Nanoha Takamachi, Stand By Ready!

So, a whole year and a half after I adopted my first girl, my mad scientist Agatha Heterodyne, the stars aligned, and I was suddenly able to adopt a second girl from Mandarake. Not just any girl, but my long-time "unicorn", DD Nanoha. I have seriously had dreams about her (which I have actually posted in the relevant thread in General Discussion), and it's a little surreal to have her actually here with me.

 

This isn't quite a regular box opening. I actually got her in my hands last night, but since it was getting late and I needed to head out the door, I tore into that box like a raccoon into a trash can to make sure everything was in order and thus didn't take pictures of the process. If you're curious about Mandarake's packing, they did a great job, with many things neatly wrapped in bubble wrap and plastic sleeves, though why they chose to wad up a whole bunch of those plastic sleeves as extra padding is somewhat beyond me.

 

Anyway, LOTS of pictures. ^^;

 

 

Sitting on her own box. You can kind of see here that her eye "crept" a bit during shipping. That had to be fixed before anything else. And let me say, I'm grateful Agatha's headcap was already notched when I got her, because Nanoha's was rough to open. Though I suppose it's appropriate she's literally hard-headed.

 

 

I figured though, while I had her head cap open, I may as well try on a few other eyes. These are Volks C type 24mms. They were too big for Agatha, but they look pretty cute on Nanoha.

 

 

18mm green customs on Pupapa bases. I like the color, but I'm kind of nixing these; they're a little small on her.

 

 

Volks 22mm C types. Kind of. . . odd.

 

 

20mm turquoise customs on Pupapa bases. Oh, these are adorable.

 

 

20mm sapphire blue customs on Pupapa bases. Also adorable!

 

 

And back to her 24mm defaults, on straight this time. I'm feeling rather torn between keeping her in these, putting her in the turquoise, the sapphire, or the C type. (The 18mm and the B types are out.)

 

 

In case you were wondering what I was referring to when I mentioned wadded up plastic sleeves. These were packed around Nanoha herself, in addition to a layer of bubble wrap.

 

 

I didn't realize this from looking at other photos, but her boot/foot parts aren't flat white. They're actually given a subtle pearl coat. So is are the shaft and butt pieces for the staff, Raising Heart. Very nice touch.

 

 

The wig and the staff pieces. The wig doesn't have its original hair net or box, but it fared well enough as it is. (Though oddly its bag was disproportionately huge.)

 

 

Outfit pieces. The only thing missing are two small black pieces for her waist, to disguise the velcro should you ever want to display her without the train/butt-cape thing, and I think I can come up with something to replace them. Everything else--including all the remarkably teeny pieces to the staff heads--is all there.

 

 

A shot trying to show the pearl finish on Raising Heart. You can kind of see it on the pink butt piece, though sadly the staff part ended up too blown out for it to show up.

 

 

Here's where I started getting a little jumpy: putting Raising Heart together. Punynari mentioned when he set up his Nanoha that the parts of Raising Heart are delicate, loose and rather fiddly, so I was totally and utterly paranoid about breaking and/or loosing parts. Luckily Device Mode here actually went together fairly well on mine, though since the pegs on the reactor things are short they do have to go in at the exact perfect angle to be secure.

 

 

Oooh, ominous. Am I about to get a befriending snipe shot?

 

 

One quick shot of the cuteness before I go on to the next staff head. Her bangs are kind of doing an Old English Sheep Dog thing though; I may have to finally get some of that water wax stuff if I'm going to keep her hair out of her eyes.

 

 

Second staff head: Buster Mode. This one was touchier than Device Mode; the reactor peg shape didn't match that of the hole, so it was kind of tough to get them in. Notably, this was the staff head Punynari had trouble with apparently.

 

 

And lastly Exceed Mode. Despite the fact that this is my favorite design for Raising Heart, you probably won't be seeing much of the physical staff head in my photo stories. ^^; The parts on this one are very loose, and I resorted to keeping one of them in place with some stealthy poster tack. I'll probably break out the Gem Tack and use the half-dried glue trick to increase the friction.

 

 

 

Despite the touchiness of her weapon's design (which I knew about when I bought her), I'm still very happy with her. Many other parts of her are really smartly done, like her boots being replacement feet, and there's some great attention to detail in things like the pearl paint job, so I think the flaws were honest design mistakes that I think a little TLC can rectify. And even if that weren't the case, that face! That adorable little faaace! It makes my heart smile.

 

And lastly. . .

 

 

Because putting your Pancake in the shipping box is tradition!

Congratz on Nanoha, it's so exciting to finally get your unicorn

Congratz on getting her!! She is adorable! I really like all the modes you can change the staff into.

 

Wayne

Lovely. I love Nanoha anyways and she is a gorgeous dollfie.

 

Congrats!

Congrats!

Nanoha looks incredible~! Congratulations on your new addition to your DD Family These shots of her are great especially with all the different transformations of her staff. Personally I like her default eyes, but I also liked the Volks C Type 24mms. They make her face really light up since her default eye are somewhat dark :3

 

And that is pretty neat that her boots are actually replacement feet!

 

It's good to know that Mandarake puts very good care into packaging items, though all those plastic sleeves they stuffed around Nanoha look unnecessary. I guess they wanted to make sure she didn't move around? Though I would've used more bubble wrap :p

 

Can't wait to see more pictures of Nanoha and congratulations again on capturing your unicorn And awww Toothless plushie~!

Congratulations, I'm so happy for you! She looks amazing. And I want that Pancake ****hugs****.

Congrats on getting your unicorn, and for such a great price. The blue eyes look nice, I wonder how they would look in a slightly larger size, as I think her defaults are maybe 2 mm larger than your blue eyes?

 

I had no idea her staff was configurable (because as always I've not seen the source material.) Is she a magical girl or a sci-fi girl? I look forward to seeing stories of the interaction between Agatha and her new "minion"!.

Thank you all very much! I'm so jazzed to have her, but seeing your congratulations is helping it sink in that yes, she's really here.

 

Scripple, Wanyio: Thanks! Yeah, it was pretty neat that Volks included all the different staff modes, even if they are a bit fragile. (The Azone movie version only included one, Device mode.) And I actually realized this morning that because of the design and how thorough the paint job is on Exceed mode, I could actually just stick the head on without the extra parts and it would still look great. Device and Buster do have obvious holes for their additional pieces however.

 

As for fantasy versus sci-fi, the answer is "yes". Basically Nanoha became a magical girl because she inadvertently came into contact with a culture in an alternate universe where magic is basically treated as a subset of science, so their technology is often magically driven and by extension crazy advanced. Like teleportation is not only possible but frequently used.

 

Innocentstake, Pretty Cranium: Pancake is flattered by your adoration. He's going to be insufferable after this! You can't have him specifically, but I got the pattern for him for free here: I enlarged it from 8.5 by 11 to 11 x 17 to increase the cuddling factor. It goes together pretty easily, actually, though if you opt to hand sew I recommend staying away from the polar fleece. It stretches in one direction and not the other, so it's kind of hard to control it unless you're using a machine. That's how he ended up with his :/ face.

 

Thanks also to all of you for eye input! What I'm currently thinking is saving the 24mm C types for a Princess Celestia cosplay, using the 20mm turquoise for now, and then either getting Pupapa blanks or commissioning a resin-eye maker my mom buys from for customs based off her defaults but using the more periwinkle-type coloration that she has in the show itself. (Her defaults are evidently based off the promotional art, where her eye color really is quite dark, like on the Nanoha poster I have. I think I'm not alone in preferring the show's eye color instead.)

Congrats! Nanoha is awesome! She even has Exceed Mode Raising Heart! So cool! I agree with scripple, the sapphire blue eyes look good, but a larger size might look better.

YAY!!! She has arrived!

 

Congrats on finally getting your Unicorn in! I know you were super excited that night you found her and we talked about her. And it seems you're just as excited now.

 

I had no clue she had so many different staff pieces.... I'm guessing those all do different things in the show she's in. Nice to have all of them tho. And I am voting for either her default eyes or those turquoise ones, both of those look best to me.

 

Congrats again! Now to wait and see how Agatha reacts to this new girl.

 

 

Billy

Congratulations! Lovely photos! She is so detailed. Playing with eyes is so fun. I always have a hard time deciding too. I love that turquoise color though. She looks amazing all dressed up!

Thanks very much! I was pretty impressed with the detail on her stuff too. Like that teeny little black thing on her jacket? I had thought it was just a patch, but nope, it's actually a working pocket! I have no idea what I'd ever stick in there, but I could hypothetically.

 

The turquoise eyes are in first I think, with the defaults in second. I'll likely put her in the turquoise ones soon until I can get or make customs that look more like her eyes on Alter's Exceed Mode figure version: http://meronpan.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/alternanoha30.jpg Higher contrast, with a bit of periwinkle.

I've never seen details about this DD, sou your pics really surprised me. Now I understand why she was your unicorn!

 

Now I want to see her and Agatha together!

She's so pretty and look who showed up! Me ~~~ !

Salui: Thanks! It's surprisingly hard to find good photos of her in her default gear, and as far as English overviews go, Punynari's is the only one I've seen that actually goes into detail reviewing Raising Heart's various heads, so I wanted to elaborate on that a little. And you will eventually see Nanoha and Agatha together, but it'll be a bit; Agatha's undergoing stain treatment from her Halloween costume's corset right now. ^^;

 

Cazzie: Why hallo there! XD Thanks! She's so adorable. ^_^

Wow ! Congratulations !! She is so beautiful !! I always loved her , but her price

was so high ...

Well congrats again , you must be really excited !

She is so awesome!!!! I really love her with the dark eyes though....she looks amazing!!! Looking forward to more pictures of her!!!!

I like Nanoha's adorable face. I liked the series at first, but it turned out to be too military sci-fi in the end... Hope to see more pictures of your Nanoha.

 

Btw, Thanks to you showing pancake and the link to the pattern I got interested and watched How to train your Dragon. That nightfury is my favorite! (right after Stich...)

Salica:Thanks a bunch! I'll admit even the deal I got her for wasn't exactly easy on the wallet, but she was totally worth it. Perhaps in the future you'll also get lucky enough to bring one home.

 

carmen171: Thank you! I really can't wait to find a couple hours and get some decent pictures of her, hopefully for her photostory introduction. I've just been so crazy busy lately I sadly haven't gotten the chance. I like the shape and detail of the dark eyes, but they're just so, well, dark, that I've already started designing a pair inspired by them to make for her later. Yay customization and compromise! XD

 

Maarit: I love her cute widdle face too, even though the original Volks promo pictures felt kind of off. (I have since learned that Volks promo shots generally suck. ^^; ) I'll admit I kind of liked the magic-as-science bent to the series, but to each their own. And there will be more pictures, I just have to freakin' find the time to get to them.

 

Haha, excellent! Isn't that movie fun? I find it appropriate that you rank Toothless and Stitch together as fave characters, too, since both films have the same director.

Oh Congratz! She is lovely, glad you got a hold of her

I do like the blue eyes on her! though I personally would prefer them a smidge larger. The first 24mm ones look pretty cool and I like her defaults of course.

Look forward to more pictures

Maarit: Haha, excellent! Isn't that movie fun? I find it appropriate that you rank Toothless and Stitch together as fave characters, too, since both films have the same director.

 

It is I didn't know they were from same director O_O No wonder I failed as a animation student. I just stared at the animations and didn't pay proper attention to people making them or expalanations how to animate ^^;

 

Now, of to stalk the photostory section...