Happy Holidays!

Image by Mina m  

I know that saying 'happy holidays' is usually for Christmas, but saying 'Happy Chinese New Years and Valentines day' is simply too long. Anyways, photo heavy post ahead.

 

In Vietnamese, we say "chúc mừng năm mới!" to others. It means 'Hapy New Year', quite literally. At our house, we celebrate the lunar new year in a rather unique way. It's a mix of the Chinese and Vietnamese customs, so we might have characteristics of the two traditions. We don't usually say it at home, but 农历新年 is 'Gong Hay Fat Choy'. 

Here's a platter of fruits. I've got photos of each fruit.

This is Rambutan (chôm chôm). They're quite sweet, though their seed is a bit woody. The fruit's shell looks kind of funny too. Put three in the photo because two might have a bit of phallic imagery. 

Sapodilla, or xa-pô-chê. The seeds of these are killers. They've got a hook-like thing on them that'll catch in your throat if you swallow them. The fruit has an interesting taste though. Tastes kind of like a malt. If you eat one that's not ripe though, it'll not only taste bad, but it'll dry your mouth out. Figured this out through personal experiences.

This interesting looking fruit is a water apple. Kinda looks like a cross between a bell pepper and an apple. As their name suggests, they have a very high water concentration in them. Can't remember how they taste though.

There are lots of names for this one. Sugar Apple, Sweetsop, and mãng cầu ta in Vietnamese. Interesting fruit, and super, super sweet. Eating too many of these might leave you in a sugar coma. It's skin comes off in pieces, revealing a pasty white flesh chock full of seeds. 

I only know this by the name of Soursop. It's mãng cầu Xiêm in Vietnamese. Like it's name suggests, this one is pretty sour. Like the sweetsop, it's got tonnes of seeds in it. It's quite soft too.

Now, on to Valentines day, or what I'll refer to as 'Singles Awareness Day'. You can see why:

The photos will look better if you enlarge them. Had to use a different camera because my camera's batteries died twice in the process.

On the other hand, I picked up this today. It tastes quite odd, though not in a bad way. Tastes kind of like a 蛋挞,an egg tart. I chose it randomly actually. I had a few choices, so I did a random choice.

Revoltech Reycal Photo Shoot

How can you say no to a face like that?

Alrighty, I spent most of yesterday at the PS3 figuring out the movement range and other aspects of my first revoltech. I'll have a comparison between the size of Reycal and my three other figma.

 She comes from the manga, オリハルコンレイカル (Orichalcum Reycal), by Tsunashima Shiro. It's probably one of the very few figures that are 1/1 scale. Yes, Reycal is about as small as this Revoltech is in the manga. 

 

Well first off, Reycal has a few more joints than most figma do. Her body is pretty much the same; ankles, knees, hips, torso, shoulders, elbows, wrists. However, she uses revoltech joints, sturdy and robust, though a bit lacking in movement. They're fine in her knees and elbows, heck even her ankles use them. But in her hips and shoulders, they're basically hinge joints, meaning they only go forward and back. To get a side to side motion, you'd need to change the positioning of the joint. Thankfully, Revoltech's are quite famous for having easily removable joints.

Reycal's quite balanced, as she can stand by herself without a stand. She also works with the Figma stand. Her clothing isn't quite as flexible as I hoped it would be. If you leave her in a pose that bends her clothing for a bit too long, you might have a crease in it. ^^; Learnt that the hard way.

You can't compare the looks of a Revoltech to a Figma. Figma look a whole lot nicer, though that's not to say that Revoltech can't look nice, as picture above. She's quite a catch, no? Sorry about the photo quality. Used the same set up as Miku's photoshoot, though it doesn't seem that it turned out that great this time around.

 Reycal comes with her Knight Eagle. In the manga, she uses this much like Athena's saints do with their cloths. She combines with the Knight Eagle to equip her armour. She also gains her weapon by combining with the Knight Eagle.

Crappy photo, yes. But it demonstrates the joints in her hair. She has quite a few of them too. A bit odd, though it allows for a whole new world of posing. Can show direction she's flying, the direction of the wind, etc.

 Full photo of the one at the top.

The Eagle's talons become her gauntlets. The "claws" fold back to allow the attachment of her hands, though if you forget to fold them back, she'll look something like that. Hitagi? Get that reference?

 

The beam came from one of my gunpla. It fits nicely into the hole that usually houses the peg in her hand. Makes her more mecha than her Knight Eagle.

 

She looks pretty darn cool with her armour on, though there are more than a few parts that need to be swapped and exchanged to get her into her armour. I'll have a few more photos up after my camera batteries finish recharging. I'll remember to include the mass of spare parts, and extra that came with her.

Figma Hatsune Miku Photo Gallery

Image by hazuki

She's so smexy, isn't she? Anyways, as promised, I've finished Miku's photo shoot. Lighting problems hampered some of my photos, but I managed to iron them out. I got it out before the end of the year too.

Merry Christmas!

 

Click to view full size pictures. Looks much better like that. All of them.

Anywho, rolling right along. My new photo set up. It's pretty frugal and crude, but it gets the job done. I don't plan to redo my previous ones on this. Maybe one or two photos.

 

This shot's before ironing down all of the lighting things. Very bright. 

 

Got all the lighting down in from here on. Probably need to lower the camera a bit...

 

Close up of the photo before. She's so cute.

A bit of panchira there, but hardly noticeable. Miku and her iconic sprigs of negi. My photo editing software chopped off the top part of the photo when I went to rotate it. Sad face. Used photobucket, and it worked fine. = ="

Lovely pose. Not much to say about it. A photo is worth a million words anyways.

 

The box Miku came in was quite nice. Very futuristic, and also, very shiny. The inside has a mirror-finish, so I had to adjust the lighting to keep the reflections out. They're still there though. The mirror finish coats the inside of the back, and two sides, so it's almost like a kaleidoscope. 

Merry Christmas!

Image by Piromizu

Ho ho ho. That's right. I've got a whole sleigh-load of stuff to put out here, so keep reading.

Party

So, I was at a Christmas party yesterday @ my family's new restaurant. Quite a bit of food. Two noodle dishes, a shrimp thing at the front left, deep fried chicken wings, deep fried sea food (squid, shrimp, octopus), a Vietnamese salad, sushi, and I feel like I'm forgetting something. Anywho, loaded up on greasy food, washed it down with cream soda. Yum.

Figma Photo shoot

My lighting is still off, but here's a sample of what I've been doing. Quite nice, with the poor man's photo box thing. ^^" Probably need to make the background bigger, so the photos aren't as close up. You'll see what I mean when I finish the photo shoot.

Randoms

So I forgot my camera at Jason's place. Edmond decided to leave me a Christmas present and load it up with photos. Note that I'm not in those photos, nor am I even in that house.

I believe my cousin once asked, "what's with guys and crotch shots?"

I took this myself going back from Jason's place. I guess you can't really tell, but right after where that white car is, there's a rather steep hill. Gave me hell climbing that everyday to get to school for a year or two, especially in the snow.

Again, I took this shot. Yeah, I don't know. It's just the phone and electricity lines. Also a gray sky. It's blue now though.

Single, Double, Triple Post!

A few things to do, and rather than doing separate posts and being a blogwhore, I'm throwing them all into one. So this one's gonna be a long one.

Comes with:

• Brunch with Kenn
• Figma Seto San photo gallery
• The Dog

Edit: I just found another trailer, so expect another preview today.


Brunch with Kenn

It's the photo at the top. Beef, tomatoes, olives, Taiwanese Black Tea, and rice. Ate while watching ご愁傷さま二ノ宮くん. Quite tasty and filling. It'll last me until dinner, six hours later. xD Wanted to watch 狂乱家族日記 again, but I couldn't find my DVD of it...


Figma Seto San Photo Gallery

 My newest addition to my Figma arsenal. Seto San, from Seto no Hanayome.

She comes with two sets of open hands, one is the standard figma accessory hand, and the other is her special katana hands. The space inside her hand is bigger than the usual Figma hands, to let her hold that smexy katana. It also allows her to hold most Gunpla weapons.

 

 

Another feature of Seto San is that she comes with her mermaid lower half. Was a bit upset that her tail wasn't made of the same material as her clothing was, but hard plastic. Without reading the instructions on how to put her tail on, I don't think I would've figured out how to. ^^" She's quite the beauty, ne?

Catfish? Nyan-koi? See what I did there?

She comes with two faces, like almost all Figma do. One is her glare, and the other is this, charming smiling face.Also comes with cat ears, and her mermaid tail.

The box she came in is really quite nice too. All blue and ocean'd up. I'd say it's the nicest box I have.

Can see Miku and Kagami hanging in the background. I'll try and get her photo gallery up on Thursday. I'm busy tomorrow.

My next figure target is the Revoltech Reycal Orichalcum. It's a mouthful to say, and a handful to type. ^^" Revoltechs are half the price of Figma, but consequently don't look as nice. Hoping to pick her up sometime in the coming week or so. Hope no one takes her home before I do.

The Dog

Can you guess who that is? It's the house dog! He's got a thin coat of fur year round, so he's gotta bundle up like the rest of us do when it gets cold. Snapped this shot while he was yawning on the couch. Looks a bit like Simba on Pride Rock, no?