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Trying out a new technique where I "sandwich" the wire between two ultra thin sheets of translucent clay. Thin enough to see the wire pattern (design) through the clay.
So here we are - the last of the Queen's Blade Revoltech figures from my Christmas Holiday 2019 haul. She is none other than Melona, the Protean Assassin.
As I've mentioned before, I've saved the most outlandish design of them all (at least as far as the Queen's Blade original series goes) for last. Melona is one of the villains in the Queen's Blade series. A dedicated servant of the Swamp Witch, Melona lives to kill and in general sow the seed of chaos everywhere she goes. If it wasn't obvious, Melona is effectively a blob that takes on of buxom woman, who generally attacks enemies in one of two ways - shape shifting to use various abilities (usually stolen from other combatants) or spraying her enemies with acid. Technically Melona has an mini skirt as an outfit, but realistically as her outfit parts are effectively parts of her body that have shape shifted, Melona is pretty much naked, with the only things protecting her modesty being the worlds strangest pair of underpants, resembling a slime with eyes on it, and a pair of hands that cover her chest, formed by the ends of her hair.
Effectively, she's Queen's Blade Mystique.
Melona is an interesting design to say the least. I don't mind the design, and generally find it's neat, but Melona is no Echidna is terms of endearment to me. Taking photos of her was actually kind of tough. The slightest misalignment of her hair would cause the hands to no longer cover her chest. Then there's my usually beef with the Revolver joint system. Ignoring the graphic nature of the character design itself, there's only so much I could think of to do when her weapons are effectively the breast guns from a Dr. Evil Femmebot. It's too bad she didn't really come with anything to replicate her shape shifting powers.
Visually, however, Melona is quite fascinating. There's the outfit complete with googly eyes on various parts of her ensemble, her overall colour scheme, the bunny motiff, and the deceiving cutesy expression on her S mode face.
Content wise, Melona comes with the standard payload. Figure packed in S mode, with parts need to convert her to M mode (embarrassed face, battle damaged outfit.. or so they say, and injury acid spray effect), two hands for "operating" her weapons, breast covering hands with acid spray effect, the dynamic stand, token, and orange parts for holding the smaller parts. As with all the other figures, Kaiyodo basically used the anime model for inspiration when creating the figure. There's a nice use of translucent pink plastics throughout the body, with the opaqueness of the plastic differing on different parts of the body. Also for.. reasons... Kaiyodo decided to given Melona a pliable rubber chest.. or for those of you that don't speak Engineering.. she has squishable boobs. I guess it looks better than the standard hard plastic ones (more of a soft glow when it comes lights rather than more focused reflection) but it's not Melona is the only character to show off lots of cleavage. I'm curious if it was because someone wanted to something special for Melona, or perhaps there are more characters with this rubbery chest section.
Oh right.. in case it wasn't obvious, yes, this figure is cast off capable.
If you've joined us before, there's nothing new to write about the articulation. There are ankles, single jointed knees, thigh swivel, hips, waist, mid torso, shoulders, elbows, wrists, head, plus one point of articulation on each ear and one for each chest hands, as well as one point for her hair at the back off the head. As always, the positioning of the joints and the cuts of the limbs makes my posing life difficult. As expected, posing is cumbersome, especially if you're trying to get the legs correct such that the figure can stand up properly without being lopsided. Her legs are somewhat restricted in articulation due to the presence of the skirt, which is somewhat alleviated when using the M mode skirt as this has a much large diameter. New to this figure is how her bangs and hair on the whole get in the way of shoulder movement to the point where if you want to pose the figure with her hands over head, you need to pop the shoulder out of the socket slightly she there's enough room to clear these obstacles.
As the detailing on Melona is nowhere as complicated as Airi or Echidna, the finished figure does appear to be cleaner that those to two, even up close and personal. Flesh tones are well painted, and masking is generally pretty good. The only real light coloured highlights are for the white eyes that adorn her thong and her shoes. I believe that most of the pink and red on her is from the colouring of the plastic rather than a paint app, which further adds to the crispness. Furthermore, it's nice to see that kept Melona's crazy eyes in place, with large, well made decals.
No issues from a build quality perspective either. Materials are of an adequate rigidity and there is good joint strength. No issues with unequal limb lengths to be reported, and the overall smoothness of edges and seams is once again good. As mentioned above, the coverings on her chest can be finicky and it doesn't take much to result in a situation where the hands aren't covering much of anything at all. There are no qualms from a parts finishing or gap tolerance perspective, as it all generally looks quite good. I don't have anything overly negative to report on the various acid effects parts either.
With that, I temporarily close the book on Queen's Blade. While my collecting is generally sporadic, finding Queen's Blade Revoltech figures is very much a needle in a haystack sort of undertaking.. though that's what I said in November when I first returned home from Vancouver with Nanael. But, as always, only time will tell. I'm working on a few things that, if they come to fruition, may result in a few more of these pieces being added to the hoard. As always, thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next entry.
Big leaf (2 3/4") is Pardo, little one is Premo.
These are made from 2 part molds of Alder leaves.
I had a request for leaf molds. I tried, they are almost impossible to get right. I won't be making these for sale :-(
Victoria James Art Real Textures
Taken from inside a gas station on the road to Monument Valley. Captured image was through a translucent billboard. Black masking tape was used to hold up notices. freind is sitting in the car, wondering whats taking me so long. I see because I see.
My entry to the
December Assignment at Camera Labs.
Shot with the new AF-S 35/1.4G.
See my review at Camera Labs.
New exclusive translucent paper tinyurl.com/px8v5zy / Size from 24x24 cm to extra large 70x70 cm - Skull tinyurl.com/2esfmfx by Tominaga Kazuhiro folded by Eyal tinyurl.com/2esfmfx
I finished my sister's birthday present! :)
I made her a vintage handkerchief dress to match her eyelids. I also handpainted 3 of her eye chips. This was my first attempt at a semi open mouth, it was fun! ♥
At the Wayne County Lightfest
Strobist:
580ex II through translucent shoot-thru umbrella left.
Triggered with ST-E2.
28.2.2008: slice of cherry tomato sitting on a plastic folder sitting on top of my desk lamp and the super-macro setting on my pocket camera.
Really high-tech photography.
A layer of translucent blue (Again, testors enamel) gives the surface an iridescent quality. Id recommend tossing the nozzles these cans come with and buying nice ones at an art supply store. They spit paint everywhere and it can ruin a nice basecoat
This paint job changes color drastically in every photo with each different camera...
Astor Place, New York City. These were taken on a trip to New York that Gary, Anne and I took a month ago.
This particular building reflection caught my eye because it was so clear and because the left edge/corner of the newer building was sharp and shallow enough so that we could see through it. Also, it was dusk so there were lights on in the older building.
Thee's something about seeing the inside of a monolithic glass box from the outside that has an appeal for me. Sort of like finding out how airplanes are honeycomb structures covered with a thin skin of aluminum (or whatever material their skins are made of). Lastly, this large face of the building was facing due west, perfect for picking up the sky and fading light.
We are very intrigued by this little hopper's "Knees" as seen in the larger views. We think that it is a very suprising system of translucent jelly tubes. Obviously the perfect candidate for the Visine test. A larger hopper at 5/16" overall. North Georgia - very close to the day posted. Looks to us like he's a "Fish outta Water".