This was my first foray into the world of Konami's MMS system. I knew that each figure came with a ton of interchangeable pieces and that it was highly customizable, but beyond that I wasn't really sure what to expect. When I finally got the package and went home to start putting the thing together I expected to spend an hour maybe an hour and a half running through it's different configurations.

Five hours later I began to realize my grievous error. By that point I'd only gotten about half way through the configurations that Konami suggests in the instructions that come with the figure, but as little pieces snap on, it's incredibly easy to become distracted and start crafting your own melding of pink-haired waif and Panzer tank. And really, with those kind of options it's practically mandatory you spend at least half a day in a single stretch just coming up with adorable new war machines.

The closest I got to an accurate count of the configuration options available in the Murmeltier Panzer is as follows: three types of legs, four types of hands, two heads, three hair styles (depending on whether or not you use the hat that comes with the figure), two chest plates, and about four different mech arm configurations. These are just for each individual piece and not as a whole. Putting these incredibly versatile parts together results in a perverse glee that could only result from manhandling a tiny, plastic, pink-haired, German into a variety of positions and configurations.

The really versatile MMS figures can be kinda spendy, mine running about $65 including shipping. Thankfully, they're fairly easy to find on Ebay for slightly less, but be warned, the MMS figures are addictive like some kind of heroin/adorable-kitten hybrid drug. It's really quite insidious.

In the gallery below you can view the pictures I took of my Murmeltier Panzer. I used the tutorial Colette posted recently, and as an added bonus I included a shot of my hastily constructed figure photography studio. I learned quite a bit from trying out the tutorial, and found myself adjusting lighting constantly. I got some fairly mixed results with some shots coming out perfectly and others simply turning out garbage, but now I'm prepared for next time, and I'm noticing things in figure photographs I never would've noticed before.