..or simply did not find up to now >.<
As already said also many artists up there which seem to not be professionals and still draw very lovely. But I think that´s enough IDs for now^^<

Pixiv - Bookmarking of Pictures+Artists

2010-04-25T15:12:00.001+02:00

Now let´s try to bookmark an Illustration!

Search for a picture you like and click on it.

Marked with green: Description+title of the image aswell as (in blue) tags of this image.
To view in full size click on the picture. You are also able to save it to your computer, if you like to.
You are also able to leave comments to a picture and to rate it. But that is definitly not a feature made for us non-japanese..

Red arrow: This is the Bookmark button. Try to remember that!

Click it. your computer (may) now need some time.

In the form that shows up you now are able to decide if you want to let everyone see that you bookmarked this picture, or to hide it. (useful if you bookmark dirty stuff I suggest..)
You see the checkbox?
The already checked option is VISIBLE and the other one HIDE. Choose as you like and hit the botton at the end of the form.

Congratulation! You now have a bookmarked picture XD

I heard it´s also possible to give tags to your bookmarked pictures, to make it easier to surf through them once you got many. Still have to try that myself.. I will make an extra post for advanced stuff maybe :P
(before that, I will have to figure stuff out for myslef XD)

To go back you can use the BACK button of your browser or click on the navigation button that brings you back to the artists.

So - now you got a bookmarked pic, but where can you see it?
1. make sure you are not at an artists page/picture.
2. if you still remember, you now have to click the 4. (ブックマーク管理) in your navigation.

Here are my bookmarked Illustrations^^
1: Here you can decide if you want to view your to everyone VISIBLE bookmarks ore the ones you choosed to HIDE
2: This decides the order of your pictures, "Newest at first and older at the back" is choosen. change as you wish.

How to bookmark an artist:

When looking at a picture: On the left you can see the avatar of the Artist. If you are interested in seeing more from him/her just click on it and you will be linked to his/her home.
Artists Home: At the top you can see his/her images. Click on the blue もっと見る link to see more pictures. (もっと見る means SEE MORE, highly recommended to remember that one, since it shows up alot on pixiv!)

You can also see basic information and HP adress on an artists page, when you scroll down.

When on artists HOME click on 5. in your navigation (as described in the navigation post): お気に入りに追加
Now you are asked if you want to make it VISIBLE or HIDE that you added this artist. (works the same as with the pictures) Don´t forget to click the button :) maybe your browser needs his time loading here..at least mine does..
Now you get the info that the artist was bookmarked and you also got to see an advertisement. just ignore^^

How to browse your bookmarked artists:
Go to your Home.
Your bookmarked artists are hidden at the left, beneath your nickname+avatar field.

To see more click the link. (see red arrow)
In the middle of your HOME their are also tons of tags..

For managing your bookmarked artists: you again can choose to view the visible or the hiden ones.

As for how to delete bookmarked pictures/artists, I still need to find out myself ^^"
Will post it when I know it.

Anything left you need to know?..*hmmm*
Maybe I should also write about the Rankings you can see when at your HOME.
Scroll down and look at the right of the site; their are:
Daily Ranking
Ranking of new Illus.
Weekly Ranking
Monthly Ranking

And here we have again もっと見る (=see more). Click and have fun surfing^^
Actually surfing the rankings is nice, since this all is good stuff mostly. On your R18 site you will also find Ratings.

How to navigate through pixiv

2010-04-25T14:53:00.004+02:00

Welcome to part three of my Pixiv introduction.After some basic talk and a tutorial how you can make an acount, we now are ready for discovering pixiv.

First log in.(Orange field on the top left, if you remember)
You can either click on the provided button, or just hit your ENTER button.
What you see now is your "Home". When you are searching around and want to get back to your Home you can click on the PIXIV writting (see arrow on screenshot) or click ホーム (is read : ho-mu; you get the idea^^). You can find the link to your Home at the top navigation and also in the second navigation. (see screenshot)

As you also can see there are lots of advertisings around. >.<

Let´s start with the top navigation. It is permanent, means it stays the same wherever on pixiv you are surfing around.
1: We already know this is our link HOME
2: HELP ; seems to be the FAQ page if you ask me. though everything Japanese here, except for the site policy.
3: USER SEARCH as the names says this lead you to a form where you can type in a name and search for this user. More about this at the end of the post.
4: You do not have this in your navigation? No panic. If you want to be able to see the R18 stuff you need to check that in your preferences.
If you are underage I don´t think you will be able to do so I believe. For everyone who wants to see the R18 stuff:
go to http://www.pixiv.net/edit.php (make sure you are loged in) and change the last option (年齢制限作品) from "表示しない" to "表示する" and click on the button.

I think it´s great that pixiv gives a seperated R18 area instead of mixing everything together.
If from now on you want to see the "dirty stuff " (or what is taged as it; also some non R18 in my eyes..) you just have to click on the number 4. in your navigation. To leave the R18 area click HOME.

5. As we know this is LOGOUT

The two in black circles are not interesting for us.The green border shows you the SEARCH mask. More about the search another time. Some tips can be found in my first pixiv post.
-------------------------------------------------

Next up is the second navigation. It is not permanent; depending on if you are at your HOME our clicked on a picture/artist, your options will change.
Here what you can do when at HOME:

1: HOME, we already know that.
2: "Upload an Illustration". Not interesting for us.
3: "Manage your Illustrations". Also not interesting for us.
4: BOOKMARKED Illus. With this you can browse through your bookmarked pictures. Very important^^
With this you can make yourself an online gallery consisting of only stuff you like. How to bookmark Illustrations and how to manage them, I will cover later.
5: Not sure, but seems to be a Messenger system. Something like community-mails or so.
6: "Modification of setting": here is where we before changed your R18 setting.

This second navigation changes when you click on a picture. It now gives you new options:

1: TOP brings you back to artists home while browsing his stuff.
2: "Browse through the artists work" opens artists gallery
3: Surf through the pictures this artist bookmarked.
4: Sent him/her message. Not interesting for us.
5: Very important. お気に入りに追加
"Add this artist to your watchlist" is how I would describe it. When you have artists added you can see their newest work at your HOME. You have to scroll down, and it´s the pics you see in the middle at the bottom of the page. (the ones at the middle top still are the recent work of everyone.) I would recommend to remember the 入 which means something like "person"/human/people; this will make it easier to remember what button to click. Just remember that it´s right at the middle of a quite long un-readable word XD
The exact way of adding artists and pictures will get some extra space later^^

6: Add User to MyPixiv. Is something like "befriend this user" I would recommend not to try that, since you will have to type a message to the one you want to add, and it´s likely it should be in Japanese. So better not click >.<

Translation of all the Japanese characters - thanks to bablefish. It´s a very good translator, use it now and then^^

---- For the moment please go back to your HOME ----

more about USER SEARCH: (number 3. in your top navigation)
In case you know the name of an artist on pixiv you have the possibility to directly search for him/her here. However, be aware the name which an artist uses on his publications does not have to be the same one he uses here!
I think there is also possibility to search for ID, (for example ID are provided in the Pixiv Artbooks), but I still did not tried that. First would need an ID to try with :3
Will try it out sometime and then post about it. (still so many stuff on pixiv I can´t handle >.<)

Type in the artists name as the arrow shows. Then click button.
To try it out: Cuteg is a very well known Doujinshi artists and also has an acount with the same name on pixiv.
Click on his avatar to access his page. (Sometimes there can be more than one hit for a name.)

----------------------------------------
Since bookmarking of Artists and pictures and managing your bookmarks is the main feature of pixiv for non artists (at least in my eyes.), I will give it an extra post.

(picture by 鼻血)

Since this tutorial is very hard work, why don´t you take a break? Relax. Eat something. Put a carbage-can on your friends head..

How to get started on pixiv

2010-04-25T13:12:00.003+02:00

First you need the link to pixiv, won´t you? Click the picture for getting one with pixiv!

(LOL this pic is priceless XD .."Fusion"XD..it´s imitating Dragonball, of course. by artist 幸葱)

I would recommend you to have a look before reading on, so you will get a better idea of what I am talking about. For easier understanding I will also provide screenshots.

1. Follow my link^^

Here is what the page should look like for you. The pictures are always showing off the newest Artwork of the community. For the moment we will concentrate on the login-field on the left. You see the small arrow? (if not, please visit your eye specialist :P)
Click on this button.

2. Pixiv now asks for your e-mail adress:

Just type it in and click on the yellow button.
Now pixiv will ask to confirm it. Right button is YES and left one NO.
After that you have to go to your email acount and look if you got the pixiv notification. In case it isn´t there check the spam mails. I remember also reading some hotmail acounts may not be valid for pixiv. So, if it do not work, think about just making a new email acount somewhere else. As for me, gmx works fine.

3. Follow the link in the mail they send you. This now leads you to your profile you will have to fill in:

The thick, black stripe is where you will see your email adress.

pixiv ID: 3 - 32 characters long, alphanumeric characters, hyphens and underscores only. Uppercase characters will be converted to lowercase. You cannot begin or end the ID with hyphens or underscores.
パスワード (Password): 6 to 32 characters long. Fill in both with the same password.
ニックネーム (Nickname): The name others will see you as. 15 characters max.
HPアドレス: your Homepage adress, but this is more meant for Illustartors sites. So better keep your blog out of that..

The next 6 offer dropdown-boxes to the right where you can choose what people will be able to see when they look at your profile.
First one means: Everyone can see this
Second: Only people who are registered at pixiv can see this
Last one: No one can see this information

I went for the last one most of the time..

Close up of the left side of the 6 things we still need to fill in.

性別 (Gender): 男 (Male) or 女 (Female)
血液型 (Blood type): did not even know mine XD
住所 (Address): Last option, 海外 means Foreign. As long as you do not live in Japan go for that one^^
誕生日 (Date of birth): Fill in first the month (1-12) and behind that you got the day to choose.
職業 (Occupation): Last one means "Something else". Just choose this one, or translate the whole stuff if you are able too..

自己紹介 (Self introduction): To be able to register you HAVE to type something here. Doesn´t really matter what and do not have to be in japanese :)

(translation of the japanese characters of all above taken from this guide, I would not be able to know >.<)

..Funny, the site policy is in English XD but no fill-in help in english XD
Hope I do not hurt the policy when I am posting pixiv pictures, like in the last post? I gave credit, so it should be ok. Already saw many pixiv pics on the net without any credits..What do you think?

Done filling in? Then click on the button to complete.

Congratulations, now you can log in with your ID + password and browse through pixiv!

To log out click on ログアウ on the very top right. (see screenshot)
Would recommend you to remember that^^ (when clicked pixiv asks you if you really want to leave; just click OK)

And for the sake of making you able to actually do anything on pixiv; look forward to my "How to actually be able to navigate through pixiv" post. Stay tuned!

This time proudly presented by Pikachu. Nothing working better against a dumb face than adding a pikachu.

(picture by ミネ)

The promised land for fans of Japanese artists - Pixiv

2010-04-24T16:54:00.001+02:00

Recently I read a lot about something called "pixiv". It´s said to be a great place with tons of Illustrations and many well known artists around. When I heard more and more people talking about it I finally wanted to see for myself.
As someone who loved Artbook since a long time, it seems I found something like the biggest Online-Artbook you can think of.

However, Pixiv may not be interesting for all of you. I guess figure lovers give a damn about it :)
Online archives with tons of Illustrations are simply not something everyone likes.

For myself I have to say I prefer my Artwork in printed form. No online high-resolution pic could keep me from buying the actual book, since the printed stuff looks the best to me most of the time. (maybe except for very pixelated printing)

Still, there are many artists where collecting their printed works would be very expensive. Even more since many good artists only release Doujinshis. :(
And do not forget all the great artists who still did not printed anything! All the artists only drawing 1-3 pictures for magazines! Or the Chinese artists, some already very famous on the internet, but a pain in the butt to get hold of a book of them. For example Nardack, Illustrator of the opening picture of this post.

I won´t say the good ones are all on pixiv. But there are many.
Expecially from the "fanwork for different series" department. Not all professionals, but who cares. Big Names also started at the bottom.

Of course there is also lot of "trash" up there, since everyone can just go there and upload their work. Though I think not everyone thinks of the same stuff as trash (that´s why there are ""). It´s just..let´s say quality/style of the Illustrations there vary a lot.

Through pixiv I even learned about a series I had not known of before and which I really like now. Durarara!!
It seems to be very popular at the monet since there is a lot of, quite good, artwork for it up there.
(this sample is by Java)

There is also lots of R18 stuff up there. Sometimes not deserving the "18" tag and sometimes really Hardcore stuff. Hentai aswell as lots of Yaoi stuff. And not only single Illustrations but also short-comics, b/w and colour.
You are more into the funny stuff? No problem. Like artist "コニー楊" shows us here you will find on pixiv whatever you wish for. (at least I found this pic to be hilarious XD he is like "wordless fear", don´t you agree? XD)

All this sounds like paradise to you? And you are sure there has to be a catch?

Sadly yes, you are right. A pretty big one, as long as you not happen to be a Japanese native speaker or have some basic Japanese knowledge.
I think you got it with that. However, I will write it down in clear words: The whole pixiv community is in Japanese. and only japanese. So, not even a main-navigation in english..
There is one small exception to that; since all artists can give tags to their work like they feel like you have good chance of finding roman letters in the SEARCH field.
Even more since there are also artists that are not japanese, and decide to give a romaji tag to their pics.
For example: searching for Vocaloid will give you even more pics then searchin for ボーカロイド. This is because the romaji are more often used in this case.

And no, I cannot speak or understand japanese >.< I once had a course for basic japanese and while I didn´t learn enough to understand I learned to read Hiragana and Katakana. As you may now, this are only the simplest japanese characters so I can´t use it to be able to read anything. Maybe beside the moaning sounds in Hentai mangas XD (n and aa are not that hard to memorize XD)
However, I also already forget many of the characters..and as written above be able to read a character does not mean to be able to get the meaning of the word.

Still I have to admit that minimal basic knowledge, while not helping with the side itself, helps with the SEARCH.
When I want to search for a certain series, let´s say above mentioned Vocaloid, I choose the following helpful tricks:

1. Just search for the roman-letters. Then look through the tags pixiv is suggesting you to maybe be also interested in. (It´s possible they are just similar search tags that people who searched the same as you liked..or whatever.)
And now guess. Look through the tags and make a guess which one could be the series name. Since I can read the one or other letter here I have it easier to guess. Still most of the time I just click on a tag to see what kind of pictures show up and then decide if I may have clicked the right one XD
May sound idiotic, but works very well.
Also works through using tags above pictures; eg you found a pic of Miku by accident or roman-letter search and then look through this pictures tags, and you should be able to find the one leading you to tons of Miku based Illustrations.

2. Use sites that give you the roman-letters and the japanese characters. For example wikipedia often listens both. I also use benippon since they write the series name in japanese often.

3. Buy books like "Pixiv girls" to get the ID numbers of artists you like. (I still have to buy >.<)

4. Browse around without any specific tags. Found a lot of nice stuff with that. Though you will never admire to browse through all illustrations on pixiv. That I can guaranty.

OK, now that´s more than enough talk. Or, to be honest it is only the beginning. There is one big catch I didn´t mention up to now - a catch making it hard for non japanese like us.

To be able to surf through pixiv you have to make an acount!

Not a big deal in itself; you have to make an acount everywhere nowadays. But have you ever made one in a japanese form?
I think you know the biggest problem now.
With the help of a guide and a youtube video I found on the internet I was able to register at least.
Still I was very afraid of clicking on the wrong buttons on pixiv since the guide does not describe everything >.<

As for you - you got luck. Stay tuned for my "How to get started on pixiv" post.
Highly recommended by Seto Kaiba XD (pic by Yomogi)

Figure Review: Flandre Scarlet

2010-04-24T14:04:00.004+02:00

Name: Sister of the Devil - Flandre Scarlet
from (series): the doujin danmaku shooting game series Touhou Project
Manufacture: Griffon Enterprises
Scale: 1/8

I have talked a lot about my dislikes for Griffon on my posts for Remilia and Scarlet and even made an own post where I sum up the stuff I don´t like about this manufacture.
As for Flandre; she far exceed my expectations.

There are almost no flaws, and those there (like one between her hair at the back) are so small you have to search for them. Her skin tone is also far more nice and actually looking like flesh, than compared to what I am used from Griffon.
The pose is not overly exciting, but it has it charm and at least give her some movement which also let the "floating dress look" appear less hilarious than on the other Touhou girls. This bow-thing is a nice touch too.

Of course the highlight of this figure are her wings. I was surprised of how well they came out. On the picture below I hold her against the light, so that you are able to see them better.We also had a just beautiful blue sky when I took the picture. However, because of the against the light shooting the figure itself looks blurred. sorry >.<

Apart from the wings I have to admit I really love her face. The small vampire like tooth is just too cute. As for her hair, I like the curly look of them.

So what´s with the over-shading Griffon celebrates on the Touhou figures (at least in my opinion)?
The prototyp white parts of her clothes are now pink, so I would assume they again meant it too good in this department. However the colouring suits her and the almost blood-red of her dress is perfect fitting. So no real complaints from me.

If there is one typical Griffon issue disturbing me in her case it would be the base. Same base like every Griffon figure. Not much creativity here.

Tried some shoots with her box-background.

I really like all this frills and ribbons and the soppy hats of the Touhou stuff XD
Honestly. Biggest reason why I bought them contrary to my Griffon dislike.

Somehow the side shoots are very blurred. Blame my digital camera..

And to end it, the obligatory pantsu-shot. Not much to see here though^^ At least her pants remained white. (Youmu has almost grey pants because of shading XD)

Because Griffon is re-releasing all their Touhou figures Flandre is still available at amiami! I can really recommend her. So if you have interest grab her before she is sold out.

Fun with Nendos 4

2010-04-24T12:43:00.001+02:00

Ok, what can I say..sorry for posting so few stuff >.<
I already have taken pictures of my new Touhou-Flandre and I hope to do her review on this weekend. So just take this Nendo shots as an appetizer^^
There are still from the same Nendo-photoshooting like the other three XD But, hey, at least it gives me stuff to post XD

The meat in the bubble was hard to do..

LOL I just can´t stop using Als dress for this kind of "what have you done to me" stuff.

This one is kind of dumb..

Mikus eybrows don´t fit in >.<

And one more Al. I tried to get an angle where it looks like she is taking a bite out of the meat. I think I managed it.

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T10:34:00.001+02:00

I wish Happy Easter to all of you! May your day be filled with chocolate-bunnys^^

Ich wünsch euch allen Frohe Ostern!

幸せなイースター

little extra for those with humor:(and those who clicked on "read more" XD )

Figure Review: Toushiro Hitsugaya

2010-04-03T16:50:00.002+02:00

Name: Toushiro Hitsugaya - GEM Series
from (series): Bleach
Manufacture: Mega House
Scale: 1/8
Finally a review for a figure I purchased recently, and not an old one :-)
Got him last week. (yes, I know he was released earlier , but I ordered him through an EU-shop, so he took his time)

I have very divided feelings about this figure; I love Shiro-chan *hehe* in the series. He is one of my all time favourites even when compared to other series I watch/ed. So of course I am more than happy to see him getting the PVC figure treatment, and not from some cheap so-so factory, but from Mega House. And we cannot overlook how rarely we see male figures in general.

That was one side. On the other I really hate his pose >.<
It´s ok from his head till down to his hips, but everything below looks hilarious to me.. I can´t help it. The way he is standing, with the knees pointing forward and feet standing far from each other he really looks strange. Together with his spiky hair and the pose of his hand he somehow looks like a Saiyajin to me..
Strangely this dislike is mitigated when I put his captain-coat of. (Yes, you can do that. You even need to, if you want to remove the plastic between his "body" and the coat.)

However, let´s talk about quality. When looking around Toushiro you won´t find much to talk bad about. Very good painjob for every part of him. I love his face (the eyes are great), they really managed to capture his character. (I`m talking about the face, lower-body pose still sucks =.=) They also choosed a very nice blue-white mix for his hair. I was also amazed by how close his sword is to the original one in Bleach.

I really wish I would had some ice for the figure-shots >.< or at least some snow..

While the most part of the figure is flawless the coat has some. And not only that but it already has black colour-marks here and there. I really recommend you to be very careful with the cloak since it really seems to attract dirt, and the black colour of Toushiros outfit is so easily besmirching it. At the same time colour of the coat seems to also like to make marks on the black clothing.. (be careful when taking his arms of!)

Despite of the problems with his coat I still will keep it on the figure. A captain needs his coat^^

I hope you enjoyed my first review of a male figure. I just wished I would be better at taking figure-pictures >.<
So, for the end of this post how about some random Hitsugaya-pic?

He is cute when he is pissed :3 and he is always pissed XD "Matsumoto!" (god, how I love those two^^)

Fun with Nendos 3

2010-03-28T10:11:00.001+02:00

Not much to say^^
maybe only that, of course, you should not steal any of my Nendo-pictures. Though I allow usage if you give credit and link back. thank you.

love this one. it´s so cute :3

A little strip made with Miku. she can be quite scary.. No one can resist the bloodthirst!

another combination I like a lot. looks a little bit like a magical girl^^
also, an other time where I have been surprised by how nice some Nendo parts go together.
this one consists of: Vocaloid Rin Head+face, Louise body, Al Azif arms and Kokonoe Rins feet.
Great how the ribbon on her head fits with the dress O.o

and more mixes. they are a good example for stuff that doesn´t go nice together >.<

Shakugan no Al..

the ordinary witch Al (this hat-thing of Al is fitting with many stuff XD)

So, enough for the moment. I still have some left. (yes, I had gone crazy XD)

Fun with Nendos 2

2010-03-23T13:58:00.002+01:00

Hello^^ welcome to part 2 of Nendo pics, enjoy.

just some random smiling nendos^^ they look like they are having fun..
Saber Rin looks surprisingly cute.

He is dead now. no chance for surviving.
should have been more careful with the wand..
also; Shanas red hair go well with the ribbons on Als dress O.o

NEVER dare to eat Shanas melonpan!

Fun with Nendos 1

2010-03-21T17:42:00.002+01:00

At the moment I am working on some cute and/or funny Nendoroid shots I made today. Still need to correct them here and there (light etc). However some are done, so enjoy^^
I also uploaded them to tsukiboard. I guess it may be nicer to view them there, since it´s a gallery and you do not have to scroll around, like here in my post^^

LOL after making this picture I realized that the Shanamix is looking like calling out a Pokémon XD (and yes, it´s supposed to look like she is calling it out from the book)
The effects were fun to add :)
In case you wonder: Shanas feet are from Kokonoe Rin, not Rasperyl. and it looks surprisingly good.

Her comes colourful Sebi! Sadly Rasperyls hairpart does not really connect to Sebis hair; kept falling of all the time >.<

Face is from Kokonoe Rin Nendo.

The Shana/Rasperyl/Rin combi looked nice, so I took another shoot^^
and then of course one with black-haired Shana:

XD

More to come! (at the moment to exhausted from taking pictures the whole evening..)

Spring is comming!

2010-03-19T15:43:00.000+01:00

Finally Spring is comming! I am very happy to see some sun after all that snow and the cold weather.

I really like the first days with sun after a cold winter the best^^
So I will try to catch some sun now, before it gets too hot XD
(don´t you hate that too? first too cold than it´s too hot..I really like the middle-thing the best)

So, not much more to say in this "hello Mr. Spring" post.

..
hmm..I also want to tell you to watch Hetalia Axis power, it´s very funny ;)
may try to write a little post about it.

Poll result

2010-03-12T14:19:00.000+01:00

My poll is over now. I got a total of 5 votes, that´s 2 more than with my last pollXD
Thank you all^^ Especially the one who rated "I love it", thank you :-)

It seems like I can leave the site this way now.

By the way, in case you come across any non working links or other problems on my site or you just want to give feedback do not hesitate to leave a comment.
gimme comments pls >.<

Shop Experiences: Otaku.com

2010-03-10T16:57:00.022+01:00

I recently ordered at this shop, so I choosed it to be the first one to get a feedback by me.
First thing to say is that they got two sites at the moment; otaku.com and a beta version.
I highly recommend to shop via the beta version since the original site is confusing. To be honest I already stumbled over this site years ago, but I forgot about it soon, because I wasn´t abe to navigate their site properly.
However, the beta site is structured a lot better. You have a side bar for easier browsing and also a search field that is doing it´s job very well. I also like the white background more than the dark colours of the normal site. A good thing is that you can not only view their beta-site, but you can order through it and that´s making it easier...

...is settled in Japan and is mostly selling CDs and Artbooks.

My order consisted of three Artbooks: Backgammon2, La Partita and Tony´s Ciel.

I manly made this order for the Tony Artbook, because it was (and still is) selling like hot cake and I was afraid I may not be able to get a hold of one copy if I do not act fast. When I looked through the site to decide if I want some other Artbook too I came across the other two. Since La Partita is an old book and has become very rare and hard to get I was surprised to get it for a lousy 10$ (~7,5€). The Backgammon book cost me about the same. Ok, they both were pre-owned, but the site stated them as "very good condition" so I gave it a try. And they did not betray me. Both books in very good condition and a killing for that price.
With ~30$ I also paid a very good price for the Tony book. (Of course this one was not pre-owned)
They do not offer that good prices for all books, so I recommend to compare prices with other sites. (still most books have fair prices)

Now to my absolut highlight for otaku.com; their shipping price. I first could not believe it and till the moment I got my books was sure they would add some extra-cost, but they didn´t.
They ship Artbooks for 10$ for the first one and amazing 5$ for every other one. And that´s for insured, trackable, express shipping!
If you have experiences in ordering Artbooks I am sure you will find this prices ridiculous low. So did I. That´s why I was sure it cannot be true - but it was.

As for the ordering process: You first have to register on their site (nothing special, you have to do that in most shops..) Then you ad stuff to your basket. Payment has to be done with paypal; after your order you will be linked to a payment page and directed to your paypal account. So I may recommend to have the money you need for the order on your account. But that should not be so much of a problem.

After my order I got an order-confirmation mail, however as far as I remember one or two days after my order, but I am not sure >.< (I tell you this, because there are many shops where you get a confirmation immidiatly after your order)
The costumer service seems to be very nice, but since I did not came across any problems that I wrote to them about I cannot really tell.
I like the little "thank you"-card they added to my parcel, I really like it when shops to that^^ It´s not a big thing to write thank you on your invoice, but it´s a nice thing to do.

Shipping was fast. Now comes the only real complaint I have. Since they did not put bubble-wrap around the books and thanks to cruel handling by the post my books got their corners pressed. Also some pages got kinked edges. Nothing too bad, but it upset me and was the only flaw in a beside that perfect shopping-experience. I do not need over-protection, but one layer of bubble-wrap would have been a good idea.
I may ask them to ad some bubble-wrap when I make my next order with them.

Thankfully my books didn´t get catched by the costums. This thought is always hunting me when I order internationaly >.<

So, what´s my resume of this shop? I think you can guess by what I wrote, but it´s very positive. Ask them for bubble-wrap if you are sensitive about your stuff and everything should be fine^^

In case my experience with this shop is another one the next time I order there, I will be updating this post.

Frozen Thoughts

2010-03-10T15:52:00.000+01:00

Yes, I am still alive. However real life has been busy the last two weeks..
It also has gotten colder once more and it seems motivation for doing or writing anything is frozen because of that... I can´t believe it has been snowing all day..just when it looked like it will get warm soon =.=
I thought I would make some figure-shots, but the sky is grey all day, and I do not have good light-settings.

However, I also got news for my blog; I will start with a new category I will call "Shop Experiences".
Since I now how hard it can be to decide whether a shop is trustfull or not I decided that I want to share my experiences with different online-shops.

My what-I-need-to-buy WF 2010 list

2010-02-25T15:29:00.004+01:00

Okay, I am late on this..but I didn´t and still don´t plan to make a Wonderfestival coverage, so I wasn´t in a hurry^^
Like you can read in the title of this post this is my personal list of interesting figures from WF.

GoodSmileCompany
really will be sucking money out of my this year, like they done last year °-°"

Nendoroid Black Rock Shooter + Nendoroid Death Master (preview)

Nendoroid Hideyoshi (preview)

Death Master 1/8

Touhou Project - Nendoroid Petites (likely to be limited..)

Alter
very good News for everyone who was calling-out for more male figures. Very first male figures by Alter!
they also seem to want to start an own department for this called "Altair", similar to "Alpha&Omega"-colaboration for Bleach-figures with Megahouse.
However this department will be producing male figures only^^ very good news!

Natsume from Natsume Yuujin Chou (seems to be interesting, may start to watch the anime)

also looking very promising: Oboro Muramasa Yotoden -Momohime

MegaHouse
Queens Blade Rebellion -Ymir (looove the design)

Queens Blade Rebellion -Sai Nyan (the on ekneeling) *hihi* trap-desu (I hope he looks good coloured, at the moment I think the mouth looks a bit strange..)

Others

Griffon: Touhou Project -Eirin (should I buy her °~°)

Kotobukiya: Elwing from the Shining series. Already on preorder since some time, but too pretty to be left out)

MaxFactory: Figma Lum
I sooooooooo want them to make a Ranma!!!! I mean, they make a Lum and a Kagome -figma, so please gives as a Ranma too >.<

That´s most of the stuff that stand out to me. I am missing some figures that will come out soon, like Mercedes and Zorro.

I am also looking forward to all the figures OrchidSeed will be publishing..LOTS of ero figures, to ero to show here^^

There is also one thing that I really wonder; what happenend to the Ciel Nendoroid they showd as last WF?? I really want him..

If you want a complete coverage I recommend you Nekomagic, he/she(?) even made an impressive Index of all WF posts. (that´s where the link goes to)

Another blog-redesign

2010-02-21T16:00:00.003+01:00

A new try at finding a good combination of colours. Something is still not right.. Would be very thankfull if you tell me how the design works on you. Is it better than before? Can I leave it this way? Or should I try another one?

Please vote!

One more Cosplay picture

2010-02-21T11:58:00.005+01:00

I totally forgot to post this one^^
It´s the best Sesshomaru cosplay I can imagine XD very adorable XD

Again, all credits to http://kosupurei.blogspot.com/. pay them a visit if you like cosplay^^

Roar! + Cosplay thoughts

2010-02-20T15:09:00.012+01:00

Happy Year of the Tiger ! roar!
Ok, I am a bit late for that, but this tiger is just too cute^^ (found it on the main-page of HLJ some time ago)

Beside that nothing much to write about..I am not in the mood for figure reviews so you will have to wait a little bit longer for Youmu and Yuyuko review.

At the moment I am more and more interested into Cosplay. I didn´t cosplay up to now, but I want to try it this year. I will be going to a Con in Vienna (Aninite) and if everything is going well to a big one in Germany (Animagic) (both in August) and I want to cosplay at at least one of them.

Too bad I suck at sewing..
Lucky for me that my best friend seems to be a lot into that stuff and can´t wait till help making my cosplay. So, only problem left is to choose whom I want to cosplay. There are so many characters and shows I like and so many things to include in planning.

Will it be expensive?
Will I look good or at least acceptable in this outfit?
Do I need accessories, for example swords, for this cosplay?
Will it be hard to sew?
Is it comfortable to wear or will I sweat myself to death?

hmm..good that I still have time to decide :P
For my first take on cosplaying I don´t want something too complicated.
When I am through with collecting charas I want to cosplay I may post about my ideas.

I also looked through the internet (google pictures XD) for cosplays and found a nice site with lots of brilliant cosplay pictures. You can see that the Japanese are on a different level when it comes to that stuff, they made very professional photoshoots.

Here three examples I personally liked because of the well captured atmosphere:

Chihiro and Haku from Spirited Away. Lovely scene.

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei cast. I love this one XD

Impressive capture of the scene in the manga, where Sesshomaru decides to save Rins live. The background befits the atmosphere very well. wow.

I found the pictures here: http://kosupurei.blogspot.com/ and I give full credit to this site.
please go there for more information. please also take in mind that I do not claim any credits or copyright for this pictures, and that I am not the one who made them or one of the cosplayers!

Site update

2010-02-15T16:12:00.003+01:00

I launched a new extra-site for a detailed list of my Artbooks. It will help everyone to navigate through my Artbook Reviews. At the momentan it´s still under construction, but don´t hestitate to read whats already up. Link is right under my header.
Enjoy your stay^^

Figure Rewiew: Patchouli Knowledge (Touhou Project)

2010-02-11T13:00:00.000+01:00

Name: The Unmoving Great Library - Patchouli Knowledge
from (series): the doujin danmaku shooting game series Touhou Project
Manufacture: Griffon Enterprises
Scale: 1/8

Again a quite pink figure for my taste. With all the shading she is more on the violet side though. As I already said she is my favourite one of my 4 Touhou-figures.

I believe that is because of the fact that the movement on the clothes/the figure does not look so hilarious like on the others. Since the movement is not only reflected in her dress, but also in the pose of her whole body and also her hair it looks more natural. In difference to the other girls the floating of her dress is going fine with the pose and general look of the figure.
Let’s talk about flaws. Sadly Patchouli has quite a lot, especially on her coat. (You can easily spot a very big one on the left picture below, it is right under her hair)
Let´s talk about the book, it’s supposed to be resting under her arm, but the gap between body and arm is too big and so you have to trick to make it staying there.My personal highlight of Patchouli is her face. I can’t believe a Griffon face is this beautiful and cute. It’s crafted very lovely, with the little blush on her cheeks and the slightly opened mouth. I love her eyes, which is a big deal for me saying I hate most Griffon faces. She also has a well chosen skin colour and the PVC used does actually look nice.
Strangely even her shading looks much more accurate than on the others, still looking a bit odd, but ok.If there would not be the flaws and the big, typical black base I would not believe she was done by Griffon.
I should point out that the frills on her coat are quite thick, compared to GoodSmile or Alter. Like everything just looks thicker and less detailed than compared to good companies.
I would have liked her to have more ribbons on her coat and in exchange less flaws. XD

Despite of her pantsu you can also see how thick Griffon PVC actually is. (Look at her dress or the frills)

What the heck, I love her! Her face makes up for all her flaws. I wished Griffon had done so lovely with the other Touhou Figures.
In fact, since Patchouli and Remilia were released before Yuyuko and Youmu, I thought “hey, this two are nice sure the next ones will be even better”. I was sure Griffon would be improving their Touhou Figures, but instead the quality seems to vary between everyone. Too bad. A waste of the lovely character designs.

Random Nendo Fun

2010-02-06T14:10:00.017+01:00

When last week my new Marisa Nendoroid arrived I somehow ended with doing some random modifications of my Nendos.
At that moment I had the following Nendos at display: Louise, Rin Kokonoe, Rasperyll, Saber Lily, Sebastian and my new Marisa.
So I ended up with exchanging parts between them :) it´s a lot of fun, if you own Nendoroids yourself you have to try it.

Numbers are from left to right. I mixed up body+face+hair of the above 6 Nendos.
What I took are the Nendos the way they were displayed, so I did not extra changed facial-expression or body-pose just to make it look better. (in fact I was to lazy for that)
I had to made an exception for Rins face, because while it fits on other Nendos it somehow does not suit them. Looks horrible on most other Nendos. Really no clue how that come. So in exchange I decided to take both lovely faces of Marisa.

1: body of Rasperyll, hair of Louise, face of Sebastian
It looks hilarious, but I like it. It´s funny how well Sebastians face, and also his hair, go with girls^^. Louises hair goes very well with the pink in Rasperylls clothing, same for the black outlines of Sebastians eyes.

2: body of Saber Lily, hair of Rin, face of Marisa
Looks odd. Very odd. She became my "leftover-parts" creation.

3: body of Rin, hair of Rasperyll, face of Louise
It´s hard to believe how well this combo goes with each other. It looks like it was thought to be that way. The body pose and the facial-expression goes so well together.. I also like how the face goes so well together with the hair.

1: body of Louise, hair of Marisa, face of Saber Lily
What can I say. Looks lovely^^ Blonde hair+blue eyes+cute blush=win. Since Marisa and Louise are both magicians it suits her even more.

2: body of Marisa, hair of Sebastian, face of Rasperyll
Like I said, Sebastians hair is win. Goes very well with the black witch outfit. I really like the picture Rasperylls demon-ears give together with the witch-appearance.
Sadly Rasperylls face would not fit in other Nendos hair-part very well..

3: body of Sebastian, hair of Saber Lily, face of Marisa
Her black ribbon goes well with the suit. It seems I also was lucky with the pose of the hand, looks very sweet together with the smile on her face.

And as an extra at the end a picture of my new Death Note petits. As you can see I scipped on some of the petits (second Ryuk, Rem, second Misa and Watari)

I really like the way I exhibit them. I don´t know if you can tell, but I changed the faces of the two Ls and also those of Light. It really suits the whole scene.
The left scene is something like; L is watching Ryuk wondering what that thing may be while Light is coming at the back trying to behead him. To me this shows the scenario of the whole MangaXD Poor L try to figure out whats up while Light only think about killing him..
On the right something for us yaoi-fingirls^^ Since I changed the faces this looks even nicer. L is smiling while cute Light get caught in the chainXD So, I believe L would be the seme in my little diorama?

I have to say that while I don´t really like Misa in the Manga her Nendo is horrible cute. Did you know that her little puppet has its own base? XD It´s very small and looking like a little button.

I can´t wait to receive my Box of the 02 series.

The internet is dead, long live the internet!

2010-02-03T14:03:00.004+01:00

Sorry for not writing for so long. My internet-connection was broken for the last week. Now everything is working fine again. I will now work on the Touhou reviews. Should be up at latest at the weekend.

Figure Review: Remilia Scarlet (Touhou Project)

2010-01-19T18:33:00.023+01:00

Name: The Scarlet Devil- Remilia Scarlet
from (series): the doujin danmaku shooting game series Touhou Project
Manufacture: Griffon Enterprises
Scale: 1/8

I am not a fan of pink. Still I buy pink figures sometimes^^
I love her pose, and of course her wings which are the highlight of this figure.
Whatever to say about Griffon, the sculptor of the Touhou figures did a great job. They all got so a lovely design. (Ok, the design is taken from the games, but he did a good job at making it into figures)Let’s talk about her wings. While I like them I would have preferred the left and right side having the same size and the same gap to her head. Her left wing (from viewers sight) is a little bit bigger and it has less structure on it then the right one. This looks quite strange if you ask me, symmetry would have been nice. Also they seem to have an easy coming-off colour since there are some white scratches on them. (I am sure they are not by me)

Down from her wings to her head. She has got a very lovely face and her hair is done nicely with no too big flaw. When inspecting her while doing my review I recognized they also build her ears, despite the fact you cannot really see them when not searching for. Very nice.
I really like the hat. Together with the dress it has the look of clothing from long-ago times. (can’t describe it in another way XD) The hat has lots of folds, maybe I should have ad “too much folds” to my “what I don’t like about Griffon -list”^^
It is the same with the dress – lots of folds, that, of course, leads to lots of shading.
I think you can see the level of over-shading when looking at the colour difference of the top-part and the lower part of her dress. Knowing that the colour of the top is supposed to be the colour of her dress you can clearly see what I am talking about. The lower dress-part has far too much shading on it! In fact the regular colour of the dress just looks like light-highlight down there…

I like the frills at the ends of her dress. Still I have to say they are far too thick, especially at the front of the figure. You should be able to see that on the pictures.
Of course you also already noticed the floating-dress phenomenon. Maybe they are doing a Marilyn Monroe expression? XD

While Griffon PVC normally seems like crap to me, especially when looking at the skin of their figures Scarlet is doing fine. Indeed she got a very nice skin-tone.
On her dress there also is a white scratch (like on the wings) and some glossy-paint. I think these scratches are a result of the bad PVC quality; colour seems too easily come off.

When looking at her shoes or at her pants (long grandmother-pants XD) you can once again see over-shading. Both, shoes and pant, are far more grey than white. *sigh*

At the back of her dress she got a big ribbon. It ads to the “old-times dress” look. Very cute.

In the end I really like her. Good Smile would have done better, but she is still good.

The pre-talk 2: About Griffon

2010-01-17T15:33:00.011+01:00

With me in the situation to want to review 4 of Griffons Touhou Project Figures I recognized that I in fact got lots of things I don’t like on Griffon figures in general. So I decided to make this “pre-talk” in order to keep the reviews themselves free of too much talk about the manufacture.
I will also use this to talk about the 4 figures in general, e.g. compare them, tell you whom is my favourite, how I come to buy them and maybe about the phenomenon of Touhou itself.
I don’t like Griffon. If I would have to make a ranking of manufactures I would rank it below Kotobukiya. I think it’s above Taki, Banpresto and so on, but never will reach Good Smile and Alter.
You may say Kotobukiya isn’t better, but at least they
1. give you the figure you see on prototype-pictures
2. have a solid quality standard
3. price compared to quality is a fair deal
4. good shading and nice colours
5. and their figures look more lively.

With that I already give you the idea what I don’t like about Griffon. Let me describe it more detailed:

1. Never expect to get what you see on the proto-type pictures. The colours are sure to look different on the final product.

2. Expect some flaws on their figures (sometimes more or less bad)

3. The price of their figures is too high for my taste if compared to what quality they deliver.

4. All their figures got stiff and un-lively poses. Most of the time they are just standing straight without movement or motion. (or if there is it looks unnatural)
For me the strongest point why I hardly buy Griffon figures. For example look at the Touhou figures – all plain straight standing poses, and they are one of the better ones.

5. I got a dislike of the PVC they use. Its quality is a lot worse than Alter or Good Smile and it looks very plastic-like.

6. The eyes of their figures. Like said in 4. they are all starring straight at you and Griffon tries to make the gaze of their figures “moe”. But somehow that makes them looking dumb (to me).
With their eyes standing close together and their point of view leading at somewhere on to their own forehead they look as if they are squinting. (Yuyuko for example)
However I am sure that’s something not everyone agrees with me on.

7. The shading. I really don’t know why, but while most other companies dent to shade too little bit Griffon likes to over-shade. Maybe you will understand when you see Yuyuko. They used white to set light-highlights on her blue dress, but they over-did it and it’s now more looking like blue-white chess pattern. Griffon generally seems to don’t have a good colour choice when it comes to shading. To me it looks like they often take a too dark colour to shade something and then they shade and shade – and in the end white socks become grey ones.

8. Last but not least –the bases. Griffon figures all come with the same big, high, black base with the name of the character written on a shield. This may look nice when you own one Griffon figure, but it looks very boring when there are more. I recognized that issue with my Touhou figures, they take a lot of space because of the bases and them all having the same one looks so boring.
For example: Some time ago they released a swimsuit figure of Shokatsuryou Koumei from Ikki Tousen. You know what a base she got? Yepp. You guessed right. I mean what’s up with them? This figure looks so nice but the base ruins all the effort they put in her because it definitely doesn’t fit the whole scene.
Strangely it seems no one got a problem with that. I never read anywhere someone else feels like this…

With the Touhou figures this list even gets another point:
Strange appearance of the magical-floating dresses
In fact it’s a funny phenomenon. Really, why the hell are the dresses of everyone floating in mid-air?
I think this should create movement on the figure, but here you can see how unnatural that looks when done by Griffon. XD

With all this said I must still admit Scarlet and Patchouli are over their average standard. They still have most of the problems listed above, however they got very nice faces and the PVC used on them looks nice.
Yuyuko and Youmu sadly fall pack into the general Griffon-quality.

More talk about everyone in their reviews.

The pre-talk 1: Touhou Mania

2010-01-17T15:19:00.006+01:00

With me in the situation to want to review 4 of Griffons Touhou Project Figures I recognized that I in fact got lots of things I don’t like on Griffon figures in general. So I decided to make this “pre-talk” in order to keep the reviews themselves free of too much talk about the manufacture.
I will also use this to talk about the 4 figures in general, e.g. compare them, tell you whom is my favourite, how I come to buy them and maybe about the phenomenon of Touhou itself.
My very first contact with Touhou was at the time I first spotted the figures of Reimu and Marisa. Very shortly after that Griffon also announced the release of Patchouli and Scarlet. I fell in love with this two at first sight and finally ordered them trough tokyohunters service. During the time I waited for them I slowly recognized how the attention and interest for Touhou was increasing on the internet. You know, I would never guessed them to be characters of nothing more than some Doujinshi-games.
Up to now I still can’t get what’s so hot about it all, but I also didn’t (and still don’t) understand the Vocaloid -hype. I mean, how can a singing-synthesizer character get so much love?
However I ended with searching for a little bit more information about Patchouli and Scarlet. This is because despite the fact I gave up on only buying figures of series I know I still try to inform myself of the figures background before I buy them. You got to know whom you are letting in your room after all XD
I read through their character description on Touhou-wiki and found it interesting to see that I would actually love their character in the game for sure. So it seems appearance sometimes tells you something about the character of a person, at least in anime/manga?
Does that also happen to you sometimes? Getting interested in an anime/manga or a character because of a figure?
I also have to admit that I have a liking for Lolis. Scarlet seems to be Tsundere-type (at least her figure seems), with my love for tsundere-princess Shana I catched a liking for Tsundere in general it seems^^. Patchouli is more thy silent type I believe.

So, you may ask yourself whom the other two I bought are, since it says 4 figures at the beginning of this post.
After being very happy with my purchase of Patchouli and Scarlet I also ordered Youmu and Yuyuko. Again through tokyohunter since at that time amiami still wasn’t available for international buyers.

While Patchouli and Scarlet are very lovely and definitely above normal Griffon quality Youmu and Yuyuko get less love. They have less charm and more flaws aswell as an awful looking dress for Yuyuko.
My personal ranking: Patchouli is my favourite, Scarlet second, Youmu still nice and Yuyuko I wished I would not have bought.
Yuyuko would have been nice to have for the price you can get her in Japan, but with all the extra cost to get her she was not worth it for me.
Also Yuyuko is the kind of character I don’t like in animes/manga, bought her because the figure looked so nice with the blue dress (I love blue) and I liked the chara-design.

New Blog Design

2010-01-17T14:43:00.001+01:00

Ok - I believe you can figure that one out on your ownXD
Finally I got rid of all the pink..never really liked that.
I am still unsure if I will go with this design, but I prefer it over pink^^

Random Stuff

2010-01-17T11:51:00.008+01:00

Some days ago a friend of mine visited. For her I put up some figures on a shelf. (normally I only have figures in my display case since I don´t like dust-collecting) I took the chance to take a few pictures before storing them back into the cabinet.

Drossel looks sooo cute on this picture^^

*sigh* Promised to do a review on Jun-chan some time ago. Still planing to do so, if I got the spirit... He is fucking hot XD

Lucky me owns a motorcycle in acceptable size for Figma-fun^^ Haruhi looks very nice on it.

Taiga with a little fellow. Surprisingly they go very well together.

Happy Christmas!

2009-12-24T15:34:00.004+01:00

I wish a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all of you!
Fröhliche Weihnachten und ein gutes Neues Jahr!

楽しいクリスマス !
Noël heureux !
natale felice !
feliz Navidad !

Update of Chocola 2006 Artbook review

2009-11-22T17:42:00.008+01:00

I just remembered that I made photos of the whole Artbook some time ago.
At the moment I am loading it up at photobucket.
So, why don´t you take a look at the Artbook?
Chocola 2006 at photobucket

Or maybe you would like to read the review of Koge Donbos Chocola 2006?

I will also update the old post with the link to photobucket.

Somehow I also realized that I am one of a few bloggers who post about Artbooks..they seem to be non-popular compared to Figures...
So, you really can be happy that I still want Artbooks to be part of my blog^^

Clamps Chess pieces

2009-11-22T16:53:00.015+01:00

Here I am, back from vocational school^^
I really should try to post more -don´t you think?
Let´s start with something I wanted to post since some time. Some pictures, aswell as a review of the Clamp no kiseki chess pieces. (Description of clamp no kiseki on wikipedia)

Here is how I displayed them for some time:Be aware -it´s a big picture^^

And here a special extra for everyone who don´t know who is who -everyone with their name:

Now on to some closer pictures:
Bishops
Rooks
KnightsKings&Queens
and the Mokona armyXD

This two are my personal favourites. Hikaru and Ashura.

Done with the pics, so her comes my opinion:
Since you have to buy the magazines together with the figures they are pretty expensive if you have no interest in the magazine. In my case I mostly bought it because of the figures, but the magazine was still nice to have. I think the chess pieces have quite good quality and capture Clamps style very well. The colours are bright and well choosen and there are also some details on the figures.
With the felt-pads on the bottom of the figures, you really do not have to worry about scratching the chess board. (Their is also a seperatly sold chess board for them on the market, sucking more money out of everyone...)
However, up to now I still have not used them for what they were made for...

Oktober Haul

2009-11-07T16:53:00.006+01:00

Time runs and so it is already November now! During Oktober I got some new figures, three of them from tokyohunter (great guy).

So here is what I got:
(from left to the right)

1. stunning Raquel Gothic Gathering figure from e20.
She is my first Gathering. I didn´t bought Gathering-figures ever before because it was simply too expensive from my view and also I didn´t knew what I would get for my money. For Raquel, I fell in love with her on e20 when her Gathering was first released, but I couldn´t bring myself to buy her that time. Time went by and I kept reading all this blog-reviews about Raquel and more and more was sure that I missed a great figure. Also during this time prices for PVC figures kept getting higher and higher.
And then she showed up again. First on preorder -than she was in Stock, and then I couldn´t resist her any longer...especially with a price tag of 89€ (130USD).
Today, sadly, many PVC figures out there do cost the same, figures from German retailers hit this price very often, so the "she is too expensive"-thought could not hold me back any longer.
When thinking about it it´s a very good deal, I mean this is handmade, I don´t know how they can sellt her at this price.
So, long story -short fact: she is mine know^^
What I think about my first Gathering? I love her. She is very big, everything went smoothly into place and I can´t say anything bad about the paint job. Not to mention the design was a killer from the start. However I do have one problem -she doesn´t fit into my display caseXD

2. Taste of forbidden fruit doujinshi by Keiichi Sumi in the background of Raquel, yes I know you can´t see it, but ti´s a figure loot so it doesn´t matter:3

3. Sitting on her box- Drossel Figma!!!! I wanted her sooo long!! I am so happy that they re-released her. I love her blue eyes...
Maybe I should get another Drossel..she is really the first figure which I would like to own two of. (okay, to be honest when I got the Miku Nendoroid I also thought about getting another one because she looks soo cute and I wanted to display her in different poses at the same time..know she is sold out, so no second Miku for me)

4. Sitting next to Drossel my cute Taiga, she was only avaiable through one of this cruel mail-order actions of a magazine -I think it was Dengeki DaiOh. She is much smaller than I thought -ok Taiga is short, but for an 1/8 figure she does more have the 1/10 scale. She would go fine with my Figmas, that´s how small she is.
The quality is Kotobukiya-average. Some flaws but nothing too bad. Her skin colour seems yellowish to me and her hair could have used another colour... Her swimsuit and her crossed legs+ hands are done with great details.
She is one of the cutest figures I have seen in ages. yes that´s my opinion. I could gaze into her eyes for hours and still would call them sweet. Her view is moe. Never thought I would use that word, but it discribes her the best; she is moe like hell.
Her head can be moved a little bit (I think that´s because you have to take it of to put her tube around her). The tube (do you call it that?) is looking great, totaly look-through is possible.

5. Remilia Scarlet and Patchouli Knowledge from Touhou Project
Griffon did a good job here. In general I do not like Griffon figures, mostly becau they look stiff and unlively to me. This two are fine. Still no oh-so great-pose, but I like them. Patchoulis face is even cuter then Taigas. Also very moe... I will talk a bit more about them when I review them.

Phew- done.

A brief post

2009-10-11T14:22:00.004+02:00

Vocational school is still running, giving me tons of test and stuff to learn. Last week I spend in bed because of illness, so now there is a lot of stuff I have to learn as quickly as possible..*-*
However, watching my counter I just had to write a little *yeah! 1000 hits!!!* post.
I really like this image^^

PS: I will try to bring up more figure reviews, since the poll turned that way(thanks to those three peopleXD)

vocational school

2009-09-19T17:35:00.004+02:00

Since I am in vocational school for the next two months prepare to not see much new stuff up here. During the week I do neither have the time nor the possibility to post and on the weekends it´s likely that I wont have the spirits for it. I´ll try to write some entries here an there, but don´t expect too much.
Last week my beloved Jun PVC arrived, a review will follow, but after vocational school I believe. In the meantime look at lots of pictures of Jun, showing you that this really is a nice figure.
I also found a review of him which gives you a good idea of him, and is similar to my own opinion about this figure.

The Figma invasion and other

2009-09-07T18:09:00.006+02:00

So today my Figmas, a Nendo and the Haruhi Artbook arrived. Couldn´t hold myself back from taking one of this Loot-pictures all the anime/manga/figure themed blog seems to have..whyever..

In the front, as you probably notice, is the Haruhi Artbook from characterdesign godness Itou Noiji. Since Haruhi is hot cuisine I´ll at last do a little review on it for sure.

As you can see the boxes are already empty, my new friends couldn´t wait to come out of them and get some fresh airXD

The pink box on the left is from the Louise Nendoroid, the one up on the right is from Tsukasa winter vers. (Lucky Star) Bottom left is evil Wizards Yukis box and on the right Haruhu summer vers. ones.

When I took this photo meanwhile my Figmas already made first contact to each other^^
It seems Lelouch took a liking to Haruhi and chat-up on her. However Haruhi only wants a picture of Yuki in her glorious outfit and tell him to go out of her way.
Tsukasa seems to not see anything of that and just poses for the camera..

Curving out of Anime characters with a chainsaw!!

2009-09-07T18:04:00.005+02:00

Found this and think it´s very interesting. Somehow creepy, but just wow. So take a look at the new hobby of Otakus on Nekomagic^^:
Curving out of Mio, Horo and others with a chainsaw

Stuff is on it´s way

2009-09-06T17:40:00.053+02:00

Soon some nice new figures will arrive! To give a preview here their names, picturs will follow when they arrive^^:
Figmas: Yuuki wizard, Haruhi summer vers. and Tsukasa winter vers. Also Nendoroid Louise, Jun Watarase PVC aswell as the Haruhi Shugi Artbook.

Nooo, I am not into Haruhi, but into Itou Noiji, her creator. I mean, hey, if Haruhi is god, what is her creator then? Seeee! I am looking forward the most to Jun-chan^^ He will be sooo ..nya :3 ..hmm don´t really know what to call himXD Here some pics of his character -obey traps are the best!

Doing the poll^^

2009-09-06T17:26:00.004+02:00

So, here is a poll to help me find out topics of interest of you.
If you choose "Other" please leave a comment in this post what you mean by it.
Since my language setting is still on German here a short translation (however I think you also can figure out yourself):
"Abstimmen"=Vote
"Ergebnisse anschauen"=Look at the results
and then there you can see the amount of already made votes and the days left. For the moment I´ll let it run 6days, maybe it will be longer so that I can collect a proper amount of votes.

500 Hits!!

2009-09-06T16:56:00.011+02:00

Wow, I think 500 is not bad^^ Maybe I should write more to attract more people..nah.
Next up should be a review of the Aninite09, a convention held in Vienna. It´s not one of the big Conventions, but it was fun. Just have to sort my pictures and think about what to write..
Oh, and maybe I´ll start one of this nice polls in order to get ideas on what you guys would like to read here^^

To thank you for visiting my site, here is a funny pic I tooked of my Nendos lately, enjoy:Itoshiki: "AAaaah! What´s that? why am I wearing this soppy outfit! Once more this world left me in despair!.."
Al: "...What did you call my dress?"

Bleach: Toshiro Hitsugaya PVC Figure!!

2009-09-04T16:10:00.015+02:00

Hardly believed my eyes when I saw this today! Seems like Mega House choosed to do Hitsugaya next, (after Matsumoto, Renji, Rukia and Ichigo). Toshiro-chan is one of my favourite characters in Bleach so, I am very excited to see a proper figure release for him... Once more -thank you Mega House. Not only you bring us our beloved One Piece Crew, but you also bring us more and more male figures!

Although, the price (~6.600yen)is too high in my opinion, since the other Bleach figures didn´t cost that much (about 3.800yen) *they only do this because they know I want him, I knew this...*
Also, I somwhow think that the figure does not looks like Hitsugaya, something in his pose is not him. I so praid for him to be released in PVC, but why can´t he be more..I do not know..just better looking. I find the pose is weird, and how he stands (he looks like a Saiyajin to me..)..will have to fight once more with myself about buy a chara I love or don´t buy something you do not like how it looks like °~°

Also it seems two more Bleach figures will be released; guess who they are^^

New Stuff: Figma Lelouch

2009-08-22T09:52:00.012+02:00

With all this pictures of Figma-fun around the net I somehow could not withstand the temptation to get myself a Figma any more. So her comes Lelouch!
From the start he was the first Figma I thought that I would like to have. Since he is meanwhile somehow hard to get I bought him at ebay.
I did not watch a single episode of Code Geass, the only thing I knew about it is that the Character design is by Clamp. However his Figma looks too good and there are soo few boy-figures he was must-get.
He was thought to be a "helping" in deciding to buy or not to buy more Figmas.
He ordered me to buy more, so I did.^^
In about two weeks three more Figmas will arrive; these are Yuki-wizard vers., Haruhi summer vers. and Tsukasa winter vers.
Considering how much fun you already can have with a single Figma (planning to do a photosession) I am really looking forward to more.

Figure Review: OS Idol Win-chan

2009-08-16T12:48:00.021+02:00

One of my first figures. Character design by Mine Yoshizaki, as you can clearly see^^ Oh, and just in case you wonder, her CD-shaped base isn´t a real CD.

Figure Name: OS Idol Win-chan Vers.2
Series: -
Manufacture: Kaiyodo
Scale: None (lenght:~11,5cm height:~8,5cm)

My Opinion:
I love that suggestive pose of hers. She has got a very cute appearance and her proportions are done well (eg. her toes, fingers..hmm.. I noticed just now her botttom might be too "big"^^)
Since blue is my favourite colour I also can´t say bad about the colour-choosing; exept for her skin. While I think they choosed a nice skin-tone they meaned it a bit too good with shading her belly.
Have I said that I also love her hair? It´s soo curly^^ and with this too hair-strands on top of her haid she looks like some alien.
About the quality I would say that it is ok, she has some flaws but nothing too bad.
Something I don´t like is the shape of her bikini divide at her back, if she would be standing this thing would look like a giant diaper...

Pictures:

Figure Review: Shana - Swimsuit Vers.

2009-08-16T11:44:00.020+02:00

And once more a figure of my cute Shana-chan^^ This time she even has her beloved melonpan with her.

Figure Name: Shana - Swimsuit Vers.
Series: Shakugan no Shana
Manufacture: Kotobukiya
Scale: 1/6

My Opinion:
I don´t know why but to me this figure doesn´t look very Shana-like. Maybe she looks a bit too grown up to me or her face seems too long...
Something else that´s really disturbing is that base of her. It´s looks so cheap, like some Mattel -plastic stuff.
I like her colours and the pose (melonpan!). Flaws are there, but I found none that really disturbes me.

Pictures:

Figure Review: Sachiel & Lilith xxNano!

2009-08-16T11:10:00.001+02:00

Two very cute figures with the design from Mine Yoshizaki, one of my favourite character designers. Since both are small I will do a review for them together, please notice they are not a set.

Figure Name: xxNano! Sachiel / Lilith
Series: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Manufacture: Wave
Scale: None (about 9cm high)

My Opinion:
Despite the fact I am no Evangelion fan I sometimes can´t withstand to buy Evangelion figures... I really like Mine Yoshizakis design and I also like Chibi-stuff, so these two were not to miss.
I think their quality is very good for so small figures.
Something funny is that the thing on Sachiels head totally reminds of the Hollow-masks in Bleach...

Pictures: (left row Sachiel, right row Lilith)

GFH-Contest contribution

2009-08-16T10:09:00.014+02:00

The blog German Figure Hunters is a having one of this nice give-away contests. The motto is something like "Figures doing funny stuff". The content is only for Germans and Austrians, but do not hestitate to take a look at the contributions for it.

Of course I could not leave this chance out, so here is my contribution:

(For bigger picture click on the image)

And here is the description:

Shana: "Eeehh, Ryuna what are you doing back there? And wipe that smirk of your face!""

Have you ever tried to peek under the skirt of your figure" is a common question, but what´s about: "have a figure of yours ever tried to peek under the skirt of your figure"?

Image after a true story! (Ryunas rod once really get stuck in Shanas pants...^^)

Figure Review: Shana

2009-08-09T14:07:00.013+02:00

My, what a grumpy Shana...
Seems like someone is going to die^^

Figure Name: Shana
Series: Shakugan no Shana
Manufacture: Yamato
Scale: 1/8

My Opinion:
I like her pose, but definitely Yamatos quality isn´t the best. The colours are not bad, however there is absolutely no shading. Also her face looks too grumpy for my taste. Something that disturbs me is that Alastor (the necklace) is violet and not red, Yamato really does wrong here.

Pictures:

Figure Review: Shana Candy Bikini Vers.

2009-08-09T13:22:00.017+02:00

Here goes the next Shana.
Some people got Haruhi-ism, I got Shana-ism^^

Figure Name: Shana - Candy Bikini Vers.
Series: Shakugan no Shana
Manufacture: Kotobukiya
Scale: 1/8

My Opinion:
A very beautiful and cute Shana figure. The pose looks nice and is almost flawless. (from her arm to her elbow you can see a bigger flaw)
The sand base with the sword is a very nice addition for display. Something that´s done gorgerous is her hair. It has a wonderful sculpt an the different shining-through red tones are looking great. I also think this is one of the better Shana figures, since despite the not Shana-like pose you get the feeling she is just fixing her bikini top and then will grab her sword to fight on.

Pictures:

Figure Review: Arche Klaine

2009-08-09T12:48:00.012+02:00

Uuuhh..so much stress the last week..
But let´s concentrate on the next Figure Review^^

Figure Name: Arche Klaine
Series: Tales of Phantasia
Manufacture: Kotobukiya
Scale: 1/8

My Opinion:
Not superb, but nice. She has some flaws like most Ktobukiya figures. I really love her pose, sitting on her broom, hairs flowing in the air.. The water vortex as base looks great, as do her colouring.

Pictures:

On my Wishlist -Drossel Figma

2009-08-03T13:12:00.007+02:00

I am sorry for not writing so a long time, but I got lots of real-life stress the last days.
Since I am too exhausted to write a proper post I will just show you my newest most-wished Figure, and then I am off:
Absolute #1 of my Wishlist: Drossel Figma

100 Hits!!

2009-07-29T11:18:00.003+02:00

A 100 Hits! Yes, I know it´s not that much, but it´s a start and I am sure it will grow. Next up is 500 Hits! Make sure to help me reach them.

Figure Review: Shana Nekomimi Vers.

2009-07-29T11:00:00.003+02:00

Time to do a Figure Review. So, first one is Shana. Since I am a huge fan of hers you will see many figures of her in the future.

Figure Name: Shana - Nekomimi Version
Series: Shakugan no Shana
Manufacture: Toy´s Works
Scale: 1/8

Something I really hate about Shana Figures is that there is always a black and a red version to choose between...so cruel =(
In this case I tink the black one with the cat ears is cuter than the red "Secret Version".

My Opinion:
A nice over-all look, but does have lots of seem-lines. She also looks awfully thin, you even can see her ribs. She has a good face sculpt, also the flows in her hairs and her coat looks nice. Sadly her skin is not shaded. Using her coat as base was a nice idea.

Pictures:

Links Introduction

2009-07-28T12:34:00.001+02:00

Finally! As you can see in my sidebar I now have Links. So, let me tell you a little bit about the sites I recommend you to pay a visit to...

Tsuki-Board: My figure collection
I already introduced that one. For everyone who didn´t read that entry I think the name says everything.

Forum: German Figure Hunters & Blog: GF Hunters
A nice blog with figure news, reviews and other stuff. In the forum there also is a English Section. Absolute Blog Highlight: Interview with the guys from e2046! (in English)

Nekomagic
My favourite Information source for Figure News. Lots of information on new figures.

Hunting the Elusive (Pireze)
A blog which covers hard to find Japanese goodies. These are: Magazine Scans, Digital Releases and Reviews of Doujinshi Stuff, Artbook Reviews, sometimes Figure Reviews and much more. Icie shows us lots of stuff we all will never get our hands on...
You can also read this "What is Pireze" from Icie for very detailed information about the blog.

Forever More Gallery
A Shounen-Ai Gallery hosted by a (former) Scanlation group. Offers pictures from Magazines, Mangas (only colour stuff) and Artbook Scans. Most of the time no "real action" stuff, if you know what I mean. Just Illustrations, nothing too naughty.

Aethereality Gallery
One of the biggest gallerys I know and also my favourite Gallery. Has many Artbook Scans in very good quality. It´s also my fav choice for Linking to when doing an Artbook review here on my blog.

Shops:
Of course everyone has their favourite shopping place, so here are mine. I also shop at some EU/German Shops, maybe Links will follow.

HLJ
Very well known shop. Stationed directly in Japan. Offers: Artbooks, Magazines, Figures and different Fun Goods (cushion covers, mugs, key holders...).

About/My opinion:
+ The prices are the ones of Japan, so they are pretty cheap
+ You can look at the shipping cost for an item before you order it
+ You can pay per paypal
+ Good Service, fast shipping
+ Packages packed very well
+ Combined shipping cost for several items ->cheaper

- If you want save shipping you have to choose EMS, that is really pricy
- No shipping cost shown for pre-order items
- Their packages seems to be easily cought by the customs, making a cheap-buy very expensive
- They don´t hold items! For example: Let´s say you place an order with "in stock" stuff and a pre-order item. After some time you check back and will se that suddenly one of the in stock items is now "Discontinued"; they just give it away instead of holding it for you.

~ Your orders need some time to be shown in their system

e2046.com
The favourite shop for all GK lovers. Stationed in HongKong, however you can buy here without doubt. Offers: PVC Figures, tons of Kits for the do-it-yourself types of you aswell as some prepainted Kits (for people like me^^).

About/My opinion:
+ Since directly in HongKong they have good prices
+ You can look at the exact shipping cost before placing an order, also for pre-orders
+ You can pay per paypal
+ Excellent service. It is very easy to contact e20 and they always are very friendly and helpful
+ Shipping cost isn´t as expensive as EMS (also offered), they use "HongKong registered airmail", till now never got problems with that
+ Shipping time; they need longer than EMS, but still are OK (should be less than 2 weeks, but it depends on where you live)
+ Userfriendly interface at your account

- No combined shipping cost, you can send figures together, but it costs the same as shipping them alone
- You don´t get an Invoice
- Customs can be cruel

~ They do not write a price on their packages; that can be bad and good. I have ordered there several times and customs never wanted taxes from me. But then one package was caught by the customs and in order to get my figure I had to send a invoice from e20 (something you don´t get from them) to them. It was quite a input to get my package. However, be sure e20 will help you, if you need an Invoice for the customs write them and you will get one.

So, that´s all for the moment.