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Weird Nadia merchandise found on Mercari and Yahoo Auctions Japan

Since Nadia is one of my favorite anime series, I like looking for random Nadia-related merchandise on Mercari and Yahoo Auctions Japan. Some of the stuff is pretty cool, like Nadia pencil boards, a Nadia ruler, and a booklet of Nadia postcards. Some of the stuff, however, is rather weird.

Oh look, it’s a gun… just like Nadia used in the show. Right? Not. So this is a “fire gun” that is made to resemble the Nautilus. I’m guessing that it creates sparks.

Ha! So this bottle of water came out for the 30th anniversary of the Nadia anime. At least the water isn’t blue due to food coloring. So it’s not really the “Secret of Blue Water” but rather just the “Secret of Water” in this case.

So this is a 1:6 scale Nadia garage kit by T’s System. The proportions look weird. She looks like Gumby who got pulled in both directions. I mean, look at her abdomen! She just wasn’t sculpted right because she is too skinny. The rest isn’t too bad, but dang! Look at her belly! She has the proportions of an alien who’s being starved to death. Eat a sandwich, girl! Plus whoever painted this really got her skintone all wrong. She’s supposed to have dark brown skin. Why do they keep whitewashing her in recent years? They didn’t do this to her 30 years ago. All the merch back then showed her with a proper skin tone.

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I’ve finished the Asuka and Rei sofubi heads

Here they are after painting their eyes and eyebrows. The main paints were airbrushed with V-Color paints and the eyes were done with acrylic paints. I’m particularly happy with how Asuka’s eyes turned out.

Here they are after I shaded their hair.  I used dark blue pastel chalk to do the recessed areas of Rei’s hair and an acrylic goache mix of burnt umber and red to do Asuka’s hair. For some reason, pastel chalks were not sticking to Asuka’s hair. Probably too glossy. Then I did a flat clear coat of V-Color to seal them in and stop the shine. I think I’m ready for assembly now.

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My new Pac-Man pillow from Shimamura!

I went to Shimamura today and found this lovely Pac-Man decorative pillow! It feels so soft! Here are front and back photos of it. There was another Pac-Man pillow there which featured large sprites of the characters, but I like the design of this one better. Interestingly, it features the English names of the ghosts. There were also Pac-Man bath mats there too, but I didn’t get them because I imagine my wife wants to keep the ones we already have.

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ORLY?

Everyone’s seen this classic owl meme. A few years ago, I made a few of my own one day when I was bored at work.

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Enjoying the modeling hobby in Japan despite cramped living spaces

Living in smaller living conditions in Japan, there is an art to maximizing the space you have. I found these pictures on Pinterest and found them interesting. One thing to note is the absence of the “carpet monster” that Western modelers often complain about. Homes in Japan may have area rugs, but do not have permanently-carpeted rooms. You’ll see tatami rooms, but not carpet. I don’t like carpet, nor tatami for that matter. Anyhow, check out these pictures.

This fellow has a bunk bed and uses the bed on top as a place to stash his models. The model workbench fits underneath that nicely. The extractor booth’s air hose seems permanently attached to the window. Very clean and orderly, with a convenient L-shaped desk.

This is pretty incredible. This person turned a closet into a workbench! Very adequate lighting, and the tiny video screen for entertainment or whatever is a nice touch. No idea what it’s hooked up to, but that would be perfect for a Raspberry Pi computer, I think.

Holy cow! This is a chaotic mess, yet I admire how much stuff he’s managed to cramp into this small space. I’m about halfway to this guy’s level. Unlike the pictures above with the clean floors, if this guy loses a small piece on the floor, he’ll have quite a task on hand to find it. I like his poster of a Mitsubishi F-2 on the wall.

I also came across these photos on Pinterest and realized that they belong together. Here are four tall shelf racks. I love his tastes in models! It’s all character modeling. Can you spot what you like? I see Knight Rider, Mad Max, Gachaman, Star Wars, plenty of Gundam, Yamato, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, plenty of Gerry Anderson stuff, Votoms, and of course Macross. He even has that big Mega Force kit! Bonus points for keeping model categories together like that. (Click the images to expand, then open them in a new tab in your browser to see even closer detail to see the boxes.)

Again we see air hoses permanently attached outside. This is a nice idea. I have to crack my window and hang the air hoses out, but that means that mosquitos can come in unless I spray mosquito repellant onto the curtain. Speaking of which, I should buy some now that the weather has warmed up.

This is a bit too claustrophobic for my tastes. This guy is working on a Ma.K kit. He’s got paint bottles to the right. What’s in those boxes? It looks like the room is larger beyond those boxes.

This is pretty cool. A nice modeling workbench in the corner of the room. With that plastic drawer there though, where does his legs go? It’s packed solid underneath. Nice extractor though. It’s illuminated within. Nice.

Incredible. This guy obviously likes a lot of Gunpla.

Good golly, that’s a lot of resin garage kits! Super cramped work area too. At least there’s anime to watch.

Alright, this is not cramped at all. Just lots of neat stuff going on all at once. Nice window to let in plenty of light, too. Looks cozy.

Nothing says “modeling in Japan” more than sitting on a small table on a tatami mat floor. Oh yes, and with a blanket for your lap.

I’ll take pictures of my own workbench. Currently it’s just a big mess at the moment. I’ll put that in another post later.

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Hachiware kicks ass

Hachiware is a cute cat, and he is Chiikawa’s best friend. Oh yeah, and there’s also Usagi, but usually it’s Chiikawa and Hachiware doing stuff together.

Holy crap, Hachiware is so cute.