It feels like a lifetime ago that I posted a preview for this figure once it was announced by Native. The world was definitely in a different place then, and perhaps I was as well in regards to this website and also the figure hobby in general. The past year has seen a real slow down in my figure acquisitions, for budgetary reasons and also logistical problems around shipping from Japan. I did still receive a couple of figures however, and Faerie Queen Elaine based on the original character illustration by Tony Taka was one of them.
Just a heads up, in a previous NSFW review I had the castoff pics on a separate linked page but here they're just further down on this page.
In fact, after receiving her I nearly went to sell her immediately to raise funds for my other hobby, but in the end decided that the wait to receive her was so long and the figure looked so appealing that I had to unbox her and get her on the shelf right away. So that's what I did, and immediately knew I had made the right decision.
The sculpting on Elaine is just perfect. I think they nailed her proportions perfectly, and there isn't any one part of her that looks unnatural or out of place. Several figures I own, even figures that I really like, have some rather unusual physiology, but Elaine stands apart. I also really like the little splashes of color on her from her wings, bows, armband, garter and her hair piece. It's a great color palette overall.
Her face is really pleasant, but I don't think her expression is as wonderful as the rest of the figure. It's fine. I'm not sure what really could be done to improve it. This is usually such a contentious part of any figure with the capacity to absolutely ruin an otherwise great figure if it's done poorly, but in this case it's just totally adequate and neither adds or detracts from the figure overall.
Viewed from a incline, you can see that maybe her bathing suit is a on the small side. I like the detail on the stitching here, and the little sculpted wrinkles. They really succeeded on this piece. I've seen a few castoff bottoms like this that wind up looking like pampers or something because the material is so thick but here it looks just right. Maybe it is easier because Elaine her self is on the large side being 1/5 scale, or maybe Native just know what they are doing in this regard, having surely made dozens of castoff bottoms at this point.
What else can I say, they really nailed it.
They used a slightly glossy paint on her nipples. I'm not sure if this is an aesthetic choice entirely, or if it is meant to prevent paint transfer from her top. I've seen a few figures that do this and it looks a little strange but otherwise I think they did a great job.
As is the case with a lot of figures, she's rather featureless downstairs, but actually they did do some sculpting in this regard it's just that the placement is rather low. I am not doing any weird genital closeups here you can see that stuff on MFC and it's fine. The details one might want are all there and they've taken a more simplistic and natural looking approach which is probably for the best. I appreciate the effort.
I remember posting the promotional shots on reddit after she was released, and there and also on MFC people were pretty indifferent to both this figure and Tony's art. They said it was boring and too simplistic, and at the time I too thought maybe this figure was a little plain, however I did not know how wrong I would wind being. Having only acquired her by a rather long and convoluted series of events, I had know way of knowing that Elaine would wind up being one of my favorite figures in my whole collection almost immediately upon unboxing her.
Elaine is a delight to set up. Out of the box you just need to install her wings, which slot very firmly into her back and are not fiddly at all. The plastic they used has a nice matte feeling to it, is slightly frosted, and very sturdy. Her outfit, which I think is supposed to be a bathing suit, came already on in the box but it's very easy to remove if you wish. I think she looks better with it on, and will display her like that, but each piece has a very easy to use clasp if you wish to remove it. The fit on the bottom is really good and doesn't look unnatural, and the design of the top is such that as long as you have it generally in right location it looks great. It's maybe a little difficult to cover her chest up completely but this is by design, and depends largely on which angle you want to view her from.
The plastic they used for her butterfly hairpiece looks really beautiful the way they painted it up. It's a great little detail, but be careful handling her if you pick her up. It's so thin that I felt like it might break when I accidentally hit it with my finger. Thankfully there's not much reason to handle the figure near her head.
Her hair also feels like it could be a bit fragile as well, since they used a rather hard plastic to get these very thin wisps in spots, but I think the end result is totally worth it. It's very dynamic and adds a ton of motion to a figure who is very much standing just rooted in one spot.
With my setup it's rather hard to get a picture of the entire figure, especially once that are large and standing straight up like this, so here's a pic of her feet and base. It's simple, there are metal rods that go into her feet, and she feels very sturdy. I prefer a base like this to most figure bases which I find are either ugly solid colored plastic discs, overly large, or have some irritating design (either mechanically or artistically) that makes them a hassle. This is as good as a plain base can be, in my opinion.
I had a lot of fun photographing Elaine. It has been a long time since I took pictures of figures, due to time constraints mainly, and so it took a while for me to figure out how to use my camera and then I discovered that there's quite a bit of dirt or dust in there somewhere that I had to spot fix in the worst spots. I think they came out alright, and I learned a few things maybe.
Rather than put the castoff pics on a separate page, I'm just going to put them here, so be warned there are anime titties coming up.
Elaine is super easy to castoff, and although I wouldn't display her in this way I think she looks amazing!
This actually matches the original art fairly well, I suppose. As a castoff figure she's pretty subdued which is nice.
Overall I really like this figure. It is not my first Native figure, and while I like my other one I don't think the overall quality of that figure quite reaches this standard. It makes me really excited for another figure that I have pre-ordered directly from native, but that has been delayed now until summer of this year. Another Elaine figure was up for order recently but I passed on it because shipping prices for TOM have been out of hand, it's a manufacturer I'm not familiar with (Wonderful Works), and the price just seemed on the high side. It's one I'll definitely keep my eye on the amiami pre-owned section for.
Anyway, happy 2021. I hope there are a lot of amazing anime figures coming to your shelves this year. I have a few on the way that I'm excited for, and there are several that I'm waiting on finished prototypes for what seems like forever (looking in your direction Skytube Sniper Gal).
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