Gwendolyn sighed. It was a weird feeling. She won; she was the champion, touching perfection for a moment; but, what was this emptiness? All around her the people she knew moved jubilant, smiled bright, congratulating her, exploding with joy for her victory, but she couldn’t wait for the party to end so she could wonder, what now?
Review of Alter’s Gwendolyn (Odin Sphere)
Maybe armchair psychologists could turn how one views this figure as a personality test, is Gwendolyn landing or about to take flight in this figure? I think she’s landing.
The dimensions of Alter’s rendition of Gwendolyn makes the valkyrie a standout on my shelf. She stands above many of them due to her stature and the pose at the top of that tree stump. People get a clear view of her since her body is almost on her own horizontal plane of view since her body starts a bit higher than other figures. Also, those wings draw a lot of attention, so it’s a good thing that the rendering of them is beautiful. The detail and the material holds light in an appealing way.
The paint on Gwendolyn’s hair is pretty mediocre, which has quite a lot of detail in it, but the paint makes it look clumpy when looked at closely. It’s several notches below the rest of an otherwise nicely painted figure.
Definitely enjoy having this in the collection.
Otro Shiz
That braid bun on the back of her head for some reason just reminds me of Saber. Though it’s not a big stretch considering it’s a girl in armor. Anyway, I have to give a thumbs up to Alter deciding to do something with the base. It’s nice to see, though given the fairly small footprint, how tall the figure is and the wings all spread out, the high center of balance on the figure, it’s somewhat wobbly. It shouldn’t be a problem unless you like do DDR or something with a lot of jumping right next to her. On the plus side, the small footprint helps with cramming as many figures into a Detolf as possible.
So far, those I’ve seen reviewing Gwendolyn (foobarbaz and Exelica-Meteor) decided to go plain white for the background. I did too. The contrast of the dark wings, skirt, and leggings against a stark white background was too good to pass up. The wings are worth highlighting that way.
Even with something as mechanical and technically defined as photography, there can be a decent bit of variation from one photographer to another, even when shooting the same object with a very similar functional use of the visual environment (or lack of one), the three Gwendolyn on white sets look different.
Glad you got your !
I thought she was jumping or taking off but you must be right , she is landing
Thanks for the link , you’re right , it’s nice to see the differences between the three shoots .
And i agree about the base , if only it was always nice looking bases like this (and not the awful round ones …)
Awesome pics like usual
(pantsu shot is always nice to have ^^)
she looks so amazing, i’ve got her pre-ordered but as usual through kid nemo so i won’t be seeing her until feb/march. I also for once am glad that alter decided to do something with ehr base other than just a plane boring base like they normally do.
I’m waiting for mine to arrive, should be anytime soon
very nice photos as well, the white bg matches her well
I have yet to get her, missed her preorder back then because she was someone I did not really know. Now I have to get her at a slightly higher price and I am not even sure when she is coming in locally. Nice pictures as usual.
James, I got her the same time I got Unity Yuno, but I was just feeling so lazy for the last two weeks. I need to leech off your super prompt reviewing habits. Maybe I should start doing some exercise to get the energy level up, but it’s so cold that going outside takes a bit of will power.
Dancing Queen, boring is better than odd looking, but I totally hear you. Though you know how in a lot of product shots they show a completely clear base, if they were going to go boring with the base I’d rather have the clear base or white instead of a yucky color base like we sometimes get.
ron~, silly shipping errors! Overseas + shipping the wrong thing is really a pain that I hope will never happen to me.
Panther, hopefully your shop gets them in. I would so love to have a local place that sold figures. I’d be there all the time.
SHE LOOKS REALLY AMAZING!!!
Shes definately landing if you consider the angle of her wings.
She loses against E2046s Gathering Gwendolyn but thats only natural when a mass maunfactured product hast to stand against a assembled handpainted one.
Shes a looker and you can draw the attention away from all your ecchi figures with her.
Makes you look less like a pervert ^___^
I like the game and all…but the figure I plan not to get due to the like-ness of the face of Gwendolyn is right…..
Still…amazing shoot like always!!!!!!!
I have always thought she was landing. Had a chance to hold the box and look at her upclose when my friends recent shipment arrive. Might get her when I have the budget and my friend haven’t sold her
Yet another nice review of Gwendolyn. I didn’t pre-order this back then as i have other pre-orders then. Now, i really regret after looking at the review at foobarboz.
I love her details and colours. Also the base is very nicely done. =D Gonna get her when i have money.
I couldn’t pass up the chance to get Alter’s Gwendolyn, it’s really nice and the base was a nice surprise being so different. I was thinking about E2046s version, it did look outright amazing in the right light but I didn’t like the form of her wings too much in that version compared to Alter’s.
@Blowfish I think she’s rising to the skies instead of landing, because the wings are slanted forward down. Eg. look at a bird and a plane. If they land, they wings are slanted forward up. … Not that I feel to heat up the discussing, but I couldn’t ignore it. omg the wings are beautiful!
@Dancing Queen you just made me notice the flat bases of Alter. o.0 Was I sleeping? So I don’t think it’s to be considered when you pick a figure. But it indeed is pretty to have a decorated base.
That’s a very good photoshoot of the figure you have there. The photos are very soothing. She is really a fantastic figure. Sadly, I don’t have the budget for her now.
Don’t know the game which means I don’t know her so I passed. As usual, I’m always fascinated by the quality of detail of wings and she is no exception. ^^
The detail is just superb.
Great shoot! I never seem to be able to get pearly white backdrops without post-processing.
Oh, and I didn’t even think of getting Gwendolyn. The price was just faaaaar too high.
Howieh, yes, beautiful.
Blowfish I’m not a big fan of E2046. I think their samples are superb looking, like their Gwendolyn, but what I’ve seen of their bunny haruhi and space girl yuki in person they were just okay. Plus the recaster thing doesn’t sit well with me.
Rin, this is another game in the game backlog of doom.
Valho, another vote for landing.
Chappy, so many figures out there it is hard to decide sometimes which to pick and which to pass on. It always seems like there are months where you have to make a tough choice and other months where it’s like there’s nothing that I want at all.
Dunan, my thoughts exactly.
Hirvine, cat’s out of the bag now, but it’s not a problem to me if the bases are boring, so long as their not ugly. A white background is pretty boring, but sometimes that boring white background is the best thing to highlight something pretty.
ELTboy, hope all goes well with the finances.
Optic, Gwendolyn is definitely a wing lovers figure. It’s not like I have a lot of figures with wings, but these clearly are awesome.
Zeroblade, dig around otadesho.com for a tutorial that ron~ did to get stuff white. In general the easiest way to do it is to blast more light onto the background than hits the figure. The price…I don’t even look anymore. It’s all denial. I’m sure I’d cancel half of what I have ordered if I did the currency conversion.
Wow! Love the detail on figure. Also played the games and loved it. hmmm I wasn’t much of the figure collector but this figure is starting chance that.
It’s a very sweet figure rangerroh, but figure collecting is habit forming. Collecting them is a lot of fun as is displaying them. There’s a lot of things you can collect that people who visit you just completely ignore. Figures are one of the few things you collect that people will notice, which is great to me.
This is the second figure that I’ve seriously regretted not picking up… the first being Queen’s Gate Alice orz
“Mediocre hair”!?! This commentary was truly detestable! Since I saw Fobarbaz photo review, the first one of Alter’s Gwendolyn, I think this is the PVC figure that is more close to the original prototype than any other up to now. More depreciative if we consider Alter’s quality standards! In fact I just love winged girls, valkyries and loved the game too, but nevertheless my preferences, I can fairly judge a figure and this one is the best Gwendolyn figure released or announced until now, even better than E2046’s Gwendolyn. Gotta see by myself when I get mine.
Leefe, two figures that shouldn’t be missed.
Kamugin it was a comment about the quality of the paint on her hair, not sculpt quality. The paint on my Gwendolyn’s hair is kind of lumpy, particularly near the ends. The strand rendition is excellent though, very detailed. I don’t think I said anything as harsh as what you think I’ve said — I’ve tagged this as “Highly Recommended”. CTRL+F and type “mediocre hair” and the only time that came up is in your comment. Still, I’m glad to have said something the stir someone up. Glad to see the passion you have for it.
I mean that seriously.
Another beautiful release from Alter. They keep on releasing good looking figures, aren’t they? But what put me slightly off is the hair a little. I know some might disagree but that’s what put me off a bit…
Nice photoshoot! I plan to get my set soon, so I can reset my photoshoot again. ^^
Oh yeah, forgot to mention earlier: I’ll be linking you to my blog! ><
She is so gorgeous, I want to have her, too
Now that you mention it I had never noticed the hair, sure it has a lot of detail but the paint looks a bit awkward but the wings are amazing
And the amazing way overrides the one thing that’s a little behind and not that noticeable unless you’re like a foot away.
Lovely review! I’m still awaiting my Gwendolyn in the mail, and I really hope that none of the postofficers stole it. D:
But in anycase, you’re right. All three reviews used white backgrounds but there’s something subtly different about all of them.
The details on the wings are mindblowing!
finally got one, she’s lovely and i dont plan to open the box yet
I agree fully with your “nice-butt” tag.
I tend to only get one figure of each character and already own e2046’s monster 1/5 Gwendolyn, so I had to pass on this beauty. I honestly think Alter’s Gwen looks better than e2046’s. There’s more detail in the wings and the face matches George Kamitani’s art.
Though the major reason I passed on Alter’s Gwendolyn is because of the price compared to her scale. 7000+ yen for a 1/8? Ouch.
[...] Odin Sphere’s Velvet figure May 26, 2009 at 9:53 am | In vanillaware, videogames | No Comments Yamato will be releasing a figure of Velvet from Odin Sphere (PS2), you can see some pics of the prototype over here. It could be better I guess, but that’s probably because we are spoiled by Alter’s Gwendolyn. [...]