kenleewrites in 日本

Panther told me of these series of vids detailing the creation of his latest figure in YouTube uploaded by sleepylafiel. It details the creation of a Japanese figurine. The vids are from a DVD whose cover is pictured here….

It’s a rather long vid, about 90 minutes total and it’s all in Japanese. Despite the language barrier (if you don’t understand Japanese), I’m sure you’ll be able to understand the techniques and attention to detail that is given to make just one of these figures just from watching the videos. It’s like a documentary really.

Although I recommend watching the whole thing, you can always start off with part 2 and part 8 to wet your appetite. In part 2, you see how the whole figure come into being and in part 8, see the attention to detail when it comes to painting the “cat’s ear”, the techniques used to make it look realistic under different lighting.

Here are the vids

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

Enjoy.

I don’t go there quite often because it’s a little far north for me. Came across this AV factory. Seriously, AV factory?!? I don’t think the ‘A’ and ‘V’ mean ‘Audio’ and ‘Visual’… hmm… hey… Audio and visual isn’t wrong either if you think about it. ^^.

I believe it was a Saturday when I went (sorry for the late post). As you can see, there’s a police presence there. That white car on the right which is permanently parked there on the empty stretch of road. I like going for walks. It’s a good time to refresh my mind. I don’t really think of anything when I just stroll around. Blank. Just take in the sights and enjoy the surroundings around me. What about you? You like going for strolls?

Now we’re going to take a walk into the Kotobukiya store in Akiba. It’s right opposite the JR station in this building behind the jumping guy.

I was hoping to take a picture of the store but… “you can take photos freely! o only items. x not people!!!”. ^^. That was also the case when I visited some hobby stores in Sendai. Don’t mind don’t mind. ^^

I found this Cyclone going for ¥9900. Wonfes all black edition. Good thing I bought mine back at Wonfes for ¥6000. If you have limited edition items, they can fetch pretty high prices.

I thinking of getting Naomi (third from right). A little pricy though. But sukajan, short skirt, tank top and a katana… we’ll see. ^^. I’m a fan of Shunya Yamashita’s work. Mirei san (second from right) is also pretty nice. A got a different figure of her in a different color. Haven’t taken her out yet. ><. Will get to it soonish.

I did get a figure though. One of these in this picture below. Care to make a guess? I’ll give you a cookie. ^^.

You suppose this mousepad is comfy? I can’t imagine anyone using this at work… ok… maybe some of us will. ^^. Will you?

I survived wonfes (short for Wonder Festival) and came out alive and kicking. Ok, it wasn’t that difficult. It was my first wonfes, but it probably won’t be my last. Let’s see what winter wonfes feels like. I hope nothing goes wrong with the escalator next time. Learnt a few lessons. Oversleeping is punishable by two excruciating words, 完売 (KANBAI). haha. That means sold out btw. Good lesson don’t you think? Just wondering, do you have like a certain genre of figures that you like? I tend to like figures with swords. Just like this one of Aya here.

Cute figures perhaps? There’s a whole cheerleading team here. There were quite alot of people taking photos of them. I had to wait my turn and then squeeze in to get a shot. Exhibitions like these are also good opportunities to use and get used to your camera. Know what kind of settings are best for certain situations. I’ve seen people carrying really huge SLR cameras with external speedlights, diffusers etc. SLR owners without those external flashes made do with a diffuser. A proper one or a make do one with just paper rolled over the built-in flash. Of course there were a majority of people who only used compacts. And I’ve seen some people carrying really compact ones. There was this one which was probably just twice as thick as the plastic ipod nano (the first nano I think). And I peeked… I looked at his tiny screen and from what I saw, the photo looked great. I remember reading somewhere that it’s not the camera, it’s knowing how to fully use it that makes the difference.

I’m no expert in photography. I regretted not bring along my Ricoh R8. If you want marco shots, that’s the best camera period. You can shoot marco 1mm away from the subject! It’s really fun! There were so many tiny Zero-s from Code Geass. Each one was going for almost ¥2000.

At wonfes, I only had my Nikon D80 with the Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens. For me, that’s a very versatile lens. 18-200mm lets me take a good range of photos. VR (Vibration Reduction) is good… necessary for low light conditions. For camera settings, I usually go with aperture priority first, then shutter priority and finally manual if I can’t get what I want with the first 2. Occasionally I’ll use the “scene” modes. Sometimes the camera really knows best. ^^. Btw, I like the 風神雷神 (FUJIN RAIJIN) characters. Here’s 雷神 (RAIJIN). God of Thunder in Japanese folklore.

For all the photos I took at wonfes, I only used ISO400 and shutter priority. Not every photo turned out great though. Shows that I still have much more to learn. How about you? What settings would you use here? This is 風神 (FUJIN) btw. God of Wind.

These photos were taken at the ALTER stall. See that cute bunny girl in the middle? Recognise her from anywhere? She was used in the opening for 電車男 (DENSYAOTOKO). You can see her in the opening down here. Just to sidetrack a little, see how familiar it is to the promotional video for Daicon IV.

Opening for 電車男 (DENSYAOTOKO). TWILIGHT

Find these 2 tanks familiar? Does Metal Slug ring a bell? I was surprised to see these. Metal Slug’s a classic. One of my all time classics. Do you think arcade centers can adjust the difficulty levels of the games? The games at certain arcade centers are just plain hard!

This one of Saber. I haven’t read the manga nor seen the anime, but I will get to it sometime! Like this pose where she’s dashing through with sword in hand.

Another one for you Code Geass fans. Actually I don’t like him all that much. He whines and is too rigid. “Why so serious.”

This has to be one of the top highlights of the day! I went to wonfes wondering if I would (maybe hoping to) bump into dannychoo. I met him when I was wandering around the F block (at photo x 152 in my flickr photostream). I was taking some photos and I saw this guy taking photos. I saw him from the side and there was something familiar about him… I actually observed him for a little bit. I didn’t have a choice. ^^ He was busy taking photos. I went up to him and tapped his shoulder. “Hi Danny!” I was pretty excited. You read about him and you finally get to meet the guy! He’s very friendly. Maybe I’ll get to sit down and have a proper chat with him sometime. But not today. He just arrived and I was sure that he had alot of photos left to take!

I forgot who this mecha is supposed to be. Anyone can help me out? He’s just plain cool.

Jin-Roh (人狼): The Wolf Brigade figures from Revoltech. Great detail and articulation. I’m thinking…

I like this figure. “Girl with no name.” Sounds cool and mysterious…

From Kotobukiya. Upcoming Shocktrooper figures for the new Star Wars animated movie “The Clone Wars”. Pretty nice I must say.

Yoda rocks!

There’s this little complaint I have. Have anyone seen the movie Big? You know, the one with Tom Hanks. For the next 2 pictures, I’ll quote from the movie. “Where’s the fun in that?” Sure, Decepticons can fly and transform into jets. But he’s Iron Man! He doesn’t need to be disguised as a jet. And what’s with the “Please do not touch” sign behind the glass casing. I can’t touch the figures inside the glass casing! ><

Would you buy this? Spiderman transforms into a bike and venom into a GT.

The spoils of war! I only came back with 2 figures. One was an event only Robotech Cyclone bike/armor. All black. The other was an 一騎当千 (IKKITOUSEN) character, 趙雲 子龍. I have been looking for her for quite some time. As you know, I like figures with swords. Especially if it’s a katana. The rest were just magazines and leaflets I got while walking around.

I love these cows…

So, that’s wonfes summer. Looking forward to wonfes winter!

Btw, you can find most of my wonfes photos at my flickr photostream. I’ve flagged some photos that are “adult”. You have to be signed in to view those I think.

My 新幹線 (shinkansen) home. Yamabiko (やまびこ). It’s a double-decked version of a shinkansen. I was supposed to leave on a later train. Later and faster… But my companions wanted to leave earlier… so… you know the rest. Apparently if you have a reserved seat ticket, you can also use it to ride any other shinkansen with non-reserved seats. Gives you flexibility when traveling.

My crazy companions in Sendai.

Would you prefer to ride on top or be at the bottom ^^?