FF9 is my favourite, and play arts has been a hit or miss when it comes to their figures. I am so proud to say that Zidane, out of all the play arts including the other few Shin figures, is probably the best SquareEnix has ever made to date. They didn't mess up any details, they stayed faithful to his design language unlike his past edgier redesigns I absolutely loathe, and added so much intricate details to his character we could only have imagine when we were staring at his outfit 20+ years ago. It just feels so out of the blue, as a massive FF9 fan I feel seen by Square, and them putting so much love and care to this one character from a line not as popular as their bigger ones just puts a sense of bewildering wonder in me.

As a figure he functions well enough. No crazy revolution in articulation or anything, and the joints tends to be a little too loose. They need to nail down the joints as they have relied on their ratchet system for too long, now that they tried normal friction based joints system that allows for better posing, they have yet to find the proper calibration for such important things. Otherwise, hands-down the BEST play arts they have made ever, in my humble opinion.

With permission from Cheung Yeung the owner of the 2nd picture from Facebook, I wanted to share this horrific fumble that a majority of articulated figure designers have solved a decade ago. Thankfully I do not pre-order, but I was really looking forward to this one ever since I have seen the statue version of this figure. I have not seen a lot of other pictures of this appalling design mistake and pictures from owners yet, so if anyone has any that could possibly redeem the figure, that would be most helpful!

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This is a conclusion to this post about a scammer, how I got my refund, and how the scammer still got away to be able to continue the scam: https://www.reddit.com/r/Aliexpress/comments/1tampgs/first_dispute_made_on_aliexpress_seller_asks_for/

In the end I managed to get my refund after a lengthy dispute, during that time I provided a constant stream of proof. I am happy that I got my money back despite how obtuse my interaction with AE support went, but I can't help but be left with a sick feeling in my stomach in the end, and I will explain why.

Despite getting my money back, this scammer is back to waiting for their next prey to ensnare after just getting reported for their predatory behaviour. One of my biggest regret is not taking a screenshot of their product's store page where they briefly adjusted the shipping price to properly reflect the true shipping cost of the item during the dispute, but soon after I got my refund they swiftly brought their shipping fee back down to its deceptive price to repeat the scam all over again. My first thought was to leave a feedback so I can warn others of this dangerous seller, but in the end something made me pause and thankfully I did. I looked up sellers with suspicious 100% feedback like this who commit fraud, and the trend with them seems like that if a scam victim manages to reach the stage where they can leave a feedback, they can be doxxed by seller's feedback even if the review is anonymous to discourage anyone from whistle-blowing. So for my safety, I am choosing to not leave an AE feedback directly to the seller and warn people about this scammer here as a minor effort in avoiding retaliation.

I don't know why the scammer has been allowed to continue to victimise customers, and I am genuinely fearful of what they can do to me now that they have my personal information after dealing with them through AE. Stay safe shoppers, I know I'm not a unique case.

Avoid and report SelfCraft38 Store

I bought a second-hand copy of Fog Toy's EA-02 after seeing the insane level of detail of the mech and accessories. Only down-side is that the mech arrived with a broken right leg which is why it is detached in the picture as the plastic cement goes to work in trying to save the over-priced mech's circular leg joint.

In addition, I bought a blank body from K-Toys after doing an extensive amount of research on what will be most compatible in terms of colour match and peg size with EA-02's head sculpt. Couldn't find anything else with a closer shape to the original model, but I'm not going to complain over a different curvier form-factor.

The positives of the K-Toy's blank body swap is that it gives me more hand and feet options which the original is stuck with the limited glove and boot ones. Aside for the... "heavy weaponry upgrade", the height of the K-Toy body is much closer to EA-02's concept and box art. I have a 3rd party version of Rebecca called "Jessica Aster" on the way, and the plan is to display her with EA-02. This display plan would not work without the height adjustment provided by K-Toy as the default EA-02 body is cartoonishly short.

The negatives of K-Toy is that my copy's torso arm joints arrived cracked and has led to her left arm in particular being very easy to fall off. So far I have talked to one other person who had the same experience. If you have K-Toy's blank female body, do you have the same problem too? I already ordered another copy thinking I might have just bought a bad copy from a sketchy seller offering a cheap deal.

Gorgeous and... well "detailed", will have fun finishing those details with some paint. What the model kit lacks in figure complexity, they compensate for accessories, and boy do they give you A LOT OF HANDS.

I love their approach on soft goods, especially this rubber-ish bikinis which they give you two pairs of blue and pink. On a humorous side-note, I bought Magician Lily by Artisan Fox (AKA Thicc Frieren't), and I was experimenting with soft goods on her to see how close I could get Lily to real Frieren. Turns out most clothes close to normal Frieren makes her look like Squidward when he ate too many Krabby Patties. Thanks to this Kit's generous number of accessories, Frieren't can instead lean more to her curvy aesthetics while showing her homage to Himmel by intimately wearing his hair colour lol.

Forest's summer Vivienne kit is overall a simple and enjoyable build, I didn't come across any of the fitment issues I saw on a couple of reputable reviews in the community, so I'm thankful for that. The kit comes with an absurd number of accessories, some like the bikinis being very kitbash-friendly.

A long time ago I saw a very funny review of this figure and then I put it into my mind palace as a goofy little curio. One day I had a vision in my dreams where I asked myself the most important useless question, "how close can I get Frieren't to the actual Frieren?" And so I made an order (the price for her "deluxe" version is actually pretty good even after almost a year after). Now it's a small project done for as cheaply and low effort as I can lol. What do you think of her so far? I'm cracking up how dumpy my choice of leggings look on her, and her waist is so thicc, I can't get her skirt to a better/lower position lol XD

I'm a long time AliExpress shopper and somehow managed to avoid having to dispute any of my orders until a few days ago.

Purchased a standing pegboard for a hefty $423.68AUD, the order went through and we also discussed that the item was being shipped by sea. They then proceeded to mark my item as "shipped" and asked me for an additional $280.19AUD after the fact. I was shocked, and stated this was unacceptable and the increase in price was dramatic. I told them that if there is an issue with shipping, they are free to cancel the order on their end. They end up asking me to return/refund it, and at that point I opened a ticket to AliExpress about the matter. The initial agent understood the matter and escalated to the senior team. This is the point where the issue got obtuse as their response does not line up with what is happening to my dispute. They replied to me that the item has been marked as delivered, but the item never even got on the boat, enter my country, or enter our post-office's system. Now they are asking me to provide them with a document of non-delivery from my post-office, and I have spoken to my local post-office and they cannot provide me with anything because this package never reached the country or their system.

Is it normally this obtuse? I expected for this to start moving more smoothly once the issue was escalated, but instead I'm met with inconsistency from the support team and reality. And this is a violation of AliExpress's code of practice by the seller right? I could hardly believe getting my money held back like this.

update -

"Dear Customer,

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience you've experienced with your order 8211129483854831. We've received your inquiry and are actively working to resolve this issue for you.

Please kindly pay attention to processing request on order details page. You may provide evidence in the dispute to gain a better support.

We appreciate your patience while we investigate this matter."

Really happy how the one way tints turned out and extra glad I sized up the display cases from the original plan. I can imagine a trick like this would be helpful for people who want to be discreet for whatever reason. For me, I just don't want to require to have a conversation with my reserved brother whenever my young nephews come to visit. They love checking out the "workshop" and looking at my growing collection. On a side note, finally got my hands on a metallic version of Second Axe Asagi which cost me a finger lol. More display space is being organised, just waiting to replace my rather small desk pegboard with a similar one with more room for display and utility.

Probably the squishiest girl Snail Shell has made to date. Garu is also another entry into Snail Shell's absolute love for blondes, so far 3/4 of my snail shell figures are now blonde... lol. She has excellent detailing, and I'm glad they are keeping up their trend on making their thigh-highs painted as if the character's skin is bleeding through.

I am fairly new at using soft goods. I'm dipping my toes in this niche using 30MS. I've always been afraid of soft goods because of how many people I have seen lament paint/dye transfer because they missed a maintenance session that month. I sort of feel more comfortable practicing using soft goods with girlplas knowing I can just sand off stains or replace parts at the affordable prices of 30MS products.

Anyway, love Rishetta and her yellow, but the white little accents of this uniform meant for another model really looks good to me. I might just let her keep it instead!

After finishing my first gunpla (A PBandai Ex-Impulse MG), it felt like I just finished an end of semester assignment. I'm a big sucker for all things tonka/industrial yellow and saw a pic of Rishetta, and I thought she'd look great inside my yellow pc. I was seriously debating if it was worth panel lining her after going through panel lining hell with the ex impulse as a beginner, but I'm so glad I did, especially for the improvised repulsor pack I made using her spares. I get the hype over part-swapping now, it was so much fun trying different combos! I wanted to make her more cyberpunk-esq using her swimwear optional parts painted with bare black matt primer.