February 22, 2017

WonFes Winter 2017 news

The winter Wonder Festival 2017 was held in Japan last Sunday and there were sooo many figure announcements that I'm super excited about! ♥ But at the same time I also hope that some of these will turn out not to look so good so that I don't have to buy them all, hahah X'D Usually I'm very picky about scale figures and thus there are not many that I find interesting, but this time there were surprisingly many scale figures that I fell in love with...

Here is a list of the new announcements and here is another list for updates to figures that have been announced earlier.

Previous WonFes posts:
Summer 2016
Winter 2016
Summer 2015
Winter 2015

Ultimate Madoka 1/8 scale by Aniplex

I've followed the development of this figure since the concept art was released and pre-ordered her right away after she became available~ Thank god I won't have to pay until her release in December XD

The fully colored figure was revealed during the WonFes and she looks just perfect ♥ I can't say how much I'm looking forward to getting her ;3; Now I'm glad that I haven't bought Good Smile Company's Ultimate Madoka scale figure, since I like this one a lot more! My only concern at the moment is her huge size... 44cm with wings O_O And I honestly have no idea where she'd fit, lol.

Akuma Homura 1/8 scale by Aniplex

Aaaand of course there's also going to be Akuma Homura figure to match Madoka *o* ♥♥ There's only a prototype of her so far, but these two look gorgeous side by side~ I absolutely want to get this one too, so I hope that she won't be released to close to Madoka's release month >.< It'll probably take until 2018, though.

Hanayo & Rin 1/7 scale by Alter

These two new Love Live scale figures look lovely as well~ Neither of them belongs to my favorite characters in the series, but I might cave in and pre-order Hanayo (the one on left), depending on when she'll be released.


OH. MY. GOD. The prototype of this Ranko was actually on display at last summer's WonFes and now they revealed the fully colored figure! This is the most beautiful figure of Ranko so far and I really want her ;___; My wallet is already crying because of all these lovely scale figures...

Anzu 1/7 scale by Alter

Anzu will be getting a scale figure as well! ♥ I checked some art of the outfit she's wearing and the colors look really pretty... If Alter sticks to the original colors and doesn't screw things up, this is most likely going to be another must-have figure >3< Hopefully Alter (or some other company) will also make a 1/7 Kirari at some point~

Gwendolyn Dress ver. by Flare

Absolutely love the design of this, but I might have to pass on her because of all the other figures that I want to get...

Albedo 1/8 scale by Good Smile Company

I never actually finished watching Overlord, but I liked Albedo as a character a lot and this figure looks really pretty too. I seem to have a thing for pretty ladies with wings, hahah XD

Kanan Figma by Max Factory

Kanan baby~ ♥ Instead of collecting all the Love Live Sunshine girls as Figmas, I decided to only get my favorite girl, which is Kanan. Though I might want to get Mari as a friend for her too, the two are just so adorable together ^^;

Saber Lily Figma by Max Factory

Lillie Nendoroid by Good Smile Company

I love Lillie, really happy to see her getting a Nendoroid version! Though I would've preferred GSC to go with the anime version, since she has Alolan Vulpix there and that would've been even more adorable as a companion than Cosmog. Still, will most likely pre-order her, unless she ends up being super expensive and/or exclusive.

Mami Maiko ver. Nendoroid by Good Smile Company

Disney Nendoroids by Good Smile Company

This was the biggest surprise for me among the WonFes news! I think the only Disney characters that GSC has made as Nendoroids so far have been Anna and Elsa from Frozen, so this was not expected at all. I definitely want at least Ariel, since she's my favorite Disney princess ever ♥ Tinkerbell and Rapunzel are tempting as well~


Kirito DD by Volks

Last but not least, Volks revealed that they're going to make Kirito as a Dollfie Dream! I'm not interested in him as a Kirito, but excited to see if the sculpt would work as another character for my and Sarg's plans :3 It's still uncertain whether he'll be on the same DDS body as Len, or if there'll be a brand new, taller male DD body. There'll also be a new Asuna and the previous one was a DD, not a DDS, so it's possible that this new version would be on the taller body too. If that's the case, then Kirito would need to be taller than a DDS as well. According to some Twitter comments, he's already on production, so there should be more info sometime, hopefully soon!

***

Two new Pureneemo dolls were also revealed in WonFes, but those didn't interest me personally so I haven't included them in this post.

Do you guys have any favorites from the WonFes releases? :)

February 12, 2017

Snow Queen Mia & Picco Raili

Double box opening incoming!! :D I got both of these girls this week and thought that I'd introduce them in the same post, although that unfortunately caused this to get a bit picture-heavy...

First up is Snow Queen Mia, who arrived one day before little Raili. This is one of my favorite fullsets from Azone so far and I knew from the moment I saw the first photos of her that I'd have to get her >.<

Her box design is sooo beautiful! ♥





The story leaflet




Although I can't read Japanese well enough to translate the story (maybe one day?), I find it fun to try to guess what happens based on just the photos XD

An overview of her outfit, which I think looks really pretty! ♥

But one thing I must say is that her boots are such a pain to get on her feet... They're so tight and don't open at all ^^; I did manage to get them on in the end, but it did take some time... Try to put the shoes on without socks and the poor feet would be lost inside the boots forever, hahah :DD

She has such lovely, long hair~ ♥

She is definitely well-prepared for the Finnish winter! :D It's been around -15 celcius here on some days (and even colder in the northern parts of the country), so a warm cape is a must!



This version is actually the first Mia with this kind of mouth, all the previous ones have been smiling. It's a nice little change, especially since I already have one smiling Mia, so this way they don't look too similar :)

Speaking of similarities... Here's a photo with Sayuri (Swan Lake Raili)~ I was thinking that these two would be good friends, but they actually look like they could be even relatives D: The name that I picked for Mia is Kaede, which means "maple" in Japanese, while Sayuri means "water lily"... So even their names make them seem like relatives XD I need to think about this a little bit!

And a quick comparison of the skin tone difference! Mia is usually normal skin, but the white skin definitely works much better for this Snow Queen version and looks good with her hair color :3

***

Moving on to Picconeemo Raili~
She was actually supposed to be released last December already, but got delayed a few times for some reason. I don't remember this happening before with any of the Azone dolls that I've pre-ordered, so it was quite a surprise. But now she's home at last! ^3^

I picked her up from the post office on Friday evening, but it was already too dark for photos so I had to wait until next morning to open her :<

Raili is the second Picconeemo to be released with this improved body and the first one to have an improved M body, as well as the first to be in white skin. I didn't remember to take a photo, but she did come with a selection of extra hand parts! Which is a good thing, since I only had the hand parts for the new body in normal skin XD



Leaflet cover


  
"Hello, nice to meet you! owo I'm a Raili, but please call me Rina~"

Miu: "Uh, Rina-chan... let me help you get that plastic thing off..."
Rina: "???"

Rina: "Oh, right~ I feel much better now!"

Now let's try that hello pose again XD

Looking good! (It cut her front hair a bit at this point too)

Her face is so cute and that little hat is adorable XD ♥

Miu: "This arrow is saying that you took a plane from Finland to Japan... but didn't you just come to Finland from Japan? @.@"
Rina: "Yes I did! But in Azone's story I'm an exchange student from Finland :3"

Miu will make sure that Rina adapts well to the Picconeemo family ^^ At least these two seem to be getting along well~

Now that I have both the old and new Picconeemo bodies in S and M size, I could take a comparison photo of them... I feel like the new M body is about the same height as the old S, if not even shorter, but it's hard to say until I compare them side by side without any clothes or shoes. Not sure if I'll make a whole post about it, but at least I'll upload the comparison photo on my Flickr once I have some time :)

February 9, 2017

DDS Freyja arrival~

I talked about wanting to get DDS Freyja in my doll plans for this year and thankfully managed to get her very easily :D Some people in Japan had already received Freyja before taking part on the international lottery ended, so I stalked Yahoo Japan to see if anyone was selling/auctioning her for a reasonable price... And someone had actually listed Freyja there with a Buy It Now option! I jumped on the deal right away XD This way I saved myself from the hassle of taking part in the lottery, it would've been a lot of anxious waiting and I probably wouldn't have won the right to purchase her anyway... ^^; So, I'm really happy with how things worked out!

This girl arrived last week already, but thanks to school and being exhausted, I'm yet again a bit backlogged with this blog ;___;

Anyway, now let's move on to the box opening!


I'm actually not a fan of Macross Delta or Freyja as a character, I just liked this doll's cute smiling face and wanted her as my own character :D To be honest, I think that most of Volks' character dolls don't look much like the character they're supposed to represent. I love Saber, for example, but none of her doll versions look accurate to me... Which is why I made my own custom Saber, hahah :D

Cutie pie! ♥♥♥


Instructions on how to put on the clothes :D


I think there haven't been many photos of Freyja around yet, so I took photos of her face from different directions in case it might be useful for people :)



As an interesting fact, her smile isn't actually completely sculpted - it is partly just the painting. With a custom faceup it'd be easy to adjust the expression to your liking, if you prefered a bigger/smaller smile :3

Here's a photo with a temporary wig~ I still haven't ordered her own eyes (having trouble trying to decide on the color, eh...), but these default ones look pretty nice so she can keep them for now. I might sell them once she gets the other eyes, but not sure yet. They might look good on my custom Saber as well!

Character-wise, I didn't have a name planned for Freyja until she arrived. I went through many name lists and then decided on Shira.

I did take photos of her fullset stuff as well, but haven't taken them out of their packages since I'm not planning to keep them :D I already managed to sell the walkure sign hands too, and totally forgot to take a photo of them before sending them out, hahah...

The wig (which looks way more yellow-ish in person than in the company photos D:)

The boots. These look kinda cool and I'd be tempted to keep them if they only fit Iple girls XD Unfortunately they don't...

 All the little accessories

And the outfit

So Freyja is my 5th full Dollfie Dream and I hope that she'd be the last one for now... XD I was only supposed to get one and here's what has happened, lol. Now I would like to focus on finishing their looks - still need to decide on Rin's wig, pick the best eyes and wig for Shira, aaand make lots of clothes for all five girls, of course x_x Taking a group photo of them would be fun too, once I'm completely happy with their looks!

That's all for now, but I'll hopefully make another blog post in a day or two, since I need to talk about two new Azone dolls as well ^^;