So 2009 has officially reached it’s conclusion. Like many people, I too find myself reflecting on the previous year. Local and national news reports have been looking back on the last decade as well. I can recall the major world events, somewhat; as well as key moments in my own life. Hard enough to focus on things from the passing year much less the decade. If I blog more, probably be easier though, right? ^^;;
Alrighty, time to fire up the Time Machine and take a look back!
Back in May my friend Xaeon, Carlton Hunter, passed away due to a freak accident. Xaeon and I were like online brothers, having met playing Phantasy Star Universe on Xbox 360. We had good times running missions and made up 2/3rd’s of a pretty awesome team in the game. Xaeon and I shared a lot of the same interests and seemed to have a similar mindset when it came to things like elitism and online drama (we didn’t care for either).
The news came pretty suddenly that I almost didn’t believe it true at first. But it was also one of those things that makes you realize that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed to us. So we have to enjoy everyday we get.
One of the things we liked to do when we defeated bosses in-game was quote the line “It’s just been revoked” from Lethal Weapon 2, but we do it in reference to the Family Guy parody. This one is for you Xaeon =D
In 2009 I started collecting anime figurines again. I had collected a few figures here and there over the years, like many of the above Sabers with the exception of the Saber Maid, Saber Lion nendoroid, and Saber Lily figma. I am a huge Saber fanboy if you haven’t guessed that by now (like I haven’t mentioned it before lol).
One of the reasons I adore Saber had to do a lot with who she represents in the Fate / franchise. The Saber class is considered the most outstanding, even more so for this ‘Saber’ because she is actually Arthuria Pendragon (play on King Arthur of legend) and therefore the King of Knights. If you read my About page, then you would understand that since I was a wee boy I had a fascination with knights and wished to live my life in a similar fashion. So being the fanboy I am, I had to get Fate / Unlimited codes so I could get this figma!!!
2009 was the Year of the Ox on the Chinese calendar. I knew this, so I had to get Holstein Hanako. She is so cute and because of her theme I knew she would make for a good 2009 figure pictorial. Sadly it took me a while to actually get around to take pics of her, but when I finally did I liked how they came out. Apparently others did too.
Another anime girl I simply adore, the lovely C.C. (read C2) from Code Geass. What really liked about her character aside from her mysterious nature was that she was witty. And of course she was pretty hot, even with the amount of pizza she could put away. This was probably the only C.C. figure I wanted for the longest time and when I finally found her I had to get her.
A picture of a figure pictorial that I never finished with the lovely Kanu and Ryomou made by Griffon. I think you can get the idea of what I had in mind, but I never polished the idea. This was part of some test shots I did, and was probably the best one of them all. At the time, I planned to get a better backdrop and stage it up nice. Try to go for some ‘romantic lighting’ and such, but anyway it never panned out.
I may go back to it again, what do you think?
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I participated in Danny Choo x Kotobukiya Otacool contest. Well, wouldn’t call it participated as I didn’t really show much of my room. Honestly, I was a bit embarrassed to share my room with the world. Plus a lot of my ‘otaku’ stuff isn’t really out on display. Pretty much threw some nendoroids on my computer and took a pic ^^;; Maybe that is the reason for the strange faces lol. It was also about this time I did my Miku x Saber post.
Got the Gift Yoko – previewed it but never reviewed it. She is quite lovely and was my first Yoko figure if I recall. Perhaps she influenced my decision on adopting DD Yoko? I will say this, the ‘el pie de camello’ didn’t influence the decision ^^;
I got the Gekisou Haruhi girls. But apparently I accidently ordered two Mikuru!!! At the time of this photo Yuki wasn’t released yet. Thinking I may do some sort of contest to give away my spare Mikuru – maybe related to the Haruhi movie??
Have you ever ordered two of the same figure and not realized it? I did it two other times besides this! You can see what I have by checking out my profile at My Figure Collection aka Tsuki-Board.
The highly anticipated Saber Lily by Good Smile Company was released this year. She is absolutely gorgeous. I promised a review shortly after I got her, but after seeing some of the great reviews of her out there and the lovely staging I got a bit discouraged. Want to do something without copying the great pictorials I have seen.
In 2008 I got my first DSLR camera – Canon EOS 40D. In 2009 I decided I could get a compact point and shoot camera so I could have a camera with me so I could take pics while out of stuff find interesting. Opted to get the Sony DSC-W290 reasons you can read about it more here.
And I made good use of it, taking shots of stuff while I walked around…
When I drove around…
Even before I enjoyed this holiday pie.
Fact is I took quite a few pictures in 2009, yet I didn’t share a fraction of them. I would go through them after I was done and notice that only a few came out like I really wanted. So I would just leave them in my camera download folder.
Took pictures of some local building development.
Looks like they were building townhouses. Of course now they are built and landscaping is almost done. To me, photography was about sharing something of myself with others…yet I have all these photos just sitting on computer. Guess you can tell what one of my New Year Resolutions will be? ^^
Those who follow the site will probably say there is never a shortage of Dollfie Dream photos here. There is just something so endearing about these lovely ball-jointed dolls and ever since Danny Choo introduced his Saber DD I have been fascinated with them.
Rin was my first “daughter” though I prefer to call them my girls. I may be a Saber fanboy, but I also loved Rin in Fate / Stay Night. I mean, she summoned the badass Archer!! Rin is a curious girl, here she is playing with the Kiba plushie that came with my Wolf’s Rain DVD those many years ago.
You can read more about Rin in her introduction post. Or check out the Dollfie category posts to see what other things curious Rin gets into.
I took Rin out for an outdoor photoshoot as part of Danny’s Miss Dollfie Summer 2009 contest on figure.fm. I went to a local landmark called The Old Mill. If you are movie person, then you will recall that the mill was shown briefly in the opening credits of “Gone with the Wind.” Can view Rin’s entry here.
It was pretty quiet there for the most part, then all of the sudden a lot of folks showed up. Had to guard Rin from kids trying to grab for her, but luckily I had help with me when I did this shoot.
I have heard that Rin is a Tsundere type. Show me this side of her means she warmed up to me, right?
Not long after I got Rin, Yoko arrived at my house. I adopted Yoko for 2 reasons. First, I loved her character in Gurren Lagann. A lot of people focus on the fanservice aspect of Yoko, but she was actually more complex than some people give her credit for. Second, I had to see what the Dollfie Dream Dynamate body was like compared to the regular DD body. At the time you could only get the DDdy body through the adoption of limited edition girls like Yoko. Now the DDdy body is a base item. Like to think adopting Yoko helped Volks make that decision ^^
Some DD owners didn’t like that Yoko had two ‘steamed buns’ but I don’t mind and believe that was more of a licensing issue Volks had to agree to with Gainax. Regardless, I adore Yoko and steamed buns look good in shirts like this! ^o^
I only put Yoko in her default clothes for the introduction post. After that I kept her in different outfits that would minimize the staining of her body. One such outfit was this white robe, which for the longest time was closed. Then one day I came back home and found Yoko like this. Must have been to constraining for her ^^
I have to say that entering the DD world has been quite an experience. Met some great owners out there and seeing what other owners do with their girls inspire me to try new things with my own. I also think that the fact you can customize them appeals to a lot of people. Been looking at a few options to change the looks of my girls.
Can’t dream of renaming them though. If I changed their appearance enough to warrant a name change, I would still reference their original name in it. I like their original characters too much to take that identity away from them.
Two photos I did not include in my Christmas 2009 post. Can’t believe I missed them actually, love the posing of them both. Probably focusing on something else…never know with me.
Girls ended 2009 / started 2010 wearing their lovely kimonos that I wouldn’t be surprised if I put on incorrectly. Got these back at the beginning of the year. Figured it would be a good way to end out 2009 and start 2010.
I was going to throw some stats out regarding the past year, but this post has started to run pretty long and chances are lost quite a few people by now. Going to finish this up with a few things regarding the promotional aspect of my site.
This is probably the biggest site related thing to happen in 2009 and came as a complete surprise to me! Danny Choo featured my site in one of his posts on his site ^o^!! Honestly, I don’t know what I did to deserve the honor. Certainly my proudest moment in terms of this site.
I cannot recall of I mentioned it on my site, but people who know me know that I consider Danny an inspiration. And I guess know you all do as well. So for me, seeing my site mentioned is an honor that I hold in high regards. I would still consider it an honor even if my site was chosen at random!!!
Though mentioned briefly, my name cards were featured on Moo’s blog for a time. This was courtesy of the Moo group on Flickr, which I think is administrated by Moo themselves. So they pull images from the group pool and they show up on their blog.
If you have an account on Flickr, I would suggest joining groups. Not only is at a great way to network, it could provide you with opportunities like this. I know there are some photographers out there that don’t believe in posting their work on sites like Flickr because they don’t want their work stolen, but even posting sample work is better than posting nothing at all.
While on the subject of Moo and those name cards, I am planning on giving a few of them away soon. All of them include a code to get a discount off an order, so if you’re interested in checking out Moo’s card service then stay tuned.
Last but not least is that my two lovely girls were featured on Volks USA’s Sumika Times blog. And today…the last day of 2009 no less. When I put in the submission I didn’t expect to hear back as soon as I did. Pretty nice way to end off 2009.
That’s all I got for my look back at 2009. Little longer than I expected, mainly because of all the pictures I didn’t share throughout the year =P
See you soon when I talk about what’s coming in 2010! Oh, and I’ll (briefly) cover some 2009 site stats.
thanks for the great stuff this year!
Looks like it was a great year for you too ^o^
It was memorable ^^