True story—during my time playing En Masse Entertainment's MMO Tera, my guild and I were attempting to recreate the trailer for the film 300 in-game for some silly reason. When it came time to capture video for the Oracle scene, we went with a series of sultry and mildly demonic Castanic females dancing by a fountain to take the place of the writhing young naked girl from the movie. Each looked much like this statue from E2046's Gathering line, strips of metallic armor barely covering their delicate skin—pretty naked, but not quite naked enough.
We asked them to try taking off their armor, wearing only the base underwear for the character model. Turns out a naked Castanic female is actually more dressed than a fully armored one. Thanks, Korean MMO graphic designers!
So while it might look like the Gathering Castanic ($149.99 pre-painted, $60 if you want to try painting it yourself) is another exploitative female statue with anime sensibilities, she's really just a really accurate representation of another exploitative female game character with anime tendencies.
Glad we could clear that up!
Wielding her massive axe and making me miss my Berserker character something fierce, the Gathering Castanic is a piece that captures a great deal of action in a still form. Her ivory hair flows, her axe poised to strike with the sudden brutality of the profession she represents. Her... what do I call that? I guess it's a butt cape. Her butt cape flutters in the wind.
Butt cape is probably not the right term. *checks with the wife* Nope, she says butt cape is probably right.
Note the green glow coming from her feet. The statue ships with a lovely swirling translucent green base complete with name plate, which someone may have forgotten to photograph while he had it available. You can see it on the product page, if you'd like. It's rather nice.
Fleshy bits aside, what armor the Castanic is wearing is nicely detailed, a dark wash making etched surfaces really pop. The axe in particular is a gorgeous representation of the Berserker's signature weapon, to the point where I might have swung it about in my fingers making wooshing noises before placing it in the character's hands. The folks at E204 have done a fine job of painting the statue, all things considered. There are portions to the string-thin armor where flesh-color encroaches on bits that should be metal, but these are small and barely noticeable unless you bring your face inappropriately close.
The only real flaw with the sculpt is in the delicate shoulder pieces the figure wears (because you need to make sure those shoulders are well-armored, by-golly. Upon opening the box and unpacking the various parts, I discovered the spiky bits from the character's right shoulder sitting in the bottom of the plastic bag, having snapped at some point during the shipping process. The E204 folks are very careful in packing their delicate wares for cross-continental journeys, so broken bits came as quite a surprise. Nothing a little glue couldn't fix, but disappointing nonetheless.
Standing nearly 13 inches tall (not counting the axe), the E204 Gathering Castanic is an unyielding force of sexy Berserker fury, even if she's slightly chipped and mostly naked. A fine way to show your Tera pride and much less embarrassing than the Elin Elementalist.