Forum - View topicOfficial Anime-Related Figures Thread.
|
Goto page Previous Next |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23997 |
|
|||
|
Kinda scared the snot out of myself today. My two Queen's Blade figures from RACS (Princess Menace and Echidna) arrived today at work. Naturally, after work, I was too anxious to see them to wait until I got home, so I took them out of their boxes and assembled them. They look great by the way, especially my new love Princess Menace (that name is just too cool).
Anyhoo, I turfed all the plastic lining crap that keeps them in place and put the figures inside the now roomy boxes. Now, see, these days I bike home from work, so anything that I tote has to go into my two saddle bags. The boxes fit fine. However, I forgot that Toronto's streets aren't exactly silky smooth - lots of shake, rattle and roll along the route. Needless to say, by the time I got home, my heart was in my mouth as I gingerly took My Preciousesesesssssss out for examination. No damage. *whew* Won't be pulling that stunt again, believe me. |
||||
|
||||
kimbeey13
 Posts: 290 Location: NH |
|
|||
|
I'm super excited right now! I decided to check amiami before heading off to bed and I found a Madoka figma and a Beach Queen Sayaka. Of course, I also order the Beach Queen Madoka to go with the Sayaka figure.
|
||||
|
||||
The King of Harts
 Posts: 6712 Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia |
|
|||
|
Ooooh, that figma is nice. I...I may get that, especially at how cheap it is. I think I'll wait for it to show up on TRSI, though. I'M BRANCHING OUT!
And even though I'm not a fan of the Madoka Beach Queen, that Sayaka is just d'awwwwwwwwww. This actually gives me hope that a Sayaka nendo is on the way, assuming there's a pattern of Beach Queen and then Nendo. I would've preferred Homura next, but Sayaka is pretty awesome in her own right. |
||||
|
||||
egoist
 Posts: 7762 |
|
|||
|
Alter's Saber Lily arrived today. It had an attractive price tag and I ended up buying it. Now that it arrived I don't even feel like opening it, so I'm probably gonna Ebay it or something. I'll keep it for 6 months before the final decision.
Fixed my Black Rock Shooter again. If I keep this up she'll start looking like a scarecrow in no time. Right now no damage visible besides where her long ponytail connects and some paint marks on her leg. Does anyone know something to remove paint marks without removing the figure's actual paint? I tried licking it off, but... |
||||
|
||||
|
kimbeey13
Posts: 290 Location: NH |
|
|||
I was able to remove some paint marks on one of my figures with a little bit of water and an eraser. It took a little while, but it worked. |
||||
|
||||
|
PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
|
|||
Depends on how the paint was applied: If the paint was dropped on the figure: freeze the figure overnight. Remove paint drop with fingernail or straight blade. DO NOT FORCE! If the drop does not remove easily, bonding has occurred. If the paint has bonded, this will require some work. [Step 1] Using painters masking tape (which removes without stripping), surround the rest of the area and protect it. [Step 2] Using extremely fine sandpaper (do not wet sand as colors will mix!) or polishing cloth (hobby stores carry this), sand down the color. The goal here is not to remove the color, but to get the spot flush with the original section. [Step 3] Repaint the area. If the above is too much to deal with (and will be if the area affected is flesh colored, as color matching blows chunks), the alternative is to tear a small strip from an old t-shirt, rag, patterned cloth, and tie a ribbon around the area and cover the spot. This is the cheapest option. |
||||
|
||||
|
egoist
Posts: 7762 |
|
|||
|
Oh, it's nothing that bad PJ. Perhaps what kimbeey13 said could work (thanks, btw). It's just marks acquired when I dropped them, and I don't even think it's visible unless you look for it.
Oh, it's been like 8 years since I used an eraser. How fun... |
||||
|
||||
_Emi_
 Posts: 498 Location: Langjökull |
|
|||
All of the Sculpture Arts have amazing bases. I want that FFXII figure. Got word on Saturday from AmiAmi that this beauty was shipping. I also went and ordered Tia Harribel. I'm happy to see that they have a zipped and unzipped version of her jacket. |
||||
|
||||
|
Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23997 |
|
|||
|
I was bored yesterday, so I decided to crunch some numbers which my fellow figure collectors may or may not find useful/interesting. Since the beginning of the year, I have received 24 packages containing one or more figure. Eight of those packages were from U.S. online retailers and 16 were from Japanese online retailers. I thought it would be interesting to figure out what I call the "merchandise/shipping cost ratio" for each package. Put simply, I calculated what percentage of a package's total cost was made up of just the figure(s) and what percentage was made up of just the shipping cost.
I.e. the first package I got this year was a set of Ryuk bookends from Robert's Anime Corner Store. The total cost to me was $42.97, of which $29.98 was for the set itself and $12.99 was for shipping. Therefore the merchandise made up 70% of the total cost and shipping made up the remaining 30% for a m/s ratio of 70/30. I have also kept track of how many days it took each package to arrive. Here is all the raw data (including whether the figures were small (1/10s), medium (1/6 ti 1/8s) or large (1/4 or heavy): U.S. online retailers: ANIMEiacs - 1 large - 87/13 - 14 days Anime King - 1 medium - 92/8 - 11 days BigBadToyStore - 1 small - 61/39 - 15 days *BigBadToyStore - I large - 83/17 - 20 days estarland - 1 medium - 64/36 - 5 days mugentoys - 1 small - 61/39 - 7 days RACS - 1 medium - 70/30 - 11 days RACS - 2 medium - 83/17 - 8 days An * before a retailers name indicates I was charged tax and handling on that package, in addition to shipping. Japanese online retailers amiami - 1 large - 70/30 - 6 days (EMS) amiami - 1 medium - 82/18 - 25 days (SAL) *amiami - 1 large - 68/32 - 17 days (SAL) amiami - 1 small - 69/31 - 12 days (SAL) amiami - I medium, 1 small - 72/28 - 10 days (SAL) Anime Export - 1 small - 59/41 - 4 days (EMS) *HobbyLink Japan - 1 large, 1 medium, 2 small - 83/17 - 6 days (EMS) *HobbyLink Japan - 3 mediums - 84/16 - 6 days (EMS) *HobbyLink Japan - 4 mediums - 86/14 - 7 days (EMS) HobbyLink Japan - 1 medium - 86/14 - 15 days (SAL) HobbyLink Japan - 1 medium - 86/14 - 10 days (SAL) Hobby Search - 1 medium - 87/13 - 13 days (SAL) *Hobby Search - 1 large, 1 medium - 79/21 - 4 days (EMS) Hobby Search - 1 medium - 71/29 - 6 days (EMS) Plamoya - 1 medium - 81/19 - 16 days (SAL) Plamoya - 1 medium - 84/16 - 4 days (EMS) So what can conclusions can I draw? Well, if you are ordering from a Japanese retailer, your shipping cost will be roughly 15% of your total cost, unless you are ordering a single, smallish figure in which case the shipping percentage of the total cost will be higher. And EMS is obviously much faster than SAL. |
||||
|
||||
|
egoist
Posts: 7762 |
|
|||
|
I'm surprised you compiled this data. Here, I'll give you fake glasses as a reward nerdie.
It's clearly much cheaper if you order many at the same time. Not to me though. When I ordered Dead Master and that other from Ikkitousen I ended up being charged over £30. Just not worth it. |
||||
|
||||
|
PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
|
|||
|
Interesting compilation, Blood-. Rather surprising to see such delays in shipping from a country which literally attaches to Canada. Customs, I'm sure, is the primary cause (whether it be filling out forms or legalized snooping).
Now I'm curious of my own and will start keeping records like this. It'll be interesting to see how much I save between US and Japanese businesses. *steals glasses. Sorry. The current pair I wear has outlived its usefulness. |
||||
|
||||
poonk
 Posts: 1490 Location: In the Library with Philip |
|
|||
Have to say, I have very little data with which to compare the Japanese vendors because American sites hardly ever carry anything I'm interested in. I've never heard of estarland, ANIMEiacs, or Anime King though, so I'll be off to check them out now. Edit P.S. Blood- : Do you have a link for ANIMEiacs? Googling it is getting me nowhere besides a bunch of fake site reviews that don't lead anywhere and some Animaniacs fansites that can't even spell the title of the show right. |
||||
|
||||
|
Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23997 |
|
|||
|
Oops, sorry poonk, your search would have gone a lot better if I had spelled the name properly. It's actually ANIMEniacs. I stumbled across them on Amazon.com, but their website is:
Double oops - when I tried to post their url, I got an ANN message saying they are a known Bootlegging website. That's odd. I've only dealt with them once, for my Craft Label Death Note Rem which certainly seems genuine to me. Now that I've given you the correct spelling, you'll be able to find them, but I guess you should proceed with caution. |
||||
|
||||
|
poonk
Posts: 1490 Location: In the Library with Philip |
|
|||
|
Ah, I see. Thanks for getting back to me!
I looked around at their figure selection, which looks legit to me (though being mostly girly-types  , I may not be able to recognize bootlegs). But as soon as I searched for "Jojo's" I knew something was up as it led me to an obvious bootleg DVD (hmm, six OVAs on two Region 0 discs, with both English and Chinese subs?). So yeah, looks like the "Import" DVD section at least might be suspect.
|
||||
|
||||
|
egoist
Posts: 7762 |
|
|||
|
I think I got bored of figures. I'll give it a month or so before deciding whether or not cancel future pre-orders. Well, I kinda saw that coming a while ago.
When they were just a few I actually liked to look at them. But now it's more like a visual pollution. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group