Cool and Spicy » konata

FREEing 1/4 Scale Lucky Star Outfits

anonymous_object — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:11:49 +0000

Remember those huge 1/4 scale Lucky Star figures by FREEing? Well, I quite liked them and I haven’t forgotten about them ^^. That’s why I persisted on acquiring the sailor and miko outfits that were released for Wonder Festival a while back.

I say persisted because while I definitely wanted them, they were a difficult purchase. Not only were they dreadfully expensive at 4,000 yen per girl (4,000×4), they were exclusive items and had to be purchased through a deputy service (thanks Goody Japan!). So, yeah, quite costly in the end ^^;

But look! It was worth it :). Lucky Star girls in sailor uniforms. Very, very cute!

Miyuki was a bit difficult to dress due to her more shapely body ^^;

Kagami, my favorite!

The school uniform looks great on Kona-chan too ^^.

And cute little Tsukasa.

Each set of clothes came with both the school uniform as well as a miko outfit. Yuki was once again difficult to dress >_<

The miko outfits are more complex than the sailor uniforms and took like 40 minutes to get all the girls properly dressed ^^;

Kona-chan’s pose looks good in any outfit xD

The miko outfits were somewhat wrinkled. I probably should have ironed them ^^;

All four girls together!

Now I just need to decide which outfit to leave the girls dressed in. Gym uniforms, sailor uniforms, or miko outfits? ;)

In a Lucky Star mood tonight

anonymous_object — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 02:30:16 +0000

Returned home today to find a rather large package from Hobby Search waiting for me. It was packed full of delicious bishoujos :D

Three new Lucky Star girls and a Kyou challenger appears! Since I’m quite cheap and shipping EMS is quite expensive, I try to package as many items into a single order as possible. Hobby Search is great for this as they will hold your items up to a month and then ship them all together. Results in a slight delay for some items that are released early in the month but saves a lot of money on shipping ^^

I’m looking forward to playing with my new toys over the long Labor Day weekend :-D

Image by tearfish.

On a unrelated note, I have been keeping myself busy with a few new games (new to me, at least). Picked up LittleBigPlanet (PS3), God of War 2 (PS2), and borrowed Persona 4 (PS2) from a friend. Too many games, too little time xD The PS2 games play quite nicely on my PS3 thanks to the backwards compatible hardware in the 60GB model.

And lastly, I’m almost done with final part of my Italy trip coverage. Should have done that a while ago ^^;

Lucky Star Treasures Set of Soujirou

anonymous_object — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:40:04 +0000

My latest acquisition in the quest for Lucky Star world domination ^^. Here we have Wave’s non-scale Konata and Kanata, Treasures of Soujirou Set. Soujirou, for those who aren’t aware, is Konata’s otaku galge/H game/anime loving dad. The Treasures of Soujirou set is both Konata and Kanata together (normally sold separately) and some bonus accessories.

Soujirou’s hobbies have no doubt influenced Konata into becoming the cute, little moe otaku that she is as well.

こな父！Konata shows her affection for her dad with a cute little plushy modeled after him (Soujirou). This miniaturized kona-chichi doll is actually a bonus of the Soujirou set.

Buying Konata individually would normally only get you this cute little Akira doll for Konata to hug, but you get both with the Treasures of Soujirou Set.. I didn’t notice until much later that the little ahoge on Akira’s head was adjustable ^^;

Macro lens really shows the imperfections on figures, especially with smaller ones such as this >_<

As you can see, I used a white background for this photo shoot. I experimented with a near black background last time with my FREEing Konata and was interested to see how white would turn out. Actually, it’s more off-white as pure white didn’t look quite right. I considered building a light box for this but instead just used a 1.5 meter piece of white fabric. Seemed to work pretty well though small folds in the cloth are visible in some of the photos.

The other figure in the set is Kanata, Konata’s mom. In the Lucky Star story, she passed away when Konata was an infant.

Although Kanata is only shown in memories and dreams in Lucky Star, I still feel like she is an important character. I get the impression that Kanata is still watching over Konata and Soujirou, making sure they don’t get into too much trouble. Or play too many video games :D

You can certainly tell where Konata got her cute looks ^^.

Kanata is dressed in a white, light sundress and a summer hat decorated with flowers. Her bonus accessories in the set are an alternate laughing face and a waving arm in place of the hat.

Soujirou was a lucky guy to have such a beautiful wife!

Mother and daughter together ^^. Can’t help but notice both are barefoot. You don’t see that too often with figures and I think it’s pretty cute :)

A nice little set of Lucky Star figures but probably won’t be enough to tempt the casual Lucky Star fan. Not that Wave did a bad job, the figures are pretty decent quality but their size was a bit underwhelming. They are non-scale but are probably close to around 1/10 scale in height. Also the set was a bit pricey at 9,500 yen. Although the set does come with two figures and some accessories, for figures of this size, they should have been priced lower. Aside from the price and size (!) I don’t have much to complain about. They’re both cute figures and that’s what really matters to me ^^

Figure Info:

Non-scale Izumi Konata and Izumi Kanata from Lucky Star by Wave
Released: July 2009
Retail Price: 10,000 yen (Hobby Search has the set for 9,500)

FREEing 1/4 “Super” Konata!

anonymous_object — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:37:18 +0000

Haven’t been able to post recently due to work being extra busy the past week (yay broken servers) and having some family visit from out of town. But it was worth the wait since I can now finally review the FREEing Konata I received a bit ago. I present here “Super” Konata!

My reasoning for calling her Super Konata should be obvious given the massive 1/4 scale size. Plus, she also kind of resembles a super hero with her hand of justice piercing the heavens xD

For the uninformed, this is FREEing’s 1/4 scale Izumi Konata from the Lucky Star series. Those who occasionally read my ramblings here may know that I’m kind of a big fan of the series ^^;

I really do like Konata’s pose in this figure. It’s so full of energy and really conveys Konata’s dynamic personality. Despite her anime/game addicted lifestyle, Konata is quite athletic so I’m sure she is enjoying herself too :)

I’m experimenting with a new set up for my figure photos. I used a new location for shooting which gives me more working room for lighting and I’m also trying a black background. The background is actually a sheet of velvet fabric which I bought at a hobby store. It absorbs light very well and while not pure black, with a little tweaking results in a nice deep, dark background. The only problem is that near the base of the figure it’s more difficult to keep light off the background but I will work on that later ^^

Long hair is loooong >_< How often do you see real-life girls with hair this long? ^^;

One of the coolest features of this figure is that Konata’s gym uniform clothes are made of real fabric! Yep, the shirt is made of soft, flexible cotton and I believe the shorts are made of more reflective polyester (I think).

The gym shorts are well made with two stylish stripes down the side and a realistic elastic band at waist.

Konata’s shoes are, unfortunately, not made of fabric. Since they are the base of the figure and support the full weight of the figure, it does make sense to use strong PVC. The actual base stand is a star-shaped piece of plastic with a nice reflective mirror in the center. While it is large due to the 1/4 scale of the figure, it’s not overly large which is a plus when limited display space is available.

The gym shorts look so nice with the fabric :D

Konata’s school gym uniform has her family name, Izumi (泉), printed on it along with her class (3-B). I’m really glad they chose to use fabric for the clothes. At 1/4 scale, I don’t think plastic or PVC clothes would have worked well at all.

Go, Konata, go!

View from below. Was a rather difficult shot to take as Konata is so tall it was hard to get the background that high >_<

And… since everyone was asking themselves the same question: “Since the clothes are fabric, can they be removed?”. The answer is, yes, they can be removed >_< Konata’s head and left arm is removable which allows her shirt to be slipped off the top.

And… yes, the shorts are removable as well. Both the left and right legs are removable as otherwise they would have blocked the shorts from sliding off.

Naturally, since Lucky Star is a clean, non-H series, Konata is wearing a sports bra type top (instead of nothing). Either that or a training bra… with Konata, I’m not really sure xD

It seems Konata likes the classic shimapan style. For the ladies out there, does anyone really wear pantsu like this? ^^;

FREEing certainly put enough detail into the panties that you would almost think they wanted people to strip poor Konata down to her underwear ;)

The fact that both legs and the left arm are removable for the sole purpose of removing Konata’s shorts and shirt definitively answers the question as to whether or not FREEing wanted owners to undress her ^^;

Also, a bit extra detail in the view from behind ^^;;

Last ecchi shot. Konata wants to get dressed now ^^.

And, finally, Konata can get dressed again ^^. She has two twins here: Comptiq Nendoroid Konata and Clayz 1/8 Konata. These two alternate versions of Konata really help show the immense scale of FREEing’s 1/4 Konata. In other words, she’s huge!

Although this figure was not cheap and the size is almost excessive, I still love it ^^. FREEing has done an excellent job rendering cute Konata in her school gym uniform and the quality of both the molded figure and the cloth fabric clothes is excellent. Being from anime source with relatively simple character designs, there isn’t much fine detail to Konata’s figure design but it fits quite well with the original character design.

Overall, an excellent figure to me. Based on the quality of this figure, I believe I will be collecting the remaining 3 girls in FREEing’s 1/4 scale Lucky Star set though it won’t be a cheap collection >_< I hope they turn out as good as Konata did. If you want get a Super Konata for yourself, Hobby Search still her has in stock. Now I just need to find a place large enough to display her…

Figure Info:

1/4 Izumi Konata from Lucky Star by FREEing
Released: July 2009
Retail Price: 10,677 yen

I’ve reached new heights in figure collecting

anonymous_object — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:15:17 +0000

Quite literally, that is…

A sneak peak at my latest acquisition which arrived today. I knew right away what it was based on the size of the package ^^; Konata is FREEing’s first figure in their 1/4 scale Lucky Star set and was released last week.

I know it’s 1/4 scale and is supposed to be big but I’m amazed by the size of this figure >_< The above picture shows Konata against my monitor. That’s a 26″ monitor and it really shows the sheer size of Konata ^^. Also, the gym uniform is nice. Real fabric!

Anyway, no time for a full review right now. I will be posting more pics and a proper review sometime this week. Look forward to it :)

Wonder Festival Summer Highlights

anonymous_object — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:20:55 +0000

There’s certainly no short supply of coverage for the Summer Wonder Festival that just finished up. Wcloudxkumo has a nice summary of the new and upcoming figures that were on the display. Tons of awesome new figures on the horizon ^^.

Here are some of the figures I found most interesting:

K-ON Nendoroids by GSC

We all knew this was coming ^^. K-ON! was absurdly popular and the inevitable Nendoroids of the four girls were displayed. They’re not jump-off-the-screen cute but they all look good, a very likely get for me. There are also pics that Mio is sporting her shima pantsu ^^; I believe reservations for Mio and Yui will begin in a few days.

Nendoroid Minami Chiaki from Minami-ke by Gift

Finally, some Minami-ke Nendoroids! Chiaki looks pretty cute here in her mostly expressionless face ;) I hope the other Minami-ke characters are forthcoming in their own Nendoroid forms. Scheduled for December release.

1/8 scale Black Rock Shooter with Black Blade by GSC

A new Black Rock Shooter figure by GSC. I didn’t reserve the first BRS figure that’s due out in August and I’m not sure if I regret that or not. This is mostly the same figure but with her sword instead of her Rock Cannon. Also, her jacket is off. It’s pretty hot ^^; Since I didn’t order the first version, I just might be tempted into getting this one. No price or release date (that I was able to find).

1/8 scale K-ON figures by Alter

Now here’s some good stuff ^^. 1/8 scale K-ON! figures by Alter. Given the popularity of the K-ON! series there is no doubt we will be seeing many figures of the girls but to have Alter start things off is a good sign. Mio and Yui are first up and look energetic and cute in their school uniforms and with their instruments (which look amazing). Quite tempting. Both are supposed to be released near the end of the year but no prices have been announced.

1/8 scale Mercedes from Odin Sphere by Alter!

I’ve been watching this figure for a while. The previous unpainted photos I had seen were promising and now the painted PVC version is arriving. The Alter Gwendolyn that matches with this figure is absolutely stunning and I expect this figure to be the same. Due out by end of year, no price yet.

1/8 scale Aisaka Taiga from Toradora! by Wave

Yes, yes, and yes ^^; Here is Aisaka Taiga in 1/8 scale by Wave. After watching Toradora, I’ve fallen in love with Taiga so I’m very interested in this figure. She is wearing her angel outfit from the school festival. Just based on the unpainted concept model, I like it. If the final, painted version turns out anywhere near as good as I expect, this will be a must get figure for me. No date or price yet.

1/6 scale Saber Maid Ver. from Fate/Stay Night by Alter

Another maid version of Saber by Alter. I’ve been eyeing Alter’s first version for a while but it seems to be sold out everywhere… so this figure might be the one for me. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be a Hobby Japan magazine exclusive which means it may be horribly expensive for me to acquire :(

Lucky Star Summer Seifuku versions

The last items of interest to me are the Lucky Star summer seifuku figma by Max Factory. I already have the winter seifuku versions but I like the summer versions more (maybe it’s the blue ^^). More pics at Moeya. Konata is supposed to come with a head for Yutaka so you kind of get a free Figma with her ;)

And that’s it! Whether or not I will be getting these figures is not yet decided but I should probably start saving up in any case ^^;

Konata Nendoroid, Comptiq Version

anonymous_object — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:57:36 +0000

Just a quick look at one of my not so recent Nendoroid acquisitions. Yep, another Konata ^^; This one is special though. It’s the Comptiq version which was a Comptiq magazine exclusive and thus getting a hold of one is more difficult. They pop up on Ebay every now and then but are always posted at insane prices so I went to Yahoo! Japan Auctions and got one there for a pretty reasonable price ^^.

As with the Comptiq versions of Kagami, Tsukasa and Miyuki, Konata comes with accessories for her animal persona. Konata’s animal is, of course, a cat :) She comes with cat ears and a little tail.

Nyan~

Tried a new lighting set up here. Seems to works quite well ^_^

Konata comes with 3 faces, 3 skirts, 4 arms, standing and sitting legs, and a chair.Oh, also an unpainted Akira puchi Nendoroid but I already had the painted version of her from the season 1 petite Nendoroid set.

And finally, the entire Comptiq set together at last…

This brings my Lucky Star Nendoroid totals to 4 Kagamis, 3 Konatas, 2 Tsukasas, and 2 Miyukis. And, believe it or not, there’s still a Konata and Kagami that I am missing ^^; Not sure if I will ever acquire those…

If you’re interested in getting this Nendoroid, it is number 27a. Just be careful, there are lots of fake 27a Nendoroids on Ebay. Those that are real and from legitimite sellers are often way overpriced. You might be able to do what I did and get her cheaper on Yahoo! Japan Auctions even after deputy service fees.

Kagami & Konata Chara-Ani Nendoroid

anonymous_object — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:48:44 +0000

Just a quick look at some Nendoroids that I recently received. These are the Chara-Ani versions of Kagami and Konata from Lucky Star. These were limited edition Nendoroids and are somewhat difficult to find these days (and expensive). They both feature food items as their special accessories. Kagami has her delicious Pocky (Pochi here) and Konata has her choco cornet ^^

Each Nendoroid comes with 3 swappable faces, several arms, a chair, and stands. Like just about all the other Nendoroids I have, they have a tendency to fall apart easily, usually at the legs >_<

I think I have too many Nendoroids now. At least Lucky Star Nendoroids ^^;

I have another special Nendoroid that I will be posting soon. Pics coming soon :)

Good Smile announces 1/4 Lucky Star Figures by FREEing

anonymous_object — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 03:02:04 +0000

I just found out about this figure by FREEing which was announced a few days ago. They are releasing a full set of the four Lucky Star girls starting with Izumi Konata. These will be 1/4 scale figures which is really big, larger than any other figure I currently have. Of course, as a result of the large scale, it will be quite expensive. Hobby Search already has it up for pre-order for a hefty 10,677￥.

The cool thing about this figure is that it will have actual fabric for Konata’s gym uniform. I haven’t owned a figure with fabric clothes but it looks pretty good from the preview photographs. I’m really tempted to order this despite the cost ^^; I’ve been collecting a lot of Lucky Star items and this seems too good to pass up. I’m just not looking forward to how much lighter my wallet will be…

More pics and info at GSC. Scheduled release in June.

Clayz 1/8 Hiiragi Kagami & Izumi Konata

anonymous_object — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:17:04 +0000

Yay, they’re finally here. These are the first real figures I’ve purchased since last August when I received my last set of Lucky Star characters figures. Here we have Hiiragi Kagami (Kagamin) and Izumi Konata as made by Clayz. From preview images of these figures, they looked a tad plain but upon arrival and further insepection, I have to say I like them. They’re fairly simple but they capture the characters pretty well ^^

Also noteworthy, when these two lovely figures first arrived last week, my initial photo shoot did not produce very good results. I don’t have much experience photographing figures and I just couldn’t get the lighting right. It’s rather cold in Indiana in February and it was a overcast day so I was shooting indoors. I gave up on those initial photos and resolved to try again later. I received some good advice from Smithy who directed me to the HappySoda blog where super rats had written an excellent tutorial for figure lighting. I made a trip to the general store and returned with all the materials needed for a mini figure studio. Though not quite perfect, the results were much better this time around ^_^

Starting off with my favorite, Kagamin. She is dressed in her winter serafuku and is in the process of brushing back her famous twin tails.

She has a small mouth in this pose. I guess she’s not yelling at Konata right now ^^;

Hmmm, I wonder why Kagami chose that dark brown color her hair ribbons. Ah well, she makes them look cute anyway.

Both of these figures were released in late January but due to me being cheap and using SAL, I received them a full 2.5 weeks later orz.

Nice legs ^^

I like the detail on her socks with the slight wrinkles on the top.

Full body view. She’s quite tall. The proportions are a bit more realistic than in the anime.

Other side…

And that’s it for Kagami :) Up next is Konata.

Konata! While Kagami will always be my favorite, Konata is still quite cute. Ignore the background being cut off in the corner… it’s my first real figure shoot -_-

Konata’s long hair.

I like Konata’s pose. Very cute ^^

For some reason, Konata comes with two accessories. A choco cornet on a stick (^^;) and that round cat thing.

Full body shot. Not quite as tall as Kagami but still a good height.

I wonder what’s she gesturing at… or is she spontaneously breaking into dance? Lecturing Kagami maybe? ^^

Special bonus! So close, but I won’t let you see it =P

Sorry, can’t let you see Konata either ^^; These shots were a bit more difficult to take with camera positioning >_<

The two together at last. The difference in height is apparent here.
That’s it, folks! Hope you enjoyed the photos :)