I rarely preorder a figure these days but this was one I could not miss~.

I like those pictures with the blister still unopened. Hanekawa comes with a school desk and chair, plus her second shoe, an extra hair fringe part without cat ears, mobile and two metal etched glasses.

Okay, it's not really difficult to figure out how to assemble her and I ignored the instructions. What I mean is, push the included pegs into her legs first, I did it wrong.

Stuff sticking out of the table!

Enjoy the pictures! I force walls of text out of my brain for my thesis every day, I have nothing left to say now.

Beautiful shading everywhere~

It's a shame I never take my time to appreciate a figure. Most of the time I take it out of the box and put it inside a shelf. I have a shelf right above my desktop but it's not the same as when there's no glass between you and the figure.

I've also burdened me with some constraints - it should require as little "active chef time" as possible. There are some things you can't change, amongst them that a good broth needs time to simmer. The second was that i've tried to use as few "exotic" ingredients as possible.

The result, which can be seen to our left, is neither great nor bad - but its a good start, not too pricey as well as not too complex.

Another abstract i'm obliged to add is that THIS IS NO "AUTHENTIC" RAMEN. IT ALSO DOESN'T AIM TO BE "AUTHENTIC". I've never been to japan nor have i tasted *really* authentic japanese ramen. I've been to a pair of japanese restaurants selling ramen here in germany. My main reference are tastings and recipe from people who seem to have tasted a great deal of japense ramen - and, of course, my personal taste.

So first we'll go through the basic idea. To get a delicious, "wide" and full-bodied broth you need quite some tastes. To  me it seems as most ramen stocks rely on a kind of "roasted", "caramelized" flavor base, combined with various vegetable-flavors. They also seem to be seasoned with only a few spices, however these need to be chosen and dosed carefully.

So my idea was to get the whole flavor from a very thick chicken stock as well as the braising liquid from braising pork chops.

Here's my ingredients list:

Chicken stock:

• 1 (medium-sized) Chicken, preferably old
• 1/2 (large) Leek
• 3 carrots
• 3 (larger) onlions
• 1/4 celery

Braising liquid / Meat:

• 4 (large) Pork Chops
• Warm/Hot water (as needed)
• 1tbsp Miso
• 1/2 tbsp ginger powder
• ~30ml Shoyu (Kikkoman or similar good brand)

Soup Seasoning:

• 100-150ml Shoyu
• 1/2 Pckg Instant-Dashi (package said to season around 1 litre of soup)
• 2tbsp ginger powder
• 50-75ml mirin
• 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2-3 tbsp Miso

Directions:

First start by washing and (coarsly) chopping onions, carrots, leek and fennel. Put these in a pressure cooker in around 3 litres of water, start to cook. Meanwhile start washing the chicken and cut it in half. Add the chicken to the pressure cooker and bring to a boil. After 4-5 minutes scrape off the skunk that may have shown on the top using a slotted spoon. Close pressure cooker and let cook at maximum pressure for 2:00-2:30h.

After finishing the soup, start the braising. Put around 100-150ml warm water, shoyu and pork chops in a large pan. Make sure the pork chops are almost fully submerged, *almost*. Bring to a boil, then turn the flame down so it'll just show the slightest hint of bubbles/boiling (you can also achieve this by using a pot/pan with fireproof handle and put it into the oven @ ~110*C). Dissolve the miso and ginger powder in a small cup of warm water, add to rest of the mixture. Let sit and *slightly* simmer for around 1:30-2:00h.

When the pork is nice and tender put the meat itself in a plastic wrap in the fridge. Cooling it down makes it possible to carefully slice it using a *sharp* knife.

When the soup finishes release the pressure and add the braising liquid. Pour the soup through a coarse strainer/sieve, boil some water (~500ml) and and pour through the mixture in the sieve to extract the last bits of flavor (this is, e.g., also done when brewing beer).

Then start seasoning the soup. Start with the instant-dashi as this is probably the one powder thingy with the highest level of salinity you've ever encountered in your life. Then slowly start seasoning with Shoyu (don't panic if its a little salty at this point), then mirin, then sugar and the rest. The mirin and miso will eat away a little saltyness, but you can always re-adjust. Add the miso at the very end of the process as it doesn't like to sit for long. Make sure NOT to bring the soup near a boil as soon as the miso is added, when boiled it will spoil your whole effort by becoming unbelievably bitter.

Then slice the meat into small mouth-sized pieces, find some nice somen noodles and various other toppings (i've used silk tofu, a hard-boiled egg and carrot julienne). Other great ideas include chopped spring-onions, various other kinds of vegetables and narutomaki.

The Result looks like this:

I hope you liked this recipe or - at least - got a idea of how you're going to create your own recipe. I must also again note that THIS IS NO FINAL VERSION. It actually kind of sucks compared to what i want to achieve, but this is the best "quick" ramen recipe i've seen so far (maybe i've just searched wrong?).

The Recipe was also reviewed by a friend here: Review

My long awaited Snow Miku arrived today, brought by Enekoneko (thanks for proxy-ing for me ;A;!!). She was released back at WonFes Winter this year. Being a GSC Online Shop Exclusive, you had to pay a proxy to get her. At last, GSC's own shop accepts international orders now as well.

The package is quite big... Yuki Miku doesn't come with a lot of accessories but an ice tray is included which is taking up a lot of space.

I'm looking forward to trying out making ice cubes and whatnot. A Hatchune, a normal Miku, leek, some sort of sign, half-spheres with snowflake pattern.

The good think about all her accessories is: you can display a lot of them at once. Like her snowman, her scarf and her leek.

Just like Saber and HMO Miku, Snow Miku is "Super Moveable". This basically means that she has additional joints on her arms and legs and her torso. Miku has a LOT of plastic wraps to avoid paint transfer which are hard to remove (I cut a few instead of taking her apart).

Okay, I can't pose Nendoroids to save my life. So that's why Miku will look very awkward in the following photos. But you get the idea. I'm mostly afraid their joints will get loose, and Nendos are usually really hard to get on their stands. I can either pose them and won't be able to attach them on their stand while keeping the same pose. Or I can jam them into the stand and not pose them (or they'll fall of the stand again). I have no idea how people can manage both.

"Hello, I can stand on my own using my twintails!" This is very similar to the original Miku Nendoroid.

Hatchune Snowman Miku. I tried to make the head come off but at some point I was scared to pull harder. I think it's cute how the leek sticks out, I don't know.

I'm obviously too much of an amateur to understand why Hatchune has to come with her own hairpiece. But I won't complain, really.

Her usual headphones.. thing is also included but I will *never* remove those earmuffs, they just fit her a lot better.

I was just trying to make her stand on her own, alright?

No, she can't really sit down. At least I tried.

I know you people are tired of translucent hair already. Snow Miku is really shiny all over, even the blue colors sparkle.

My Miku has a paint chip on her head. I guess GSC's QC is not perfect.

I finally attached her on the stand.

Transparent leek!

Even though she is just another color variant (except for the scarf and her earmuffs), she really stands out from my Nendoroid collection. I'm glad I didn't buy the first Snow Miku (yes, there's more and from what I've read on GSC's blog, they'll release a new one next year too) which was just that, a recolor from the original Miku Nendoroid. I love the bright blue they used for the color non-shiny parts. She'll be my color reference for a scaled GK Miku I'm about to build. You might not like Nendoroids that much, but you'll probably like her.

The second part of my August loot. Here comes No. 9 of the Touhou Nendoroid line. GSC doesn't have any new ones announced so for now my collection is complete! They almost take up the space on one shelf by themselves.. I can fit another three but any more and I have to get creative. But it seems like this is not going to happen anytime soon.

Gallery behind the cut!

I know I always complain about the lack of accessories and Cirno's no exception. At least GSC makes the Touhou Nendos themselves. Leaving Nendoroid releases to other companies has seldom worked out well (in particular the Taiga Nendoroid - they squeezed out three different releases, one with less extras than the other..).

Cirno comes with three faceplates, a matching base and some arm pieces, the usual stuff. And a frozen frog and an ice sword.

Oh God, look at that grinning face.. but it suits her well.

Her wings were hard to push into their sockets so I left them a bit loose.. her hair's also gets in the way.

I think I have a few more of those angry faces... but the crying one is priceless!

You can display her floating in the air with the jointed base arm.

This is my first prize figure ever. Apparently, they're put up as prizes on Ufo catchers in Japan and are thus not as high quality as the more expensive PVC statues. However, they are really cheap! Yuki's promotional pictures looked very promising, so I decided to add her to my August purchases. Enjoy the photo gallery!

Non-window box. Unfortunately the box was dented along with the package it came in.

Her face is slightly different from the promo pics (or so I believe) and therea re very obvious flaws like seamlines, lack of shading and holes in the material. But she makes a good impression from half a meter away and that's really good enough for a prize figure. She also stands 22 cm tall which is about the scale of a normal PVC statue.

There's not much to post right now, we are really busy studying for exams (yes, AGAIN!) and when we're done for the day we don't have much energy left. While our hobbies are on the back burner, I figured I could finally post the WIP pictures of Chen. I announced it when I posted Chen's gallery and then somehow forgot.

Whenever I finish a GK I reget not having taken pictures but when I'm working on one, my hands are usually dirty and wet from resin, paint, putty or glue. I also get so absorbed in the work that I just don't want to bother. But there's so much to say when you've actually worked on a kit. Details you cannot spot when you decide to buy it on a website. So for the most part I have no WIPs at all but Chen got at least a few.

I've used the uncleaned parts as the header picture, so I won't post it just here again. Chen has few parts that makes it all the easier to build.

Her cast is very good, despite the age of the kit, she gives few trouble to remove the pegs. I always say you can spot how good a cast is by looking at the hair strands. But then you usually have no chance to check it thoroughly without buying it.

Chen has only one major part to putty which is her dress. The dress is hard to pin because it's thin so it broke multiple times when it fell down or when sanding.

This is a curious piece of the kit. It's a piece of her hair, that goes between her faceplate and her back hair.

The pinning process. I think I wanted to use this for a tutorial? Oh whatever.

Touchups done by hand with a brush. If possible, I airbrush everything first.

I think her face turned out well.

My workspace looks like this when I hand-brush.

Heh, always wanted to do a picture like this. Makes it look like a pre-painted kit you can buy.

She was fun and fast to build. Definitely recommended.

Pros:

1. Very good recast from e2046.com (details reproduced, good fitting)
2. Few parts, might be suited for beginners

Cons:

1. Hard to pin the dress so prone to breaking at the seam.
2. Hard to pin her tails, use a VERY strong glue
3. Her left arm was bent a little which I didn't notice, so she's now holding her hat a little more far back than she should

Saigyouji Yuyuko! My pictures don't do her justice. For once, I won't complain about the lack of accessories of a Touhou Nendoroid, because Yuyuko comes with a lot of extras. But I know the next one (Cirno) will be somewhat of a letdown again. Can't help it, I want them all nevertheless ^^;

Package pictures:

I always love to take pictures of the blister package since you can see all accessories neatly arranged.

Her hat is huge! Thanks to the thing on the back, it hold better onto her head than e.g. Marisa's hat does.

Awww~ look at that adorable face!

Her two extra expressions: smiling and a serious face.

She's the first Touhou nendo to utilize the jointed stand. People dislike the hole on the back of the nendo that comes along with it but I don't really mind.

Yuyuko is able to sit on her dress if you move her legs to the front. Most of her extras are the ghosts and butterflies which you can place beside her stand. Yuyuko herself comes with two bent arms and two hands holding fans.

I think her clothes come out great in SD.

She has a butterfly holding hand. There are two single butterflies with pegs that fit inside her hand or the two ghost things.

I adore her smiling face. The ghosts and butterflies have two separate stands, that can be attached to the border of Yuyuko's stand.

That was my unpacking report of Good Smile Company's Yuyuko I usually pose a Nendoroid once and put her behind glass. ^^; Can't really get used to playing with a poseable figure, but if I was, she'd be a lot of fun. xD

When I pick a kit for myself to build and paint, you can be sure that I REALLY want to have it on my shelf. And although I know nothing of the character Agnes (from Shukufuku no Campanella), I love her elaborate design. Volks has created a Campanella GK series and they're all very pretty. It's tempting but I'll probably refrain from getting them all. With about 5 kits I can finish per year, I have to pick them carefully. It's not like I don't want to build more, but winter makes it hard to sand and paint without catching all the poisonous fumes and dusts. And building GKs is very time-consuming.

This time around I tried to use laquer-based paint and I have to say I'm impressed how smooth the paintjob becomes. Which means my comprehensive GK guide will have yet another section on paint. orz I'll never finish this guide... There's so much more to learn and I'm faced with new challenges with each new kit.

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What arrived today is Good Smile Company's Senjougahara Hitagi. She was released this year in January and was on sale at AmiAmi over a month ago. So after 40 days in transit, she's finally here. I bet everyone who follows a bunch of figure blogs is tired of pictures of her already. But I don't get figures often, so here's a bunch of pictures of Hitagi.

My latest figure acquisition is Kotobukiya's 1/8 scale Makise Kurisu from Steins; Gate which arrived this morning. I do feel a bit guilty for not having followed the series this season but it's on my plan to watch list for later. I took a little more time for doing the photos and it wouldn't be quite as bad if I wasn't too lazy to iron the background \o/ (I'll do that next time).

How can people wait to take a photo of their monthly loot? Whenever a packet arrives I want to rip it open right away.

Her box is quite tall.

Her facial expression is somewhat indifferent.But it fits the original illustration, I actually like the figure more.

I have to admit that I bought this figure for its very special base. Of course you have to assemble it yourself and those gears lying around don't look very impressive.. yet.

They sure put some effort into writing the instructions, the gears are enumerated but it is still hard to assemble.

Do like how her foot piece fits into the mold in the middle, very clever xD

The gears are elliptic but you can't see that on the figure at all.

The gears all go on her legs somewhere.

I was afraid I'd break the pegs a few times in the process. You really don't want to disassemble and assemble her often.

She does look like she's sitting on those gears

Kurisu is not perfectly painted but there are no major flaws. I don't really pay attention which manufacturer it is when I like a figure but Kotobukiya's definitely on my top list.