Gomen-ne! No Easter Eggs here!
A couple of weeks ago, Ninjovee of Tangerine Tango mentioned that she wanted to put up a new blog banner of Kagamiku, but wanted her to be even cuter than she already is. When she showed me which image she wanted to use, some fun ideas went through my head, so I offered to do some photoshop.
A youtube video of the jobbie:
Still being uploaded…?
[pro-player]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWCHZu2C_io[/pro-player]
This ended up taking way longer than I thought that it would, mostly because of the bow. I had full confidence that I could paint out Miku’s tie and make it work. I just didn’t think it would take that long.
I had to extend the canvas in order to fit her bunny ears in there, but fortunately, the paper pattern was fairly clean and easy to clone.
Overall, this was very fun to do. It still looks a little bit fake, but well all that stuff was hand painted, so it’s a little bit hard to make it blend properly. I’m not THAT good yet! Do check out Ninjovee’s blog though, because it’s a good blog!
On another note, Rosenqueen sent me my copy of Sakura Wars So Long My Love, which arrived yesterday.
It’s got Gemini Sunrise. How can I resist? The thing is, I’ve never played a single Sakura Taisen game, or even watched the anime series. Yet my first anime figure was Sakura Shinguji, and I’ve got a few other Sakura Taisen related items, including the oh so beautiful Gemini Sunrise figure so kindly sourced for me by Shino.
I do look forward to playing it though – actually, more so than FFXIII. Is that weird?!
The Rosenqueen preorder had a great bonus incentive, as you can see in the picture – an exclusive hardcover artbook (and yes it’s in English), in addition to the already included bonus goods with the PS2 edition. Sorry Wii owners, you guys lost out on that one.
I won’t be able to play this until at least after I finish Resonance of Fate though (that and maybe even Miles Edgeworth).
Speaking of which, I was fooling around with RoF’s costumes and came up with this:
The closest you’ll ever come to putting “L” into Resonance of Fate.
It’s L from Death Note!! ha ha ha. The cool thing is the way Zephyr runs, it’s totally L’s wacky style too. Seeing him John Woo some enemies is quite cool. Go L!
Kira… I WILL capture you!!!
I’m getting decently close to re-creating a Robert Garcia too. But really, the customization is more limited than I thought it would have been. Still a wicked game though. Many seem to have abandoned FFXIII due to boredom in favor of playing RoF. (And you should too!)
I’m still working hard with trying to finish my iPhone game. Doing a promotional video right now, and it’s looking to be quite promising. Hopefully it will move copies. I’ll post the video here when it’s out.
The cool thing is that the naming contest was quite a success! The name we ended up choosing was Mice Heist. Keep your eyes peeled!
EDIT: Since some people were saying that Kagamikusagi looks a little like Asuka from Evangelion, here are some other color variants
Pink is so cute!
The original colors
Read more!
Read more!
Gah I want Resonance of Fate, but still kinda expensive. I want my characters that can defy the laws of gravity XD
I got my copy for five bucks. Muahahaha! And I didn’t even actually have to PAY the $5! it came out of in-store credit! >:D
I hate you now… where’s my shotgun.
Sorry, no shotguns in RoF. Only handguns and submachine guns. 🙂
Actually what happened was I traded in my copy of Assassin’s Creed 2 for RoF, so it’s not REALLY only $5.
I got my copy of Final Fantasy XIII for $6.69 😛
Sweet deal! Where and how?! Trade-ins?
I used PC points at Superstore XD I collected quite a lot of points!
NICE! Maybe I should start collecting PC points… I usually use Best Buy points for dollars, but I don’t buy enough from BB to justify it.. nor do I shop at Superstore enough either though… :\
The bunny ears are great actually! Must’ve been quite a challenge to match the ears to the figure. I always hate trying to match anything completely different in Photoshop. And sounds like Ninjovee is happy with the results 🙂
I got my copy of Sakura Wars as well. I preordered it about a week or two before it was released. I almost forgot to buy one. I can tell that there weren’t going to be a lot available. I definitely didn’t want to touch the Wii version. I watched only the OVA so far and didn’t play any of the games, yet. I loved the OVA! The theme song kicks ass! I’m hoping by buying this game there might be possibilities of the previous games released in one disc for the PS3… Here’s to wishful thinking!
Thanks! Yeah, ninjovee sent me an email saying how much she loved it (swearing included for emphasis! 😉
I’m still not super convinced with the compositing, but I am getting better. I’ve noticed that my painting skills dealing with light has gotten better too. I think doing this sort of photoshop work has helped me in this regard.
Did you get the artbook with your preorder? It’s so sweet!
I heard that the Wii version is 480p stretched widescreen anyway, so I’d rather just upscale it through the PS3.
I kinda doubt that they will release any of the other Sakura Wars here. You’ll most likely have to go back to the Dreamcast games. Not hard to find, and pretty darn cheap to acquire!
Wasn’t the artbook included in the box? Maybe it’s a different artbook =/ And the reason why I skipped the Wii version isn’t because of that, but because it only had English dub on it… Not gonna touch it because of that alone. Well it doesn’t hurt to have wishful thinking about the older games ^^; I assume the Sakura Wars for Dreamcast is the Japanese version? I don’t recall seeing an English version. Otherwise I would’ve gotten the Dreamcast.
Yes, there is a flimsy pamphlet-style artbook included with the box, but the artbook that comes from Rosenqueen is an exclusive full-sized hardcover book.
There were Sakura Taisen games on Sega Saturn and Dreamcast as well as PS2. Sakura Wars V is essentially the first one to come to North America (which is a shame, really).
Wow fantastic vid! that’s the kind of stuff I’ll analyze in details ^^ since I’ve already tried a bunch of time to change the colors (like hair) on some of my pictures. But I always mess up somehwere ^^;;
I used to give Zephyr this outfits, but with pink hair – yeah pink ^^;
But now I am back to A type clothes, and silver hair. But I play more with Reanbell-chan. Can’t help it, have to play a girl everytime it is possible ^^; (guess what’s my FFXIII main team?? ^^;;; )
Thanks Lu-K!
In the video, I change the hair color by first creating an adjustment layer of whatever color doesn’t matter. I use either colorize, or hue, depending on the effect. Then I mask the rest of it out using a regular brush. When you use adjustment layers, you can always tweak the mask and re-adjust the color without ruining the original. 😀
Pink hair?! I didn’t know there was pink! I guess I’m not searching hard enough for clothes ^^;
I really like the Type A clothes. They’re cool looking. The B clothes are a little… uncreative.
My main teams are usually female too. FFXII was like that Valkyria Chronicles was like that, FFXIII will probably be no different. 😀
Ok thanks for the hints ^^ My last try was to get red hair for Konata on my “space lucky star” picture, but had troubles with edges and part near the face. Will give it another try then ^^
Yeah I found a pink spray for Zeph and Vash while unveiling the map somewhere (cant remember what level). Love A type too, excepted for Reanbell who I prefer B ^^;;;
Ah, okay, I’ll have to keep looking. Right now I have red and black for Zephyr, and black and olive for Vash. They look good with black hair. I’ve forgotten that it isn’t their natural color anymore. ^^
Does Reanbell get any hair colors? I haven’t found any yet! I used to like her A outfit more because it’s original, but now I like B because there’s more variety and selection!
Kagamiku looks so adorable with bunny ears! I like the original the best, though I’m partial to pink. xD
Hello Tomoyo! ^_^
I know that you like pink. :3 Glad you like it!
I love the bunny ears, so cute!
thanks Nopy!
I imagine it being perfectly right in anticipating Sakura Taisen more than FF13…
You make me recall my friend, who was so infatuated with L that he recorded his theme bgm and played it every time he was trying to make a point :/
Photoshoop! Finally, something I understand. I’m still boggled by how you did those ears in shoop though. Well, I suppose that’s what separates the wheat from the chaff.
My attempts to pirate RoF failed miserably, but I saw some gameplay vids, heard their philosophical talk about everybody walking their own paths, and then decided I’m not up for that at the moment.
So you’re feeling the same way about FF13 too eh? Hmmm… Maybe I should cut my losses and sell it. I got the hard cover guide book too!
I think it’s pretty cool to do the whole theme song thing when making a point. Especially a well chosen one like L’s theme. I personally would have opted for Phoenix Wright, but that’s just me. I can see how it can get old really quickly though. 😛
Don’t pirate, RoF lol. “everybody walking their own paths”? I’m 30hrs into the game and I haven’t seen anyone walk their own path, philosophical or literal. Well, okay they do talk some philosophical stuff, but it’s easy to just ignore. What you ARE missing out though, is THIS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vobp1r1BAzY
That’s mind numbingly intense. Very high strung. I contemplate emptying my coffers for it… well, maybe when the next sum of survival money arrives at my doorstep :p And also when I find out exactly what locales my Xbox is fine with taking, besides NTSC-J.
And the paths thing, I think it’s because I saw a vid of the last boss fight, or something.
There’s a hardcover guide book to 13 >.>? How’s that for fancifying… One of these days we’ll really run out of materials and have to start using dolphin skin.
oh it’s so worth it. I hope I’m not hyping you up too much. lol.
Xbox does not like region coding. But that’s okay, the north american release has both english and japanese voices. However, I’ve found the english voices to be VERY good (this from a person who normally hates dubs).
Region locking really turned me off of the 360, so I tend to get PS3 versions of games now.
Yes, the hardcover guide for FF13 is a limited edition guide. It looks hefty, and well worth the $25 I shelled out for it. 🙂
Completing StarOcean4 soon and will be moving on to FF13.
Still got a long way for RoF >_<
Hmmm… hard for me to decide which Kagami looks the best.. all of them looks good IMO ^^
A lot of people believe that Star Ocean 4 is an incredibly poorly done game – almost polar opposite to Resonance of Fate.
After hearing the impressions from many people who have played FFX13, I decided to play RoF first. 🙂
LoL…
the first thing screwed up when you start playing starocean is the camera view…
one of the worst camera view of all rpg ive played so far
Hmmm… I used to be able to stand playing through a terrible game, but nowadays with so many games backlogged, and so little time, I can’t afford to. If a game sucks, I have to stop playing it.
Sakura Wars So Long My Love. Just last night I saw an ad for it in my magazine…and I’m considering getting it. I usually like games that have a sim aspect to it (ex: Thousand Arms, AR Tonelico, Persona 3). When I get home though I want to see if RosenQueen has any of the bonis packages still available for PS2. I have a Wii but I’ve read a few reviews that said the Wii doesn’t always respond accurately in this game.
It’s unfortunate that Rosenqueen sold out of their PS2 stock, so you won’t be able to get the hardcover art book. Hurry up with it though, as most retailers are running out of stock! You may have to resort to ebay VERY soon!
Yup, I already did have to resort to eBay. I was shocked that Amazon was sold out of this game on PS2, I debated getting it on Wii but the reviews on the controls weren’t encouraging. But using eBay wasn’t so bad. It ended up being the cheapest option I could find. It was under $50 new with shipping. Although I’m a bit sad to not have that large art book. BUT you snooze you lose! It’s just how it goes.
The artbook is quite nice, but in the end, it is just an artbook, so it’s not a significant loss. $50 is actually pretty good! Rosenqueen was selling it at that price (plus artbook) I’m expecting this game to become even more rare, and may go up in price. You’re right – you snooze, you lose. So consider that you still got in on it early enough before the prices skyrocket out of control! 😀
WTF!
so skillful with photoshop D:
makes me look ashame of myself. I seriously need to start working on it,.
Lovely result of new Miku! =)
Fantastic job, really~
Thanks Fabrice! I sometimes get that kind of “WTF” reaction from commenters. 🙂
Don’t be ashamed! Just keep working on it! 😀
Nicely done! I prefer the one with orange hair, the bow looks nicer from that image.
Thanks softz! They’re all just color changes. I didn’t actually repaint anything.
Whoa nice job on the photo shop stuff I need to learn how to use it, I love to draw with Sai so Photo shop would be nice.
thanks! Actually, I’d love to learn Sai. It seems like such a great program. I just need time! 😛
Cute~~~~~~ ^_^ can you paint mine use real brush not photoshop for the real nendo ??
ha ha unfortunately, I’m not THAT good. :3
Those bunny ears were such a cute touch and work so well! XD
I really envy your photoshop skills!
Thanks Taketombo!
That’s some awesome photoshop skills. I really enjoy watching you work. Love the video!
Thanks Yi! Happy that you’ve become a regular here! 😀
Nice bunny ears =D
How did you get them, anyway? Lol, awesome photoshop btw
Get what? The bunny ears? They are photoshopped! 😀
I haven’t expressed my love and gratitude here in your blog yet (and yet it’s everywhere by now. LOL) Thank you so much for this! ?
It’s F-ing brilliant! ? F for the f-ing, fabulous and fantastic cuteness overload! >ww<
Ugh. D: The brackets ate my comment TAT;; I should remember not to use them in comment boxes.
Well… I hope I did the banner justice! ^^ I’m deeply honored to have your work on my site as my banner X3
Thanks Ninjovee! I had a lot of fun making the banner for you! Dang, now I really wonder what the rest of your comment consisted of after the brackets! o_-
Originally, I was going to give her a Nekomimi, but thought better of it, since she’s supposed to represent a rabbit while Konata represents a cat.
You did a great job with decorating the banner. I love it!!
Awesome! You even thought of the reference! X3
Hahaha. The brackets ate up a longer version of my happiness and gratitude. Hahaha! ^^
Thank you very much! :3 I think that banner will stay for quite a while too! ^^