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Moe Haruhi

by radiantdreamer April 05, 2008 in Anime & Video Games, How To Draw Anime & Photoshop 8 comments tags: anime, fanart, haruhi, illustration, kawaii, melancholy, mikuru, moe, photoshop, radiantdreamer, school uniform, suzumiya, tutorial

Another fan-art. Haruhi is always so bossy and demanding. She’s the equivalent of a lot of stereotypical “violent korean girlfriends“. For Haruhi, Moe just doesn’t happen with her. Going along with the alternate Mikuru, why not reverse the role with Haruhi as well? Here’s Moe Haruhi! Super kawaii!! In terms of drawing anime art, I would have to say that the paint job in this one was most satisfying. It actually didn’t take all that long to paint or to draw either. All in all, I would have to say that moe is a very easy style to draw.

Gothic Devil Girl with Cross available at Hobbyfan

by radiantdreamer April 05, 2008 in Anime Figures 2 comments tags: 1:6 scale, gothic, hobbysearch, lolita, prepainted, resin kit, resin statue

I’m sure many of you remember this figure. Well she’s available again, from hobbyfan! I’ve been wanting to get this figure since I saw her in Replicant magazine. It did show that a PVC version was available in that book, but I don’t think one ever got released. So for those of you that really wanted to get a hold of this from e2046, but never got the chance, Hobbyfan is your answer. Considering figure prices nowadays at upwards to 7800 yen, $118 for this prepainted resin statue is pretty good. Availability at hobbysearch : currently in stock https://www.hobbyfan.com/product_info.php?products_id=4805

Alternate Mikuru

by radiantdreamer March 31, 2008 in Anime & Video Games, How To Draw Anime & Photoshop 10 comments tags: 708u, anime, asahina, bag, coach, haruhi, illustration, konata, lucky star, melancholy, mikuru, photoshop, radiantdreamer, samsung, suzumiya, tutorial

This isn’t the first time I’ve ever done fan-art. Everytime I do though, I try to represent the character in a different light, to show some variety and for people to think “what if…”. It certainly brings a bit of flavor to the picture. I decided to draw Mikuru Asahina. Mikuru is always getting abused and molested by Haruhi. She’s also completely, and ridiculously moe. So much so that I got sick and tired of it. What better way to try a fan art of Mikuru but with a completely opposite attitude for her?

Rakka – Haibane Renmei

by radiantdreamer March 26, 2008 in Anime Figures, How To Draw Anime & Photoshop 4 comments tags: abe, haibane renmei, lain, rakka, yoshitoshi

Rakka from Haibane Renmei, created by Yoshitoshi Abe of Serial Experiments Lain. This figure was manufactured by Creator’s Labo, and is on my to sell list. But before I part with her and list her for sale, I wanted to do a photoshop of her. She’s very photogenic, and I was very surprised at how beautiful the raw photos turned out.

Kino’s Journey Ends with Emiya

by radiantdreamer March 18, 2008 in Anime Figures, How To Draw Anime & Photoshop 10 comments tags: anime, blend, composite, compositing, emiya, fate stay night, fate zero, figures, kino, kino no tabi, kino's journey, kiritsugu, matte painting, photography, photoshop, radiantdreamer, saber

When Kino was announced, I immediately knew I had to buy her. In addition, when I saw Emiya from Fate/Zero, I knew that Kino and him would make a great looking pair. Personally, I think she looks better with Emiya than Saber does. The green in Kino’s outfit actually complements Emiya’s black very well.

Vancouver 2010 Olympic Mascots

by radiantdreamer March 16, 2008 in Things I Find Interesting 2 comments tags: 2010, cute, mascots, meomi, miga, mukmuk, olympics, quatchi, sanrio, sumi, Vancouver, vanoc

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The Final Encore of Suzumiya Haruhi

by radiantdreamer March 10, 2008 in Anime Figures, How To Draw Anime & Photoshop 15 comments tags: atelier sai, blur filter, bunny, compositing, enoz, god knows, guitar, haruhi, hirano aya, photography, photoshop, polygon lasso, radiantdreamer, rock band, suzumiya

I decided it was time to take a final photoshoot for Haruhi before she disappears from my shelf. A final performance to go out with a bang. So that others may share in her final performance, I’ve documented the process of how this photo was created.

Alvis Hamilton : Rainy Days

by radiantdreamer March 05, 2008 in Anime Figures 11 comments tags: Alvis Hamilton, anime, figures, figurine, Granville, Granville Island, Island, Last Exile, photography, photoshop, radiantdreamer, rain, Vancouver

It’s been a while since I got back into doing figure photography. I managed to nab Alvis Hamilton from Last Exile fame off of an etailer for a very good price of $25. Before she arrived, I had already planned a photoshoot of her in rainy weather. I just couldn’t resist those cute little gumm boots.

Are You a Hentai Otaku?!

by radiantdreamer March 01, 2008 in Anime & Video Games 58 comments tags: anime, blanc neige, botticelli, double-standard, fandom, figures, hentai, hobby, manga, otaku, panties, radiantdreamer, revealing, sex, sexy, short skirts, upskirt, venus, violence, wired magazine, wonder woman

I’m sure most of us collect anime figurines for the same reason – They’re stylish, cool, aesthetically appealing, and cute. They have nice creatively designed outfits, and well, they can be sexy. From my standpoint, they’re just that – aesthetically pleasing PVC. Artistic, dynamically sculpted, and capture the original character in a state of suspended animation. And in a way, a statement of your fandom towards that particular series. So why do people think you’re perverted?! You’re puzzled. You think “What is it about my hobby and fandom that lets you pass that sort of judgement on me, a perfectly normal person?” To them, they see a figurine wearing practically nothing, posed in a provocative manner, usually with large breasts, and even they themselves are often tempted to peer underneath the skirt to see what panties these pvc girls wear, if any. I just discovered that Arin, from Super Swing Golf Pangya wears polkadot panties, thanks to a coworker that decidedly looked up her skirt. After owning her for so long, I actually never thought to look. My mind has now been tainted.

Differences in Plastics – ABS, PVC, Vinyl, Resin, Polystone, oh my!

by radiantdreamer February 25, 2008 in Anime Figures 47 comments tags: ABS, Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, Cold Cast, Epoxy, figures, injection kits, Kotobukiya, Model, Model Kits, molds, Plastic, Polystone, Polyvinyl Chloride, PVC, radiantdreamer, Resin, Resin Kits, Rosin, Vinyl

A while ago, I had posted an article on Anime Figurines Network on the difference between certain types of plastics. Today, I’ve decided to take that article, make modifications and clarifications on it, and post it here. This article will cover various plastics from PVC, to Resin, and their methods, properties and advantages.

In Depth : Elwing01

by radiantdreamer January 11, 2008 in Anime Figures, How To Draw Anime & Photoshop 10 comments tags: compositing, effects, elf, elwing, figure, figurines, gamma, girl, histogram, lasso, levels, photography, photoshop, radiantdreamer, shining tears, tutorial

Many of you have seen this photograph, and many of you have asked “how is it done?” Here’s an in depth look at how this image was accomplished.

Using Photoshop to Create Interesting Photos

by radiantdreamer January 11, 2008 in How To Draw Anime & Photoshop 1 comments tags: adjustment layer, anime, depth of field, effects, figures, gaussian blur, gradient, lasso, layers, photoshop, radiantdreamer, shadows, techniques, tutorial, tweaks

Welcome to the second part of my basic compositing tutorial. If you haven’t gone through the first tutorial yet, I suggest you do so. Otherwise you will have no idea where I’m coming from or what I am doing at this halfway point. The purpose of this tutorial is to teach how you can use the various tools in Photoshop to bring more life to your composited image. We’ll go through things like setting mood, changing shadows and lighting, and the principles of depth using light and general photoshop filters. As a recap of the previous tutorial, we’ve gone through the process of selecting a background that would fit our subject, (in this case, Miko is our subject) and cut out her shape using the various lasso techniques in the previous tutorial. We also did some minor adjustments using a few of Photoshop’s adjustment menus. After we were finished, we had a fairly nice and convincing composite. But it still looked a little flat and uninteresting. Let’s add a little drama.

Basic Photoshop Compositing

by radiantdreamer January 11, 2008 in How To Draw Anime & Photoshop 3 comments tags: anime, compositing, effects, figures, lasso, layers, photoshop, Photoshop Tutorials, selection

This tutorial assumes you know very basic photoshop skills. If you don’t know anything about Photoshop, you may have trouble following along. I will try to be as clear as possible and have images to illustrate exactly what I’m talking about where needed. This tutorial was constructed using Photoshop 7, but Photoshop CS2 and above work the same way. To see a larger image, just click on the thumbnail and a pop-up will appear. Be sure to close the pop-up before continuing. The purpose of this tutorial is the basic construction of compositing two different subject matters together into one. For this particular example, I will be using one of my figurines and compositing her on another background.

New Radiant Dreamer gallery now Live!

by radiantdreamer January 05, 2008 in Things I Find Interesting 4 comments tags: radiantdreamer, website

The new Radiant Dreamer web gallery is up and running! A total revamp of the look and feel of the site puts more focus on my actual artwork! Hope you have fun browsing!

New Website close to completion!

by radiantdreamer January 03, 2008 in Things I Find Interesting 0 comments

Excellent news! My website is getting close to complete! This evening, I managed to implement an RSS parser so that I can display a condensed version of my blog on my gallery site! I’m pretty proud of myself and the progress this enables! It’ll allow the main gallery page to be linked closely with my blog site. And since my blog site will mostly be focussed on in depth looks at my artwork and figurine photo shoots, it too will be closely linked to my gallery site. Now the issue is how to make the blog’s appearance fit in a little closer with the gallery site, as they’re both VERY different in terms of style. I’m getting better with CSS, but not to the point of understanding enough PHP to create a good stylesheet for WordPress, unfortunately… Perhaps I’ll have to dismantle an existing theme off wordpress and analyze it. For now though, the stock WordPress themes will have to do…

Happy New Year!

by radiantdreamer January 02, 2008 in Things I Find Interesting 4 comments

Well, another year has passed, and another one begins. The only difference is that I rarely make new year’s resolutions anymore. Probably because I don’t stick to them. What’s your new year’s resolution? I suppose having a new year’s resolution helps you stay on track, but then, why wait until new year’s to do that? All that ends up happening is you have a whole lot of enthusiasm to try and meed your resolutions, and then you give up after a couple of months, if at all. How’s that different from regular resolutions throughout the year? Usually, new year’s resolutions are ambitious, and outright impossible. “I’m gonna lose 20 pounds in the next two months!” and then after three weeks, you realize you’ve only lost 5 pounds, you give up. “This is impossible! I might as well forget it.” I guess if you’re really diligent, you’d be able to stick to the resolution… just set something a little more reasonable, I guess. Now that the majority of the high priority tasks are done, I can start focussing on some of the things that I’ve been putting off, like my website. My art. Reading up on some finance stuff (maybe). The […]

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