Saber in a White Bikini from Alter
November 28th, 2006
During her last visit, Alter had Saber in a black satin dress and petticoat, a pretty figure of gothed elegance. This time she’s feeling a bit more festive toting a penguin shaped ice shaver and dressed in a white bikini swimsuit, the kind with a low rise bottom. She really wanted to make some snowball desserts, so we got straight to shooting.
The last couple of figure pictorials were moody, heavy on the black. To change things up bubblegum colors were summoned, some fruity drinks, and a plasti-bamboo patio set were roped in too. Put on some tunes and we partied like it was 1999. I was dreaming when I wrote this, so sue me if it goes too fast.
Saber is a character from the Fate/ series of visual novels and the subject of many a PVC figure. She’s one of my favorite character designs, especially in her armored form (which is woefully underrepresented in figure form) — I just hope that the anime, soon to be released in R1-land, doesn’t ruin this character for me.
Anyway, I wound up taking a lot of pictures of this figure sculpted by Ikuma Kuramoto, who also sculpted Alter’s swimsuit versions of Rin and Sakura, also from the Fate/ series. Naturally, the three figures have a consistent look, but it is very clear that Alter makes better figures now than they did a year ago. I’ve said so with each subsequent Alter release, but the point gets driven when tracking it over the same series of figures crafted by the same sculptor. Unlike Rin and Sakura, Saber is not screwed onto her base, which is convenient for picture taking.
So like halfway through the shoot, Rin and Sakura show up to say hey. The penguin ice shaver was a hit. I admit it’s kind of cute. I don’t know about that Sakura though, the way she was eying it.
While everyone dug Saber’s cute penguin dessert maker, her chibi doll kind of creeped everyone out and drove Rin and Sakura away in three seconds flat. She seemed so happy to bring the doll out, but after everyone ran away she seemed kind of bummed out.
Saber, darling, please put that thing away.
Alter’s swimsuit version of Saber is one continuous highlight reel. Really, the only place I see any defects or flaws in this figure I needed the unfair scrutiny of the macro lens to see. Even the Achilles Heel of just about every Saber figure, the likeness, is excellent.
The macro reveals some minor flaws, but also reveals that the sculpted details on Saber are fantastic. The most obvious place to see the attention to detail is in her hair — excellent job of hiding the seams of the pieces of her hair, as well as the number of strands rendered and the overall flow.
In Saber, Kuramoto shows increased elegance in his work over the Rin sculpt. While the hair and face is fantastic, the body sculpting is the big highlight, particularly the tone of her back and stomach. I’ve tried to convey the smoothness of the muscle tone and saved what I think is the best for last. I love the shapes on it.
That’s what I call a good carve.
Later.
Update: Danny Choo has uploaded his Bikini Saber. Check it out, if you haven’t already. There are some funny shots of Saber holding other things.
Bootleg Alert: It should come as no surprise that Swimsuit Saber is a target for bootleggers to copy. One of the bootlegs floating around has Saber without her hair ribbon, which is a dead giveaway of a forgery.
33 Responses to “Saber in a White Bikini from Alter”
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November 28th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
Holy fuck. The body is hot.
And lol, you bought all 3 FSN swimsuit girls? Will you be getting Rider’s Swimsuit version?
November 28th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
I ordered the Rider one with the body board. If Alter releases one of Rider (can’t remember if they showed one at one of these festivals) then I’d probably get it.
November 28th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
Nice, you make the skin look so real in these photos.
November 28th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
Must… seriously…. resist…. the… urge… to… buy…. orz…
November 28th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Man, looking at your pictures its hard to tell that it’s made out of PVC. @_@ The shadowing on the scuplt is awesome, and I really love how well defined the back is. Btw, what kind of material did you use for the polka-dot background? Wrapping paper? Just looking at these pics gets “Shangrila” from Chatmonchy playing in my head…
November 28th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
Fantastic pics as usual, will upload my gallery soon
November 29th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Adun: The matte finish of the PVC helps to pull it off as it has a hint of texture to it that the camera picks up. When the finish is glossier it’s harder to make the illusion. I do color adjustments to make the skin look closer to real skin.
Kurogane: Resistance is futile.
hub_00: Yup, it’s wrapping paper.
Danny Choo: Cool. Saber needs some sun!
November 30th, 2006 at 10:35 am
fantastic photos as always. how many backlog figures do you have left to photograph? (not counting those that you’re intending to get)
November 30th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
I don’t think I’m going to do shoots for all the ones I’ve gotten. My job is still eating up too much time…and I’ve started FFXII.
Most likely I’ll do to the Shana figure next (big fan of Noizi Ito character design), the Range Murata figure that’s on it’s way, and Alter’s Jo. I’ll probably not take pictures or just do one shot reviews of MegaHouse’s Simca (boring figure with mediocre quality), Alter’s Amy (BakuTen), GSC’s Holiday Saber, GSC’s Nendoroid Hetare Saber, and the Last Exile box. I ordered the bodyboard Rider, but we’ll see if that actually gets to me.
November 30th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Woah this is very nice. This Saber actually looks the best out of all the versions, edging out ebcraft’s Full Armour version. I like how you managed to combine all three in the series for a diorama.
December 1st, 2006 at 9:34 am
DOOOOOOD. YOU HAVE THE SWIMSUIT SABER AND SAKURA! YOU HAVE THE CONSPIRACY DUO! HOW COULD YOU NOT HAVE TAKEN A PICTURE OF ALTER’S CRAZY SCHEME?!?!?!??!
Refer to this link: http://www.avg-hotgame.net/blogview.asp?logID=193
December 1st, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Saber is more mischeivous than I thought!
December 2nd, 2006 at 5:31 am
why!! why?! its too hard to get it in Malaysia!! argh~!!
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:46 pm
Wow… great shoot. Didn’t think this figure could look so good.
December 3rd, 2006 at 8:30 am
naga_jahat: How come?
JB: When I took her out of the box, she looked better than I thought she would look…and I already thought she’d look good from the official promo shots.
December 10th, 2006 at 5:56 am
I adore your pictures and always look forward to new reviews - your lovely shots are regularly used as desktop walls ^^ Enjoyed the bright, holiday feel of this shoot, will probably end up getting this Saber after seeing the wonderful sculpt.
December 10th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Thanks byaku-chan! You should get this figure. Though I’m a biased Saber fan, it’s easily one of the best figures I own.
June 8th, 2007 at 10:07 am
I went and got the same one after seeing it here and i dont know if you have a problem with it but mine keeps on slowly leaning forward till she falls of my desk, had to re-glue her ribions more then ones. The right leg seams to be badly alinged. Any problems on your end?
June 8th, 2007 at 10:57 am
No problems on my end. The ribbon is pretty secure never had it fall off. Some people have noted that theirs has leaned, but mine hasn’t yet. The ribbon falling off and the misaligned leg sounds odd.
June 8th, 2007 at 11:10 am
the ribbons falling off are due to her falling from the top of my desk to the ground
June 12th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
well, you convinced me to get a saber bikini, wow is it big. Had the figure for only a week and the peg in her right foot has snapped, guess i shouldn’t of tried what dannychoo did… Well, Melissa isn’t exactly light…
I now have an urge to buy Rin, Sakura, Rider and Illya.
I think Sabers holding up with a dab of plastic glue, if she comes lose I’ll just drill the peg out and replace it
June 26th, 2007 at 12:54 am
When you think about it, even though it looks strikingly realistic, the figure is in no way realistic or proportional. If only somebody actually made a figure actually shaped like a real woman. Wow.
June 29th, 2007 at 8:53 am
@ssss: That would be Shunya no doubt about that, his figures are the ones that resemble most like a real woman.