It’s been a while and Shana isn’t really the patient type, especially when that dopey guy she’s obsessed with isn’t around. I ask if I’m allowed to use any unrestricted methods to snap these pictures of her to add some furi kuri to the whole shebang, but no. Twenty shut-ups later we had a good time shooting. Pissing Shana off like that just makes her hair glow like fire. Some people just need a little bit of prodding to let loose and enjoy themselves.
Review of Shana from Max Factory
Finally, a Shana figure I really dig. There’s three things that make this Shana figure from Max Factory all sorts of good. One, it’s the hair, long, flowing, and glowing like embers. Two, I like my Shana all sassy like a Flame Haze should be and this figure has Shana ready to kick ass. Three, wow that skirt is short.
Normally, I find the cast off feature a total waste of a gimmick, but a combination of the stylized Ito proportions on the character design and the way the figure is constructed, the figure actually looks okay for the pervy peekaboo. Max Factory hears the cry and comes ever closer to reaching that goal. The skirt is so short that it really doesn’t make that much of a difference off or on.
Max Factory ships our Flame Haze with a plain black peg base, which continues the annoying trend of a two and one peg layout — i.e., even though the pose has both feet flat on the base, only one of them gets two pegs for support. Like do they think we won’t be able to figure out which peg goes where if they did a two and two peg layout? The other small gripe is the paint on her stomach isn’t smooth, but these paint snots luckily are right where the waistband of her skirt rests and can’t be seen unless I decide go all dirtbag and display her without her skirt, which won’t happen.
Anyway, the figure is as good as I thought it would be.
Even though the picture below shows her standing without the base, Shana can’t stand on a flat surface. I’ve got her on an incline, so she’s really leaning forward about ten degrees to counter the weight of her hair.
Another sweet picture collection can be seen at foo-bar-baz.
hooo~ nice figurine and nice pictures! I’m still waiting mine to arrive
I always love your white background pictures, you need to post tutorial how to do proper white background photos
Haha love your comment about the one and two pegs for support ^^
This is indeed exasperating…
Anyway, this Shana really looks awesome through your pictures, and I can’t wait to receive mine ^^
Nice figure man. I’m sure the otaku who are into lolis will dig the castoff.
Somehow, the only thing of this Shana which attracts me is the hair, which is rather obvious why. And maybe the sword.
Other that these 2, I am not really impressed with this figurine. Sure, the quality is good, but I find the pose a little too boring for my liking.
Still, no regrets for this purchase ^^
There’s just so much to like about this Shana, the hair, the pose, it’s just so Shana haha. I really like the first pic, it’s like she’s saying don’t mess with me ^^. Can’t wait to receive mine, hope it arrive by this friday.
Shana is awesome, but my wallet seems to disagree lol
I need to learn to control my spending a lot more.
Anyway, I’m digging the pose, hair, and the detail on Alastor. The eyes are more of Itou Noizi’s style too, unlike some other figures which look closer to the anime version.
Oh, that’s it! I think you hit it on the head Zeroblade.
Double, I can see where you’re coming from even if I think the pose is a nice mix of classical and sass.
~ron, first thing, get a dark theme…that way if the pictures are off white it’s harder for people to tell.
White makes many colors less vibrant, but it does highlight red very well (think the Japanese flag), which is why I went with the white BG here. If you want to go stark white, just make sure there’s more light on the backdrop than on the figure. I generally prefer to have some shading to look more natural. Stark white makes the subject seem floaty.
Fantastic photography as always. =) I’m waiting for some shots with melon bread! (You’ve always been good with props, I think.)
I’ll have a Shana in the mail soon, myself. This is a great preview of what’s to come.
hmm so more light on the backdrop, I need to buy more lights and try ^^ do you also increase the camera exposure?
thanks for the hint senpai
Those pantsu are cute!
The easiest way is to take your white backdrop and shoot outside. The light intensity is very even and you don’t have to worry about lighting for both the subject AND the background. But, that just leaves you with whatever the sun gives you and giving you less control on how to sculpt your shadows across the figure.
To get the stark white background indoors you need a light source(s) shining on the backdrop that is a lot more intense than the light on the figure. Ideally, you’d want two lights on the BG to try and get an even illumination and another one or two for the figure. I don’t have room on my table for all of that, so I try and make do with the two lights that I use, which still leaves me with an off-white and uneven BG. I keep telling myself I’ll visit the hardware store and make more powerful and space efficient tabletop lights, but I never get around to it. I’ve never actually done what I just suggested (lack of lights and space), but that’s what you’d have to do if you wanted to do it via lighting. You could clean up the BG shadows in Photoshop, but that gets time consuming.
When using the camera’s through the lens meter against a white backdrop it is a good idea to bump the EV+0.7 to 1.0.
…there’s more but I need to organize it better.
Very nice to have some sample pictures to tide me over while I wait for her in the mail. It looks like a superb figure.
thanks
The second shana picture and yuukanalia 1st photo have perfect white background, did you clean up the BG shadows manually?
For Shana, no. That was just an auto-levels adjustment. For that one it was tight enough where I could blast one light for the BG and one on the figure.
The Yuukanalia one was probably adjusted in PS, but I see some darker areas on the right side of the image so for that I probably selected the background area and adjusted the brightness slightly (like +10) rather than going in and erasing shadows by hand.
Very nice, Shana is awesome ^^. I can’t even tell that she’s on an incline, aren’t you skilled in the art of photography ^^. The base looks nice though. I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted her, but I’ll try to get her if I can lol.
Nice figure indeed. Better do my best for my next photo shot with Belldandy.
i love what you did with shana’s hair, the highlights just came out and struck me instantly. the hair colors just look so pretty in your shots, and this might be the thing that will convince me to get her.
looking forward to her arrival! she was just shipped a few days ago!
Very nice shots … I skipped this one, I prefer shana with her dark hair.
Excellent pictures there
Skipped this one as I am getting the beach one >_>
Definitely one of the best Shana figures out there, although the hair seems to easily get “scratched”, her pose definitely reminds me of Max Factory Haruhi ^^. The panties are cute, simple but cute.
[...] is definitely the one I like most in my collection. Do check out super rats’ photos of Shana here as well for even sweeter eye [...]
Nice figure. I intended to pre-order this but was too late when I made up my mind (they stopped taking orders T_T )
I bought another figure instead.
That’s the downside of figure collecting, sometimes if you have to hop on the pre-order early.
Animaxis.com still have some Shana in stock . but it’s in the low ^^
btw awesome pics , i wasn’t sure to buy it before .
well after seeing the pics , i did order her ^^
Well, your pictures convinced me to get this (though actually I’m going to get it for Christmas from my mom
). Also, if anyone is looking to get this, it seems to still be in stock at Kid Nemo and if you live in the United States, it’s only 50 cents more total (which considering shipping and price of the figure), plus you get faster shipping since it has less of a distance to go.
I was a little worried about Kid nemo at first, but after looking into it, I couldn’t find anything bad about them after searching for quite a while.
I like Kid Nemo.
[...] screw up the hair but fortunately they didn’t. For more great photos of Shana, check out super rats’ Shana, Flame Haze pics, and shino’s [...]
luv shana…cute girl,hot hair,big,red eyes…wow,this is great cartoon…
[...] Shana, Flame Haze Pics (super rats)Flaming Hair and Blazing Eyes (valho)「灼眼のシャナ」(shino) [...]
[...] over, this so damn short skirt easily draws one’s attention. And I completely rejoin super rats’ opinion when he says « the skirt is so short that it really doesn’t make that much of a difference off [...]
the photography on your blog of these figures always prompts me to buy them! you should be getting paid by these people for amazing advertising! lol
Hey Lex, thanks a lot.
[...] other great pictures of flame haze Shana, check out these other sites: Happy Soda Mukyaa Toys [...]