As expected I had absolutely no time in Mexico to write a post and little time to do so once I arrived home as well. Worse than all that however, I brought Horo all the way down there and only managed to get a couple shots of her, with only one turning out worth a damn. Really really disappointing in that respect, but in the grand scheme of things negligible, I had a blast.

While I may not have taken many shots of Horo, I did take lots of photos while I was with friends so here’s 48 of them, minus the friends.

The beach at the resort. 'shopped out all the people.

Slightly further back on the beach we find shade, wonderfully cool shade.

Here are some animals, seagulls appear to be the same everywhere, as do dogs and chickens.

Here’s Chichen Itza, or as the locals like to call it, Chicken Pizza (no, don’t actually call it that, they get mad). The neatest thing about the big pyramid is the clap. No not the sexually transmitted disease you sicko. If you stand out from the steps and clap and listen for the echo it sounds like a bird’s chirp. This was probably the most interesting thing our tour guide showed us. Funnily enough a group of Japanese tourists were all in front of it with their tour guide when we arrived. They were all clapping in unison and I just thought it was some strange Japanese clapping ritual or they were all just being polite and applauding their tour guide. I certainly felt stupid once I learned the truth.

So many stairs...

There’s more to Chicken Pizza than just the pyramid though, there’s all these other things like small pyramids and buildings that once had roofs and things. Of course forever has passed so they don’t have their roofs any more, and some have big holes in their walls, which actually kind of reminds me of Inception in a way.

Notice that last photo on the right there? The one with the door? Yeah, our guide said all Mayan buildings had doors like that, no really, padlocks and all. I don’t think he understood my question very well. There were also lizards, quite large ones, everywhere.

What do these look like to you? Fish right? No?! But that’s what they said they were at the restaurant! No word of a lie, I walked by them, stopped, walked back to pull out the camera and one of the waiters said with a huge grin on his face that they were fish. I don’t know what kind of fish they have in Mexico but here in Canada, those look like cocks. Three huge cocks next to a dinner table.

Night time at the resort was really quite something. They had all these pathways that in the day time provided shade to and from various locations and at night provided a Myst-like experience. Those calm motionless scenes devoid of people, waiting for you to explore and discover the hidden puzzles. I never found any puzzles though, but the night sky was beautiful to look at once you made it out to the furthest point of the resort. Really felt like I was secluded and far way from everything, but after walking down a path I realized I wasn’t, I was incredibly close but it was all so well hidden.

Admittedly, using a fisheye to capture stars wasn't the best idea.

Hey, didn't I get a picture like this in Colorado too?

This would be such a great place to end with these night scenes but as I’ve decided to post these mostly in the order they were taken that means I can’t end yet! Fourteen more pictures to be had for your viewing pleasure. Deciding on a more lazy day we decided to stop gallivanting around from ruin to ruin and see what was in Playa de Carmen. Ate some street meat, wandered away from the main drag to Walmart to buy Tequila to take home and drank actual bottled Pepsi. I miss glass bottled drinks, and I’m not even old enough to have had them growing up. Also, Drugs Open, apparently Viagra, Melatonin and Cipro are available.

They were sleeping until I took the camera out.

On the final day before we had to head back to our respective homes in different provinces and countries we decided to hit up one more ruin site, this time one we could abuse and climb all over unlike Chicken Pizza where they didn’t let you climb on anything. Ek’ Balam however is unprotected, they’ll let you on everything (nearly) and my aren’t those stairs something mighty scary. A gust of wind and off you go, there’s no stopping on the way down.

The one in the distance is the one you really want up on.

Lens flare!

My, what a big mouth you have (ugly) Grandma.

We got to swim in this! (I don't think that's a dead body)

That’s about it for my Mexican vacation, really wish I could have stayed longer. It felt like everything was free, even though I paid for it all. All inclusive is weird like that, you thrown down a wad of cash before you ever leave, then when you’re there drinking all the drinks you want, eating all the food you want, it feels like someone else is paying. Lessons I’ve learned from Mexico? SPF50 is probably too much, and not wearing any for 2 days to ‘catch up’ on your tan isn’t a good idea. I really like Mojitos, Rum & Coke isn’t as bad as I remember as a child it’s actually quite good (My Mom drinks ‘em so I tasted one as a kid, turned me off for 20 years), pretty much every mixed alcoholic beverage is good. Oh and I learned I’m apparently amazing at archery, at least with a ghetto bow and target… and massive amounts of beginners luck.

Robin Hooded dat shit yo. Next shot wuz a nine-ooooooh buddeehhh!! Yeeeahh!!

Seven months twenty-two days, that’s how long it’s been since I’ve written a figure review post. It’s been a while, eh? So… how are ya? how have you been? That’s good to hear, I’m glad to see you’re doing alright, still in the hobby I see. Me too, in fact today I’m writing a post! Oh, you knew that already? You’re reading it and I’m doing a poor job you say, that’s a shame. How does this work again?

Alright, enough of that lets get down to business. Mai Waifu, that’s who we’ll be looking at today. She’s sculpted by a circle that goes by the name Tsuru no Yakata (鶴の館) and ripped off by e2046. I’m not really a fan of what they do, or at least what it is I think they do. That being, ripping off sculptors for their own benefit, but in this case I feel it’s benefited me quite nicely as well. You see, I’m not an artist, in fact, if I showed you anything I’ve painted beyond say, a wall, you’d thank me for not trying to assemble and paint a garage kit. This is where e2046′s rip-off skills benefit me. They have this product line called “Gathering” where they paint and assemble the knock-off products they produce and then sell them to those of us incapable of doing so ourselves! The downside (beyond supporting their rip-offs) is they tend not to put as much effort into their workmanship as a hobbyist might and so can’t quite compare. I’ll talk more on that point later however.

I have to admit, when I ordered e2046′s Gathering series Horo I fully expected her to share certain qualities with Global’s nude Horo figure. Those qualities of course being the utter lack of any quality whatsoever. But, I purchased her anyway because, well, she’s mai waifu of course. What’s interesting is that … she didn’t share those qualities, and she was cheaper by $20 CDN. I was so sure I was going to feel ripped off and maybe because of that my expectations were rock bottom but honestly, I think she looks quite good. Now, don’t get me wrong, $100 CDN is a considerable sum for a relatively simple 1/7th scale figure, but given the rarity this item is it’s not actually that bad. Consider purchasing a Native figure and using a proxy, those seem to run ~$140 CDN for a 1/7th scale, albeit they’re produced better. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is she’s of average quality and too expensive yet despite that I’m content. That’s weird.

Had I not seen the masterfully painted hobbyist productions of this figure I’d probably have been more than just content but ecstatic that I even have this figure at all given the fact it’s a garage kit. Of course, I have seen them and they are definitely superior, but in paint quality only which I do find surprising. I had this vision of e2046 producing lumpy casts, probably because in the past they did, and that she would look roughly produced. She does not however, she’s smooth and her seams pretty reasonable! But just to rub it in, here are some works by user soszoz on MyFigureCollection as well as whomever this is. I wonder what they’d charge?

One thing that would be interested to know about e2046 figures is how they stand the test of time. I don’t suspect they’ll lean/morph over time as they aren’t PVC, but how will the paint hold up? Will it fade or darken, change colour, flake off, will I need to learn how to colour match to touch her up constantly over time. I’m not sure their Gathering series has been around long enough to evaluate these possibilities.

Despite lacking the added depth in shading and paintwork of those above I’m quite happy with this Horo. She’s posed in a way that the major manufacturers seem to rarely focus on, those being any pose that looks like someone might actually make. As much as I’d like a re-release of Good Smile’s Horo, her pose does very little to interest me (even though it is canon). As I’ve said probably many times in the past since reviewing Volks’ Horo, that I think their sculpt is superior to the rest. Many people disagree because of details such as the work on her face, but the pose is by far the most natural along with Global’s A Rest in the Forest Horo, though that one really does lack some quality. I think this sculpt belongs in that mix of casual realistic poses, even if Horo would never hold an apple like that (because she’d have eaten already).

Some complaints about her though, as I always have with anything, nothing is ever perfect. Initially overall I liked Tsuru no Yakata’s sculpt but after years of desire for this figure I’ve stared and picked away at things. First off there are her ears, they’re too perky (her breasts are just the right amount of perky though ). I think one ear should be angled differently than the other, or more relaxed and curled. Her pose is too casual for her ears to be directed forward and so attentive. One might argue they’d be higher up on her head if she was as attentive as I describe her, but even still they don’t look very relaxed. Another complaint might be a mix of Tsuru no Yakata’s sculpt and e2046′s choice of base, but Horo seems to float on the base, being held up by her right knee, tail and a portion of her left pant leg. She’s definitely more suited to a softer base, though despite the three tiny points of contact she does feel sturdy.

The next complaints are directed solely at e2046′s handiwork. Horo’s tail, the tip of it, her pride as a wolf. They’ve ruined it (How many times have I said this same thing about Horo figures?). Sure, it does get lighter but no where near the lightness expected, it almost makes me want to learn how to use an airbrush and fix it myself but I’ll point you back to paragraph number two instead. Additionally there are some mould defects in the ankle bracelet she’s wearing as well as a bit of chipped paint on her left next to where her arm rests against her torso at around the height her pouch hangs. Also there is a chip in the sculpt where her arm meets her shoulder. Both chips are small enough however that I had to search them out in the photos to remember them.

Ending with a positive note is always nice and I’d like to draw attention to Horo’s eyes. Having collected so many PVC figures I’d become accustomed to decal eyes that perhaps had a little sheen to them but were mostly matte. Sure they looked great and still drew attention but what I’d forgotten was that eyes glisten, they’re shiny and wet, and due to this they reflect light*. Well Horo’s eyes do indeed reflect light (as does her hair a little to be honest, a pleasant sheen). I think it’s a nice touch that you can perhaps only get with hand painted eyes with a clear coat. Take a look at this picture, see that skeleton looking thing in her left (our right) eye? That’s CM’s Corporation’s Horo. Ok ok, sure I could be bullshitting you but if we CSI enhance like so, you’ll see that I’m telling the truth!

-Aka

* I”m aware that to see anything at all means light is being reflected, please save me the physics lesson.

Well I’m packed and ready to go. Managed to find a place for the smallest Horo figure out there, Kotobukiya’s. Would have been nice to bring Volks’ with me on a trip again, but she was just too tight a fit. As I said on Twitter, they really should have made a Horo figma, would have made this situation much simpler.

Unlike my trip to Colorado I don’t think I’ll be able to update the site as I go, nor am I sure I’ll even manage to get Horo out of her box and into a respectable photo or not, but she’s coming just in case. My flight leaves in about 5 hours and I’m a touch paranoid that I’m going to miss it. Probably because this’ll be the first time in 13 years I’ve been on a plane, and back then I didn’t have to worry about any of it because it was all handled by my parents and it was before all the extra restrictions 9/11 added.

I do wish I could fit Horo in my carry-on luggage, but unfortunately that’s all camera equipment. Probably could have skimped on a lot of it if it were just myself going, but it’s a big wedding party and I’m requested and expected to use whatever skills I have in that regard. So, c’est la vie, I’ll just have to make do with what I’ve got.

-Aka

PS: Damn DST this weekend, I lose an hour of my vacation! You all feel sorry I’m sure

This morning I noticed I was receiving hits from Isuna Hasekura’s blog (author of Spice & Wolf) and the thought dawned on me, I never followed up my trip posts with any properly post-processed photos. Just there poorly and “quickly” (netbook’s are never quick) processed ones from the loaner netbook I was using. So here’s a compilation of all the Horo shots taken.

Horo in her perch, at least until the accident that broke her wrist. After that she was placed in safer locations and later repaired.

Spending some time resting atop admiring the view.

Waiting at a construction site Horo’s visited by a new friend. Shortly after this encounter her wrist is broken. Despite that she enjoys heading up the mountains all the same.

A little fun, tried an old style photo.

Hiking to the side of a mountain. Cheated a little and found the snow saved by the shade.

Somehow I managed to capture nearly the exact same stare above in the image below. Almost a little creepy, like some of those YouTube videos with people making the same smile thousands of times in thousands of different photos.

A lot of these are probably reposty, but hopefully they look better this time around. Processing photos on a tiny little netbook with a terrible screen and no computational power whatsoever made it difficult during the trip, so theyw ere all reprocessed after I got home. Hope you enjoyed ‘em!

-Aka

As the year is rapidly coming to a close and Christmas making way for New Years I figured I should get these posted as soon as possible lest it be 2012 already and Christmas long forgotten.

As I’ve now made it My Thing™ to take Horo with me places I decided to take a few shots of her on the family Christmas tree. I felt it would give off the most festive appearance with all the lights and decorations and wasn’t really too into recreating a nativity scene or something. I did try and find Horo a Santa hat to wear but came up with nothing in the right size around the house. Probably should have planned that out a bit better, but c’est la vie.

My Favourite Everyone Elses Favourite

I think part of the reason I prefer the one on the left is when viewing the original in Lightroom it doesn’t appear as dark due to lightroom being a darkly coloured application itself. Against the white of the site the photo looks too dark and the one on the right nicer. But when I open Lightroom back up I invariably choose the one on the left.

This one is kind of neat because if you look closely in the top right, you can see the entire room I shot in, along with me safely behind the body of my camera. Also a bit darkly lit but I like it all the same, I think it gives more overall context than the 2 above, though less than the header of course. That little red and white santa-like guy was made by my great-grandmother and has been on our Christmas tree for as long as I can remember. Actually there’s a couple of those, I remember in the past each one would have a Hershey’s Chocolate Kiss in their mouths, squeeze their cheeks and it would pop out.

-Aka

This post is nothing more than bragging about the awesome gifts I got for Christmas, but that’s what Christmas is all about right? How many of the things on your list could you convince your family of acquiring on your behalf. I jest, I jest, it’s really about suffering, suffering through the social differences of contrasting generations and their contradictory perspectives of every other generation as compared to their own. Fun times!

First on the list is quite utilitarian, however no less coveted by yours truly. It’s a trickle charger for my motorcycle, more specifically it’s a battery charger with different modes one of which is trickle charging. A very important accessory for my motorcycle as I’d very much like it to start in the spring as well as for the battery to last as long as possible. Hopefully through using this device all will be well for as long as can be. This was a gift from Santa (a.k.a. my Mother).  I’m not sure why my Mother continues the Santa gag, but I suppose it’s tradition.*

Another item “Santa” gave me was an item I really didn’t expect to receive. It was on the list, but was something I thought I’d likely buy myself once I’d gotten a bit more into recording video, so this one was a real surprise. It’s a Røde VideoMic microphone. It fits into the hotshoe on my Nikon D7000 and plugs into the external mic jack on the side. Comparing the sound between the Røde and the onboard, I’m extremely happy to have it as there really is a massive difference. Unfortunately however, this means I need to start actually recording stuff and making use of it. *sigh* Sounds like work.

The second last item I’ll bother sharing with you, as no one wants to hear about the socks I got, comes from my youngest sibling. She too stuck 100% to my list and got me a GorillaPod. I told her all the wonderful things I could do with it and her eyes lit up and said we had to go take some pictures. However since we live in Canada, it was cold outside and we decided that we liked the warmth of the fireplace in the house and opted to hang out there instead. I don’t feel too bad about this decision though, as most of the area was pretty boring and I’m a very lazy man, except when I travel. So instead I gave her a demonstration of it’s potential uses and hung my expensive dSLR, lens and flash from a door frame, upside down… and walked away. Truth be told, I too thought it was going to fall and that I’d be a very sad man indeed, but the GorillaPod held up it’s end of the bargain with interest no less. The photo I took using it was really quite good. Unfortunately for the Internets, I wont be sharing it.

Last item time, my very first ever completely manual, no auto-focus, no-chip, completely lacking in any automation what-so-ever, lens. While it’s not a Nikon/Sigma or any of the usual big name lens manufacturers it’s still quite a good little item I think. It’s an Opteka 6.5mm f/3.5 fisheye. The first thing I learned about this little lens and likely about this type of lens in general is that they’re really hard to focus. Of course, I’d read that they were, but being the over confident person I can sometimes be I thought I’d be able to do it because I’m amazing. Well I’ll tell you, I turned that focus ring back and forth back and forth and maybe once or twice did I see anything maybe sorta go out of focus. Since everything is so small through the viewfinder and fisheye, the detail is hard to see and there fore hard to focus. I found I had better results guessing the distance between me and the object and setting the focus to that distance. Also through the use of this lens I learned how to use one of the features of my D7000, by entering in the lens information, the camera could record the aperture and focal length in the EXIF data, as well as display in the camera’s various information screens which aperture I had it set to so I didn’t need to look at the ring. But back to the focusing issue, the general advice is to close the aperture more and then you needn’t worry as much about focus, but all the photos I was taking were in doors and as such I’d chosen to leave it at f/3.5 to allow in as much light as possible as a flash has considerably less effect with a fisheye.

The rest of my family received items such as coffee makers (yes, plural, my Grand-Mother received two!), clothes, Kiva cards and more interestingly BlackBerry PlayBooks. Thanks to the recent discounts I think nearly everyone in my family as well as a couple friends this Christmas received one of these devices, myself included as a freebie from my employer. A little unfortunate for me as I’d actually purchased one in the first sales way back in September. Never the less, that makes seven PlayBooks in the family now ranging the full spectrum from 16 GB to 64 GB. Actually, scratch that unfortunate line from above, the real unfortunate thing is that I now get to support all these devices for my family, there’s going to be so many questions about “how do I do this” and “how do I do that” and “how did you plug yours into the TV and watch movies”… I think the funniest question so far was “So, I can get to the iStore with this right?” I think family-wise, the best feature is the VideoChat feature, it’s like Skype but (unfortunately) only PlayBook to PlayBook and since we all have one now and it’s simple to do. I guess that means I’ll be receiving an exponentially larger amount of video chat requests than in the past. Thankfully I only have to show shoulders up, which means I don’t have to wear pants. *sigh of relief*

On the note of Skype, I think the best present I gave my family this year was hooking up a laptop to the TV and bringing a good Webcam. This being good because my brother moved out to British Columbia over the summer and wasn’t able to fly back for Christmas. So in hooking it all up to the TV, we were all able to see him and chat with him without huddling around a small laptop screen and webcam. Worked out so good, I was really happy it did because it was a bit of a last minute idea for me as I was leaving to do the whole Christmas thing.

Now that the bragging is all done and over with, here’s the part where I feign interest in your Christmas haul So, what did you get? Anyone open enough with their family to ask them for figures? I’m not quite there yet, though this Christmas I did introduce Horo as my wife. They’d asked about the character in many of my Colorado photos and also finally understood some of the passwords on things such as their WiFi. At any rate, by all means brag and link below, love to know what others received both as a means to measure my own haul by and for additional ideas to gift others.

-Aka

Notes:

* Maybe this is why I feel so comfortable having a fictional character as my wife. My entire family seems ok with continuing the charade of a fictional omnipresent fat man who can travel faster than modern physics can ever allow.
** Did the third sentence of my opening paragraph even make sense? It feels like it does. But, then it also feels like I just tried to use some big words and sound witty. Here’s hoping I accomplished at least some of that endeavour.
*** While writing this my mother called just to talk and my step-Dad had a question for me. I knew this is how it’d be haha.
**** These “quickie” posts always seem to inflate themselves into full post territory.

Every six months or so Amazon.ca sends me a package that I’ve forgotten I’d ordered. I speculate what it could be based off messages sent to me falsely claiming it’s from Japan like all my other orders. Only upon seeing it directly do my eyes light up and my mouth open to a toothy grin.

I find it a bit strange that I’ve already received my copy and that Amazon claims stock of the item, if only because they themselves list the release date as December 13th. Another interesting thing about their entry is they don’t use the books slip-on cover as the items displayed image but rather the ‘actual’ cover. I believe this has been the case since volume one but I still find it interesting, since of course the book ships with Yen Press’ live-action variation of the cover. Every time I see these covers though I wonder how old their model is…

One of these does not look like the others…

I suppose with this book out, we’re finally up to date with season two of the anime. Now the real wait starts, volumes 6 through 17 will take another ~5.5 years. Would be nice if I could convince Yen Press to release 3 books a year, bumping up production by ~2 months.

I wonder if Yen Press did the photoshoots for all the covers at once, else their model will look older in 5.5 years…

-Aka

PS: I still don’t have my “studio” set back up and had to make due… I miss my white backgrounds….

Since disassembling my “studio” to bring in a couch in it’s place I’ve wanted to take more photos of my figures. Figures. Trying to keep some semblance of creativity I messed about with Lightroom and turned this into the above photo. I like how it turned out, could probably use some more work touching up bits of it, perhaps removing the yellow tones from places I’d rather not wish them to be, but it’s good enough for a bit of fun.

Here’s hoping I didn’t miss anything too obvious…

-Aka

I wouldn’t normally make a post for something like this, but since Twitpic decided to make this image vanish I figured I’d put it somewhere they couldn’t do that. Perhaps it was a bit too racy, who knows.

It’s a little bit dark, perhaps too dark but I do like how it turned out anyway.

-Aka

Never in my life have I ever been more jealous of someone than at this moment during my recent trip to Colorado. If I had my choice I wouldn’t wear so much yellow, but I wouldn’t not wear that much yellow if it meant I could be in his place.

Picture taken somewhere along the road between Telluride and Rico along the west side of the San Juan Skyway (if I remember correctly).

-Aka