Taking apart the top layer, I find… the base.  Okay, nothing exciting here.

Flipping the rest over and removing the other layer, I am greeted with Kudo-kou!

But wait… something seems wrong with her ribbon!

For reference, it is not supposed to come off like that.  The other half is in her cloak, next to her hand.

A quick shot of the rest of her quickly put together.

The pieces that broke off.  The two pink ribbons obviously belong to the ribbon on her chest, and the purple ribbon belongs to her hat.  Tried focusing on two close, but different areas… trying to distract myself from this great tragedy. ;_;

But, nevertheless, the show must go on.  And on it went!

One thing about this figure… it is HEAVY.  The huge metal poles you saw on both of her feet in the earlier image?  That should give you a good idea of how heavy this figure is.

I used basically the same camera settings I used for the Kaleido Ruby figure here.  The images came out pretty decently, I think.  However, I wanted to see if I could get away without flash when taking pictures of the figure after I glued the broken parts back on.  On with those…

Compared to the image directly above… I think it came out a little better.  Changed some settings around (biggest change was probably changing the shutter speed from 1/30 to 1/10 – 1/15, to allow in more light due to the absence of flash; played around with ISO, but ended up leaving it at 800 for these shots, and eventually slightly increased aperture from 5.6 to 7.1.  Different images have different settings applied since I’m still mostly testing things out, so expect different quality from each photo).  I then loaded the raws in Photoshop and changed the lighting to balance out for fluorescent lighting.  Changing for tungsten provided an image that seemed a little closer to the real colors, but felt a bit too gray… fluorescent seemed to provide a little more “life”, so I stuck with that.

You should be able to notice the purple ribbon is now attached to her hat, as well as the pink ribbon on her chest.  Not the best job at gluing things back together, but it’s hardly noticeable more than a few feet away.

Overall, it turned out okay.  I just wish it hadn’t arrived broken in the first place, but that can’t be helped. >_<

One last look at the ribbon in particular before moving on to…

Kudryavka Noumi!  W-wait, what!?

This is the Alter version of Kudryavka Noumi, recently released.  I obtained it in between my last post and this.  She’s considerably smaller and lighter than her double…  The tiny little foothold she rests on concerns me in comparison, but I have a couple of figures resting on one foot like that, and nothing bad has happened… yet.

Kudo-kou’s exuberance is captured quite clearly in this figure.

More focus testing!

Pan…

chira…

There’s quite a lot of similarities between these two figures.  Well, aside from the obvious fact that they’re the same character.  Same signature clothing, same flowing cloak, flowing hair, etc.  Even the same pantsu!

Her base is… well, in my opinion, a bit gaudy.  I don’t really pay too much attention to the bases unless it’s something special, like Black★Rock Shooter‘s.

And a final shoot focusing on this Kudo-kou’s unmarred ribbon… ;_;

I suspect the next post from me should be about my C77 goods, most of which should be arriving within the next week or so.  Look forward to it (or avoid it like the plague, either way)!

Actually, I first experimented with the twins Kohaku and Hisui, but those turned out so poorly I didn’t save them… I think these turned out a little better, though.  On to the images, then!

Started off with a couple of automatic mode pictures.  I wanted to see what settings the camera chose, and also experimented with my lighting.

External lighting makes a pretty big difference it seems… I’ll have to pay more attention to this in the future.

Focusing is a bit weird for me right now.  Auto-focus does work pretty well, but… sometimes it’s hard for me to tell what exactly it’s focusing on at times. ^^;;

Panchira!

Focusing on the wand… ignoring the panchira.  Or trying to.

Tried to focus on her armpit (why?), but auto-focusing foils my plans yet again.

I actually noticed specks of dust and whatnot more easily in these images than actually on the figure… cleaned her off by now, of course. =P

Zettai ryouiki from behind!

A few more angles and panchira before finishing up with automatic mode.

This is generally how my images with Kohaku and Hisui ended up.  I was determined to figure out what I should change to get some decent images this time.

Of course, I could set flash on, but it gives the image a sort of fake, bluish tint that I was not terribly fond of.

Bright!  Too bright!

Toned down a bit, but still not quite right.

Starting to look better…

Testing manually focusing on different areas.

The wand and panchira make a comeback?

Once again trying to focus on the armpit (and again wondering why?)… better results, I think.

Overall, I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.  Starting to see a little of how shutter speed, aperture, etc. all come together.

Last figure for me to unbox in this group is Kudryavka Noumi… but alas, when I opened her up, I noticed something very, very wrong with her ribbon.  More on poor Kudo-kou’s plight later. ;_;

A bunch of figures, that’s what!  Also, I received another item a few days ago… more on that later.  For now, here’s my review of the Black★Rock Shooter (I’m only opening them up one at a time, and I may review the Mahou Shoujo Rin and Kudryavka Noumi later).

First up, some information on Black★Rock Shooter.  Back towards the end of the year in 2007 (December 26th, to be exact)… an artist named huke released a piece he had been working on.  Certainly, his fans enjoyed the work… but it was not really all that popular.  One of the few people who did notice it at this time, however, was a certain ryo…

The first Black★Rock Shooter image

Six months later, on June 13th, 2008, huke and ryo of Supercell released the, by now, infamous Black★Rock Shooter video.  I doubt I need to link to it, but here’s a youtube video and the original nico nico video.  The rest, as they say, is history.  These days, it would be more difficult to find someone (in the realm the viewers of this blog are doubtlessly familiar with) who did not know her.

So, amongst the plans to make an anime and countless other promotional goods, Good Smile was allowed to make a figure.  This figure would be designed based on a piece of work done by huke… behold!

Black★Rock Shooter image for the figure

Let us see how well she was realized. ^^

As I’m still a noob when it comes to cameras, I decided just to use the full automatic option on my camera… I’ll spend time learning how to do some of the more advanced stuff later.

Pictures taken against the backdrop of one of my Little Busters! wallscrolls.  Probably not the best option for this character, but I’m cutting myself some slack for this being my first detailed figure shoot. =P

Various angles…

By this point, you’ve probably realized I have no idea what I’m doing.

That’s right; I can use a vertical orientation, too!

Looking at her, Black★Rock Shooter is a rather lithe character for wielding such a large cannon.

More angles.

Some close-ups of her weapon, how she holds it, and more specifically, the chain.

The chain is a really nice touch of detail.  Obviously, one can’t really mass produce the same scenery as the original image, but these add some flavor.  Quite the pain to wrap it around as suggested in the instructional paper included with the figure (yes, a completed figure… with instructions!).

Obligatory low shot?  Though it’s not like you can see her pantsu anyway.

One of my two favorite parts of this figure… Black★Rock Shooter has a rather sexy stomach.  The scars are nice, too!

She’s sad… might be because she’s quite the pettanko, too.  I imagine some people rather enjoy that aspect of her, though… so cheer up, Black★Rock Shooter! =P

My other favorite part… quite a nice pair of thighs. ^^

The base is rather detailed.  I moved the cannon slightly off-center (normally, it rests on the middle of the cracked area) so you can see how detailed it is.

The other thing you’ll notice about the base… it is heavy!  It has some substantial weight on it.  It gives a good sense of quality, though.

Well, that wraps up the pictures I took for this figure review.  How bad was it?  Really bad?  I figured as much.  I’ll try harder (or not) for the next time, though. =P

As for the figure: very detailed, a very attractive character, and quite true to the original theme.  I quite like her. ^^

I should also mention, for fans of this figure, there is a “Black Blade” version upcoming…

Concerning the other, mysterious items I mentioned earlier in this post; I’m sure some of you have already noticed by now, but I’ve gotten a new camera!  Obviously, I don’t have any pictures of it.  I guess I could take a poor picture using another camera, but I’d rather not.  My new camera is a Canon EOS Digital Rebel T1i, recommended to me by anonymous_object over at Cool & Spicy.  As he’s much better with cameras, you might want to give him a visit if you’re interested in further camera details.  I’m probably just going to tinker around with my own as practice for the future. =P

Now that I think about it, I should have taken a picture of how tall it was… oh well.

Cutting open the box, I lay out most of the contents here.

Let’s get some of the lesser items out of the way first, shall we? Here are some miscellaneous items:

We have a September issue of Dengeki Hime (I purchased solely for the Komari figure, which you shall see later), a Major Arcana deck from K-Books, and ビミョ～な日本語 (Bimyo~ na Nihongo). The last is a book I saw and was instantly interested by the concept. It seeks to demystify some common kanji that are similar in pronunciation and meaning, yet are slightly, strangely different (bimyou ni). The first group given will serve as an example; 会う, 合う and 遭う. All pronounced ‘au’, yet they’re slightly different. Enough about that though, on to the other goodies.

Adding Komari and Kanatan (…I’m sad that no one will get that joke.) to my collection completes it! I now have all six Little Busters! bath themed figures.

Dmyotic 3 and the postcard set it comes with. Artist is dmyo (visit here). I’ve heard from anony that it’s not nearly as good as the previous two. Since I don’t have the previous two, I can’t really comment. The story is relatively interesting though, so I’d like to read the continuation.

The only figure I got in this package… but it’s Len! With cake, real cake! And I managed to snag it for 1,000 yen. What more can I say about it? It’s a simple figurine (hence the price), but that doesn’t necessarily detract from the aesthetic value. If only it could switch to mizugi or pajama form a la Last Arc… drool.

A Duel Dolls fanbook done by Tinkle, so you know what to expect from the quality. Lots of pantsu, lovely dresses, pantsu, cute girls, pantsu, swords, and pantsu. Okay, I realize ‘swords’ is not common to her art, but it is for the Duel Dolls theme. I lucked out and got the ecchi stick poster, too. Those boxes holding down the stick poster are Komari and Kanata.

Fate-chan! These particular renditions of Fate Testarossa were done by Himukai Kyousuke (visit his EXTREMELY NOT SAFE FOR WORK site here) of the circle Studio Himawari. Being a fan of Fate, I have seen her drawn in many different styles… Himukai’s is one of the, if not the best. The only downside to this particular item is that I now have to go out and purchase a body pillow.

Last but most certainly not least, my Nagomiko goods. The artist behind Nagomiko is Tenmu Shinryuusai (visit here). My favorite artist.
The top two images are his C73 goods, the first being the front of the bag, a clear file holder, and the doujin itself. The second image is the back of the bag as well as the clear stick poster.
The bottom image is of his C74 goods; the bag, fan, clear file and doujin.

And that’s it for this package. I still have a few more goodies that have yet to be delivered, but I don’t expect them for a while.

Also, if you’re wondering what happened to the frequent updates earlier in the month, I have been obsessed with an MMO. Yes, really. It’s not a genre I play very often. This particular one is named Atlantica Online. It’s more of a turn-based game, harkening back to the olden days… I quite like it.

Whenever I’m not playing Atlantica, I’m having a few matches in Melty Blood. I consider myself average at the game. Right now, all the people at a lower level than I are cursing me, whilst the people at a higher level are thinking I’m over-exaggerating my skills… well, that’s what you get with a fighting game. The difference between skill levels can be quite great. If I have any interesting matches, I’ll see about posting some replays.