Review

As I’m sure many other collectors out there will attest, Alter’s rendition of warrior princess Momohime is one fine piece of PVC. I see that the coalition of bloggers behind the Best Figure Awards voted Momohime as the winner for 2011 (?), and I certainly can’t fault their judgement in this case. The character design, pose, and colors all come together nicely to make a very compelling package that stands out among other figures–even the motley assortment living on my shelves–while Alter continues to deliver the near-flawless execution we’ve come to expect from them.

The only imperfection I could note on my Momohime was a very small blotch of black paint on the left thigh, slightly above where her leg wraps end. It’s a very minor paint issue and not something that will be lessening my enjoyment of an otherwise excellent figure.

Highs

• Muramasa’s unique, stylized artwork translated into PVC
• Dynamic pose with few bad angles
• Appealing gamut of colors
• Alter fit and finish
• Not your typical, plain plastic base

Lows

• One very minor paint issue
• Slight gap between shoulder and left arm of Momohime’s kimono

Gallery

Miscellany

Momohime was one of two figures I purchased last year from HobbyFan–the other being Alter’s equally lovely Clalaclan. Other than the usual 1-2 month delay when buying from an American shop rather than direct from Japan, I can’t report any issues with buying through them.

This is the first review where I’ve done any substantial amount of post-processing to the photos. Previously, my adjustments in post were largely limited to crop/resize and using the clone tool to remove really obvious dust & debris.

I bought Aperture on impulse when the price dropped to $80 with the Mac App Store launch. I found the interface daunting at first, but after working through a full review’s worth of photos I feel like I’m starting to see the value in a dedicated photo post-proc app. The ability to fine tune a particular photo via non-destructive adjustments and then copy/paste all those adjustments to a group of similar photos is just pure gold.

Financial Data

• Purchased from: HobbyFan
• Order date: 27-Mar-2010
• Receive date: 21-Sep-2010
• Base price (USD): $86.99
• Shipping cost (USD): $5.75
• Total (USD): $92.74