Besides sharing and casting a different perspective to figure collecting, the main purpose of this blog is one of an online diary, where I recount my thoughts and process of figure photography as I flitter through life searching for my purpose (hence figuremylife, yea?). Collecting figures has given my life a part-time sort of purpose, and a way for me to escape from the brutal reality of making up a PR Evaluation Plan or brewing up a P.A.C.T. Analysis, both of which just fell short of even being remotely interesting. Scale figures are ultimately pieces of art, sculptures in essence, or what I would refer to as alternative sculptures, seeing they embody an element missing in normal human sculpture - infinite possibility (無限の可能性). When I look at figure, I see a world of prospects, barely explored, and waiting for me. Positive emotions would well up within me and the day instantly appears brighter.
Figure - My life.
Today's post is one of those that would be my first and last, seeing it shouldn't exist in the first place. You see, I'm not one of those people who strictly adheres to her self-rule (自分ルール re: Rock Lee), meaning if the need arise, I would create exceptions (oh how I love and hate this word) to such unbreakable rules. Here's my self-imposed rule for collecting figures:
I will not, under any circumstances, collect any figure besides scale figures.A seemingly harmless and accomplishable rule eh?
...So what's she doing with a frigging nendoroid? And dude it's not even a bishounen_
My excuse (it seemed really valid then) was it featured my favourite flower - Lily of the Valley, and my jibun ruuru just faded off into the Indonesia's haze and never to be heard of again. It was conveniently forgotten. (I'll talk about bishounen figures [美少年フィギュア], or the lack of it, in another post. Or else I would never get to the main topic of this post at this rate.)
Now, a month later as I'm writing this post, I cannot say I have no regrets of purchasing her, but the photographs that happened because of her, I would never trade anything for them.
Strictly speaking, this is suppose to be a Built From Scratch series, but I got lazy and did not diligently documuent every stage of building the set-up. So forget #BFS, I'll just show my concepts behind the themes and background, and post the finished product of key props.
To digress, I recently learnt about Search Engine Optimisation and feeling curious what BFS means to the web crawlers, I went to Google it... And got bombarded with a complicated search formulae called Breadth First Search and some other financial company with a similar acronym... Well, but I don't really fancy the label "behind-the-scenes," it's too generic and not uniquely FML, and those who know me, knows I'm not one who conforms to conventions. So BFS it shall be~ Now back to topic...
Oh, this will also be my first venture into post-photo editing beyond the rudimentary adjustments of brightness and saturation. Really, traveling quite a mile for this "exceptional" figure, despite all my grumblings. Heh, passion fuels actions eh?
As usual, here's my concept design - mainly doodles of elements here and there. I'll be doing 2 scenes, and the first one would be called Daytime Winterland and the second one Summer Festival... Okay I made up these names on the spot, like now as I'm typing, just to make it sound more fancy lol.
This took me a week, and it's not even that hard... After doing the Pennisetum rubrum (Purple fountain grass) and the cumulus clouds, I let this mess sit on my desk for days as I was unwilling to sacrifice the cotton buds I use everyday to apply my toner. Lol Idk Y I got so stringy over something like this, but seriously, look at how much were used (sacrificed) just to make it look snowy enough!
Oh and it slipped my mind to introduce this figure, silly me. This nendoroid (Nendoroid is one of the product lines of Good Smile Company, one of Japan's famous toys manufacturing company) is modelled after Hatsune Miku, a 3D character from a voice synthesiser software by Crypton Future Media, Inc.. Her fame is one on par with Uzumaki Naruto... Why Naruto? Well, because people around me who doesn't watch anime knows who's Naruto, and the same logic can be applied to Miku. She's so famous and popular among figure collectors that GSC released 15 (nendoroid and scale figures) just this year, ready either for pre-order or already out in the market! Oh, and the number did not include those that were OOS, like say, this Snow Miku ver.! \*O*/
This is a screenshot taken at GSC's Product Search page of the range of Hatsune Miku related products released/to-be released in 2015/16. Image rights belongs to Good Smile Company, Inc.
Further classified under the Miku nendoroids is a series known as "Snow Miku," launched in line with the annual Wonder Festival (Winter) held in Tokyo. What's so special about this series is that they would open up a competition for people to submit their Miku design for the year, and the NicoNico Live Broadcast community would vote for their favourite design. 2015's theme is 'Plant life in winter,' and out of the infinite plant species to be crowned winner... You see why I had to get this. Coincidences like this don't come everyday. Alright alright, anything else I said from this point is just gonna sound like an excuse, so I shall just...
This was released back in February, but it was only in September that I realised its existence via a Youtube anime haul video. These videos really put the number of figures I own in perspective, and a good way to find out what people are getting around you along with what you're missing out on.
This is an elevation of the "fireworks" that took me quite some time to finish. Firstly, I didn't realise one packet of these gold wires isn't sufficient, and had to go back to get more zzz. Secondly, I was gripped by another bout of redundant reluctance of punching holes in my black styrofoam board, and kept putting off this step. Siao liao.
After overcoming all procrastinations and lame excuses, I finally got down to photographing our adorable Miku-chan. However, for a theme with the word "winter" in it, something's missing eh?
Okay, comparing these two again, there really isn't a significant change, except if you count those white dots on the sky. This was my first edit on Photoshop, so I was reserved with the snow. The idea of the blue tint is suppose to make the flowers glow like a lamp, but guess it didn't work out the way I intended... 为什么酱！
Here's the 'Leaf' version, with an edit I'm really proud of. *Pinches Miku's cheeks for her million dollar smile*
Next we have the night set-up, oh wait, I called it the Summer Festival yea? That's the idea, a scene captured as the festival approaches its pinnacle and the long await fireworks make its, ahem, flashy appearance.
Above is the photograph shot before edit. I do not own any professional camera kit or a sophisticated lighting gear (or even a table lamp for that matter). However, for the high contrast effect, I have to take it in the dark. Thankfully for my Mother's reliable Samsung S3's torchlight, this night shot was made possible.
I felt really silly after I figured that I could have just created a 2D fireworks in Photoshop, like I did here. It was really simple and heaps more authentic than the pathetic "spiders," as one of my best friends described, I created. Oh well.
One of the reasons for my long absence was due to me getting sidetracked on my venture to Instagram, an attempt to broaden this blog's reach and popularise FML's name. That was a badly calculated move. It took me one month to realise a hobby/fan Instagram account requires daily postings and constant fresh contents, neither which I could afford on a long-term basis. As an inactive user of social media, maintaining the account has soon taken quite an emotional toll (there's even a term for it, aptly named internet fatigue) and it not was until this morning that I realised this cannot go on. This would also explain why the above photograph is square, and serves as a good reminder why I'm better off being a content collector/ social media joiner.
Out with the nasty stuffs... Here's Miku enjoying the fireworks with her pet rabbit Yukine (雪音)~
... And an attempt to capture a chasing after friends scene, leaving Yukine behind to fend for itself/ 你就好自为之吧，兔子！
Thanks for staying with me till the end (yes it's the end) and I'm simply contented to be able to share something I love with you. Until the next time, which if everything goes as planned, is D-Figure. Can you guess whose he/she is? きゃあああ～！
xoxo
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