March 9, 2010 the game I have been eagerly anticipating for the last couple of years was finally released.  Final Fantasy XIII (13) hit shelves across the country at 12:01 AM.  Originally thought I was going to have to get a Playstation 3 in order to play this game, but Square Enix decided to port it over to the Xbox 360 which made me one happy camper.  But there was another item that I only found out a week before the release that would add to my joy.

Let’s step back in time for a moment.  The ‘launch event’ was scheduled to begin at 10:oo PM but I didn’t want to be standing around the game store for two hours.  So I figured I would leave base around 11:20 since it wouldn’t take but ten minutes to get there.  When I arrived, there were like six people already there.  Clerk rang up my order so that when 12:01 rolled around I could handed the game and leave.  Wanted to take a few pics with my camera but clerk wasn’t to keen on that so I had to do it ninja style with the iPhone.   Not much Final Fantasy stuff up to be honest, had this display poster up.

Few of the regular edition strategy guides out for those that wanted to be cheap and know all the game’s secrets.  I have to say that when it comes to RPGs I do like to get strategy guides.  Not so much to be cheap and know all the game’s secrets, but sometimes the writer can provide some good insights on hard parts of the game.  I wasn’t interested in this though…I had my eyes set on a bigger prize.

Lucky I arrived when I did too.  Had us line up at 11:55 and about that time a lot of folks started to show up.  I was second in my line, so I wasn’t going to wait long.  In fact, I was out of there and home by 12:10 ^^

This was the main reason I wanted to go to the midnight release.  Clerk almost seemed like he wasn’t interested in selling these as they were out of sight, and kinda stunned I even knew about it.  In fact, guy that was standing around waiting heard me ask for it and wanted a copy as well ^o^  (I made him two sales LOL).

This thing is a true work of art that you have to see in order to appreciate.  Hardcover tome with beautiful Final Fantasy XIII logo embossed on the front.  The back has some writing also embossed on it, but I couldn’t make it out.  Must be from the game – so hopefully the meaning behind it will be revealed as I play.

According the Gamestop website, this guide will only be printed once and as you can see each one is numbered.  I examined this thing all around and couldn’t find a number on it, so I must be inside the book.  Perhaps to keep the value of the guides up they are wrapped in plastic.  Now this leads me mention something – I like to collect things, BUT I am not one of those folks that will not take something out of the box or open the package.  Collecting is fine, but I also like to enjoy my collectibles and I can’t do that with them in the box or still wrapped up.  So I may lower the value of it by handling it, but at least I get to enjoy it and not just look at it.

Obviously I got the game too.  But I won’t be talking much about that here.  Let’s face it, you can get a more in-depth review by the professionals at the various gaming sites.  I just play them for the entertainment value.

Busted up the game.  Obviously have manual, registration card (which is cool that Square now lets you do that online with a code, filling out those cards was a pain), and 3 disc.  I found that to be a bit surprising because Lost Odyssey had like 5 or 6 disc.  So this game will be pretty short in comparison I guess.  Its okay, its Final Fantasy so I think I’ll enjoy it.  I’ll show you my Final Fantasy collection another time.

Started to open the book.  Time to look inside!

Inside cover.  We have our cast of heroes.  I look forward to getting to know them and their stories very soon.  And look…what’s that in the corner…looks like numbers.  Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Looks like I got number 127,176 out of 210,000.  Guess we know how many of these guides were made.  Was hoping for a super low number but lets face it, those are probably held back to give to people who helped put the guide together.  I would have settled for number 210,000 too ^^;

Another thing about this guide is it reminds me a year book.  That being said…it would be super cool to get the voice talent for the heroes to sign this.  I would love to get the signatures from the creators too!  That would make this a super collectible then.  I wouldn’t be able to part with it then, but then again I don’t want to part with it now.

And the first character to greet us is the lovely Vanille.  What a cutie!

Our main hero emerges, its Lightning!!  I love this image, its simply gorgeous.  I need that in poster form.

Another Lightning image.  I’m going to flip through it now and see what catches my eye.  Be back in a moment.

Here we have Snow.  I heard that his Eidolon (Summon) was Shiva Sisters.  Also heard that their Gestalt (Vehicle or Riding) form was a motorcycle.  I wouldn’t mind having the Shiva Sisters as my Eidolon =D  Snow, you are a lucky guy LOL!!!

Character pages.  Quite a few different character specific sections in this book.

Fang is a hottie.  She is still a mystery to me, haven’t read much about her.  So interested in knowing her story / role in the game.

Information about the characters’ Eidolons.

Here we have Sazh.  I love this dude.  Afro + Gunslinger = Win in my book.  And his Eidolon is a knight that transform into a sleek car.  His power is OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!

This just caught my eye.  It’s pretty.

This guy must be a villain.  I mean look what section he is on.  I’ll know before long what his role is.

Bad looking guys here.  Hope they are later in the game LOL

Sahz has a baby chocobo that lives in his afro =D

Books has some beautiful artwork of the locales.  Wish there was more in it.

I take these are fal’Cie.

And here we have the back cover.  Another gorgeous illustration with the credits to those responsible for putting the guide together.

Overall its a pretty good book.  If you are just wanting a strategy guide you may want to just get the regular edition.  Considering US release did not get a collector’s edition version of the game though, this is a nice consolation prize.  May want to hurry and secure your copy though, as once they are gone that is it.  Already popping up on eBay, so if this is something you want to add to your collection I would suggest getting a copy soon.

I remember some years ago getting a Xenogears Perfect Works artbook for under $50 US.  Afraid that would be good fortune now.

Recently been experiment with ways to change the look of Rin and Yoko for some photos I have in mind.  The obvious ways include changing wigs, eyes, or clothes.  But then I started thinking “What would they look like with tattoos?”

So to answer that question I decided to do a few ‘what ifs’ using Rin’s DDII Body.

The first was Riza Hawkeye’s (Full Metal Alchemist) “secret of flame alchemy” tattoo.  Though I guess this would be how it appeared before she had parts of it burned to protect her feather’s secret.  On a side note, I love the tattoos in FMA.  They put a lot of detail into them, like Scar’s arm.

Then I wanted to experiment doing something with angel wings.  But I couldn’t find anything I really liked or could work well.  So I thought about tribal type tattoos.  Found this sweet tribal looking wings with the cross, which made me remember the tattoo Ciel from Tsukihime had on her body.  Obviously not the same, but it jogged my memory of her tattoo.  Maybe I should look into recreating that tattoo one day.

Was just playing around with the lower back area and probably got it a bit too busy with all the different things going on down there.  ^^

I had to throw in a Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s tattoo.  Here we have Rin with the same dragon mark as the lovely  Akiza Izinski.  I think Rin would make a good Aki cosplayer.  This one is for Kiwara ^o^

This was my final experiment.  Wanted to create a tattoo that looked like a dragon emerging from flames.  Modified the angelic cross tattoo from earlier because I wanted to incorporate the wings but give the dragon some room.

One thing about doing these mock-ups is that some people thought I actually did some of them for real ^^;;
Afraid my skills with paint are not that impressive.  All of these were done in Photoshop.  Still on the fence on if I would want to do something permanent like this on an actually DD body.  Taste change over time and reverse such a thing would require me getting new option parts or time consuming paint removal processes.

If I decide to do any serious photo shoots that feature tattoos, they will probably be added in post processing.  But that won’t happen any time soon.  Want to experiment more with various things like angles (perspective) and blending them better into the image.  Also need to try them on a DDdy body, as these were all done on a DDII body.

If you got any ideas of cool designs, post in the comments.  I plan on posting more of these in the future and would love to see some awesome design ideas.

Ever since I first saw the Saber dollfie dream on Danny Choo back in 2008, I have wanted her.  Sadly, by the time I learned of her Volks had already sold all they had.  Even found someone who was planning to sell one via a doll site once, but after a few communications I began to get the vibe that the seller was trying to pull a scam and ended my pursuit there.

Followed a few auctions for her in the past. but Saber seems to fetch pretty high price if you want the complete set.  And when the price does seem reasonable, usually something wrong with the doll itself or items missing from the complete set.  Last one I participated in went pretty high and I had to let her go in the end.  So when I saw this remakeup (repainted) Saber head on Yahoo Auction Japan with a starting bid of 5000 yen, I figured I would try once again to recruit Saber to my DD team.  Not only was the price nice, I also liked the way the face looked redone.

For some reason I decided to check Yahoo Auction Japan, which I usually don’t do because I would have to use a deputy service to bid for me.  But I loved this head so much I decided to go for it put in a bid with Goody Japan, have to say was a lot easier than I initially thought.  But sadly in the last few hours of the auction, the price sky rocketed past my max bid and ended at 37,500 yen.  Far more than what I wanted to pay for her, so I once again missed my chance at Saber.  I will say congratulations to the winner though, she looks gorgeous and hope she brings him or her much happiness.

The reason I refer to Saber as my unicorn relates back to the 2000 film “Gone in 60 Seconds” because of the following quote:

Unicorn?

Fable creature you know the horse with the horn impossible to capture.  It’s the one car no matter how many times you try to boost something always happens.

Saber has become my unicorn because  she has been difficult for me to obtain.  Saber has almost been within my grasps twice and both times slipped away.  So the hunt continues.

Latest Gundam 00 trailer is up.  I dunno if its the actual audio or if this video is off sync, but seems like the audio is a bit off.  That aside, certainly looks good.  Looks like Graham is still alive and kicking.  Also looks like Tieria Erde has his body back?  Could just be a hologram (though why would hologram need to remove helmet).

Looks like movie will be out September 2010.  Can’t wait to see this movie.

Volks has released their Volks News Vol 37 featuring outfits from the upcoming Kyoto 7 event.  Thanks goes to n66x for sharing the info on the Dollfie Dream Flickr group.

Check out the photos below.  Lots of outfits in this bunch that are on my want list.

Check out the original post for more great pics from the catalog.  Time to start saving up if I am going to secure all the outfits I like.

Another amusing video I came across on YouTube.

Winner of the Momiji’s Challenge award at the Anime North 2009 Music Video Competition.
The opening theme from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, paired with footage from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

Certainly deserved to win.  Have a look below.

Probably notice that a lot of the time I usually have Rin acting as my model for things.  And when Yoko is shown, she usually has Rin with her. ^^  Yoko gets jealous sometimes and wants a little shine time too.  So I decided to pull out some “lost” photos I had of Yoko to share with you.  Please enjoy.

I live in a cave.  Very poor lighting, so sometimes I resort to using camera’s flash.  This is the result T-T

Peek-a-boo ^^;;;

I have always been fond of Rin and she has been my second favorite Fate girl after Saber.  But my fondness for Rin has grown over this last year because of my lovely DD Rin!!  So I had to have this art book.  Also figured it would be a good time to get the Saber book since I neglected to do so last year.  I opted to get two copies of both books, I’ll explain the reason behind this shortly.

Here we have the back cover of the book.  Like the front, it has small thumbnail previews on the strip that wraps around the dust jacket.  Speaking of which, what do you call that paper strip??  Usually included on anime artbooks but never given what it is called much thought until now ^^

Inside the cover we see the previous Saber book.  No doubt to remind those folks that don’t have a copy to pick one (or more) up for their collection.

Okay.  So why would I get two copies of an artbook?  The answer is simple – one I plan to keep as part of my collection and one I plan on destroying.  I love anime artbooks, I love being able to see the artwork on paper and being able to flip through it.  But I also like to have digital artwork that I can use for things like desktops for my computers.

I like to have digital copies for my own use, not to plaster them across the internet.  In fact, my main reason was to try out the debinding technique I read about on Hunting the Elusive.

Lovely shot of Rin in her school uniform.  Obviously a must for a Rin artbook.

Rin enjoying a hot beverage on a cold day.  Love this outfit.  Another reason I wanted this book was figured it could give me ideas on things I could try with my darling Rin ^o^

I think this is  my favorite shot from the book.  It highlights that not only is Rin an intelligent girl but that she has a sexy side.

I don’t recall previous illustrations of Rin in a swimsuit being this eye catching!  If you prefer school swimwear, there is also an illustration for you in this book.

Another school related outfit from Rin.  Uniform, swimsuit, and now gym.  Rin takes school very seriously.  She has a cute expression in this picture.

Rin in her magical girl gear.  Believe this is from Fate / Hollow Ataraxia.

Image on the left is Rin dressing in Saber’s casual clothes, which is funny because in Saber Portraits it is Saber putting on Rin’s casual wear.  The right image to me plays on Saber’s rocker look from her portrait book as well.

In fact, I think I may replicate this look for my Rin.

Rin in her maid outfit, also from Hollow Ataraxia I believe.

Some lovely Rin cheesecake because you know you love it (I know I do ^^)

This would be a cute look for my Rin…

… but I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to have this look for her.  Super Sexy ^o^

Concept art of Rin’s pendant, used to save Emiya and summon Archer.  Why take picture of this?  You guessed it, I want to make one!!

The Rin Tohsaka Portraits artbook also contains in the back this sealed envelop.  Being that I can’t read Japanese, the contents were a mystery to me.  I assumed it was cards, which is cool because I like cards.

What is contained was actually set if very nice photos featuring artwork from the book!!  Very thin, very glossy photo paper.  They are actually quite nice and absolutely gorgeous.  Rin insisted we show some of her favorites.

Had to show my favorite illustration again.

The school swimsuit I mentioned above.  Very cute.  Looks like all the two page spreads were made into photos.

And of course I had to show off that delicious slice of cheesecake again.  Yum Yum!!  =P

I know as of late there have been quite a few Fate / Stay night posts here.  With the release of Unlimited Blade Works last month and news of various Fate related merchandise coming out, I just felt that I had to share it with you all.  I love the Fate franchise, and would dare venture to say it holds number one spot on my list.

I think this book does a great job of showing off the many sides of Rin Tohsaka.  Not just the tsundere side we are accustomed to, but also the softer, sweeter, and sexier side of her character.  The artwork in this book is top notch in my opinion.  Of course some of the illustrations appealed to me more than others, but each of them did provide a nice look at Rin.

I am sure you noticed that I did not scan a single illustration used in this review.  My purpose for two of the same art book is because I do plan on scanning the images, but for my personal use.  I believe that a true otaku supports the cause, which in this case means buying the art book over downloading it from some image site.  I included photos so that those interested in purchasing the book would know what to expect once they get it.

I ensure you photos and scans don’t compare to holding the actual work in your hands.  Especially when talking about a book full of gorgeous illustrations like this one.  I would highly recommend picking this up this book.

I got my copies from Amazon Japan.  It was my first time ordering from them and have to say the experience was a lot easier than I thought it would.  In fact, I got my order in about two days after placing the order.  I will definitely have to try them again for another art book been looking at getting.

You can pick up Rin Tohsaka Portraits artbook at the following retailers:

Amazon
J-List
Hobby Search

You can also read punynari’s impressions of the book at Moe Passion.

Valentine’s Day (Saint Valentine’s Day) is an annual holiday held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions.  Usually celebrated by the giving of chocolates, flowers, and / or other gifts to symbolize your affection towards your loved one(s).

To celebrate Valentine’s Day 2010, decided to get a few items from local hobby shop and put together a little photo shoot with my two lovely girls – Yoko and Rin!!  Just a small warning, this post will be quite yuri-themed.  There is some bare vinyl and suggestive posing in these photos.  In other words use caution if viewing around your boss or significant other.  Unless they like this sort of thing, in which case invite them over to have a look with you ^^

Decided to get creative a bit.  Originally going to do a photo shoot with them in normal clothes laying in the rose pedals, but decided to go with the ‘pedal bikini’ look instead.

Plus the pedals reminded me of The Birth of Venus painting.

Black backdrop doesn’t go well with Rin’s lovely, dark hair ^^;;

And getting the pedals to stay put required a bit of work too.

The rest of these photos will be quite yuri-themed.  You have been warned…again! ^^

This is one my favorite photos from this shoot ^o^

Slightly different angle.

Yoko:  Rin…look behind you.
Rin:  Hmmm?  *Looks back*

Rin:  *Tsundere Mode Activated!*  Enjoying the show Mr. Ecchi!!

Switch positions =3

Alrighty, gonna let the pictures do the talking for a bit.  Be back shortly.

Can see the textures of the pedals a bit in this shot.  Obviously tell they’re synthetic.  Some of you probably didn’t even notice them because you were focused on other things ^^

This was also one of my favorite photos from this shoot.  I like how Yoko’s resting her head on Rin’s bosom.

Today was also Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year.  For those that are unaware, 2010 is the year of Tiger.  2009 was the year of the Ox, which is why I got Holstein Hanako.  Following is taken from Wikipedia:

Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is commonly called “Lunar New Year”, because it is based on the lunisolar Chinese calendar. The festival traditionally begins on the first day of the first month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: zhēng yuè) in the Chinese calendar and ends on the 15th; this day is called Lantern Festival. Chinese New Year’s Eve is known as chú xī. It literally means “Year-pass Eve”.

I didn’t have any tiger figures laying around.  Considered turning my Saber Lion nendoroid into Saber Tiger, but didn’t really want to do that without having another one =P

And I didn’t have cheongsams for my girls to wear.  So I figured I would see what I got around the base that was tiger related.  Yet to my surprise, it would turn out that was pretty much nothing!!  Luckily I found an All-Seeing White Tiger in my card collection.  So Rin happily volunteered to show it off for the occasion.  For those that can’t read the card’s text, it says:

A proud ruler of the jungle that some fear and others respect.

Stumbled upon this video on YouTube featuring a 3D-CG of Saber Lily and though I would share it.