Vetinari wrote:Sorry
Dollykim! This is at least partially my fault!
Ah my current sculpting woes come down to an inability to get realistic proportions
and a lack of practice but I always feel so guilty when I see what I've wasted my modelling material on! As the heads almost always end up far bigger than I'd initially intended...
MeltedCaramel: Haha! Well I can't recommend Flamethrower's work enough! It's one of the most well-written fanfic series I've ever come across. Link:
http://archiveofourown.org/series/10129 (Sadly neither Clonobi nor Qui Gon have appeared yet)
Ugh yea I agree - Revoltech seem to want to spend so much time showing off how
amazing their joint-system is that they totally forget basic things like human anatomy... And I'm personally not at all impressed with the ratchet system they've got now - it really limits poses to discrete possibilities rather than the smooth range you get with figmas. Hah yea I agree the females are less anatomically awkward... I'm guessing this half goes back to the whole sexism thing!
Yea I try not to judge it by UK standards too much - cos I'm very very aware that Japanese culture is v.different to what anime/manga and the surrounding hobbies implies. But gods I really hate the figures where you
know that character would never ever do that... But yea I will probably succumb to curiosity!
Yea the facial experssion does make sense, he has extreme mood-swings in the comics, but yea
neutral face dammit! Wanting utter perfection - hah yea I suspect I was just more forgiving of the small flaws in the earlier Hot Toys figures I owned! (Like Iron Man mkIV - some visible screws and his "Flares" casing likes to pop-out. The rubberised areas are slightly less-red than other areas, and he can't actually make the iconic pose - but despite all of that I adore him and think he's damned near to perfection!)
Aw thanks again!
Yea most of the female characters (yet to be shelled, and not developed enough at this point to be shelled...
) fit into that category. I suspect that's a reflection of my own opinions on perceived femininity!
Hah yea - I am chaffing a bit at the limits of the "girly-guy" aesthetic that really is the norm for bjds. Granado, Iplehouse and a select few other v.expensive companies buck that trend - but when you're looking for something v.specific (like Frank) that lack of choice... Ah well the Matriarch/Patriarch is very happily staying at a partial-transition point on purpose, neither 100% one sexual phenotype nor the other - and I probably shouldn't go into too much graphic detail! But if you google Richard O'Brien's current self-labelled status you'd get a good idea. Aw thanks again!
I didn't set out to make so many characters... They just happened! It's a cast of thousands type thing - which space and money-wise is ...well!
Vetinari: Oh wow. Yeah, that looks like an
epic. I'm going to need to save this for later. *Clickity click* Thank you so much for the rec. Haha, I admit that most of my usual reading for Qui/Obi is shameless smut fics. Nothing wrong with a bit of Jedi porn, right?
Revoltech is a really strange company. See, their ratchet system works great on the female sculpts and the non muscular guys, but any time they attempt what I think of as "action hero muscular" their posing ability just drops like a rock. Although, honestly, figma's early attempts at muscular guys doesn't really appeal to me either. It's either Revoltech's tiny heads or figma's manboobs. I like the prototype for the Free! figure (which I've been calling Makoto but it is actually Haruka *idiot moment*), I know people are screaming "MAN!TITS!!!" at it but honestly it's a hell of a lot better than the basic male sculpt in my opinion.
For Revoltech, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt for their dubious sculpting because they're an extremely varied company in terms of output, and I notice the main time they really "drop the ball" is when doing the realistic style male video game characters. The ones I own are from a video game that is at least "fantasy realistic" and I notice they seem to have trouble "simplifying" features on male characters to make it appropriate for the 5.whatever inch scale they've got going on.
As for Japan, I've honestly had to let go all of my American sensibilities to truly appreciate the culture as a
culture and not a faux-reality that exists on the fringes of fandom and quasi-adopted by weeaboos (I love that word, I could say it all day.
) on the internet. Japan is so different from what they show in anime...it's the same thing I've noticed worldwide. Everyone is judged by their media output, which isn't really fair. (Just a couple days ago I got an email from my Russian friend asking me if I was worried about the imminent eruption of the caldera beneath Yellowstone and the end of life as I knew it (well, she couched it in much nicer terms XD). I was like "...
whut?" and I had to do some research before I assured her that no, America is not going to be swallowed by a fiery hellbeast volcano like her Russian prophet website told her.) I agree that it's still hard to stomach when they just take a character and completely sh*t on their characterization in order to make a "sexy cast off sculpture".
Although that's not going to stop me from being a hypocrite and totally recommending the Queen's Blade figures. They are completely adorable and really fun, I admit. If you want I can recommend some of the less...err...fetishistic ones to you? I think your tolerance may not be high enough for the girl with a gel splatter that squirts from her private area.
You know, now I can only imagine The Crow as some guitar playing psycho. That face just does NOT go with the guitar accessory. I'm picturing some Death Metal worthy screeching or something.
This is definitely a case where a neutral face is better!
Yeah, I think we tend to overlook the small imperfections in some of the earlier and/or grail stuff we get. I'm terrified of my Medicom like exploding if I touch it and yet it's my grail 1/6 figure. It's ridiculous really how much I adore this figure and yet I'm scared to lay a finger on it.
I adore boyish girl characters.
I think they're awesome. I have a bit of that "everything you can do I can do better" male/female syndrome. Gals can kick the pants off the guys as far as I'm concerned.
Hah yea - I am chaffing a bit at the limits of the "girly-guy" aesthetic that really is the norm for bjds.
<---Yeah, this just needed quoted. Because. YES. I respect what others want to do with their dolls but the lack of
choice kind of upsets me. (Well, upset isn't the right word..."mildly displeases"? XD; ) You mentioned some companies that reject that stereotype, and I agree completely but unfortunately those companies are also pretty darn expensive, like you also mentioned.
Not that I'd be against saving up for a gorgeous male sculpt (although I can't lift the big guys as of now, I mean I
can it's just one of those "not recommended" things, I don't really want to end up in the ER screaming "IPLEHOUSE DID IT!!"), but the limited/expensive nature of these companies has me in a bit of a bind as well. ^^;; I just need to start a mature male MSD company or something and shut my trap.
Richard O'Brien's stance on gender is pretty much my own as well, since I tend to reject the binary idea of two genders. I believe we're all on a sliding scale.
I like his attitude about it as well, he just seems plum happy with himself.
I like that your Patriarch/Matriarch character represents that scale!
Perhaps not traditionally "Trans" in the sense that they're transitioning from one to another, but happily in between.
Haha, I know that feeling, too many characters, too little money, too little space! At least it sounds like you're quite content writing about them all!
I've got to check out the series Vetinari actually comes from. (Discworld, right? *Is an idiot*) Then I'm going to read your fics, if you don't mind!
(Just realized I've had "Dude Looks Like a Lady" playing this entire time.
)
I really think I make my females "Just people" in response to that most of the time (Aiko is certainly an acception! 
