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Kotobukiya Anime Figurines

Kotobukiya Anime Figurines are small figurines of women from popular video games and Anime Series from Japan. All of the figurines are generally in the size range of 6-9 inches tall. They are all of characters in the game or series and are portrayed in different positions and clothing accessories. Many of the figurines are scantily dressed as they give a classy sexy look to these animated characters.

All of the figurines have exquisite detail and craftsmanship and are sculpted by Japanese master animators. All of the figurines are exquisitely painted and are and ready for display right out of its original Japanese language window box. They are all attractive figurines that are exact replicas of their animated characters. All have different poses and looks, as no Kotobukiya Anime Figurines look alike.

The product line of the Kotobukiya Anime Figurines (all PVC statues)

• 1. Dead or Alive - DOAX 2: Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 Kasumi ARTFX Statue
• 2. Dragon Destiny - Ikki Tousen Dragon Destiny Sonsaku Hakufu PVC Statue
• 3. Fate Hollow Ataraxia - Fate Hollow Ataraxia Sakura Matou Vacation PVC Statue
• 4. Neon Genesis Evangelion - Neon Genesis Evangelion Asuka Langley Sohryu - Casual Clothes, Neon Genesis Evangelion Rei Ayanami - BMX Trick, and Neon Genesis Evangelion Rei Ayanami Race Queen
• 5. Shunya Yamashita - The Art of Shunya Yamashita: Mirei-San ArtFX and The Art of Shunya Yamashita: Shii Arisugawa ArtFX
• 6. To Heart 2 - To Heart 2 Konomi Yuzuhara Swimsuit and To Heart 2 Manaka Komaki Swimsuit
• 7. Valkyrie Profile - Valkyrie Profile Trading Arts Mini Figure – Frey, Valkyrie Profile Trading Arts Mini Figure - Lenneth Valkyrie, Valkyrie Profile Trading Arts Mini Figure - Lezard Valeth, and Valkyrie Profile Trading Arts Mini Figure – Lucio
• 8. WitchBlade - Witchblade Maria ARTFX Statue and Witchblade Masane Amaha ARTFX Statue

The Kotobukiya brand has grown into Japan’s number one collector toy company. Kotobukiya was founded in 1953 in Tachikawa, Japan and quickly gained a stellar reputation for the craftsmanship and quality of their various products. Kotobukiya first became known to their fans with their famous line of Final Fantasy merchandise.

More recently Kotobukiya’s top of the line Star Wars and Batman ARTFX have excited their fans. Collectors and admirers from all over the world have come to expect top notch craftsmanship for every product line that Kotobukiya produces whether it be from classic and current Japanese animated series or gaming, comics and movie collectibles. Owning a collectible form the Kotobukiya line means quality assurance and top-notch design from one of Japan’s most honored brands.

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Publication Bias, 1916 Style

Whilst browsing Wikipedia, I came across a poignant early example of publication bias, the failure to make public scientific results that don't support a given hypothesis.

The Judenzählung was a census of the German military carried out in 1916, at the height of the First World War. It was designed to measure the number of Jewish soldiers in the army.

The background to this was the feeling, very powerful in Germany at that time, that the Jewish German minority were "unpatriotic" or "traitorous", and were dodging military service or avoiding front line combat.

The survey was completed, but the results were not published, apparently because they revealed that, contrary to popular belief, Jews were at least as likely as non-Jews to be serving in the army, and were overrepresented on the front lines as well. (Some of the data did emerge after the war, however, when they were criticized for being inaccurate by Jewish groups. 12,000 German Jews died in battle during the War.)

This is an exceptional example of publication bias, but in essence it's no different to what happens when academic or corporate researchers decide not to reveal data which they're not happy with, for whatever reason. The best-known culprits are pharmaceutical companies who often decline to publish data showing that their drugs don't work, but it's a problem that affects most of science, and Big Pharma are certainly not the only ones doing it.

One solution is to have scientific journals or websites dedicated to publishing "negative" results, and there are several, but this still relies on people choosing to reveal their data. It seems to me that, ultimately, the best way to combat publication bias is to require the pre-registration of studies, so that everyone knows in advance what research is being done, and "missing" results can be noticed.

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Animation Art - 5 of the Most Common Mediums Purchased by Collectors

Animation Cels - A cel (short for celluloid) is a blank clear plastic sheet used by the studio artist to paint an animated character or object based on the animator's original pencil drawing. The cels are then placed over a background and photographed in sequence to produce an illusion of life in the completed film or cartoon short. Every cel is different but this does not mean that every cel is unique. Often multiple copies of a cel were created by the Inkers as color models in order to advance their technique and skills in Animation Art.

Limited Edition Cels - A non production hand painted cel created for sale to the collectors market. It is produced in fixed limited quantities and are easily identified by a fraction (150/500) in the lower right hand corner. They were not used in films or cartoon shorts, and the original intent was to recreate the original production cels. Nowadays many studios release new images not based on production Animation Art.

Sericels - A non production cel created by means of a printing process similar to silk screening. No work is done by hand, therefore no painting or inking is involved. They are often produced in limited quantities of 5000, and they are marketed as a low cost alternative to production and limited edition cels.

Animation Drawings - A drawing on paper in pencil, sometimes colored which is created by a studio artist of an animated character or object for which the cels are later created.

Giclee - The French term "Giclée", literally meaning "spray of ink," is used to describe these prints. Four precision nozzles spray up to a million microscopic droplets per second on to fine art paper. Then, each piece of paper is individually hand-mounted. Displaying a full color spectrum, the prints are lush and velvety, capturing the subtle nuances of the original artwork.

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Sexy Holiday Costume Miss Santa

Gather around the tree so Miss Santa can pass out your christmas gift. In this sexy pink satin robe Miss Santa can make this your most wonderful time of the year. This sexy satin robe is going to warm up more than just Miss Santa. The sharp fur detail on the hood and sleeves and black belt with a square buckle gives this otherwise plain sexy satin robe the flair it needs. You better be good so Miss Santa can bring you a gift this Christmas... but I am willing to bet she'll bring the naughty ones a gift too.

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What is 3D Animation? How is it Different From 2D Animation?

In this article I will explain in simple terms, what goes behind the 3D animation that you watch in movies and what makes it different from conventional two dimensional animation.

What is that extra 3rd dimension? Take a piece of paper and sketch a simple figure on it (a cat, a dog or anything that comes to your head). Lets say it is a cat and it is facing you from that sheet of paper. So you have the front view of the cat in front of you. Suppose if you feel that you want to see the cat from a side, will it help if you rotate the paper or flip it? No. Why? It is simply because the sketch you have drawn has the 3rd dimension missing.

Every real world object that you see around has a 3rd dimension and that is the reason why you can take it and rotate it to watch it from different angles. The sketch you have drawn had a length and a width, since the paper you used to draw also had a length and a width. But it lacks a thickness (3rd dimension) and hence your sketch also didnt have that extra dimension.

Suppose instead of sketching your imagination down on the piece of paper, you decided to sculpt it on a handful of clay. Since the medium you used (clay) had volume, you had to define the cats shape from all angles during the sculpting. Hence you unknowingly added that 3rd dimension to it and that is the reason you have the freedom to rotate it any way you want.

How conventional 2D animation works:

Before computers started playing their indispensible roles in the animation industry, everything was done manually by animators, who were essentially artists. They would create a series of slides having images on it, where each slides image is the continuation of the previous one in the sequence. For example if an animator wanted to simulate a ball falling down, they would create a sequence of slides where first slide would portray the ball at the top. The next slide will show the ball, may be 1 cm lower than that in the first slide. In the next one, again lower and so on, till the last slide shows the ball hitting the ground. When the whole sequence of slides are shown in front of the viewer in a fast rate, it creates the feeling of the ball falling down.

The whole process was tedious and time consuming. When computers came into play, the frame redrawing works had been minimised since, copying and pasting duplicate elements between successive frames was very easy with the computers aid. The artist has to make only the necessary changes that should exist between successive frames. As technology advanced, softwares evolved that again minimised the work of a 2d animator, in such a way that several things started getting automated. Using motion tweening and other techniques, an animator can set the initial position or shape of an object and then its final position and shape and the computer would generate the intermediate frames automatically. The artist even has the freedom to make corrections to that.

What was missing in 2D animation?

The 2D animation always lacked the essence, since all the real-world sceneries and objects are 3D and when they gets transformed to 2D, they lose their reality. Later stage cartoons started to simulate the 3D effect by using gradients, and varying highlights, but it required huge extra effort from the part of the artist.

How 3D Graphics works:

The stages in 3D animation are more in number compared to the 2D animation. The first part of 3D animation starts with character sketching and 3D modeling. In the next stage the characters are rigged for animation. In the next stage they are animated. This is in fact a too compact form of what happens in the background. Lets see each of them in a little detail.

· Character sketching: This is the stage where an artist sketches how the character should look from various angles. Usually the sketch will be done on paper or canvas. As many variations in poses are created so that it would help the 3D Modeler to sculpt a 3D Model out of it.

· Character Modeling: A 3D artist, who is expertised in a 3D modeling and animating tool, will examine the sketches and starts sculpting the figure using his imagination and skill. I used the word sculpting because the process is much similar to the real sculpting we do with raw materials like clay. The software tool that the artist uses provides various approaches to perform the modeling. Usually organic modeling techniques like Polygonal Modeling (a polygon is subdivided to get the desired shape), NURBS modeling (curves are arranged to create a surface flowing through them), Subdivisional Modeling (A hybrid blend between polygonal modeling and NURBS modeling) are used. In these modeling techniques, the 3D modeling artist will sculpt out the characters shape in 3D using a set of tools provided by the 3D modeling software, by following any of the above mentioned approaches.

The 3D Model obtained finally will be in an editable form and the model will be dependent on the approach used. For example a NURBS technique will yield a 3D Model in the NURBS representation (curves and surfaces). Once the modeling is complete, the artist converts it into the basic polygonal mesh (vertices alone). The polygonal mesh is nothing but a huge number of polygons that are arranged so as it forms the whole character. This conversion to polygonal mesh offers many advantages like faster rendering speed, and multi-software compatibility.

· Scene building: In addition to the characters the animation will have an environment and related objects. The 3D modeling software provides methods to simulate the environment, model the world , sun etc. For example in the 3d modeling and animation software called Maya, the artist have a huge library of Paint effects that contains Trees, leaves etc from which he can drag and drop into a scene and customize it in accordance to needs.

· Texturing: During this stage, all the objects in the scene are given suitable textures using the 3D animation tools specific facilities. Some tools provide only facilities for mapping an image texture on to the 3d model, whereas advanced tools even let you paint on the 3d meshs texture surface.

· Lighting and Camera setup:

This process is much like that in a real world movie making. The 3D animation software provides different types of lights which you can place in the scene in any direction you want. You can adjust the intensity, cone angle or even the shadow cast by the individual lights. Camera also is the replica of the real camera we use for shooting. We can place multiple cameras in a scene; adjust its focal length, aperture size and almost every parameter that you can find in a real camera.

· Animation: Once the static elements have been set, the 3D artist applies motion to them. This process, called animation is performed by setting keyframes. In order to animate a ball falling, the animator would set the first key frame at say 0th second with the balls position at the initial top position. He would set the next key at say 5th second with the balls position touching the ground. The 3D animation software interpolates the balls falling action between the 0th and 5th seconds. The animator can customize the interpolation behavior using graphs or by setting intermediate keys.

In Character animation, similar principles are applied. The skeleton will be animated by the animator and the 3d mesh skinned to the skeleton gets animated automatically. Character animation is often aided by plug-in tools (e.g.: biped) that has been created specifically for creating character animation sequences like walking or running cycles. The various scene elements, cameras and lights are animated using basic key-frame animation, based on the story board requirements.

· Rendering:

Once the scenes are animated, it will undergo a process called rendering, in which the 3d representation is converted to a video format, which can be read and edited using professional video editing software.

· Editing and mixing:

The rendered scenes are imported into video editing software and edited. In the case of movies where the human characters need to interact with an animated character, proper mixing is done at this stage, though the 3D scene creation would have been done with that aim in mind, using techniques like motion tracking.

The advantages of 3D animation:

You might have wondered why we should go after the 3D animation, when the whole process itself takes a number of stages and appears to be very complex. Apart from the complexities involved, it does offer a lot of advantages. Once the modeling process is completed, the 3D software allows very flexible control over the scene and animation. You can rotate the model in any angle you want (unlike 2D). 3D animation software also gives a rich collection of tools that aid the process of modeling and animation. You can choose from a wide variety of modeling techniques based on your requirement. Lighting and camera setup is the exact replica of a real world movie shooting environment. Apart from all these, the ultra realism offered by the 3D rendered scenes makes 3D graphics the best solution for the emerging animation industry.