Ema Skye custom

This one's for Phoenix Wright fans! Ema Skye is my first proper attempt at a character doll (that is, a doll based on an existing character).

I know her badges are rather over-sized, but I'm too lazy to make new ones. ^^;

この逆転裁判のファンのためです！私は先週末にこのカスタムドールを完了した。バッジが大きすぎますが、私も新しいものを作るに怠惰なんだ。 ^ ^ ;

More pics after the jump.




She's using a Volks 25cm body, which unfortunately isn't as posable as Obitsu. Volks doesn't provide alternate hands for grasping or posing either. I picked Volks though because it has slightly longer arms than Obitsu's 25cm body, and the hand sculpts are more realistic (longer fingers). Minor details, but I wanted to get as close to Capcom's character design as possible. ^^

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Review: Hot Toys Joker x 2

Ladies and gents, boys and girls, heeeeeeere's Bank Robber Joker!

Plus as an added bonus: I've included the first Joker with one of the two new headsculpts. Yulli, the talented lady behind these sculpts, did an outstanding job. Joker looks much more spot on - one head has slicked back hair so you can slip on the clown mask he wears during the bank heist, the other has the petulant, dangerous look of the Joker when he's locked up in the police station's detention cell. I also can't commend the amazing paint job on the heads enough.

I love Heath Ledger's Joker, and these figures are the closest to doing him justice. :)
More photos after the jump!




Gotta love that smirk of his. Everyone knows the line, "why so serious?", but how about the one where he says to Bats: "You complete me". Stealing lines from Jerry Maguire? Atta boy.

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Pure Neemo Miu

Here're some photos to demonstrate the changing of limbs for Pure Neemo dolls. Shown here is Sweet Punk Girls! Miu, with a bunch of clay turtles/tortoises from a quaint little store in Suntec City.

Wot's keeping me from updating lately? I've been busy playing Fallout 3 on the PC (Sket, it's awesome!). XD
But! I've also been productive. Ema Skye is finished and I'll take photos of her tomorrow when I'm back from my trip (long weekend, hey!). Also got to take photos of Hot Toys' Bank Robber Joker which I picked up Friday - it totally rocks!

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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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