During her last visit, Alter had Saber in a black satin dress and petticoat, a pretty figure of gothed elegance. This time she’s feeling a bit more festive toting a penguin shaped ice shaver and dressed in a white bikini swimsuit, the kind with a low rise bottom. She really wanted to make some snowball desserts, so we got straight to shooting.

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The last couple of figure pictorials were moody, heavy on the black. To change things up bubblegum colors were summoned, some fruity drinks, and a plasti-bamboo patio set were roped in too. Put on some tunes and we partied like it was 1999. I was dreaming when I wrote this, so sue me if it goes too fast.

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Saber is a character from the Fate/ series of visual novels and the subject of many a PVC figure. She’s one of my favorite character designs, especially in her armored form (which is woefully underrepresented in figure form) — I just hope that the anime, soon to be released in R1-land, doesn’t ruin this character for me.
Anyway, I wound up taking a lot of pictures of this figure sculpted by Ikuma Kuramoto, who also sculpted Alter’s swimsuit versions of Rin and Sakura, also from the Fate/ series. Naturally, the three figures have a consistent look, but it is very clear that Alter makes better figures now than they did a year ago. I’ve said so with each subsequent Alter release, but the point gets driven when tracking it over the same series of figures crafted by the same sculptor. Unlike Rin and Sakura, Saber is not screwed onto her base, which is convenient for picture taking.

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So like halfway through the shoot, Rin and Sakura show up to say hey. The penguin ice shaver was a hit. I admit it’s kind of cute. I don’t know about that Sakura though, the way she was eying it.

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While everyone dug Saber’s cute penguin dessert maker, her chibi doll kind of creeped everyone out and drove Rin and Sakura away in three seconds flat. She seemed so happy to bring the doll out, but after everyone ran away she seemed kind of bummed out.

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Saber, darling, please put that thing away.

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Alter’s swimsuit version of Saber is one continuous highlight reel. Really, the only place I see any defects or flaws in this figure I needed the unfair scrutiny of the macro lens to see. Even the Achilles Heel of just about every Saber figure, the likeness, is excellent.
The macro reveals some minor flaws, but also reveals that the sculpted details on Saber are fantastic. The most obvious place to see the attention to detail is in her hair — excellent job of hiding the seams of the pieces of her hair, as well as the number of strands rendered and the overall flow.

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In Saber, Kuramoto shows increased elegance in his work over the Rin sculpt. While the hair and face is fantastic, the body sculpting is the big highlight, particularly the tone of her back and stomach. I’ve tried to convey the smoothness of the muscle tone and saved what I think is the best for last. I love the shapes on it.

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That’s what I call a good carve.
Later.

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Update: Danny Choo has uploaded his Bikini Saber. Check it out, if you haven’t already. There are some funny shots of Saber holding other things.
Bootleg Alert: It should come as no surprise that Swimsuit Saber is a target for bootleggers to copy. One of the bootlegs floating around has Saber without her hair ribbon, which is a dead giveaway of a forgery.