This beautiful figure showed up on the artist's Xianyu page as an immediately available in-stock piece, and I pounced on it. You can tell by my profile pic how much I like this costume, after all!
The artist works in ultralight clay, which has been a new medium to me, and so far I've been impressed. It is very light (as the name suggests!) and appears to be extremely flexible. I was initially very worried about her figures breaking in transport, as they all have very delicate thin little details, but everything seems surprisingly sturdy. It bends, but doesn't deform, and doesn't seem to break with careful treatment. I do baby my figs, but shipping / customs is always a wild card.
For something like this, I would normally absolutely air column wrap it to protect it from crushing damage. I don't worry about the fig breaking parts off - I worry about it getting squished! If this fig got crushed it would certainly destroy it, given all the thin, flat loops of clay making up most of this figure.
But, I didn't have to, because the artist packed it in a rigid styrofoam cooler box. This is of course deadly on the shipping fees, especially since my warehouse flags the wooden base as air freight only. But, the only thing worse than paying volumetric air freight charges is getting a crushed figure, so what can you do?
I too am deeply disappointed by my lack of quality unboxing photos. Why did I not remove this top layer of bubble wrap? NOBODY KNOWS.
This is an extremely tall figure, by far my largest figure by a wide margin. The full size, including base, is 27 cm, of which 2cm is the base. This makes the figure itself about 10 inches high for us Americans.
The fan is not clay but paper, which was a nice surprise. I would have been fine either way, but I like the paper. I'm also very appreciative that the artist included it in this rigid plastic box so keep it from getting squished inside the protective cooler. Box. Protective box.
Here he is without the fan. He's gorgeous! You can really see the detail on his belt and his long, elegant fingers.
In fact, here's a closeup of those hands and the beautiful detail on the belt. His fingers may look even a bit longer than you might expect, but that's because they need to hold the fan. You can even see the slight indent for the fingernails. This artist is just amazing. She says she puts her whole heart into crafting these figures, and you can tell.
Holding the fan as so. If you don't think I wasn't a little stressed out carefully wedging the fan in between those beautiful fingers, you have somehow (incredibly) missed all the other cases of my fig related anxiety on this blog. I'm not even a high stress person! Normally.
Alright, let's spin this beauty around, shall we?
My camera decided to focus on many things, but Wen Kexing's perfect face was not always one of them. So we'll get some closeups. But first, let's do our bottoms-up and top-down pics:
Please do note the beauty mark on the middle finger of his right hand!
For size comparison, here's Wen Kexing with his OG official fig counterpart:
You can definitely see what I mean by how big this fig is! Maybe I should call it a statue instead of a fig.
Alright, time for our close ups.
Just beautiful. I'll need to commission a matching A-Xu in the Taolin forest costume so I can have them heading off to Siji Manor.
This figure was an incredible price - less than $50 USD. An absolute bargain. I can't even imagine the time that went into this. This was less expensive than other individual figures or pairs of this size, so perhaps I just got lucky with the artist clearing space.
I had really wanted semi-realistic figures like this when Word of Honor was released and I watched it for the first time, so getting this now makes me really happy. The artist also had a snowy mountain set that I picked up around the same time, which should be arriving here relatively shortly. Please look forward to it! I can't wait myself.
i guess i just need to talk it all out and try to make some sense of it. the GazettE are one of the most important bands in my life. they've brought me so many friends and so much happiness over the years. i was just 13 when i started listening to them and now i'm 27. they were such a huge part of my teenage years. they literally kept me going at some points of my life. their music saved my life.
i've always thought i'd get a chance to see them live one day - one of my biggest dreams was to experience flith in the beauty live at least once. and now i probably will never. and if i do, it won't be the same.
i can't believe reita is gone. just like that. he's gone. it feels like an old friend just passed away - someone i hadn't spoken to in years, but still thought of fondly. he was such a wonderful, talented human. i can't believe he's gone.
I ordered these a while back, they were supposed to arrive last winter but unfortunately ran into some unforeseen circumstances and I never got them. @shandian-go was so helpful in helping me repurchase them, you have no idea how happy I was when they arrived safely. Look how beautiful! I’m still waiting on a second base to arrive that plays a different song. I even bought them their own shelf to display them on! Thanks again @shandian-go!
That’s right! We’ve updated our shop with some new listings! One of which contains our new 🥒Scum Villian Self Saving System🎋 balms! Luo Binghe and his Shizun are here✨
✨But wait there’s more! We’ve also got new additions to our mdzs and tgcf balms! Lan Zhan🍵 and our new shipbalm Fengqing🏹🗡
✨And to top it all off! We’ve decided to make discounted bundle listings for some of our favorite balms! Just because it makes us happy and we hope it will do the same for you!💜 3zun⚔️ | Immortals🗻 | One Brain Cell Trio🪷
Cross-posting this from my twitter, cos who knows when that godforsaken site will disintegrate into nothingness from one man’s ego and hubris 🫠
I designed some jewellery to celebrate JJ’s bday. 生日快乐龚老师!!!
❗️These are PRE-ORDER items subject to reaching MOQ. ❗️
Order form: https://forms.gle/eihDS7LhXh1rGGXi9
Closes: 20 Nov, 11:29 GMT
11.29% of all sales from this event will be donated to the Animals Asia Foundation fundraiser organised by @_zuokanyunshu
Leftover pieces of my previous jewellery fan merch are included in this charity sale too, if anyone who misses out previously wants to grab them. Details in the order form.
🐻❤️The funds will support the wonderful work being done at Chengdu Bear Rescue Center in Gong Jun’s hometown of Chengdu, Sichuan.
I am opening an interest check to know how many people would be interested on these danmei chibi charms. The reason behind this is that I can't make preorders, and even less release them if I don't have an upcoming con, so if there's enough people interested, I may be able to release them without the need of going to a con :D. This is by no means a bounding form, so you are not obligated to buy the charms in the end.
The process will be as it follows:
The Interest Check will be open until December 31th 2022 (results will be shared on my Twitter @SaryaArt)
By Mid January I'll open a second form to check who will be interested on buying the actual charms.
If there are enough responses on the second form, I'll be opening preorders on the begining of February, and they'll last two weeks.
Once I have the interest check results, I will be able to ask the manufacturer about prices, this is the main reason as to why I am not giving any specific info regarding this.
Also, filling the second form will work as a preorder assurance, so that one should be filled if you're REALLY interested on buying the charms. A link to my store will be emailed to those who fill it once the check period has finished. Shippings will be made from Spain.
The fandoms I'll be making charms of will be: Mo Dao Zu Shi, Tian Guan Ci Fu and Word of Honor (these last ones will only be available via preorder, unless the manufacturer sends me extras).
>> To The Interest Check Form <<
If you have any question, please feel free to message me on my main account @dark-sarya.
One of the inadvertently fun things about ordering cdrama merch through the very lovely @shandian-go is that sometimes it can take quite a while for your goodies to arrive - this is partly due to the time is takes for orders to be consolidated and shipped from China, but also (and in this case mostly) due to the fact that the merch is often ordered as a pre-order and sometimes the lead times as to when the product will actually be manufactured and orders fulfilled can be months and months.
All of which means that, especially if you are a bit scatterbrained like me, sometimes you can completely forget what you’ve ordered! 😂
So when I got this bumper parcel of goodies in the post today, and opened it up, at first I was like... eh, what’s this?
And then I took a closer look and remembered, holy cow, yes! Tofu released a second set of Word of Honor figurines - and I ordered them! 😂
But then... what are these boxes?
So I opened one up and only then remembered that, of course! This time there was also a set of background scenery displays released - and I ordered those too! 😂😂
And just look how pretty they are!! This is only one of the three and I haven’t even opened up the other two yet.
Look at little A-Xu and Lao Wen happy in their Four Seasons Manor home!
Now my only problem is that my merch display shelf is already full and I really do not have the space to add three whole scenery diorama things and four new figurine sets! I guess I’m going to have to install another shelf!
Thank you Mel for all your hard work and for my lovely, lovely merch which, as ever, arrived carefully and securely packaged and in great condition. And thank you also for the inadvertent surprise of receiving merch I had completely forgotten about!!* 😊
(*in my defence, I’ve realised I ordered these nearly a year ago - the lead times on the Tofu figurines were really long the first time around too)
When I posted about the beautiful handcrafted Taolin Wen Kexing statue from this artist, I mentioned that I had bought a snowy mountain set from her as well. That set made the long sea journey over to me, and is now ready for prime time!
These two were sold as a set, ready made. I was very excited to get them, since I didn't have a Zhou Zishu in this size and style yet.
I will tell you though, I messed up with this set. These were shipped in a very large box, so I figured I'd have them wrapped up in air column wrap to given them extra protection.
I did NOT think this decision through. It did not occur to me that the force of the air columns would press down too harshly on the figures. So, a couple things happened.
First, Wen Kexing's beautiful head (and please do take a minute to admire this gorgeous paint job) got broken - you can see how under his jaw there is a big crack. As I've said with these ultralight clay figures before, they're actually pretty flexible and tough - they just can't take crushing damage very well. In this case, though, it was an easy fix - I just pulled open the crack a little bit more (yes, that's as unpleasant as it sounds), ran a thin line of glue, and pressed it back shut until the glue bonded. Good as new!
The other issue, however, was that the force of the air columns squeezing up against the figures pressed all the beautiful drapery against itself. As you saw in the Taolin Wen Kexing, the artist very carefully molds all these wonderful curved folds and drapes everything against the figure in layers and layers of clay. She did on this set too, before some of those curves all got compressed together for a month, in the heat of early summer shipping. So, those folds arrived all flat and stuck to themselves. I tried running the rounded curved handle of a powder brush under the folds to loosen them up, which actually did separate them from each other nicely. But the sheets of ultralight clay are so thin, that I was afraid of ripping them if I was more aggressive. What I need to do is run the clothing under warm water and see if I can make the sheets a bit more pliable to re-bend back into place, but I have to work up the intestinal fortitude to do that first. Maybe later this fall.
Alright! I'll do the normal photographic circle around the two of them, and then do a bunch of closeups of each of them so you can see all the beautiful detail.
Beautiful! Even a bit squished, they're still incredibly lovely. The camera had a hard time focusing on both of them at the same time, so here's some detailed photos, starting with A-Xu:
Just amazing. The way she does the lips on these figures alone is incredible. Not to mention how we get this beautiful modeling on the neck, so when the light hits it we get the Adam's apple and the shadows of the muscles.
If this was me, I'd still be paralyzed in the initial stages of picking out the right colors...not anywhere vaguely close to starting in on the first drapery fold of the first figure.
Alright, on to Lao Wen:
Ridiculous. If I was this talented, I'd literally never shut up about it. I'd be insufferable. Luckily for everyone, that's in no way a problem.
The shine on the lips. I can't get over it, it looks so perfect.
It's easy for me to forget when I'm staring at Wen Kexing's immaculate face, but I can't forget he's holding A-Xu's drinking gourd for him!
Here's a picture of all three statues that I have so far. If you missed my post about Taolin Wen Kexing, it's here.
I'm out of picture slots, or I'd just keep posting pictures of these two, I love them.
Are there more posts coming about figures I've bought from this artist? Absolutely! I love her work. There's a couple Crown Prince figs, among others, that I'm really excited about (yes, I have been obsessed with watching Legend of Anle)!
Tian Ya Ke! Zhou Zishu pin as a planned part of my next merch run! Alongside some comedic SHL YBY and WKX pin. All only if I gather enough interest to run the minimum qty
Word of Honor fan merch arrived from @tbgkaru_woh today -- I now have a little chibi pillow of my fav charrie, Ye Baiyi, to cling to for the first anniversary of 813 tomorrow.