Kero wanted to be a spell caster, a conjurer, a mage. On the other hand, Human Mage wished she wasn’t one, but it was too late to do anything about it. Kero’s constant whining about it annoyed her and made Human Mage sort of hate Kero. Human Mage really wanted to be Human Fighter or maybe even Human Ranger like her mother. If only people could be who they wanted, but then it wouldn’t be life.
Human Mage’s father wanted her to become a mage. Mages stay in the back line and the least likely to suffer of any party member. He meant well, and it made sense, objectively. However, she found that role cold and empty. Nobody let her play cards when they rested up for the day or trusted her with much really. Everyone else fought side by side or back to back and gained that trust through blood and sweat. Mages don’t even perspire. She was never part of that equation.
She wanted to sweat, to have her body glisten, glowing in the fires of combat, enticing the Orc brutes to come after her, salivate, and drool as she killed them. Nobody noticed her. They noticed her Scorching Bursts, but nobody noticed she did 200 sit-ups every single day to get a stomach you could bounce a gold piece on. She was way hotter than Elf Barbarian, yet every Orc and Hobgoblin the party encountered wanted to defile that Elf with a baloney roll when she sat instead of her.
Maybe if she walked around naked, she thought, someone would care.
Review of Human Mage from The GoodSmile Company
The cast-off feature on this figure is pointless. You can remove her armor and “robes” to expose her chest, but she’s got the anatomy of a Barbie Doll. So the usual five seconds of teehee you get when taking the clothes off of a figure doesn’t end well and you’re stuck with a figure with clothing that’s chunkier than it should be.
Details aside, Human Mage is a hot sculpt. I like the proportions of everything. Good details and all that stuff. Some unfortunate junk is on a prominent part of her hair, so that’s not good, but overall it’s a very attractive figure.
Human Mage has some angles where she doesn’t look that great. Actually, when I took her out of the box I wondered what the hell happened to her face. At the right angles she’s smoking. Eye alignment seems a little off, which is what I think limits the number of angles where her face looks good. The sculptor also rendered some teeth for her open mouth. It looks totally fine in person, though with the magnification going on here you can see that they aren’t all painted, which can make her look like she’s got messed up teeth.
Other Stuff
I hope they release more figures from Lineage. The character designs are attractive and have different body proportions than many moe anime and h-game characters. I passed on the Dark Elf though, as the ears were a no go for me.
Danny Choo posted a review for this, as did Foo-bar-baz, for a really nice comprehensive set of photos.
nice photos
she looks really good. nice job from GSC, i wonder why they put castoff feature but didn’t bother to paint the bichiku
Ah, I remember seeing this. Nice to see you actually got it, she’s impressive. I was an avid Lineage 2 player for many years, the characters are hot indeed. Such an addicitve game. Will probably snag one for myself!
A very good detailed figure but the cast-off is a turn of, its completely pointless without being completed. I agree with you on the face, there are some angles that do not favor her, it seems the designer only saw that from that specific angle.
I can’t wait for mine. From the promo shots I was concerned about her teeth as it looked awkward. Once I saw the actual review shots, it does looks quite messed up. Nonetheless, it is a very nice figure at a certain angle though :S
The introduction just makes me LOL.
I am giving her up. I simply cannot justify buying her, over others that I far prefer and have a real good reason to get.
Looks good from some angles like Myspace girls.
Looks like you’re falling into the “figure fatigue” mode? Are you?
Panther, thanks. I hoped it was lol.
Fatigue, not yet. Interest level has been pretty even over the last year. The last two months have been a break, since I’ve only gotten two new ones, but next month will be total murder on the number of figures coming in.
I’ve always been a little annoyed with the cast-off feature, since I think it’s usually not done well. I guess I sound cranky every time I review a cast-off figure.^^
Not the kind of figure I like (not “anime-like” that’s why) but she is sure ultra gorgeous. On a particular picture (guess which hehe), she looks almost real… amazing.
Could you take a picture of your entire figurine collection? I am very, very interested in taking a look. Just wondering how you store your figurines.
awesome shots bro!!! whats your dslr lens aperture and shutter speed for those? and do you shoot via manual or priority? i love the lighting and black backdrop! I have an affinity for dark backdrops so im hoping can you give me a few tips on the lighting placements and light diffusing for the black backgrounds
Any help will be much appreciated, you’ve got yourself a fan here
Thanks in advance!
She can join my party anytime.
Love the shoot…
Still, not a big fan of realistic looking figures…
It’s an okay figure in my books…
…is that oil on her butt/leg? o.o
Yeah, I’m not so much into the non-anime figures either.
A room shot? Okay, but I’ve got to clean up first.
To make the background black, just make sure that the lights don’t hit the background. If you let the camera do the metering, set the compensation to -1 to -2 E/V.
She’d be a great party member, indeed.
It’s a tough call exactly what’s going on on her left leg. I thought it was some kind of stocking, since it’s got that design on the side of her thigh. Kind of strange.
thanks for the response. just a few more clarifications regarding your shots:
-whats the wattage of your sidelamps?
-and what are the aperture/shutter speed/iso exif settings that you utilize?
-for the deep black backdrop does it mean that the front 45-degree angled lighting from the tutorial page wont be recommended? or do i only have to make sure that the front lighting is as far away from the background as possible to enable zero lighting/shadowing for the black background?
sorry for the trouble, il be getting a dslr next week and hope to iron out some kinks on prepping my studio.
-They’re 23-watt “full spectrum” spiral bulbs made by Sylvania. I got them at Lowes. Photo equipment stores probably sell them too for a lot more than you can get them at Lowes.
-I shoot aperture priority and generally shoot two, sometimes three, aperture settings to get different depth of field characteristics, typically: f4, f8, f14. I keep the camera on a tripod, which makes ISO100 possible, especially at f8 and f14. These lamps don’t generate that much light.
-As far as light position, the tutorial is a start point. I generally move them around quite a bit from figure to figure, going anywhere from just 1 light alone to 3 lights and 2 reflectors. I use black poster board to shield the background from the light. If you see my blocking light tutorial, it’s doing that, but just blocking out the background.
^thanks for the help man! will try these tips out soon
Your photos are fantastic, but unfortunately I just don’t like the human mage sculpt. Despite loving Lineage 2 (had been playing the game since korean beta, followed it from korea – taiwan – japan – north america) I just… it was just so boring of a statue to me. I don’t really much like any of the Lineage 2 homage statues.
Despite this, your work is impressive, lighting is nice – I like the fact you somehow don’t generate glare with your set up. I still have a lot to work on, on mine. I have a ton of pics I took that I just don’t post because I don’t yet understand how to do the macro shots/lighting etc. I’m good at scenic photagraphy, statues is entirely another story.
Good show as always.
LOL nice intro. It made me laugh. It’s a really nice figure based on your photos and trully lives up to GSC standard but sadly it’s not my kind of figure that I would get ^^;;. If she uses a sword ….. maybe but then it wouldn’t be called Human mage, instead, it will be called Human warrior (maybe?) ^^
esta muy bonita…….
I was wondering what was barbie doll about it, then…I realised. -sighs- The detail on this one looks very nice though, especially on the armour. ^^
I played Lineage 2 before and I’m hoping that the local toy stores here will have this for sale. I missed out on the Dark Elf figure but b/w the two, I think the Dark Elf is better looking. Yeah, I played a Dark Elf char so I’m biased. heheh! =p
[...] back to the review of the day, stop by super rats for more mage love (really wish I had some other backgrounds, the black looks so much better…), danny choo and [...]