My submission for the Otacute Mascot contest is complete, but it seems one of the criteria for selection is the number of comments my submission gets, so please help me out and comment on it here: https://blog.otacute.com/?p=2530
(There have been reports of otacute’s site having problems. If it fails to submit the first time, try again right away as it seems to work the second or third time)
A video of her being created. I started off using Sai for the sketch and line art, followed by coloring in Photoshop.
[pro-player]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ATqrH8Q3s4[/pro-player]
I tried a using the black and white shading and then adding color value to it after. The technique is interesting, and creates a very fast work flow, since you’re not concentrating on color while you’re shading. But it does present its own set of problems.
Firstly, all my tone work is on a single layer, so if I want to affect a certain area (say skin), I have to create a mask for it. Though admittedly, this is somewhat resolved since adding a color layer can work as a selection mask anyway.
Secondly, sometimes, tonal values don’t translate well once color is added to it. There’s much to be said about creating tone through color and saturation. When a simple color wash is applied to a tone, it tends to still look “flat”. Skin for example, contains several pigments, including purples, browns, pinks, yellows and more, depending on the lighting too. Admittedly, this can be alleviated a little bit by applying multiple colors to it, but it’s still not nearly as accurate, since the tone will affect the way the color appears.
I think that this tonal value with color layers technique is more suited to painter-style works as opposed to anime works, because with anime styles, the colors and contrast are very deliberately set.
When I created Okyuu-Chan, I decided that I really wanted to push that Otacute sells Japanese merchandise (not just figures). I figured a Japanese kimono would illustrate that. I had thought about a store clerk, or a delivery girl, but that’s been overdone in my opinion, and would fit any online retail store, really.
I had also thought about the cyber-online character or some variant, but it’s so… generic and meaningless. In all honesty, a kimono girl is far from original in and of itself too, but it is just a costume, and only a part of the whole.
The main attraction with Okyuu-Chan is the halo, and sakura blossom wings. The halo is obviously the Otacute logo itself, and the wings add a sort of surrealistic aura about her. See? One doesn’t have to be a cyber-girl to have a surrealistic look. 😛
Anyway, enough about that. Go leave me a comment here, and support Okyuu-Chan!
Please help her reach Mascot Status!
Other Things
So here’s the part of the blog post that I’m just gonna ramble about my life.
The last week or so has been a very different week for me. Typically, I get up in the morning, and I’m working on my computer pretty much until the end of the day. I cook dinner, wife gets home, and then we spend some time together, or I go back on the computer.
Instead, the whole of last week, I was reading a book called 4hr Work Week by Tim Ferris. Even if the concept of working only 4hrs a week seems ludicrous, some of the ideas in there for optimizing your life seem incredibly helpful.
One of the most important points I’ve come across is the 80/20 rule. Basically it’s 80% of the effect is caused by 20% of the source. Example: 80% of your grief comes from 20% of your clients. 80% of your output comes from 20% of your productivity, and so on and so on. Sometimes, that ratio is even greater. Musashi (The Book of Five Rings
“Do not spend time on wasteful activities.”
Seeing that parallel has made me take a closer look at my own life and figure out what is working and what isn’t. I know one thing is for sure, blogging and playing video games would be considered “wasteful activities” on a certain level. But as the saying goes, “All work and no play…”. What I do need is to find a balance that works better for me, and my sanity.
I’ve been reading several other books here and there (not within the week no), and I’ve been drawing several parallels between all of them, including the above mentioned, The Prince 
Speaking of games, I have been playing quite a bit of games lately. I had finally finished Sakura Wars V, and I do intend to blog about some of the amusing things about it. Right after it, I finished Heavy Rain
My toaster oven broke down. Actually quite a while ago. I was going to replace it, but never got around to it, because it still worked as a toaster. Just the oven function refused to work. I found that if I wanted to heat up something simple, like an egg tart, just using the toast function seemed to work okay. Anything bigger and I have to use the oven.
Some may say “Why have a toaster oven when you have an oven already?” Well, when you’re living as a family of two, you don’t make a lot of big things. Typically, the toaster oven is more than sufficient, though probably not as tasty.
So I continued to use this crippled toaster until one day, I decided “I’ve had ENOUGH!” and began to swear. Well, not really, but it’s a segue into the actual toaster oven I ended up buying:
I’d like to believe that I didn’t buy this toaster oven just because Gordon Ramsay’s face is on it. I’m usually not a sucker for brands, especially when it’s of someone who’s entire livelihood involves swearing and undermining poor defenseless people on television.
I bought this oven because it looks cooler than the one I currently own (you can sorta see it in the back), and it’s got these wicked neat LED lights on the knobs. See? I’m into aesthetics. Plus the price seemed reasonable. Does it work well? I don’t know yet. But from where I come from (Canada) customers can return products back to the store simply because they didn’t like it. Ah, the power…
It’s been a nice couple of days outside, and I took advantage of it yesterday by going up a mountain to take some pix. I was practicing doing HDRI and such, since I started reading a book about HDRI. Goodness I definitely learned a lot about aperture, exposure, ISO, and such. But not quite enough about HDRI itself.
Since I’m still lacking in skill to do HDRI, this shot is only a single exposure, unfortunately. But my point is, it was a nice day. And it’s equally nice today! Oooh the sounds of an ice cream truck! I should be outside right now! Seeya!
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Nice and kawaii mascot. Like the way how the halo represent the logo “O” of Otacute. And of course the petite wing and lovely kimono. =D
Sometimes its hard to judge which is wasteful activities. Among all the activites and to balance which one are the top priority is not easy either. >_<
Thanks Jun!
I think that deep down, we all know what is wasteful activity, but we delude ourselves by putting importance on it. Playing video games for example. It doesn’t actually contribute anything to your productivity, or make you better at life (hand-eye coordination aside. There are other ways to improve that anyway). But we put importance on it because it’s entertainment.
You could say that it’s human nature to be entertained, and productive. But one could easily spend the rest of his life entertained and not productively contribute to society. At the end of his life, where would he be? That question can actually be asked on a daily basis. The end result is just a compounding of that daily question. It definitely is a balance that needs to be achieved.
With that 80/20 rule, you could attempt to achieve 80% of that output with 20% of that productivity, optimize it, and spend the rest of that time being entertained.
My life has been pretty busy recently too. I don’t think I’ve played a video game for a month now and I still haven’t gotten around to reading the manga I bought last year. Most of my time is spent studying, working, or looking into grad schools.
Of course, I always make time for anime and a bit of blogging 🙂
Priorities, priorities! 🙂
Just like you, there was that period of time where I didn’t have time for gaming either. I felt pretty terrible, as you may recall. So hopefully, for you, things will loosen up a bit soon so that you have more time to do things that you want.
Very cute mascot, I like all her expressions and that halo is a nice touch. There seems to be a problem with the otacute site though.
Thanks for sharing those book titles. The Book of Five Rings sounds interesting to me. ^^
Thanks for letting me know! Actually, another friend of mine told me that there was an issue too. He tried again and it worked.
I need to re-read Book of Five Rings again. I’ve fallen out of practice and need to be reminded about the importance of self-discipline…
Great piece of artwork my friend! I definitely voted for yours on the blog :). I know what you mean about the whole work in black and white and then apply color being kinda flat. It just never felt really…alive…to me when I used it. Who knows, maybe there’s some deeper trick to using it we’ve not yet figured out? I’ve seen plenty of other artists approach art with this technique, so I imagine there’s some way to use it effectively across all styles.
I can understand what you mean about the ‘wasteful activities’ bit. Of course, sometimes without some of those activities as a person one would probably be riddled with unnecessary stress. Things especially like gaming from time to time can really dampen the buildup of stress I’ve found :). Of course, so too can talking with buddies over MSN whilst doing whatever one’s doing too.
That toaster oven looks sweet :O. It from the photo it looks almost like the way the Wii looks. Of course I bet it does look more metalic and not the ultra-clean white with blue accent aesthetic look. Originally that’s one of the things that attracted me to the Wii was the look anyway haha.
That photo you took is great. While you specified that you’re not too happy about it (I believe because you were trying to make an HDRi image, correct? Sorry if I seem a bit clueless about photography. Although I’d love to learn more if you know any good books or online reference! :D). I am very pleased though that you took the time to take that photo. It’s absolutely breathtaking :). Almost reminds me of a photo I took when I was back at college that had a similar feel to it (which is now the background image on my cell phone).
Here’s hoping that you get chosen ;). Btw, the ending made me laugh, literally, out loud haha. I wasn’t expecting it :).
Take care bud!
-Jason
Hey thanks! And thanks for voting. 🙂
I think I may abandon the black and white method, at least for anime-style drawings. There are other techniques that work better, and have a less restrictive workflow anyway. It works great for painter-style works and is less restrictive for that.
I’m trying HARD to eliminate wasteful activities. I get side-tracked very easily. I guess the best thing to do is periodically ask yourself “is what I am doing adding anything to my life?” I just read an article by Danny Choo last night about “Danny’s Pie”. 24hrs represented in a pie, divided into 3 8hr chunks. One of those chunks is taken up by sleep, the other by work. The piece you’re left with, about 4hrs is for commute, hygiene, health, food, etc. The remaining 4hrs is for personal time – self improvement, entertainment etc. Don’t waste that precious 4hrs.
NEETs have an advantage of owning two pieces of that pie. Don’t waste that either. 🙂
I didn’t do HDR on the mountain photo. Didn’t really have time to fully explore HDR at the moment anyway. It’s a relatively lower priority thing, but I’m definitely learning through the books I’m reading. 🙂
I fortunately, had my own ice cream in the fridge, so I just ate it while sitting outside. 🙂
Hmmm, I’m wondering what sort of wasteful activities you’re having to deal with at the moment :). And what you’re working to either remove or significantly reduce from being wasteful :).
Also, could you share what book it is you’re reading on HDR? I’d love to at least take a peek if nothing else hehe :).
Take care!
Has my vote for sure, priorities over my fav artists is the way to go, especially since your videos make good references when learning how to use Sai ^_^, although i personally do not go to Otacute for stuff though ;P
I’m flattered that I’m one of your favorite artists. I must keep working hard then! 🙂
Whoa im really blown away by your entry! I love the traditional look and the CG render
I love the kimono design – really hope you win!
“Kitchen ware you can swear by!” I lol’d XD
Thanks Taketombo. That actually means a lot to me, coming from a fellow artist. 🙂
Speaking of the toaster oven, I washed the grill trays it came with, and they started rusting!! You can see me doing a whole Gordon Ramsay! I might end up returning this oven. “GET THE F*CK OUT OF MY KITCHEN!!!”
Can’t say I’m fond of Otacute right now but good luck with your mascot submission I like the thought process behind it.
You just brought an interesting point to me, I too will try to work on finding a good work/play balanace.
I have only bought 1 item from Otacute so far, and it’s been a decent experience. Not really sure if I’d buy again, but not really sure why you’re not fond of Otacute.
Our time on this earth is limited. Gambatte!
lol i was gonna enter, but it appeared that a decade of not drawing and fresh use of a drawing tablet didnt work out too well. i worked on it a week before deadline so it wasnt too fun. i just dropped it an did something else.
well, i guess my life has been unproductive :<. i quit and i havnt touched any mmo games for almost half a year. although i still play half life 2 mods (which takes up hours). blogging apparently takes a significant amount of time (or maybe my inexperience) like 1-2 hours for 2-3 mediocre posts. school hasnt been too good. felt like i havnt accomplished jack shit, besides getting my bachelors soon.
Aww don’t feel bad! In fact, it seems to me like you’ve prioritized very well – concentrating on getting your bachelors, and spending time with what you are currently enjoying, which is Half Life 2 mods.
Blogging DOES take a significant amount of time, especially if you’re doing posts like mine! With the video processing, images, and the writing, it can take a total of 6hrs or more! O_o;
Take it easy, don’t be so hard on yourself. What you’re doing, some people can only dream of.
You have my mascot support 🙂 I’m curious to try Heavy Rain, at some point I’ll have to buy it. But in the meantime I really should defeat a few of the unplayed games I have piled up. I recently finished Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime and now I’m curious to play an actual Dargon Quest title. I try to be as efficient as possible about a lot of things in life, but I have my weaknesses. Shopping for clothes is something I’m very inefficient at, I contemplate a clothing purchase for a long time usually. I have a hard time deciding if I’m making a mistake or not on clothing stuff.
Thanks very much, lovelyduckie! 😀
It’s definitely worth playing Heavy Rain. Just don’t expect the plot to be awesome. If you suspend your belief, and expectations on a coherent plot, it’s a very good game.
If you want to play another DQ title, I heard the latest one on DS is very good and addictive. Keep in mind that Rocket Slime is not at all representative of the DQ series. DQ is totally hardcore level RPG.
I’m always indecisive when it comes to buying things in the store! So you’re not the only one! lol! Clothing is definitely harder to decide on though. I know because my wife shops. 😛
Wow, the creation of the mascot is very thoughtful and it really does look like it represent Otacute. Good job!
And one day me, my bro, and my cousins bought Heavy Rain at around 9pm, came home and played it until we finished the game which was around 5-6am. It’s a very good game and like you said, it’s similar to a movie, but an interactive and addicting one =)
Thanks Einen! I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t win, but that’s okay. There were some great entries, and I did get a lot of support.
I do have to admit, I really did like Heavy Rain. When all the crappy writing is forgiven, it’s a pretty good game/movie.
oh wow, did not realise need to have comments on the entry LOL! But well it was a contest with rather attractive prize ^^;;;
It was partly a comment contest, but it really wasn’t.
Yes, very nice prize! ^^