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.

Here's some half-assed pictures of unpacking Youmu (still trying to figure out how to handle the camera and all). I was in hurry that day which didn't help and I'm not very patient with blogging now (exam and paper deadline in a week! I've tried to push everything behind that date that could be delayed so workload is not gonna stop anytime soon). We actually have been trying out a lot of new things lately but we were mostly too lazy do document everything. Hopefully we can do that later sometime.

Not many extras as always. But I was delighted about her sword collection (didn't think I'd get this many)! She comes with those angry mark stickers which I'll probably never use. 

I thought I'd get an extra stand for Myon.

That's how it's supposed to be assembled (correct me if I'm wrong). 

Pair of swords that go on her back. 

It's not very apparent here but you can either display her with her swords or with Myon.
 

After 20 days of journeying Flandre finally arrived~

I haven't gotten the hang of taking good photos. Oh well..

GSC Mikatan wrote about the Kirino Nendoroid (I think) pointing out how many extras she has - like the Touhou Nendoroids. I can't really agree.

But  I will still continue collecting them T_T... I've got all of the released ones, I can't stop here, can I D: ?

Yup, that's all the extras you get. Another pair of arms (with fangs) and a hand to hold her weapon. The usual two extra faces. I wouldn't call that "many extras". Her rainbow wings take up a lot of space though.

Like the other Touhou Nendos Flandre also has a textured base.

Next up are: Youmu, Yuyuko, Cirno

Also, as we (and probably many many others) like to use plain glass shelfs (as they're easy to mount and look good) to display figures there is the very common problem of dust and dirty laying down on the figures. The other thing we propose here is a nice method to build sturdy yet good looking glass cover you can simply place on the shelf over the figures (a box with two open sides: backside and bottom).

For building and setup instructions for those two cool concepts, please look inside .

First things first, so what we'll cover here is a method of building custom glass display cabinets of precut glass (we're still using the method from http://blog.kanojo.de/2010/10/04/custom-modelkit-display-part-2/ - just that we switched to a hardmetal-wheeled glass cutter which is a huge improvement!).

We do this using regular silicone as used for sealing off edges in bathroom/kitchen. You can probably get it in any DIY/Hardware store near you for just a few Euros (2.50Eur seems a common price in germany). The cheapest clear you can get will suffice . Aside of glass and silicone a little crepe-tape and a razorblade and/or cutter (for scrubbing off excess silicone) as well as a silicone pouring gun and a silicone peel (optional) are the only materials/tools needed.

Lay out the glass as you would like it to be glued together. Mask off the edges with the tape as shown (leave ~0.3-0.6cm space to each side)

Detail of the masked glass

Detail of the masked glass

This is the layout of our masked glass pieces. Make sure they will fit in this order .

A nice trick for protecting both your workspace and your parts from the silicone is to use plastic bags which have been cut open beforehand - silicone will not stick to them.

Tools used to pour and peel the silicone.

We'll use the "edgies" part of the silicone peel tool for this - we don't want too much of that stuff sticking in our corners and edges.

Another nice little trick is to cut a little angle into the nozzle of the silicone - this will act as a guide along the edges of the glass when pouring the silicone

Now very slowly pour nice rolls of silicone on all the edges. Remember to loosen the spring of the pouring gun just a half cm before the end of the glass so you won't pour any excess silicone....

Then after placing a roll of silicone on all the edges put up the glass, best using two persons. Hold for just a few seconds and make sure that there is a little gap between all the glass parts. a gap <1mm will work, but with no gap it won't get as sturdy as it could...

Another sample of how the edges and corner can look like when drying

Another sample of how a (more or less) nicely poured roll of silicone will look....

As you can see here you will get ugly blobs of silicone here and there. This is why you want to pull your silicone peeling tools slowly and carefully along all edges. Be sure not to remove the silicone completely - a small roll of silicone should remain in the edges!

This is what the outsides will look like - this is where you want to use a razorblade or cutter to carefully remove excess silicone.

Now would be the time to let your silicone dry. Normally it takes up to 15-30minutes for a initial outer Skin. Every conseccutive 3mm take 24h to dry - so as we normally use rolls < 3mm let's just wait a long night...

Also compared to the previous attempts to glue glass to glass this is extremely sturdy. Even the long 1.15 meters case can be held on one corner using only one hand without any signs of weakages!

But now for the lighting.... For this we used cheapo LED-Strips from the german electro-crap supplier "pollin" - they can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/63ogqja

International readers may want to check dealextreme.com for "led-strip"s, examples could include:

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/12v-led-strip-11-led-33cm-white-5254

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/12v-led-strip-30-led-50cm-white-5256

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/12v-75-led-white-light-strip-50cm-11303

which all sound reasonable. All those have in common that you can (just a "probably" and given a tad of skill for the dealextreme ones!)  cut them, even if stated otherwise and that you may want to peel them out of their crappy housing. The Strips themselves want to be supplied with a standard 12V voltage, so use any switch-mode powersupply you can get your hands on. Don't buy too cheap - we tried, we regret it!

Our first tests with those nice led-strips were kinda successfully, so now for the mouting

After determining the positions of the strips place small short rolls of silicone in the edges

And press the strips into the silicone. You may want to hold them "in" for a few minutes depending on how deformed the strips were (some are quite deformed!). Also note that this is a great use for your razorblade and cutter to remove the excess silicone once it's dry

The cable is made of painted (so it's isolated) wire which we twisted so it'll look nicer. Here it's still mounted using clear tape for testing, later we'll mount it using small blobs of silicone.

For nicer looks the backside of the strip is beeing covered with white e-tape.

which you need to press on thightly - also note the nice "twisted pair" cable

Cut off the excess tape

and fasten using silicone as shown above.

These are the small mounting blobs for the cable. Still need to cut off some excess....

One late addition was using 10x10mm aluminum L-Profiles to nicely conceil both the backscatter of the LEDs and the led-strips themselves. Looks even better!

Yay, it's finished. You still see the strips and the irregular light they sometimes scatter back into the room - looks like just some tape wasn't enough :/.

but the translucency of the silicone-glued glass and light inside is just great!

Look, even Marissa is blinded by all the light and randomly starts to masterspark-shoot-people!

Nice effect .

And, as promised - we used the same LED-strips to light our DETOLF - the whole construction is kinda simple, a 12V SMPSU, some twisted pair painted wire (as before) and three strips per side...

Full shot of the lit DETOLF

Both reflectons on the backside plate and the inner lighting looks great on the figures!

the mounting was really easy - solder the 12V PSU to the led strip and fasten to using cable straps

upper cable strap.

this way even blackrock shooter lights up in a whole new dimension!

we used 3*48cm of strips on each side, luckily they were easy to solder so now it's one large strip

Heyyas there,

here comes part two of the "custom modelkit/figure display" series (or whatever you'd call it). A custom display for figures, modelkits, whatever - you name it! It's a crossover between a glass-case/cabinet and a shelf. It combines the idea of hanging it on the wall with a glass-case so the figures/GKs don't collect too much dust. This time - unfortuneatly - i don't have pictures of the quality and detail of the other tutorials, but i will try to describe the working parts as good as possible.

It first started with the build of that one Tenshi GK - which was paticularly fragile, thus the problem to clean it when/if it collected too much dust. So, as the glass-cabinet was in another room a new shelf had to be built. It would need to be good visible, but protect from dust - so most of it had to be glass. We decided to do the bottom as wood to keep it more simple. So, here's the Pix/Howto:

Materials you need for the basic stuff. Here it's a glass-cutter, three 40x30 picture frames and the wood (already beveled with a router)

Details of the beveling. If you own a router and a few millers you should recognize the pattern . If not, try asking a cabinetmaker near you. If you're nice they might help you with this for little money in the thank-you box(?)

Details of the bevel...

And this one was the trickiest part of the whole process: Cutting glass. I use a regular steel-wheel cutter, place the glass on a surface that won't scratch it, mark the line where it has to be cut, use a ruler to guide the cutter and cut. The cutting speed/strenght is the key to success - you don't want to press so hard you can hear "sand-ish" sound, but hard enough to cut the glass slightly. you'll recognize the right sound if you hear it. then quickly (as glass can flow just a tiny little bit and will close the cut at microscopic level) put it at the edge of a table and break it with in one heavy yank.... use some sanding paper to trim the edges....

Next the glass needs to be glued together - i used pattex glass-glue (which is a kind of superglue), it needs to be applied very very thin, so the edges need to be good. If you cut the glass right no two selfcut edges will need to be glued together. I supported the glass with two rectangular (90* angles, yay!) stones and books....

Detail of the glued glass, note the supports with tape and stones

Also i've already router'ed the notches (4mm, as opposed to 1.5mm for the glass) so while glueing i have a bit of a guide for the glass...

Next, after putting the notch down to 1.5mm (just the width of the glass, i applied oil to the glass, put it in the notches, applied and smoothed the putty and took the glass out again) we need to sand the wood. To do this i used a eccentric grinder, but if such a machine is inavailable, you can just hand-sand it....

Then, after sanding i applied acrylic primer using my paint-gun....

... which needs to be hand-sanded again. I used K220 paper here.

Then the first layer of simple acrylic white. I diluted it with water so i'd be able to spray wet, which gets a better "gloss" effect

Okay, the edges aren't perfect...

Now, to avoid too much dust/dirt sticking to the wet paint i quick-dried it using a infra-red lamp, which is normally used when you catched a cold ... at least here in germany...

Finished! Yay! (yes, it's not straigt, but the poster also isn't!)

So, this is our new figure display case for two medium-size or one large figure. The glossy paint-job turned out quite okay, only a few faults/not-so-nice parts. Mounted on the wall it really looks nice!

I hope this inspired you to try DIY'ing your next display, and not just run to the closest IKEA to buy a ready made one. Selfmade furniture is the best, has a that nice feel of something you yourself made with your own hands to it ...

The whole process of building this took about 4 hours, minus the first try which i fucked up. The main tool for building this was a router, together with a copy (jacket, tube, quill, don't know the right english word, sorry. if you know what a router is you will know what i mean ). With those we made a kind of stencil from a junk piece of wood. This was fastened on the actual piece of wood for the frame and - using the copy-whatever the hole was milled in the wood. The next step was sanding the top - which turned out to reveal the very ugly structure of lower layers of this low-end MPX-wood. NEVER AGAIN!. After some frustration, toying around with putty and more sanding i veneered this with some of the free quality veneer i got myself from a wholesaler. Then trimming/bevelling the edges, more sanding with very fine (400) paper, and there it goes! Rakka!

Sorry for the low picture quality - as i wanted to shoot the pics but i'm totally tired from the grinding.

Hope you got some ideas for your figure displays from this .

General info

The other thing that makes life hard for collectors are limited figures. For example Touhou merchandise has to be limited in some way or another and very few international shops carry those (usually for a little more than the retail price in Japan but that's nothing compared to the trouble of using a proxy). Limited figures are very common and subject of rage for even the most dedicated (non-Japanese) collectors. Limited usually means: limited to certain Japanese online shops that will only ship to Japan, magazine mail-order exclusives (which are even more elusive), limited quantities (usually also limited to Japanese only) or one time convention only releases (only sold at a certain convention, rare for PVC figures but common for garage kits). Using a proxy means to let the shop send the items to a person in Japan and this person will then ship the items to you. I haven't used one so far and it's also possible to use a proxy for Yahoo Auctions! (eBay is not popular with the Japanese). See Rinkya, ShoppingMallJapan or Tenso.

You won't be able to avoid to plan ahead either. Preorder figures is easier than polling the shop site at the release date and it happens a lot that supply is sold before it's released (preorder closed) speaking you won't have the chance to buy it when it is released. I'd avoid shops that need you to pay beforehand if possible. If you tend to get yourself in the red for ordering too much, you might me interested whether your shop of choice allows order cancellations but you shouldn't do that often either case. You are sure to get the item when you preorder. Backordered items are cumulated orders your shop will send out sometime later (you have to wait just as if you're preordering) to ask the manufacturer if they're available. So you're not guranteed to get it.

Shipping fee is a heartbreaking topic. The item is already pricey enough and you will have to pay half the price for getting it shipped to your doorstep. But most shops will leave the choice to you how to ship them. SAL (Surface Air Lifted) (500 yen or more) is the economy version, there's no tracking (outside Japan) and your parcel has to be lighter than 2kg. It's a lot cheaper than EMS and it is my shipping method of choice but some collectors have made bad experiences with parcels getting lost and so on. SAL takes about a month to Germany, usually a little less but not less than two weeks. I don't mind waiting but if it's really important to you, use EMS (Express Mail Service) and pay more (like 1500 yen or more). If your country doesn't hate you and confines your package in customs (depending on how nice they are, it can take ages) it should arrive in less than a week. The package is being tracked and is being covered for should it get lost. People say your package is sure to get in customs when using EMS but I don't really know. So far almost *every* of my orders were held in customs but that depends on your country. Look for how much you're supposed to pay to customs as well. If it's a lot, it may be better to buy from local shops (or online shops of your own country).

Consider joining Tsuki-Board.net (aka MyFigureCollection). It's a nice community and their monitoring feature is worth a lot when you've missed the first wave of preorders. They have active users that'll comment as soon as figures are available again somewhere.

Get news about new figures

Older figures are hard to get, it doesn't really matter if they were popular or not, so prevent missing releases of new ones is a good way to go. I'm following a dozen of figure blogs but that's not necessary. However, I recommend these:

Nekomagic is an awesome source. I don't know of any other English speaking blog that is so well informed or covers conventions so throughoutly. Nekomagic will inform you about which things to look forward to but mostly you'll have to wait another few months for them to be released (or even announced). They also provide garage kit info! (And are about to open a new site for garage kits only.)

Wcloudx (kumo)'s blog posts release dates and provides summaries of upcoming figures. Most figures also get a "XYZ Reservation Starts!!" post to make sure you won't be missing them.

Figures Plus is a very useful site also. I find the Spanish (it's a bilingual blog) a bit confusing but the blog presents releases in a very clean way, including also links to shops so you don't even have to search for yourself.

Recommended Shops

So you've found your most wanted figures but are clueless where to buy? Beware of eBay as there are many bootlegs out there. See Tsuki-Board.net and look up whether there are bootlegs of the figure you're about to buy (they're very up to date which is convenient). If not it's safer, if yes you should be careful. Even if you're not wasting much money, it is still wasted. Bigger shops are usually okay. Oh, and get yourself a Paypal account if you don't have one already. So far I've bought from:

Otacute: The shop I buy most frequently from.

• + Has limited items! (With little extra fee)
• + Reasonably priced
• + SAL shipping available (good priced too)
• - Allow (only) one order cancellation per customer

AmiAmi: They went international not so long ago. It's a huge shop so they get offer good prices to customers too.

• + Lowest prices
• + SAL shipping available
• + Accept order cancellation when you really need it and will split bigger orders ito smaller packages if you ask them
• - No limited items
• - Order handling fee of 700 yen (you should always keep that in mind!)

HobbySearch: Good prices, usually on par with AmiAmi (well, a little more). They sometimes have nice stuff for sale and only recently started offering SAL shipping.

• + Reasonably priced
• + SAL shipping available
• + Restock often (and there's a RSS feed for it!)
• - Credit Card only (NO Paypal, which is the biggest downside for me)
• - No limited items

HobbyLinkJapan:

• + Sales happen a lot
• + Early Bird preorders give you a discount
• + Order cancellation are handled automatically (there's a button for it, you don't have to write them an apology mail)
• - Somewhat more expensive

e2046: Sells mostly garage kits but has quite a few PVC figures too.

• + There are almost always discounts
• + For being a VIP you get an extra discount (when you've ordered more than 250 $ worth of stuff over the time)
• Okay priced
• - Short preorder times (they close too fast)
• - Very few items in stock

YesAsia: Only bought from them once.

• + Free SAL shipping for orders exceeding 50 $
• + You always get discount coupons for ordering
• - Expensive (and I really mean it)
• - You have to pay when you order (not when the item arrives)

If you happen to have experiences from other shops, please inform me so I can add them.

Not really looking for something specific? Anime figure sales is like a goldmine when you're hunting sales. Recent figures are usually put up for sale in shops for clearance after some time and here's the info who's selling what. The website hasn't been active at all times but you're only looking for bargains anyway, aren't you?

As we have also been disstatisfied with that we wrote a parser for AmiAmi that creates a RSS feed. You may also subscribe it, it's update twice a day at 16:00 and 04:00 Europe/Berlin time every day. You can find it on:

http://ghostdub.de/~eefi/rss.xml

Maybe it'll help you harvesting the Otaku loot you want .