A little Hinamori Amu

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Got a big box from Anime-Export on Friday which included one of my favorite characters: Hinamori Amu!

While the Figure Decorachu Shugo Chara! figures by Yamato are more toys than most of the other figures in my collection, but they’re a lot of fun ^^;  They’re relatively small (about 9cm) and come with several accessories.  Amu comes with her school uniform and an alternate outfit with hat (seen in the series).  Amulet Heart comes with pompoms, Heart Rod, and a mini Rin and Shugo Egg.

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Amu's modified school uniform

Experimenting with a black background.  I just grabbed one of my black T-shirts and taped it to the wall >_<  I set the figure as far from the wall as possible (on the table I was using) and chose a wide f/2.8  aperture.  It actually worked pretty well for the background but near the base of the figure, it was in focus and reflecting enough to make it look bad.  I think I need a better material.  Anyone have suggestions for what to use?  Read velvet works but I don’t have any black velvet ^^;

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Amulet Heart, Rin, Shugo Egg

OK, so maybe these figures are more aimed at kids, but coming across good Shugo Chara! merchendise isn’t easy ^^;  They’re small and cute and were only 1,500 yen each so I can’t complain.

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Swap pompom for Heart Rod

I think these will be going on my desk along along with my favorite Nendoroid figures ^^  Yamato also released an Ikuto and an Utau figure in the same line but I decided to just get Amu[let Heart].

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Amu and Amulet Heart at the same time. How is this possible!?

Looking at these photos makes me realize that lighting is my primary problem with doing indoor figure photos.  Even with 3 light sources, a homemade light diffuser, and a reflector, the images come out looking bad.  Plus, I still have to shoot with wide apertures and relatively slow shutters which makes getting sharp, in focus images images difficult :(.  Then again, I tend to shoot handheld since I don’t like my tripod much… What I really need is an awesome light setup like Melonpan’s.

If you’re a Shugo Chara! fan, you can find these figures in stock at HLJ and Anime-Export ^^.

9 thoughts on “A little Hinamori Amu

    1. anonymous_object Post author

      Hmmm, I don’t remember them calling her そうそう スパイシー, just クール&スパイシー. I’ve only watched the anime, maybe that’s in the manga? I still need to read it >_< Either way, I like it too. I named my blog after it, after all! ^^

      Reply
  1. meronpan

    aaa kawayusu~ ^^ though i should watch/read some shugo chara ‘cuz i’m totally not familiar with it ^^;

    lemme know if you find a good background… i’m using satin but it’s hard to keep wrinkle free… kinduva pain when it’s not pure black. was looking at some background paper but even the cheap stuff was kinda pricey. and gradient papers were even worse (haven’t done too much searching but so far the best i found was still ~$30 -_-)

    if you do get some similar lights, make sure to get higher power bulbs. the 30W cfl’s my kit came with are definitely not high enough power for handheld shots. i’m still getting used to my new equipment, but with my old camera shutter speeds were still between 1/5 and 1/10 or so. alternately might wanna try out flash photography… discovered peshmerga’s (http://www.flickr.com/photos/peshmerga/) stuff through dannychoo’s site… really lovely and all (i believe) with flash!
    .-= meronpan´s last blog ..Limit Gunz =-.

    Reply
    1. anonymous_object Post author

      I will experiment with more materials when I can. Thanks for the tip on satin.

      I really should just use my tripod or buy a better one. The one I have I bought a few years ago for my compact digital camera. It works with my DSLR, but doesn’t hold the weight well and tends to wobble around a lot. A tripod that doesn’t stay still isn’t worth much…

      I’m sure using flashes could result in nice photos but a decent flash set up with Canon would cost many times more than just buying umbrellas ^^;

      Reply
  2. Mollie

    cool post i love shugo chara.i would like to have some of the shugo chara figures i think there cool!

    why don’t you check out my blog.

    Reply

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