Nendoroid Kagamine Rin & Len



Guess what the pup dragged in from Anime Fest Asia? ^^
We have a Christmas tree up at home, and the Kagamine twins decided to hang out and be ornaments for a bit. Len's head does sort of resemble a star, lol.




Kagamine Rin and Len are "Vocaloids". What is a Vocaloid you ask? Explanation and music videos of the twins dancing and singing after the cut. :D


Vocaloid is a synthesized singing program developed by Yamaha Corporation. Crypton Future Media is a third party developer who took the Vocaloid technology, combined it with good character design and came up with a winning formula. The blue-haired, double-pony-tailed Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) was their first release with Yamaha's Vocaloid2 technology, and she enjoyed tons of free publicity thanks to music videos and comics created by her fans. The twins Kagamine Rin and Len (鏡音リン・レン) were introduced about 4 months later.

The following videos were created by fans, although you can find many more examples around Youtube or Nico Nico Douga (requires registration).





PS - Give the Japanese creator of the above video some credit - Vocaloid2 wasn't programmed explicitly for English pronunciation, hehehe.

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Red Alert 3 talent remix trailer



Watch this video, and spot the celebrities!

EA Games released Red Alert 3 last week, and they've cleverly hired several high profile actors to star in the game's live action scenes. If you've ever played Command & Conquer, you'll probably remember the shamelessly cheesy live action cutscenes. Now with 100% more star power and shameless pandering to male gamers (read: cleavage), EA hopes to get more gamers on board.

Since I've been getting into RTS again lately, I'm enjoying this game. Feel free to hit me up if you have an account for multiplayer/co-op online play. My micro's kinda rusty but I'm getting there, lol.

Full list of the actors that appear after the cut:


A list of the actors:

* Gemma Atkinson (Hollyoaks)
* Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show)
* Andrew Divoff (LOST)
* Kelly Hu (The Scorpion King)
* Jenny McCarthy (Singled Out)
* Ivana Milicevic (Casino Royale)
* Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean)
* Autumn Reeser (The OC)
* J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man)
* Peter Stormare (Prison Break)
* George Takei (Star Trek, Heroes)
* Randy Couture (former UFC champion)
* Gina Carano (American Gladiators)

I only recognised J.K. Simmons (who plays Peter Parker's hilarious boss), Peter Stormare (Prison Break's Abruzzi), George Takei (Hiro Nakamura's dad), Tim Curry (for his voicing cartoon characters, lol) and Jenny McCarthy (perhaps better known as Jim Carrey's girlfriend).

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Review: Construct-A-Bot EVE


WALL-E is an impressive film. A love story between two robots that aren't very humanoid-looking sounds risky on paper, but Pixar managed to pull it off brilliantly.

I'd like to think the strength of the movie also contributed to a healthy demand for the movie-related toys, because boy were they hard to find. I mean, sheesh, Singapore's a small country and all but we probably have more Pixar fans than Toys "R" Us gives us credit for, lol.

Michael Crawford has done excellent reviews of Cube N' Stack WALL-E and M-O, so I'll stick to reviewing Construct-O-Bot EVE.

Eeeeeeevahh!


The Construct-o-bot series basically allows you to dismantle and attach the robot parts by means of magnets. The blurb at the back of the box encourages you to buy both Construct-o-bot WALL-E and EVE, and swap their parts around like some Frankenstein-experiment. I haven't tried that yet, but there's another definite plus point to the magnetic attachments - EVE here has increased posability because the magnetic attachments act similarly to ball-joints. And no need to worry about breaking the joints from over-rotating.



Pressing the button on EVE's back opens the front compartment, where you can stow away the boot with the plant.




As you can see, looks-wise these toys are pretty spot-on. EVE is sleek, and the only downside is that her arms can't be pushed in to go completely flush against her body. Paint ops on EVE are almost negligible, although her eyes are printed very clearly. I guess you could say these toys are priced quite reasonably considering they're aimed at children, although I'm sure a number of older fans have been snapping these up. :P

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Meet the Pure Neemo gang!

From left to right: Aika (black-haired 4th series version), Aika again (blonde-haired 5th series), Himeno (1st version)

Since the blokes on my blogroll have gotten 12" figures pretty much covered, I'll post about the Pure Neemo dolls in my collection. :)

They're semi-posable as they've got no joints in their elbows or knees for aesthetic reasons. Posing them differently requires swapping their arms and legs (they also come with several different pairs of hands).




Blonde Aika is wearing a white duffle coat and pink stockings my friend Iwa helped me purchase while she was in Japan. Thanks so much Iwa! ^^



Himeno is wearing the recently released Bohemian clothing. This photo demonstrates how I prefer to tie the sandals.


Azone has revealed they will release a much more posable Pure Neemo body, called the Flection. So if any of you were put off by their limited posability, now's the time to join the Pure Neemo appreciation club. XD

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Work in progress: Ema Skye custom



Here's a doll project I'm working on: she's the younger version of Ema Skye (Houzuki Akane/宝月茜) from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attourney (Gyakuten Saiban/逆転裁判). I decided to create her when I found I could use Azone's clothing for most of her outfit, plus she's an interesting character!

A bit about her: Ema Skye is a 16 year old student who's into forensics and scientific investigation. She carries around a bottle of luminol which the player may use to spot hidden blood stains.

More photos after the jump.


Her badges and name tag were painted with acrylics, then "laminated" with sticky tape. For the name tag case, I cut out a small rectangular piece from some plastic I had sitting around (I keep packaging/boxes for times like this).

I've also gotten her a bag from Volks, as well as test tubes from Rement. She still needs a pair of socks, shoes and white sunglasses (does anyone have a pair with big round lens to spare?). The body I used for Ema is the 25cm midi body from Volks. Since I enjoy fussing over the details of her outfit, I'll be painting her head last. :3



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Jack Twist custom figure

"Hey cowboy, why so serious?"

Yeehaw! Say howdy to Jack Twist, of Brokeback Mountain fame!

This custom figure was kitbashed with the following:

- cowboy outfit from Hot Toys Movie Masterpice James Dean
- Hot Toys Caucasian TrueType body (2nd edition)
- Jake Gyllenhaal headsculpt from some Hot Toys military figure, I forgot exactly which one

More pictures after the jump.






Thanks JeffL1965 for providing a better line for the Joker. ;)

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Japanese monsters know how to party

Halloween is pretty much a non-event over here, but it's a good excuse to make a post like this. XD

Check out this very creative stick puppet animation by manga artist Masakazu Amahisa!



It features traditional Japanese monsters such as the blue-skinned Konaki-jiji (monster baby with the face of an old man), Hitodama (fireballs), Kyonshi (Chinese vampire), Onyudo (shapeshifting monk), Jizo (guardian deity of children), Noppera-bo (faceless ghost), Rokurokubi (long-necked monster), Kappa (water imp), Hoichi the Earless, and many others.

via Pink Tentacle

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