MEICA

Reminds me of Asakura Ryoko for some reason…

Hi everyone.

Once again, my deepest apologies for not being able to upload any tutorials as I’m having problems with my scanner. However, I promise that they’ll be there by the end of October!

mica-to

Oh noes! The image has disappeared from TinyPic. I shall try and reupload it soon if I can find it.

I like this one. /huggles

Yuyuko (Sad/Frown) - Edited ver. 1
base pose and reference taken from Elcura’s sketch

Art and graphics-wise, work on EoAD seems to have slowed down a lot. I feel really bad for letting Elcura (one of our artists) do all the work, but I’m having exams now and my scanner died a couple of months back. And no, I haven’t made any tutorials out of my EoAD illustrations. Sorry ;___;

There’s been quite a lot of fuss over Lucky Star recently.

Okay, so its not that recent anymore and I really need to start finishing my draft posts before the topic becomes dead. But I must admit that the characters are adorable and that watching the cycle of dumb and dumber is fun.

It seems that with this anime, people either love it or hate it. I personally love it.

So, what exactly is Lucky Star about? If you haven’t watched it and want a ten-words-or-less summary, Lucky Star is about nothing in particular. It’s actually a 4-koma to anime adaptation, which further confirms its “anime about nothing” status.

But it performs the “anime about nothing” act well. Basically, it’s a slice-of-life anime revolving around four girls - Konata, Tsukasa, Kagami and Miyuki. Konata is an otaku and gamer, and pretty much the embodiment of everyone who watches the show, so she’s somewhat easy to relate to. Tsukasa is the cute loser, Kagami is the honor student and Miyuki is the moe one.

We’re already into almost half of the series and its still going strong. Its kind of slow-paced, which makes it good for casual watching (is there even such a thing?) and its filled with references and other stuffs that otaku (in my case, 1/4 otaku) can relate to. Its very…how should I put it? Gentle? Not too much at once, just gradually easing you into “this anime is awesome” mode.

The references that KyoAni slipped in make the show quite enjoyable for those who get it. Examples of things referenced include:

• Initial D
• Suzumiya Haruhi
• Full Metal Panic
• Death Note
• ToHeart
• Shuffle!
• Galaxy Angel Z
• Keroro
• Lucky Star: Moe Drill (DS Game)
• Kanon
• Timotei
• Dragonball
• Marimite (Maria-sama ga Miteru)
• Pani Poni Dash!
• Mayumi (from Shuffle!
• Street Fighter
• 2ch
• Aquarian Age
• Fate/Stay Night
• Saw (movie)
• etc.

Haruhi was — to be frank — a huge hit in Japan and beyond. Kyoto Animation may have chosen to animate Lucky Star after seeing the success of this genre. Just a guess. So, will Lucky Star be able to get as popular as its slice-of-life predecessor, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu? Perhaps. There are countless Lucky Star parodies alfeady floating around on the intarwebs.

However, I can’t help but wonder if this novelty will fade off after a while. We’ll just have to see then.

24 episodes? Haruhi only had 14. I’m a bit doubtful as to whether the show will be able to last for a full 24 episodes without losing momentum.

But for now, it’s awesome.

I played through the translated trial of Hanihani (full name: 月は東に日は西に -Operation Sanctuary-) today.

The protagonist is a Naoki Kuzumi, and as far as I can tell, the other characters are:

• Mikoto Amagasaki, a girl that falls out of the sky.
• Honami Fujieda, the childhood friend.
• Matsuri Shibugaki, the girl who lives with the protagonist
• Chihiro Tachibana, the lone member of the garden club.
• Yui Nonohara, Naoki’s homeroom teacher.
• Kyouko Nishina, the school nurse.
• A Yuusuke, whom according to Wikipedia is Mikoto’s brother.
• Kouji Hirose, Naoki’s friend.
• Eri and Genzou Shibugaki, Matsuri’s parents.

Story
I can’t say much about the story since I only played the trial. However, even after completing the demo and various scenes from the game (included as a kind of bonus, I suppose) I still don’t understand it. Furthermore, it was quite draggy.

From what I understand so far, its probably a harem-type thing again. But isn’t a demo supposed to entice you into buying the full game? If that is true, you could say that this demo is a flop. I have absolutely no urge to find out more about any of the characters, or about what happens next in the game after the demo. A stark difference from the Fate/Stay Night demo, which had me fervently searching around for game-related material for a while.

Graphics

Graphics are awesome. The character CGs are very nicely done, and the backgrounds contain lots of attention to detail.

Music/Sound

I didn’t really pay attention to the soundtrack, but it was quite simple. But that’s okay, because the music is just there to create the atmosphere–nothing too overbearing. I didn’t particularly like the character voices, but maybe that’s just me and my lousy speakers.

Overall

Overall, the game didn’t leave a particularly strong impression on me. The story (or lack thereof) probably did that.

Jump for screenshots.

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I’m really not doing what I should be doing…awfully sorry, but my computer is really screwed up right now and I can’t fix it.

For now, here’s a mouse doodle of Patchouli Knowledge from Touhou.

Just a link of the artwork thread where I’m working.

Does anyone have suggestions for Patchouli’s “default” pose?

I volunteered to be a cutscene illustrator (does static drawings and different expressions of the character, e.g. for spellcard casting) for the “full game” project started by the people on the ShrineMaiden.org forums.

Maybe I can find a way to make tutorials out of it. I haven’t been able to draw any decent art recently though.