Marvel x Bishoujo Mystique

kleintoys — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 03:58:58 +0000

I’m normally more of a DC fan than a Marvel fan but I used to read quite a bit of Marvel and well I still have a soft spot for some of my favorite characters like the lovely shapeshifter Mystique.

When Kotobukiya announced a Mystique figure in their Marvel x Bishoujo line I immediately went on Entertainment Earth to preorder her (as well as Poison Ivy who has not arrived yet). My Mystique figure arrived last week and I was able to get a chance to photograph her over the past weekend.

I have to say I am pretty impressed with her, she really has no bad angles so I had a lot of fun photographing her so please forgive the picture spam.

Kotobukiya has been a doing an excellent job for the most part with the Marvel and DC x Bishoujo figures, I have been really impressed with their level of detail.

Her stand was very plain and unnecessary so I nixed it for the photos.

I love the way they did her hair, the tips are made of a translucent plastic and it really looks quite nice.

Just lovely, I think this is my favorite shot from the series I did.

The only thing I am not entirely fond of with this figure are her eyes, which look a tad possessed depending upon the angle I feel like they are a bit too down turned which makes them look a bit awkward.

Believe or not, there are still more pictures of Mystique on my Flickr

New Monster High dolls- Operetta and Nefera De Nile

kleintoys — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:19:08 +0000

It’s been a while since I have posted about my Monster High dolls here, since I just recently got Operetta after looking for her for ages I thought this might be the perfect opportunity for a post featuring them.

Operetta is supposed to be the daughter of the Phantom of the Opera, which strikes me as a little implausible ahead and overlook that for now.

Operetta has facial scarring it’s very stylized and in the form of music notes (this motif is repeated in the form of a tattoo on her arm), I really love how it looks on her but then again it would seem I have a thing for dolls with scars.

Operetta has fantastic rockabilly style, I love all the little musical motifs in her style even her eye piece/mask is in the shape of a music note.

Operetta’s pet is a spider, as much as I like him he is kind of a pain as I was not able to get him to stand up on his own :/

Operetta even comes with a guitar shaped coffin.

I think the musical detailing on her is fantastic, I absolutely love her belt and chain.

The heels on her shoes are musical notes, while I love a lot of the Monster High shoes this is the first pair that has really made me actively wished there was a human sized equivalent as I would definitely buy them.

Nefera Nefera De Nile is Cleo’s older sister. Nefera debuted a new body type that is taller than the normal one. On the one hand I applaud Mattel for debuting a new body on the other end of the spectrum she is a new size and absolutely nothing from the other dolls fit her including shoes (even with my vast doll shoe collection I have yet to find shoes to fit her).

I love Nefera’s teal hair, I am actually really impressed with her in general my only real complaint with her other than lack of clothing/shoe options is her headdress which looks cheap and thus does not suit her at all.

As a doll, I think I actually prefer her to her sister Cleo never quite looks as monsterous as any of the others but somehow Nefera just seems a little more unearthly than her.

Nefera with baby sister Cleo.

The shoes are once again amazing.
More Monster High pictures are available on my flickr.

Late introduction- Custom Heather Mason of Silent Hill 3 BJD

kleintoys — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 01:37:14 +0000

Shortly after Christmas, I decided to shop for some clothes for my newly acquired Iplehouse Elemental Senior Guardian Claude somehow instead of finding Claude more clothing I somehow ended up spotting a listing for another Iplehouse bjd. The listing was for a J.I.D Tantiana that was customized to look like Heather Mason of Silent Hill 3 by Leahlilly and she was so gorgeous I could not resist bidding on her. Since the seller and I lived only a few states apart she arrived here literally less than 48 hours after I won the auction.

Unfortunately, I have not had much time recently for photography or blogging my precious few photo shoots. I took Heather out for some photos a few weeks ago and I am just now getting around to introducing her here.

Even though she was a bit of an impulse buy, I do not regret her purchase in the slightest as she is just breathtakingly beautiful.

For those wondering, I am a huge fan of the Silent Hill games so having her styled after Heather Mason was a huge plus to me.

She has the most realistic face up of all my bjds, I love how incredibly detailed it is. I’m not normally a huge fan of freckles but on her they look spectacular.

There are a couple more pictures of her on my flickr.

Arrival- GSC Madoka figure

kleintoys — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:13:02 +0000

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is one of the few newer animes that I really enjoy, unfortunately for my wallet it also has extremely cute character designs that will translate into an endless array of figures and merchandise (including Pullips!).

I admittedly kind of forgot about having preordered this Madoka figure until I saw the shipping notice for her from Playasia about a week ago, I really don’t preorder much anymore so it was surprising that I had somehow forgotten this adorable figure especially since I was so excited about it when it was announced. Madoka came in the mail today, since it’s been a while since I have blogged a new anime figure I decided to feature her.

The quality of anime figures have certainly risen in the past several years, but the price has also risen significantly since the yen has strengthened so much in the past couple of years. I paid about $115 for this figure with shipping which is a lot but I have to say I would do it again in a heartbeat as she is just so adorable.

I think they nailed Madoka’s character perfectly in this figure, I absolutely adore her expression of pure joy!

I was pretty impressed with the level of detail with this figure particularly with the underskirt frills .

Couple more pictures of her on my flickr.

Animadness revisited!

kleintoys — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 04:22:10 +0000

Since I had some time off this weekend I decided to go visit Animadness.

Animadness is my semi-local anime shop they are located in Waltham, MA they are roughly a two hour drive for me but they also happen to live within close driving distance of a friend of mine so I find excuses to visit often!

In addition to anime figures, they also happen to sell Pullips which is like a dream come true to me but a nightmare for my wallet.

Whenever I visit Animadness, I always try to remember to bring my camera so I can take pictures of the shop (which they are awesome about it letting me do). I take photos because I know I personally have driven all around New England/New York trying to find comic book shops/anime figure stores going on very little information before… most of these trips were very much not worth the effort, so I like to take pictures so people can see that Animadness is very much worth the trip if you are in the area.

Some general information about the store: the owners are super friendly and knowledgeable about anime. Prices are very reasonable, various discounts are also offered. Great selection although they were still a bit cleaned out from Christmas time when I went this past weekend, they are expecting restocks soon though. No bootlegs except maybe posters/wall scrolls but honestly the only anime shop I’ve ever seen without them was Anime Gamers when they were still open in Los Angeles. I’m not particularly affiliated with them, I love them so I like to spread the word about them.

There are some additional store pictures from my previous trips on my flickr here.

And now for those curious, here’s what I bought on my latest trip…

It had been my fondest hope and desire to pick up the Mami Pullip from Puella Magi Madoka Magica unfortunately even though they just restocked dolls I was out of luck as she already sold out. I ended up buying three new nendoroids including Strength from Black Rock Shooter, Akemi Homura from Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Kudo from Little Busters! I also bought the Magic Knight Rayearth Hikaru doll to strip out to make a Hikaru pullip (I actually already had one but wanted another to use for this). Animadness also gave me some super nifty Dal Coral notebooks.

Get- New Evangelion Asuka Figure!

kleintoys — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:23:43 +0000

Now for something you have not seen from me in a while, a new anime figure! I went to New York City over New Year’s and stopped at Midtown Comics. In addition to the various comics I picked up at Midtown Comics, I couldn’t help but snatch up this lovely new Asuka figure as soon as I saw her sitting on the shelf.

I haven’t been buying many anime figures recently due to lack of space in my apartment. More recently I have been limiting my anime figure purchases to the occasional online order and my semi-regular trips to Animadness (speaking of which I plan on going this weekend).

Asuka is one of my all-time favorite anime characters, so I always have a hard time resisting figures of her so much so that I have far more Asuka figures than any other anime character.

This particular figure was made by Kotobukiya and was released in September of last year.

I will say that Kotobukiya has come a long way in the past few years with facial expressions especially with the eyes, something about the way that the eyes used to be painted made them seem flat and frankly a bit dead but this Asuka definitely seems to have that spark of personality in her eyes.

I love her joyful expression!

Arrival of Dollmore Lukia Coral Mirage Version

kleintoys — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:25:26 +0000

I actually have quite a few new members of my bjd family to introduce in addition to the plethora of other new dolls that I still need to introduce but Lucinda is so lovely that well she has inserted herself to the front of the line.

Lucinda is a Lukia Coral Mirage LE30 bjd made by Dollmore. Lukia is kind of unique because she has similar proportions to pullip, with a large scale head and smaller scale body. While I consider her to be a bjd due to her proportions and overall look she has been declared off topic by Den of Angels but my criteria of what a bjd is not quite as stringent as their’s so she is a bjd as far as I am concerned.

Lucinda is gorgeous but she is also very frustrating which I personally kind of see as it a good thing as I love projects and finding a way to deflop her is going to make for an interesting one. Lukia is exceptionally top heavy, her head is just way too heavy for her body it’s a design flaw I knew this when I got her as I got her secondhand and I knew of the previous owner’s struggles with Lukia. The previous owner used kips to try and help stabilize her, I restrung her as soon as she arrived and while it did help a bit it did not help nearly as much as I had hoped it would. I am sure I will eventually find a way to stabilize her but I definitely would not recommend Lukia as a first bjd or buy another myself unless Dollmore somehow manages to fix her design flaws.

I had to get inventive while taking photos of Lucinda as she could not stand upright so most of these photos were taken by my laying the background down on the floor and taking aerial photos of her which led to some interesting angles.

Her stock outfit is actually quite nice although I did have some trouble getting one of the stockings up (it seems one was a bit tighter than the other) and I wish the top of her dress was a bit more modest (I had to try and rearrange the folds of lace to cover up her nipples ^^;).

Her face up is absolutely stunning.

Such a pretty girl.

Her body is so delicate looking.

I do not regret purchasing her as she is gorgeous and I knew what I was getting into but I wish Dollmore had taken more care when designing her.

First look at Snow White Pullip Collaboration

kleintoys — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:47:42 +0000

Originally revealed at last year’s Doll Carnival some pictures have surfaced of a possible future Snow White collaboration via Pullip.net. There was a slideshow that was originally posted there but has since been reposted on youtube, I was so amused by these releases I decided that I needed to take some screen caps.

First what looks like a storybook which I assume is the short-form version of Snow White but since I can’t read Japanese I can’t be sure what it really says.

Snow White- I absolutely love everything about her.

Evil Queen- She seems a bit underwhelming compared to the others but I think additional pictures could help this impression

Evil Queen in disguise- As a rule I’m trying not to like Isul too much, but this release seems very cool and I love the design of his stock I may end up having to get him.

Prince- He’s very handsome, his face up reminds me a bit of previous taeyang release Jade. I can’t wait to see more pictures of him.

Dwarves- The dwarves have been replaced with clowns, I for one am a big fan of vaguely creepy clowns so I am super excited about these. There are seven clowns in total, three byuls (Dori, Emme and Gibel) and four dals (Abel, Babe, Cici and Favian). I like that Groove Inc is really going all out with these and taking a chance with releasing these as they are not very neutral as many of their more recent releases have been and they are not going to be very versatile.

Arrival of Littlefee Rolly Red Hiding Hood!

kleintoys — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 04:12:50 +0000

I know my I’ve been busy shtick is getting a bit old but I am now working about sixteen hours more per week than I was previously… while it does mean more money, it also means significantly less free time to do anything else.

Anyway, unto tonight’s topic My Littlfee Rolly arrived just before Christmas. She did not come alone, I ended up ordering a Dollzone Flower Faerie from one of Dollzone’s past events from Denverdoll too but it already got sent away to be customized.
Rolly is actually my fifth Littlefee, my first bjd Marie was a Littlefee so I always have a bit of a soft spot for them. I love tiny bjds in general but the Littlefee/YoSD size are my absolute favorite size.

I decided to name her Hayley after the main character in Hard Candy as I had already used every other name evocative of Little Red Riding Hood I could think of with my various other LRRH themed dolls.

Hayley’s face up is probably the most mature of all my tiny bjds, I just love how she even has a little bit of a smile.

Her default wig comes with detachable twin tails which I personally think is pretty cool as it is nice to have options, I had a hard time choosing which look I preferred though so I ended up photographing her both ways.

Tons more pictures of her on my flickr

My Little Pony

kleintoys — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 04:44:08 +0000

Sorry for my rather long sabbatical, I don’t really have a good excuse other than I have been very busy lately and had limited time to devote on my hobbies in general. I have a laundry list of posts I’m behind on, including several Pullip and Dal reviews as well as several other things but I decided that I am going to devote tonight’s post to My Little Pony.

At first, when My Little Pony Friendship is Magic peaked my interest I decided I would collect a few of the G4 toys which rapidly turned into as many as I could get my hands on. I couldn’t really understand my attraction to them at first, they did make me nostalgic for my own childhood MLP collection, they are adorable but most importantly compared to the bulk of my anime figure/doll collections they are pretty well indestructible which is important when you have a toddler with a nickname like zilla roaming the apartment.

Here are some of my latest additions to the growing herd of plastic ponies…

While there was not a Christmas themed pony released this year as there have been in past years, there was a Pinkie Pie Christmas tree ornament release. So far to the best of my knowledge the ornaments have only shown up at Toysrus I was lucky enough to get mine as an early Christmas present which was really lucky as my local store sold out of them lightning fast. There is also Friendship is Magic themed wrapping paper, after a disturbing amount of time digging through toysrus’s wrapping paper I managed to find only a single roll which I neglected to get pictures of before stashing away in the closet.

I managed to complete my Fashion Style mane six pony collection, I was able to get Rainbow Dash (along with wave 4 of the smaller ponies) via Hasbrotoyshop during one of their sales Twilight Sparkle was much trickier. I had Twilight Sparkle preordered on BBTS but they canceled the order stating that Hasbro had canceled the item and since she hadn’t surfaced on Hasbro’s site at all I panicked. I had heard of a few people finding Twilight Sparkle in stores so I hit a total of seven stores before finally finding her in the last store that was even remotely local. I was so happy about finding her I gave a little victory squeal, I turned to leave the store only to come face to face with a very amused coworker who had seen my desperate searching of the shelves and my victorious exit. Thankfully I haven’t heard a peep from him at work about the pony incident yet, I did however come back to an unexplained box of MLP fruit snacks on my desk one day X_X

I managed to snag all of wave 4 off of Hasbrotoyshop during one of their sales, my favorite is Honeybuzz but they are all pretty cute I just wish we had a bit more diverse color palette sometimes as I get awfully bored with pink/purple ponies (I would kill for a green pony) pretty quickly.

My personal ranking would be Honeybuzz, Feathermay, Plumsweet, Twinkle Shine, Snowcatcher and Flitterheart.

I engaged in a bit of lunacy and tracked down all of the Friendship is Magic McDonald’s toys that were released earlier in the year. Traditionally the McD ponies are not that in demand and can be picked up quite cheaply, sadly this is not the case with the FiM McD ponies I paid about $35 for my set and that was quite cheap compared to the prices I had been seeing. I did end up buying one of the South American McDonald’s toys too but I haven’t taken any pictures of my light-up Pinkie Pie just yet.I need to take new pictures of my pony shelves…

I decided I needed a G3 Applejack to go with the rest of my Applejack family (next target G1: Baby Applejack) which turned out to not be such a good idea as I am now really liking G3 ponies and have a wishlist of like 30 + now.

G3 Applejack is awesome, I love her vibrant colors and the literal apple in her eye. I actually really love the colors they chose despite the fact that it makes her stick out like a sore thumb in the Applejack family photo.

Unfortunately for me, the same seller that I bought Applejack from had the Comic-con 2009 exclusive pony the same pony I had debated buying multiple times when I was not even collecting ponies as I thought she looked cool. The Comic-con 2009 Pony is a split between a hero and a villain as in hero pony on one side and evil pony on the other.

What makes it even more awesome is it’s coloring/theme works really well alongside my beloved custom Pullip Duela Dent which didn’t even occur to me until I had the pony in my hands.