Saber Alter Maid ver.

It's been a while since I took any photos of my figures, and after spending way too long trying to find the camera, the battery charger, the USB cable etc (all of which were hidden in completely different locations) I'm starting to remember why. Still, I took a few quick photos. My photography skill is as poor as ever, but I'm sure Saber's greatness will shine through anyway. Or something like that.

I actually forgot she was even coming, since she was a prepaid purchase right back at the start of the year. It was a nice surprise when I got the shipping notice. This is the second release of this figure, with the first being in 2010 if I recall. Apparently this rerelease has been given a once-over and has a few improvements in the figure itself, though I'm unsure of the details.

Mini Saber has her own tiny base and mop, and is quite cute.

Frills and ribbons everywhere. As expected of Alter, the quality's very high. The maid uniform itself is very detailed, and the accessories are too. The rusty bucket in particular is quite nice, though a bit fiddly to attach. It swings loosely, with the handle being two separate parts that attach to small holes in Saber's hand, and at the other end looping through a larger hole in the bucket itself. The mop is just loosely held in place, it won't fall out of her hand but her hand will slide up and down the shaft pretty easily. No, that's not meant to be a euphemism.

Her stockings are just great. It's not so visible in my photos but there are folds and creases around the knees and ankles, and the top of her stockings has all the frills and ribbons you could hope for. Her hair is nicely done too, and has no visible join line.

There are a couple of paint errors, on one of her cuffs and on the ribbon on her back, but nothing particularly noticeable.

The obligatory lewder shots. Just when you didn't think there could be any more ribbons...

And mini Saber diligently mopping her own tiny base. The mop is just resting on her hands, but she's doing her best anyway.

Overall it's bit hard to display just because of how big she is - Saber's 1/6 scale, which is larger than most of my other figures, and the base itself is really large so she takes up even more room. I'll probably have to give her an entire shelf. Damn, I really need more than one Detolf for all my figures to be rotated through.

My photos really don't do her justice, she looks brilliant. She's actually my first 'maid' figure, which is surprising. Maybe they're all this frilly and I'm here getting excited about nothing! Either way, she looks very nice sitting on display with my other Sabers. At least it's not another Miku.

Figure details:

Name: Saber Alter Maid ver.

Series: Fate/Hollow Ataraxia

Scale: 1/6

Company: Alter

Released: August 2012 (rerelease)

Lat Miku

More aptly known as Hipster Miku, this is another figure to add to my stack of Miku figures. To think that at one stage I firmly believed that one figure per character was the way to go. The timing's pretty good since my Tony Miku is in for repairs (turns out that pose is a bit hard on her feet) and I've got a spot on the Miku shelf in my cabinet that this new figure will fit nicely into.

No shots of the box, because I'm lazy like that, but it's just the normal sort of box with photos of the figure all over it.

GSC Racing Miku

As usual, I'd meant to write a post about this ages ago. As usual, I got hit with another bout of having no motivation whatsoever. Such is life. I had planned to get some lighting set up for the photos, but it turns out the new bulbs I bought for my desk lamp were way more yellow than I'd thought, and Miku just looked like she'd been jarated in all the shots. Because of that, I went back to natural lighting. The only problem there is that there are a few more shadows than I'd like, particularly on the less close-up shots. Sorry about that.

Onto the figure. To be more specific, she's Racing Miku, and was recently released by GSC. She's based on an illustration by Redjuice for Good Smile Racing. I can't find a good picture of it after five seconds of Google Image Search, so you'll have to look for it yourself if you're interested.

I forgot to take any photos of the box again, which is a shame because it's quite good. The original illustration is on one of the sides, and it's immediately apparent that the figure is a pretty faithful adaptation.

Alter's Asuka Test Plug Suit ver.

I had intended to post this over a week ago, but it's been overcast (and freezing cold) for days on end, so with no decent lighting of my own I've had to wait for a bit of sun to come out again. I'm glad it finally has, because I've got Racing Miku and UBW Rin heading to me as we speak so I really can't put this off any longer.

I picked Asuka up off Amiami for a hefty discount, while everyone else was fighting over the Senjougahara figure that was also heavily discounted. Only a few days before that I decided I wanted to buy an Asuka figure, as I mentioned in a previous post, so this purchase seemed to be destined. Impulse purchases can turn out bad, but I'm very happy with this one - I think she looks amazing.

Lethargy

Another wave of lethargy has swept over me, and I've spent the last few days doing more or less nothing. I think it's passing now, so I'd better take advantage of it while I can.

I-it's not like I WANTED to b-buy you or anything

I said in my last post that I was looking into getting an Asuka figure, possibly Alter's. Within a couple of days, the following things had happened:

• I looked at a few other possibilities, but preferred Alter's
• A post in the /fig/ thread on /jp/ alerted me to Amiami having a good sale on her (46% off!)
• Amiami emailed me to let me know that UBW Rin was going to be another month

By this stage, I was ready to accept that it was fate and just go for it. I had the money saved up for my May order anyway, and it even worked out cheaper (and I've got another whole month to save up the money for Rin). She's coming by SAL so I expect her any time between tomorrow and Christmas.

Korean clickan games and Chinese cartoon figures

I was going to post the other day but Blogger seemed to be having some issues. Not like I really had a lot to say anyway. It's been a pretty uneventful week, but the best is yet to come: only a few hours until the GSL finals! Earlier in the week I was at uni late, and the room cleared out a bit earlier than expected, so, along with two other guys in the class that follow the GSL, I decided to try and pull up the current game on the projector. It worked, and it looked amazing, but I only ended up watching the one game because the security guard kept coming past and looking into the room disapprovingly. I'm not sure if it was because we were using the room for non-uni purposes or because we were watching video games, but probably a bit of each.

Now I can turn gay for Tasteless twice as fast!

Today's games will be between InCa (P) and Nestea (Z). I'm hoping that Nestea will win but I'm mostly just hoping for some decent games rather than one all-in after the other like the last few seasons. They'll be streamed free at GOMtv if anyone's interested.

I decided to go through my figures and get out one of my first acquisitions to display for a while - I can't remember exactly when, but sometime late '08 or early '09 I got this Rei. I can't remember if she was my first figure or not (Garan no Dou Shiki being the other candidate) but I've had her for a while.

The reason I bring it up is that I've been thinking I'd like an Asuka figure to go with her, but I'm really not sure which one. I was thinking maybe Alter's Plug Suit Asuka, but I'd be interested in any other good Asuka figures you might know of. I won't be able to actually buy one for a while since I've got my May preorders looming, but I'd still like to have an idea of what I want.

Then again, perhaps I should be laying low for a while based on an ad I noticed on my blog recently:

They're onto me!

On mouseover, the URL appeared to point to Australian Customs' list of prohibited goods for import. The knock on the door will probably come any second now...

I've played a bit more Minecraft on the sever too, but I still never remember to take any screenshots. I might just leave it to HHH and NEET, who write better posts about it than I would anyway.

Fun in high school carparks

I think I may have mentioned a while back that I have a "job" scoring high school debates - if two hours of work every second or third week can really count as employment - and I did this again tonight for the first time in a number of weeks. The school where the debates were to be held was nowhere near any public transport option so I had to resort to driving. For some context, I only have a car because my parents gave me their old one, and I never use it except to drive to visit them. I certainly avoid driving it in the city at all costs, mainly because public transport is so much cheaper and far less stressful. 

The vehicle isn't exactly roadworthy, missing, among other things, a left side mirror, a working second gear, a way to wind up the back windows, a functional handbrake, and a full complement of indicator lights. Luckily none of that matters since it has a CD player and two working if hissy speakers with which to play my terrible terrible music.

Playing with portals

I got onto Portal 2 pretty much as soon as it came out because, despite the godawful fanbase, I thought Portal was a really clever concept with great execution. Not a day later and I've already finished it (though I'm yet to try co-op) so I thought I'd make a few comments on it. Fair warning - I won't mention any spoilers but some details in the screenshots could give stuff away if you think about them too much. I myself was actually spoiled courtesy of /v/, but the event I was spoiled about happened about halfway into the game so it wasn't a big deal.

The game itself is mechanically pretty similar to the first Portal - you have a portal gun, which you use in combination with cubes, lasers and various other devices to make your way through each test chamber. One of the main areas in which Portal 2 differs is that it includes a lot more of these devices that you have to use successfully to continue through the game - including light bridges, tractor beams, jump plates, cubes that redirect lasers and, my favourite, three types of gel that affect the surface they're placed on.

Miku Tony ver.

I've had this figure for days (weeks?) now and have finally gotten around to cleaning my desk to an acceptable standard for her to be placed on. Before I post some pictures, though, I'd like to dispel a common misconception about this figure - that she couldn't possibly strike that pose while keeping her spine intact. I tried to mimic her pose earlier and, while uncomfortable, it's definitely doable. And believe me, I'm no Chinese gymnast. If a Shiteyanyo figure ever gets made (and dear God I hope it does not, that's the stuff of nightmares) then you'll have a valid complaint.

I had a box photo but it's got way too much glare even by my minimal standards so it's straight to the lady herself.

No seriously, you can bend like that.

Yui and her Gitah

So, there's some mixed reactions about K-ON!. Many say it's some sort of moeshit or cancer, others seem to think it's the second coming. Me? I just like cute girls doing cute things, such as drinking tea. There hasn't been a figure of a K-ON! girl drinking tea as far as I know, so I had to settle for a muscially-themed figure (I know, nothing to do with the show at all). I went with the Volks Yui, as Yui and Ritsu are the best girls and I don't think Volks have a Ritsu figure.

Upcoming figures: Taiga and Cirno

Isn't it sad, Ami?

AmiAmi just put a new Toradora figure up on their site yesterday, and I think it's the best figure from the series that I've seen so far. The character - to nobody's surprise - is Taiga, but the pose and clothing is quite different from all the school uniform and swimsuit figures of her. No, this version emphasises her namesake over her portrayal in the series, and shows her lying down in a playful pose with tiger ears, paws, stockings, a tail and some stripes on her face.  It looks like she'll be coming with two faces as well, allowing some fairly coarse control over the tsun:dere ratio.

She's being done by Ques Q, who are the guys behind the China Meiling figure I recently blogged about. I wasn't familiar with them before but I can already spot some familiar characteristics in the preview photos, namely the distinct shading used for creases and folds on the skin (see the knee in the third picture).

The Rainbow Gatekeeper

I've actually had Meiling for a few weeks now, but I haven't had the chance to really take her out of the box and have a good look at her until now. My room is cluttered enough that finding enough room to take out a figure and set it up properly is no small task. I don't have a proper display cabinet either so I can only have a few figures out at a time, the rest relegated to their boxes until I rotate through them.

Anyway.

As I'm sure you all know, Hong Meiling (紅美鈴 [that last kanji isn't showing up right for me, maybe it's the font], a.k.a. China) is the beautiful and reliable gatekeeper to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. In her present capacity, however, she's been demoted to guarding my desk against intruders.

The littlest witch

I've always found SAL shipping very reliable: almost to a fault, packages will arrive exactly one single week after I've given up all hope of them ever reaching me. To its credit though, everything I've gotten shipped via SAL way has turned up eventually. This time it was Lucchini who spent the better part of two months in limbo, but she finally showed up today.