Finally another figure review. I bet you guys thought that I stopped doing them, but that isn’t the case. In fact I still have a backlog of other figures to photograph and I managed to finally get this one done after a long time. Anyway, I present to you, Alter’s 1/8 Louise from Zero no Tsukaima.
You may have noticed that the images are smaller than previous figure photography posts. Reason for this is that I’m changing the way it looks in order to cope with the bandwidth usage spikes I’m having so now you can click on the image for a larger version if you like. Anyway this is the 2nd Louise figure that has been released on the market as the first one was done by Kotobukiya, which I also own right here. As you can see the Kotobukiya version doesn’t seem to have that charming effect on you, but with Alter’s version, that’s another story. With a lot of figures these days, some don’t quite come close to their 2D counterparts in terms of looks and I see this as an important aspect when I buy my figures. The reason I buy a figure of a particular character is because I watched the anime and I liked the character, so I would like the figure to look as close as their anime version. Alter doesn’t disappoint me.
As you can see, Louise looks very similar to her 2D counterpart. Perched sitting on top of a ladder, you can definitely see her deredere side. Her sitting position and pose are one of the best features of this figure as it’s elegant, graceful, charming, patient, sensual, alluring and attractive. I’d say more but this is as far as my vocabulary goes. The way her hair and cloak flows as she is sitting perched compliments the beauty of this figure.
Now we all know that Louise isn’t big, well in many places she isn’t big except her pride, but Louise as an overall figure isn’t that large at all. Upon receiving this many moons ago, when I took it out of the box I was quite surprised that she was rather small for a 1/8 scale figure. To me she appears to be more of a 1/9 or 1/10 size though I think it’s based on the scenario theme of this figure that makes her look this small. But even Louise herself is exceptionally thin especially her arms and body frame, although it does make her really cute.
The only two parts that give Louise volume is mainly her hair and her cloak. If it weren’t for these then should would’ve been a stick figure. The way her hair is split into several edges give that nice breeze effect but also reflects the volume of her hair, and we all know that a girl’s hair is her life. Combine that with the flowing cloak with it’s rippling effect and that’s what it gives this figure, a bit of life. Though there is a slight flaw in her hair, as you can see in the pictures, where it starts to look a little rough at the ends of her hair, but it’s not a big concern.
As you can see, the figure is very well detailed. But it doesn’t stop there. In fact the ladder, which comes as an accessory is detailed quite well. The chains actually are chains and can move, and with the metal clasps with the S symbol look brilliant. And to take it that little bit further, the wood grains of the ladder are also painted on, so at least you don’t get a plain boring looking ladder.
Just as a note, this is my favourite photo as I took this one by accident. But you know in photography, sometimes your unintentional photos end up being the best photos.
Of course with Louise sitting on a ladder with one leg up, makes for easy peeking for those who are interested.
Product: Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière
Produced by: Alter
Sculptor: Takeuchi Gotaro
Scale: 1/8
Material: PVC
Release Date: February 2007
Price: ¥4,571
Available: HLJ (out of stock)
From my ever growing collection, this is one of the very few figures that actually look like their anime counterpart. 2 years ago it was hard to find figures just like that but nowadays they are becoming closer and closer. Alter has once again shown that their products are of high quality and this is no exception. The molding and sculpting are done brilliantly and the paintwork has also been done well. The amount of detailing is high such as the rippling of her cloak, the way her hair flows, the creases in her shirt as well as the plaits on her skirt.
But of course there is only one factor that I don’t like in this figure, and that is mainly the shape of her face. Her face looks rather narrow and with the lack of cheeks it gives her a pointy chin. The way her eyes are done as well looks like they have been caved in making her look like she has big cheek bones. However I can overcome this factor as it’s not exactly ugly, better than having a flat face. Overall this is a very good figure and it makes me glad that I did decide to buy this before HLJ removed the Early Bird special.
Check out other reviews of Louise:
Photography Notes:
Yes it has been a month, that’s right, a MONTH since I last did a figure review. Throughout the month time I’ve been lazy, busy, sleepy, working and other stuff but also the photos you see in this review are the 4th take. The previous 3 takes turned out incredibly horrible and even though I could fix it to an extent in Photoshop, I wasn’t too happy still. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to photographs, lol. Anyway the location chosen here is at Sydney Olympic Park where the 2000 Olympics were held.
The structure you see in the photo is a fountain called The Overflow, and it’s in a playground situated near Telstra Stadium, which is the large building on the right. The 3rd take was done here straight after Autosalon 2007, hence the colouring difference in the photo. Olympic Park has many wonderful places and structures to use as backdrops so I may go back for other figures.
The face seem quite different from the promotion photo. hate it when the figure u bought is different and looks less appealing compared to the promotional one.
I was wondering when you’d bring us more pvc babeage while showing us some of the sites. Not really into Louise, but I thought about getting this one just because it was an Alter figure with a base that wasn’t a plain piece of plastic.:)
Hey wait, isn’t this the same figure as the one you did at town hall? Why a new photo shoot? My comment about her face still stands.
Anyway, pretty good photos, but I think maybe doing it under direct sunlight makes the shadows far too sharp.
Fisherman Horizon: I hate that very much. Although so do have surprises and can end up being better. Although you can’t find out until it reaches your doorstep.
super rats: Yeah it;s been a while but I feel like I’m losing the game, especially with more people doing figure photography and looking more awesome than my ones. But still, how many people have the courage to do it outside? lol
icie: The Town Hall one was the 1st take and those photos totally sucked as most had camera shake and those were done in the shadow of the buildings, which produced some undesired lighting effects. True under direct sunlight you get the sharp shadow effect, though I had to constantly shuffle across so I could photograph the figure whilst it was between direct sunlight and in the shadow of the tree behind me.
I agree with what you said Adun, she’s much more closer to her “2D counterpart” than the Kotobukiya figurine. But it’s not that yet :/
I guess we have the same problem than Shana figurines, those two girls drawn by the same artist(s) - shame on me I forgot his/their name(s) - are hardly “figurinable”, I mean the face particularly.
Nice cute pics of Louise. Nice scenery too.
Very nice pics. I wish I could just go out and take pics like that. But I feel I will get the strangest stares if I do. Plus I need a better camera, what kind of camera do you use?
lu-k: Shana is probably one of those figures which we’ll never see close to Noizi Ito’s drawing style. Though I do have two Shana figures already, I still like them. For Shana it’s mainly the eyes and hair that define Shana, and that is quite hard to do.
Danny Choo: Thanks. After 4 takes, I’m glad I finally got them done.
AS: There’s nothing holding you back from going outside to take photos. The first time I did it, I did it in a very public place with thousands of people walking by. Also the camera I use is a Canon 400D and this uses the standard zoom lens.
nice shots.
btw, I’m considering to buy a DSLR camera, either canon 400D or nikon D40x. is the standard lens good enough? or do I need to buy a macro lens?
ron~: I use the standard zoom lens with my 400D. I also have macro filters which attach to the standard lens but you can only do so much with them. If you could get a macro lens it’ll make figure photography easier.
most of the time the figure came out less appealing than the promo. I couldn’t recall any that’s better than the promo. But at least kotobukiya belldandy and Megahouse lacus turn out almost the same.
oh ya. Alicia is available for pre-order at HLJ now. http://www.hlj.com/product/GSC96272
At first, I thought the background was like an UFO. Anyway, nice background. Hey, why not put a figurine page, instead of clicking the figures category?
Fisherman Horizon: hey thanks for the heads up, pre-ordered one.
samejima: lol, it does look like a UFO doesn’t it. The figurine page is something I’m adding to moemoerabu v4 layout but haven’t gotten around to that part yet.
Nice take for this one, though there’s something about her face that isn’t quite right.
Btw, I swear it looks like a bulge in the last picture. ^^;
Are u sure the last upskirt picture was unintentional? LOL
But its strange, now that windbell mentioned it, i see a bulge too .. haha
Windbell: That’s the only qualm I have with this figure, the shape of her face is a little weird. And yes that is a bulge.
alafista: Oh that last picture was intentional. Just that I wasn’t looking through the viewfinder when I was doing it. That bulge… lets just say it adds finer details to the figure.
I really like these photos you took, the quality of the figure looks to be very good (doesn’t collect much figures), I do like how you take the photos outdoors in very nice locations,Can’t wait to see some new figures you get
One main reason that I can see for Louise seeming smaller than her 1/8 scale (this may have already been mentioned) is that “real” Louise isn’t that tall in the first place, and so a 1/8 Louise will be shorter than, say, a 1/8 Rider. Similar thing in Gundam kits: a MG 1/100 F91 is smaller than a MG 1/100 Freedom because at 1/1 scale the F91 is three metres shorter.
As far as the figure itself goes, the rather indiscrete bulge (I think that’s what you’re referring to) on the bottom of her right leg still puts me off D:
Ah, this Louise looks quite good here
The only thing that bothered me is her hair color. I would imagine the hair would be brighter and pinker like in the Anime, or perhaps it’s how it showed up in the photos? ^^;
Kouji: Using different locations also doubles for me to practice normal photography
khardic_paladin: I’m not too sure about the scaling. The Kotobukiya version of Louise is MUCH larger than this version. It just boggles me on how they figure out the scaling of figures.
blu chocobo: Her hair colour is actually a a flat pink. Not as pink as in the anime, but her hair colour appears different in different lighting situations. Here in the photos it was under strong sunlight so it might look a little faded.
Great shot! The background fits the figure perfectly. It’s as if I’m looking at Louise come to our world from anime world sits there and let the wind blow her hair and skirt. ^_^
Don’t we all wish that Louise would come to our world?? lol