Another day another figure. I wish it were that often, actually no I don’t, that would be far too expensive. For todays figure we have Shiki Ryougi from Kara no Kyoukai. Kara no Kyoukai takes place in the same universe as Shingetsutan Tsukihime, both are by Type-Moon and have been adapted to anime.
I decided that because today is such a nice day outside I’d try out my new computer for my car, the Cobb AccessPORT I purchased last week.What this device allows you to do is rewrite the mappings for your engine. Cobb provides a number of ‘off the shelf’ maps for the device, however with more hardware/software you can build your own maps to load on via this device. What rewriting the mappings for your engine allows you to do, especially in a turbo charged car like mine, is produce more horsepower and torque.
Finally having time to analyze the small amount of animation in the trailer there’s one thing that stands out the most for me. Horo’s eyes, they’re so different between the stylings of the different artists, Kazuya Kuroda and Toshimitsu Kobayashi, and I feel they give an entirely different feel to the character.
On the left we have Toshimitsu Kobayashi’s stylings, he’s the character designer of the second season. Kobayashi makes less use of black lines to define Horo’s eyes and draws the edges more curved. Kuroda on the other hand makes use of more angular lines and quite a lot more black as well. The difference between the two changes the way I perceive her. Kobayashi’s eyes make me think of a young girl, which of course Horo is in appearance, but appearance only. Kuroda’s eyes I see someone much older and wiser than they appear, which I think fit Horo’s character perfectly.
Now of course, neither of these screencaps show Horo making a similar face and perhaps is not a fair comparison because of it. But even with some of the other examples out there such as the wallpapers released on the official website, there’s something different about her eyes. Additionally, I could just be accustomed to the original eyes and reading too much into it, and surely this is indeed part of it. Regardless though, the character designs are different.
-Aka
I’m not sure if I’m late in finding this or what, but I just came across it myself. I’m much happier than I thought I was going to be as artwork I’d seen for season 2 made the characters seem off. But in animation they seem pretty good. I do wonder though what Horo’s doing top-down bottom-up like that. I can’t wait to find out! April 30th the OVA is released with the series following in July.
-Aka
Cospa’s Horo, better than TAKI Corps. The end. Kidding, there’s plenty more.
The second of my current 3 Horo figures is produced by Cospa. She’s a few steps up when compared to TAKI but still not as good as my Kotobukiya Horo, which I’ve yet to review. Sure she’s not half naked, and her removable skirt doesn’t reveal skin. But she feels like she has much more detail, a more playful pose, and best of all, didn’t creep me out for a week after purchase!
Bonus, more pictures than evar! (And yet I still missed important angles)
No dolls in this box. Cobb on the Saab, I love that term despite it’s apparent lameness. Today’s post has a very much more manly side to it than the previous posts with “dolls” as some of my friends call them. This post is about my car, and the new toys I purchased for it recently, and by recently I mean yesterday. Yesterday was a very expensive day, even though 2 of the 3 items were used, they’re car related and therefore expensive.
This beautiful figure arrived on Tuesday this week. But being busy I wasn’t able to type anything about it. Plus I purchased that Nikon SB-600 so I wanted to try and figure out how to use it before shooting some pictures of the figure. I think I’ve gotten better results with this flash than before, they’re more consistent anyway. That said, there is still inconsistency with light levels and such.
Good Smile Company’s Tohsaka Rin & Berserker is an older figure, from 2005, so she was quite hard to get a hold of, and even harder for a decent price. My copy was never opened from the box until I did, however the box was a bit damaged, due to the time and “lack” of care by the seller. I quote lack because seriously, 4 years, I’d have had a worse box for sure, with the animals I’ve had over the past 4 years and moving, surely it would have been beat up. So it’s really not an issue, but worth mentioning.
On Tuesday this week I finally decided to go out and buy a real flash for my aging Nikon D100. Up until now I’d been using the onboard flash, which frankly, sucks donkey balls. On occassion I can get a pretty decent shot with it, but only if I use paper to bounce the light to the ceiling and down again. But even with that hack it’s hit or miss with me. The book that came with the flash is quite large for what I originally thought would be kind of a simple device. Oddly, the book also includes a section about close-up photography that features… anime characters. Ha!
I’ve been playing with the flash for a few days and, well, I’m pretty terrible. It’s also too bad that I can’t use the flash’s remote capabilities with my decrepid D100. It would be nice to locate the flash off the camera and additionally it would be nice to have more than one for the closeup photography. But I don’t have so much money to spend, this flash alone cost $270.
A couple shots inside.
Black ★ Rock Shooter originated from a piece of artwork by an artist named Huke. She's often confused with Hatsune Miku due to some ties to the character as well as similarities in her looks. This might also be the most popular figure I've ever seen.
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After glancing around the internets for others who are photographing their figures, I think my lighting system needs some tweaking. As well as perhaps my process. Currently the area I shoot the pictures is pretty basic, just 3 lamps and a back drop. And I felt this worked well enough until I started to notice everyone elses pictures. Mine always had shiny highlights while everyone elses tends to have more diffuse lighting creating a nicer more even photo.
Alpha x Omega’s figure of CC from Code Geass was the second figure I purchased. This figure taught me just how bad my TAKI Corp produced Horo was. There are far fewer problems with this figure, in fact they’re quite hard to find and not all that obvious or annoying. And if that wasn’t enough, she was cheaper than TAKI Corp’s Horo at a cost of $84! Though I suppose in TAKI Corps defense, Horo was 1/6th scale where CC is 1/8th.
Warning, contains risque imagery.
