My Ma.K shipment from Japan arrived yesterday.   Took only 3 business days!   Shipping via EMS is expensive, but it sure is damned fast!

I inspected the Melusine boxed set and found no figures with a sticky sealer coat but I'm going to have to open that huge 24 figure Fireball SG set and check out each individually boxed figure inside.

As suggested by my sister, I used the webcam to take images since my regular digital camera is out of commission.

The Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 actually does a pretty good job.   However, I did compress the heck of the photos when coverting to JPEG for the sake of keeping download times short.

I suspect that with a proper lighting and backdrop, I could make do with the QuickCam.   It can even do captures of up to 8 megapixels so resolution certainly isn't an issue.

Normally, I'd have to bracket my photos, take multiple versions and choose which one looks best.   But since I can see exactly how the picture will look before I take it, it actually took me less time to take these photos than with my late Canon Powershot A60.

It has amazing macro shooting capability for a web cam; doing a good job despite me holding and aiming the QuickCam by hand.

So it looks like I can put off the camera purchase for a little while longer.

My B-grade Maschinen Krieger boxed sets have shipped from Japan but boy did I get hurt on shipping! cSjn7WZWjYY6

Because the shipment is over 2kg, I don't get the option of having them ship via SAL (Sea/Air/Land) service, which takes significantly longer but costs significantly less as shipments are made on a space availability basis by the carrier.

The troops are coming in via EMS (express mail service) so they'll be fully tracked and they'll get here quickly but at a cost... and boy, what a cost!   The shipping charges ended up being more than what the entire shipment is worth!   The Ma.K boxed sets totalled approximately $40 USD and EMS shipping ended up being $47 USD!

Maybe I shouldn't complain since under normal pricing conditions, these Ma.K sets would have cost about $195 USD, and I'm getting them for about $90 USD delivered--- with some minor clean-up and re-sealing work required.

Here's what's in the shipment (starting from top left to bottom right)

• Images 1-4 : Fireball SG figures (1 x 24pc set, random packed)
• Images 5-6: Gladiator Assault Camo Prototype - Four-legged mecha. (1 x 1pc box)
• Images 7-8: 10 x Melusine DCU figures (2 x 5pc. set)

Photos courtesy of Hobbylink Japan

The Fireball set has twenty-four 1/35th scale figures and that's quite a lot.   Maybe I'll sell off half of them on eBay and recoup some of the cost in shipping.