Happy New Year! Last update of 2009

Experiment on behalf as I tap away my wordress iPhone app. Please forgive me if it looks aweful!

Firstly. Big thank you to everyone who have continued reading Distudios, 2009 was a odd year as this blog went silent for the better half of 4 months.

So what’s the plan for 2010? More pictures for starters! It’s time to put some of he equipment to good use and get more of the collection photographed and up on the galleries! Expect more reviews on random things such as books, cd, hopefully some convention coverage? and even my first dakimakura… Yes scary territory! And of course the usual pics and reviews of my personal purchase

See you all in 2010!

DiStudios

P.s ok this app is actually quite good who knows what random things will get posted in 2010!

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Belated Merry Christmas and Order Updates

A belated Merry Christmas to all! I hope everyone got what they wanted this year.

Order updates:

It seems my local supplier is still having continued issues with orders as Yagyu Jubei is slated to January 20th 2010. Considering that this figure was ordered many months ago, I am pretty unimpressed. As I have mentioned before, they seem to have combined the order with Queen’s Blade Listy and as a result have delayed both items (despite the fact I have paid for separate shipping). My supplier has seemed to ignore this issue in every email sent/replied…

I really hope that I don’t find myself in another situation where the supplier cancels my pre-order, the last refund for a canceled item took over a month and a half. Its saddening as this is the first problem I have had with my supplier in what has been 2 years of business and although I don’t spend as much as overs, I do spend close to the $500 mark each month…add on the fact that I have to pay for International shipping, makes for few toys with a big bill.

So will I get Listy and Yagyu despite placing my pre-order when they first came out? Time will tell. The only thing that is for sure is that I am going to have to start looking around for a new supplier. To add to the issue, I have 2 more orders stuck in the processing phase which are now listed as SOLD OUT. This delay in processing (3 weeks since I placed the order) will probably mean I will be missing out on the lovely Yoko Real and Orchid Seed Seena Kannon.

Despite the problems I will try to remain optimistic.

I have started work on the Elfen Lied tribute page and am working on a little promo video which will be great in helping me learn more about my Macbook. Am really looking forward to next year, I will be posting my 2009 collection shots to show people how much its grown over the last two years and perhaps sharing some of my first attempts at drawing Manga (its been a very very long time since I tried putting pencil to paper!).

Thanks for reading

DiStudios

**Just got a notification, Yoko Real Version has now been pushed back to 29th January 2010 **

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Elfen Lied

Ok,

Now this is a very random thought based pretty much on the fact that Elfen lied is my favourite Anime of all time, I will be adding a page dedicated to all things Elfen Lied. Now the concept is to bring pictures of Elfen Lied figures/collections and even cosplay to show how great Elfen Lied and the fans are.

What people need to do is basically email me pictures of their figures/stuff etc (please no NSFW stuff!), make sure you send your name (for the photo label)  and blog/web link! Email to the following address:

Daemon_Inks@hotmail.co.uk

I will initially add content to the fan page end of each month but if people get really into it, I will update on a more regular basis!

Thanks for reading

DiStudios

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Yet more Pre-Orders and delays

I spent most of yesterday scouring the pre-order sections of my favourite online sellers and as a result the 2010 bill is starting to rise. However this momentary joy was marred by further delays of two of my figures. Queen’s Blade Listy/Risty and yagyu Jubei are still M.I.A with only promises of “one more week and they will ship”. Now I am not going to name my supplier but needless to say the service that has been provided by them in the last three months has dropped a lot.

On to happier news.

Ali Azif from the Demon Bane range by Orchid Seed. Now this is a great sculpt, especially when compared to the bland Metatron (my one’s light sabre broke), it’s a very dynamic spell casting pose seated on a base shaped like a spell book. While I know nothing about the Demon Bane range, the fantastic sculpt alone justified its addition to my pre-order list.

Shipping April 2010

"Hadouken!"

Continuing with the scantily clad theme, Amanda Werner from Yamato is the next figure to be added to my Pre-order list. No particular reason other than I like the look of it.

Shipping April 2010

"Pink hair, guns, horns and lots of junk in the trunk"

Hattori Hanzo by Alter completes the list of newly added pre-orders. Even though I still have not received my Yagyu Jubei I am speculating that this range of figures will only rise in popularity through 2010.

Shipping February 2010

One effective looking Maid

So the line up for 2010 expands which each day I look on the net, but again very select choices. I have to admit that I am quite excited by the Hyakka Ryoran range of figures (Yagyu Jubei and Hattori Hanzo) there are a lot of really cool designs that will translate into some very nice figures for 2010.

The above figures are available from the usual retailers (see affiliates and banners).

Thanks for reading

DiStudios

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Picture says it all really…

"Words can't describe my feelings for Dell"

Its becoming a time-honoured tradition in my household. Every year a laptop blows up, usually of the Dell variety. While the term “blow up” is probably a gross overstatement of what happened, it lands pretty close to the mark in concerns to how I feel on the issue. To date I have owned 5 Laptops in around 6-7 years..not a bad average. Admittedly Laptop technology saw a drastic rise and some of the items were fazed out through natural means…But not all.

As people can probably tell from the sheer barrage of posts in the last 2 days (what are we on now 6-7 posts?) I have gotten the wind back in my sails and actually doing something relative to the content of this blog (ok I will admit mild distractions from my wargaming blog).

What arises now though is a new problem. I have moved away from the “reliable” Windows-based machines and taken my first plunge into “reliable” Mac territory…

"You may dispense with the pleasantries, Commander. I'm here to put you back on schedule."

I ended up getting the October 09 version of the Macbook, a much smaller bit of kit then I am used too. Specs are 2.26 Core Duo, 4Gb Ram, 500gb HDD,  Nvidia 9400m (built-in?), Snow Leopard OSX. It really is a step down for me but since my gaming days are long gone (ending with a brief run on Aion) I doubt very much that I will ever need anything mobile/powerful.

"Makes my eyeeees raiiiinnn"

So far it has been an uphill struggle, with multiple problems revolving around connectivity. When I first got the machine, I was able to use Safari, itunes etc do all the Apple type things you tend to do like flood your iphone with free Apps. But recently I have not been able to connect/download anything from itunes or the App store. The issue seems to be the router or Isp and so once again, just as something good happens, something bad that nullifies the good completely occurs to bring “balance”. This issue has recently spread to certain Anime figure websites and payment sites meaning I am heavily restricted on online purchasing. The same restrictions seem to apply to my iphone too creating double the frustration. Whats the point is having all this great stuff when you can’t use it for what it’s intended?!

On the plus side. The large HDD I invested in is paying for itself as I flood it with new figure photos, music and of course the back log of anime I have to watch. Only problem? VLC does not support 64bit Snow Leopard and they have no developers to work on it…Great, Told you it was an up hill struggle.

Undoubtedly readers have “felt” the Star Wars undertones and for good reason. After watching episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 2, I went ahead and ordered the Season 1 DVD box set to watch over the Christmas period.

"Making up for poor movie modifications?"

After watching episode 1 I can say that I was thoroughly impressed. Watching a “younger” Yoda carving the crap out of a droid battalion, was to say most pleasing. Some of the elements of this series remind me of Transformers the movie (Animated not the Megan porn Bay garbage) where there is complete unprecedented disregard of life! Episode two to three shows the merciless nature of General Grievous and has many a scene of Troopers being sucked into space to die a horrid death..sheer awesome. To date I have watched only the first 5 (disc 1) but if the quality remains consistent I will have a pretty good time watching the rest.

Worth checking out.

Thanks for reading

DiStudios

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Senhime Sengoku Rance – 1/5 Pvc by Freeing Pre-Order

Ok so it seems there is a lot of hate for this figure. When compared to Freeing’s 1/5 release of Kenshin the latest Rance pre-order does seem to come up short.

So what are the major draw backs of this figure that I can pick up on? Well the three main issues i can see from the proto photo are:

1. Rough looking sculpt (based on proto photo) and bland colour scheme

2. A distinct lack of accessories…not even a rice bun?!

3. The cost factor. Like it’s predecessor the 1/5 scale dictates a sell price of over $135-$145 USD base.

"No rice bun! No sale!"

Now the question is, are all of these factors valid or is it the case of a poor proto shoot? From collecting Wargaming miniatures from various random companies, there have always been incidents where I have ordered something based on a poor photo and had it turn out quite nice. At $140 USD am I willing to take the risk?

YES

Perhaps the one redeeming factor that this figure has at this stage is tha fact that its castable (I only now realise the wave of disgust I probably just created with that comment…) while not a major draw as you can get far nicer figures that are also castable/cheaper/more accessories/all of the above, the point is at least its an option.

"1/5 Scale bewbs..all of sudden things aren't looking so bad"

Joking aside, I think there are probably a lot more accessories then we the buyers will realise. As mentioned (I need to redo the photo-shoot to show this) Kenshin had a lot of cool little accessories such as the rice bun, removable armour plates and helmet etc which made for great photography, while Senhime here seems to be a bit of a plain Jane.

I do actually like the sculpt, perhaps mainly for the figure pose and a fetish for strong female characters, who knows and whilst I will be the first to admit that from initial shots it does not seem great, I think there will be more to this figure when I unbox it.

Just need to wait for six months now to find out…

Senhime is available for pre-order now from your usual on-line retailers. Those willing to take the plunge should not be hard pushed for time as the communities initial response is one of “Meh”. Although as per usual this is not to say that it won’t sell out.

Thanks for reading

DiStudios

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Shining Wind – Seena Cannon 1/7 Pvc Orchid Seed

So the Pre-Order machine is on the roll!

This is one of the figures I almost forgot to order amidst the chaos of this year. I have most of the Kotobukiya range of Shining Wind figures and the initial “short hair” version of Seena Kannon did not strike me as a great figure. Add long hair and a provocative pose and lo and behold she is now a must have in my collection!

"I am sure its obvious what her qualities are..."

At 1/7 scale, this figure is not too large but perhaps the base height may prove to be an issue. Whilst on the topic of the base, its a pretty nice design which for some reason reminds me of some of the McFarlane Spawn figures. Mostly down to the faded/worn look of the clock face.

As to be expected from Orchid Seed, the raunchy design style and attention to detail looks great on the official shots, it will be interesting to see the how the general release stands in comparison.

Orchid Seed’s Seena Kannon, is not too pricey at $90 USD on average from most online traders, and is set to ship 30/12/09. A nice start to the year with some nice looking toys!

DiStudios

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