~The Beginning of the End~

So I got so bored while on my holidays that I’ve just went and got myself a webhost and my own domain. And since I didn’t exactly do much new, and I was pretty much wondering what I would do with my first post over here, I decided I might as well just rehash my old pics and take a trip down memory lane in the process. So bear with me till I get back from my hols I guess. Lots of reading follows if you’re interested.

So…. why “theshino.com”? Those that known me since I’ve started know abt pvc4me (now defunct) and the current pvc4u, not so subtle hints on how much I was into figures back then. But then all roads lead somewhere, and before I knew it, now I’m spending more on PC games than I do on figures, so pvc in the title didn’t seem too appropriate no more. I still collect my fair share of them definitely, but it isn’t what it used to be. I toyed with the idea of pvc4u-PvC4me but well, hyphens don’t really sit too well with me considering how much of a bitch they are to key in.

the shino~! came as a running joke since I liked to emphasize how frickin awesome I am in private conversations by always expounding that term as soon as I say something smart or witty. Trust me, I act nice and all that while being viewed by the public, but in private, I’m a right asshole. So the domain name can be seen as a crystalization and admission of how much of an ass I am to those that know me. Still with me? Sweet, lets go a little ways back to where it all began now.

So off the top of my head, I’d say I started collecting figures late 2006, most of you probably already know that all I wanted was a nice fate/stay night collection and back then, I was honestly thinking it would just stop there once I’m done with f/sn. Just goes to show that we’ll never know, hell I wouldn’t have even imagined me getting my own domain and all that and if anyone suggested this to me back then, I’d say they were stark raving mad.

The photo taking came around by chance, since I was buying figures non-stop and one day, I decided I was lonely and decided I wanted to share it with others. So by chance, I stumbled upon figure.fm (now defunct as well) and suddenly, the spam monster in me was unleashed!

One of the first few photos I took of a figure. Pretty frickin sad that I actually had to raid the printer for paper and stick it around a detolf as the white background. Hey, the detolf area back then was the most brightly lit area in the house and unfortunately, lights and all those for photo setups don’t just appear when you decide to take photos. Like I said, photo taking wasn’t really a serious consideration back then.

One of those crazy buys I had during the early days as well. I liked Kanu back then, but what I wanted was the first version of this figure (Black loli), I’m sure if you digged back into my fig.fm past, I probably said everything nice I could about this figure but meh, it certainly isn’t my first choice. Sonsaku back there was pretty cool though, albeit a bit too small for my liking now. So I moved out from taking photos in the detolfs now and switched to some place in the house just under a spotlight :p

Then along came super rats and his awesome photos and I think it was at this point where I got more serious into photo taking. Looking back, I must apologize for always crediting him and his tutorials everytime I posted a crap photo. For every thanks I gave, he must have lost at least 10 readers (10 because I guess thats the number who ever bothered to look) who were appalled at my level of photo taking and here I was crediting him for my “now-awesome” photos. lol.

So I haven’t gotten into those large cardboard sized backgrounds yet and I got bored of the plain old printer paper backgrounds. So I figured to go cheap and get myself a stack of colored paper just so I could have more colorful backgrounds. I think I liked those colors and variations I could get, but I seriously hated the shadows and areas where I didn’t stick the pieces together nicely. From here, I was on my way to to the more crazy setups that would become a sort of staple to my other shoots.

What can I say? I bought a stack of those colorful papers, I had to use them someway or other. I bought the stack because I wanted to be cheap, so that wasn’t gonna change overnight and still I went on with some really awful ideas.

So more crazy ideas came along, and I already started dabbling in model kits by then, and now I had paint to play around with. Back then I never did go out purposely for prop shopping, even the little red bulb things you see on Rin’s background was a free gift that came from an ebay seller after I bought an artbook.

An idea gone terribly bad. Sometimes I wonder what I was smoking when I follow through with ideas like these. Smoke and fire yo!

One of my first few props that would see me recycle for many, many more shoots to come. Rocks (pebbles) rock ^^;

The photo that probably started me off on decorating my sets like mad I guess. I still have no clue why I ever bought win-chan in the first place, but without her, this photo and the resulting madness would likely not have happened.

So up till that certain point, I was still using a Nikon E4300 coolpix that was apparently all the rage back when I first got it (like: woah! 4 megapixels!). The lenses had some scratches already, the battery wasn’t doing too great, and the file size of the photos taken I noticed were pretty damned large and my 16mb card wasn’t too pleased about that. So I took another plunge and went and got myself a DSLR even though I had absolutely no clue what I was getting myself into. Probably the same deal applies to what I’m thinking now getting my own site :p

So being the very smart and awesome individual that I am (the shino~!), I bought a DSLR without a tripod and soon relied on using novels from around the house to serve as the impromptu tripod (reading is a good habit). My hands aren’t exactly the steadiest, and the DSLR was a bit too sensitive for me to take my photos freehand, and I really do somewhat miss those consumer cameras for that aspect. I used to be poking my lenses at every angle imaginable with the Nikon, and I can’t quite do that already. And thus the spam monster in me was quelled.

But with the DSLR, I started to play around more as well, fooling around with HDR shots and just messing with settings in particular. Setups also began to grow more elaborate as I tried to mish mash everything that I’ve come across and thought of. There were more lemons than gems definitely, but hey… it’s… the shino~! ^^;

And this little gem of a bright idea started my downfall, there was this debate about figures and gundams which I’m sure some will remember and I decided to post this pic (guess I didn’t quite hide how much of an ass I was too well really) and got myself moderated at the speed of light. All I have to say is that gundam lovers must really love their gundams that no room for figures or humor can exist.

So it has come full circle into really overdone sets and HDR photos. More attention is now diverted to PC games and now there’s lots of awesome figure reviewers out there anyway so I doubt I’ll be missed one bit. But once in a while the itch sets in and I’ll have to start taking photos I guess.

It probably sounds really old, but in closing I’d just like to thank everyone that I’ve met since I started collecting. I don’t know where this blog will end up as much as I didn’t know where I’d be today back when I first started collecting. But even if I fade from existence, I’d like to take the time to thank (in no particular order): aka_ugly, super rats, lu-k, ron~, valho, radiant dreamer, Belela-san (the old guard? ^^), and everyone else on my blogroll that I’ve met from start to present. Thanks for the advise, comments, support, and every little thing that I’ve probably learned from you but don’t even realize. I do wish I could comment more, that in spite of this helluva lengthy post, I wish i had more things to say and add to discussion when you guys post, but in any case, here’s to more of seeing each other around!

To those that made it here, thanks for the patience, 1600 words ain’t my idea of fun really, and it’s not something I’ll do too often seeing as it takes quite a while to type and makes me smoke like mad. And now the question is: How much of this is the real private shino or is he just being the pretend mr. public nice guy once again? :p Whatever the case, welcome to the shino~ I hope you’ll enjoy your stay here =)