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Two new additions to the Queen's Gate collection, Dizzy from Guilty Gear and Iroha from Samurai Shodown. Back in the day (2009 ish) both these characters were very popular in their respective franchises, which is why they were chosen. Samurai Shodown actually had several well known ladies, but I believe that Iroha was the most naked of them all.
So the entire Queen's Gate line was handled by Hobby Japan, who I guess held the master license for all things Queen's Blade but like the guest characters, the statues were also made by various companies. In this case, Dizzy was made by Kotobukiya at a stage when they were still on my love/hate list, and Iroha was from Volks, the company that made that BJD Xenosaga 3 KOS-MOS I'll never be able to afford.
One of the more amusing things for me upon opening the box is that despite both characters being basically the same height, both statues being made in the same scale, and both basically cost the same, one is Shaq and the other is Kevin Hart.
The difference in height is HILARIOUS.
Of the two, Dizzy is certainly the more colourful design. A mish mash of several themes, the overall sculpt and pose isn't bad, highly simplified compared to other statues of her back in the day, like that excellent Alter piece. You get some pretty good sculpting on the4 wings and hear, and the face is suitably adorable.
Likewise, Iroha features a pretty good sculpt and pose (though now the more I think about it, this was probably guided by the art books). She's not as complex as Dizzy, but she's rocking her trademark Maid outfit along with her twin swords. Some nice fabric detailing, along with the bow on her back.
Having said that, the whole point of this series is to have some curvy ladies that don't cast off (and lets face it, if they did cast off they probably wouldn't be this curvy). Both ladies appear to be more busty than they typically are depicted. The hips are curvier too, but nowhere as exaggerated as the bust.
Because these were 2009-ish statues, and not super expensive ones at that, you get what I would call typical quality for the era. The sculpting isn't bad, but some less than stellar paint work can obscure that work. Some assembly gaps cap be observed that, like with the seam lines on the hips and breasts, could have used a bit more sanding to make it more pristine. Decal work on the faces is great, but not so much on the other parts of the body. Loss of quality on areas with finer parts like fingers (especially on Iroha) are prominent and common.
Build Quality, however, does not appear to be a problem. Yeah, the tolerances on the parts that you need to connect could be better, but overall it's not too bad. More importantly, both statues did not exhibit any of the pre-2012 leaning
Newest addition to The Toledo Zoo. He weighs about 55 lbs. at this point, but once he is full grown he will be about 1500 lbs. The other bear is his mother, Crystal
The newest addition to our family. She won't get us anywhere fast, but we'll still have cash in our pockets whenever we get where we're going.
The opportunity arose - so I've spent the money which would have bought me a nice set of Meridian monoblocks and pre-amp on this instead :)
In addition to be exceedingly talented, Kelly Clarkson also happens to be a body-positive champion and a skilled social-media user. The singer recently responded to a malicious body-shaming Twitter user in a glorious way that both defended her point of view and didn’t take the...
www.ourstyle.life/kelly-clarkson-responds-to-body-shaming...
so more MOTUC have arrived. in the guise of Entrapta, Eldor,Faker and Rio blast. kinda annoyed my eldor is missing his hood :(
I recently purchased Scarf Style...which I love, and I received Knitting Beyond The Edge by Nicky Eppstein as a gift from a friend! (Yay). (I also rec'd Vogue Knitting on Cables from the same friend too but no photos). I love the two new books because it's about the stitches and I've been looking for knitting reference books lately.
I've also added the photo of the second sock I made, which I accidently felted today in the washing machine. Luckily, it still fits. :-)
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The addition of the Texas Children's Maternity Center will enable us to provide a full continuum of family-centered care to mothers and their babies, beginning before conception and continuing after birth.
It has been a while since I have uploaded to the craft library. These are some books and mags I have picked up over the last six months or so.
Panoramic views of Stockholm from Mariaberget, an observation deck, on the heights of Sodermalm.
In addition to being the home of the fictional Lisbeth Salander, Sodermalm has also been the home to some more well-known real folks, too. The most famous (I'd say) is the actress Greta Garbo. She grew up in Soder (and is buried nearby in Skogskyrkogarden). Lesser known folks from here are from the arts scene: Yung Lean, Bladee, and Ecco2K are all from the Swedish rap community, and all from Soder. (You can find them on YouTube and form your own opinions of them if you're ambitious.)
Sodermalm. As mentioned in the Ostermalm posts, if you look at Gamla Stan (Old Town) in Stockholm as the city's "ground zero," which it was, the nearby areas are Norrmalm, Ostermalm, and Sodermalm. (Respectively, "east district," "north district," and "south district."). Ostermalm is the upscale neighborhood, and has been since its facelift in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Sodermalm...was considered the slums. Connected (now) to Gamla Stan by a number of bridges, rail bridges, and the Slussen locks, this was mainly a rural and agricultural area until the 17th century. It was first mentioned in the historical record in 1288 A.D., so has technically been around for a while.
The most notable feature of Sodermalm -- to me, anyway -- are the cliffs on the north side of the district. (There are a few viewpoints which give great views of Gamla Stan, Kungsholmen, Djurgarden, and beyond.)
What's Sodermalm all about, though? As it was the opposite of Ostermalm, this was the working class domain. You can still find some of the working class cottages on the northeast part of Sodermalm. You'll also find a bit of an ethnic mix here, too, as this neighborhood was more affordable for immigrants. That's changing, though.
As Gamla Stan and Ostermalm have grown more populous, the overflow has started to come here, both gentrifying the neighborhood and raising the price of housing. So what started as rural farmland (much like Ostermalm...everywhere, really), turned into the working class slum, and is now what you would call "bohemian," "trendy," "alternative," etc. Sodermalm is sometimes called "the Brooklyn of Stockholm."
The immigrants are being pushed farther out (outside of Ringvagen) and the parts of Sodermalm with a view of Stockholm are awfully expensive, yet still feel a little gritty.
It's absolutely worth taking your time to see while you're in Stockholm, though, simply for its mix of class and culture.
There are great eateries all over Sodermalm. (Believe it or not, some of the best Thai food I've had outside of Thailand -- was from a food truck in the Skanstull section of Soder.). Another fun option is Meatballs for the People (standard Swedish meatballs, but you can also get them made with various meats like moose or reindeer...if you're adventurous enough).
There are a handful of churches in the area: Sofiakyrka, Hogalidskyrkan, St. Eric's Cathedral, Katarina Church, Mary Magdalene Church. The Stockholm Mosque is in Soder.
There are some beautiful little squares to take a rest. Nytorget, Mariatorget, Mosebacke Torg, among others. At Mosebacke Torg, you'll find the Sodra Teatern, which is one of Sweden't oldest active theaters, operating in this building since 1859.
You won't find much street art (of note) in Sodermalm, but near Katarina Church, you can use Google maps to find a nice mural by the Brazilian twins Os Gemeos. (Which means...the twins.). It's between Katarina Church and Mosebacke Torg. Also near there is the Katarina elevator, which can take you from the heights of Sodermalm down to the waterfront.
If you choose to go to the waterfront on the elevator, and are facing Gamla Stan, you can turn to your right and head to Fotografiska, which is a museum dedicated to the art of photography. They also have an excellent (if expensive) restaurant with a great view of Gamla Stan.
All in all, Sodermalm is definitely worth some extra time here in Stockholm. You could easily spend a relaxed day or two in this neighborhood alone.
This was the last addition to the Roman Forum, added in 608 A.D.
On Wikipedia's entry, the forum is described as, "the most celebrated meeting place in the world, and in all history." (They used a citation from Michael Grant's book 'The Roman Forum,' published in 1970 to support this.). Everything in this description that follows is a combination of information primarily from the Wikipedia entry and Rick Steves Rome (and possibly another website or two).
"Forum" is a Latin word that simply means "outside." The word essentially exists as such in the majority of Romance languages: Italian (fuori), Spanish (fuera), Portuguese and Catalan (fora), etc. But, outside of what? That'd be the Palatine Hill.
Fora, in Roman times, were mainly marketplaces, but the Roman Forum evolved into something much more. (At the end of this lengthy description, I'll differentiate between the Roman Forum and the other fora in Rome.)
The physical space: We're not talking about a huge space here. The forum lies on a east-west axis (slightly more southeast-northwest) between the foot of the Capitoline Hill in the west and stretching to the Arch of Titus in the east (across the street from the Colosseum more or less). The length of that is about 280 meters (920 feet, or just over three American football fields) with a width of 190 meters (620 feet). The southern end of the Forum runs along the base of the Palatine Hill. (That also gives an idea of how close Palatine and Capitoline Hills are.). The Via Sacra is the "Main Street" of the Forum and runs its length from the Arch of Titus to the Arch of Septimius Severus.
The forum and its structures evolved naturally, over a long period of time (naturally, as opposed to being meticulously planned all at once). The first known structures on the Forum were from the 7th century B.C. (Regia) until 608 A.D. (Column of Phocas). In those roughly 1,300 years, the open space of the forum shrunk from the above dimensions to a main square about 130 meters by 50 meters (at the west end of the Forum; this is where the Rostrum is).
Pre-Roman History:
Pottery deposits discovered here show that humans lived here in the last Bronze Age (1200-975 B.C.). In the 10th century B.C., an area near where the Temple of Antoninus Pius & Faustina are located was used as a cemetery. (They cremated folks back then.). The land, during those centuries, was swampy wetland. Marshy. Not great. (Makes you wonder why people lived there, let alone buried folks there.). So, when was the land converted into something more solid, and usable for building?
Around the 7th century B.C., the first real structure built here was the Cloaca Maxima, a large, covered sewage system that drained the water into the nearby Tiber.
Roman Kingdom (753 B.C. to roughly 500 B.C.):
This is when the buildings (as we can see them today) started to be built. The first two were the Regia (House of the Kings) at the Comitium on the western end of the Forum (where the Rostrum is) and the House of the Vestals. (There were also people's houses here, but they were eventually bought up and used to build more structures during the...)
Roman Republic (~500 B.C. - 44 B.C.)
During this time, we find the first buildings with known dates of construction. The Temple of Saturn (with 8 columns still standing) was built in 497 B.C. The Temple of Castor and Pollux was added in 484 B.C. These are on the western end of the Forum between the House of the Vestals and the Capitoline Hill. The Temple of Concord was also built during the republic, about a century after the Temple of Saturn. (Its ruins are at the base of the Capitoline Hill next to the Tabularium.)
Roman Empire (44.B.C. - about 500 A.D.
The empire officially began with the death of Caesar in 44 B.C. Emperor Augustus completed his dear uncle's construction projects and added a few of his own. (Temple of Caesar, Arch of Augustus, the Curia, Caesar's funeral pyre.)
Other structures, like the Arch of Septimius Severus (western end of the Forum) were added around the 2nd century A.D. Diocletian reorganized and rebuilt the Temple of Saturn, Temple of Vesta, Curia Julia. The last major addition to the Forum came in 312 A.D. with the Basilica of Maxentius (or Basilica of Constantine, since he finished it).
The last addition of any kind came in 608 A.D., about a century after the Roman Empire had fallen. The Column of Phocas was added to honor Emperor Phocas of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine).
Decline of the Forum:
Emperor Constans II (Eastern Roman, of course) visited in 663 A.D., saw the lead roofs and thought, "Say, these would be useful elsewhere!" So, he stripped them all, leaving the structures open to the elements. By the 8th century A.D., the Forum was already falling apart, buried in a lot of debris, and turned into a cattle field.
After the 8th century, the remaining structures were dismantled, rearranged, and used to build towers and castles in the area. This continued until the 13th century when the Forum was basically a dumping ground, buried in debris. This contributed to the rising street level. (If you look at the Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina, you'll notice the door is rather high -- this was street level when Michelangelo was wandering around in the 16th century.
Italian Renaissance:
Rome was in ruins by this time, and had a very small population
The Forum was really wrecked, ad this was more pronounced during the return of the popes. The Catholic Church had returned from Avignon in 1367. Pope Martin V issued a papal bull in 1425 that essentially said, "This city is a dump. We need to restore it." The Forum was a quarry. Between 1540 and 1550, Pope Paul III took liberally from the Forum to build Saint Peter's Basilica. (I can go on with examples, but you get the point.)
Restoration:
The Forum as we see it now is the process of over 200 years of excavations and restoration. In 1803, the debris around the Arch of Septimius Severus was cleared out and over the subsequent 220 years, the work continues. To this day, if you visit the Forum, you will see evidence of this.
Other fora in Rome:
Way back at the top, I mentioned this isn't the only Forum in Rome. The Imperial Fora are almost directly next door here on the Via dei Fori Imperiali. Those were all established in a traditional style as piazza (town squares, if you will.). As the original fora were for marketplaces, there were plenty of those as well. The Roman Forum is just the one that evolved into something a lot more...substantial. Of the other fora, you would have found: the Forum Boarium (dedicated to the commerce of cattle, located between Palatine Hill and the Tiber River), Forum Holitorium (herb & vegetable market, between Capitoline Hill and the Servian Walls), Forum Piscarium (fish market, between Capitoline Hill and the Tiber -- where the Jewish Ghetto is located), Forum Suarium (pork market, northern part of Campus Martius), and the Forum Vinarium (in modern Testaccio, between the Aventine Hill and the Tiber).