Hunting the Elusive

ISBN 978-4-7580-7088-1, at a cost of 2800 yen, has a release date of 1 August 2010, but somehow Amazon got it to me last week. It contains 112 pages of illustrations, presumably sourced from Yuri Hime magazines in the dates ranging from July 2005 to June 2010. Artworks are divided into various sections, including Cover Works, Pin-ups, Colour Comic Works, Other Works and Comic Cover Works. I will note now that Yuri Hime Color Artworks Chronicle contains some nudity and girls making out and thus is not suited for the general audience. This review post skirts all that, of course, so it’s safe to read. [Review][PNG]

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I got the Hatsune Miku VN02 mix 1/8 PVC figure from Max Factory in the mail a few weeks back, and while I already had a plan in mind for shooting it, it took me some time to do the research and measurements, then get the proper material for it. In the end, all that planning didn’t turn out to be needed, as my first experimental trial immediately yielded the results I wanted. The location wasn’t the best in the world, nor the choicest of setups, but I grabbed the chance while I had it and here we are. Unlike a traditional figure review shoot, I didn’t take the whole figure overview shots this time, but the concept itself is rather stylised anyway. I’ll still do my best to give a fair technical review of the figure though. [Gallery]

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duca/ELK released beautiful vanity in October 2009. It is a Touhou fanbook and fairly thin at 16 pages, though it is actually pretty much made up of page spreads. The reason I chose to buy and review beautiful vanity is due to the slightly unusual character style that duca/ELK has, as well as the use of texture and the way the lines are rendered in the art. Given these subtleties, I think it is worth keeping an eye on this artist, and I am looking forward to some great things coming out from this illustrator. [Release] [PNG]

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Some of you might notice that I took leave from work during the previous week (although I didn’t say much about it), but did not post up many/any new releases until today. There’s a reason for that, and it’s because aside from some cosplay photoshoots, I was helping my sister and her fiancé take some photos which they will compile into an engagement-period album for their wedding. In a complete reversal of the normal situation, it just so happens this weekend is entirely free (while the week was pretty much filled up with shoots), so that has allowed me to catch up on some organisational work at home, and I am anticipating a dump of load when I return to company work as well. Still, here are some photos looking at the past week.

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Microstoria (Tommy) released Phantast on 20 Juanuary 2010 to the Korean market. Of course, Microstoria is a Korean artist, while Phantast is a Touhou fanbook. It is 24 pages long, full colour, and counting the cover, has five page spread illustrations. In terms of style, it’s not a revolutionary new way of looking at Touhou characters, and far from being a dark depiction of the genre (because Touhou is pretty close to being a genre), it instead uses a very light pallet, with fine lines and colours, as well as gently graduating shading. In terms of the faces of the characters, I must say that at times the chubby look does not suit some of the characters and angles, but most of the time it works well for the cute impression. [Release][PNG]

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Some longer-term readers of this blog might remember that I had an anti-hotlinking policy activated on this site some time ago, but I turned it off since people using some RSS clients were affected by this. After a long time of not checking my site stats, I went in today and found, to my horror, that at least six of the top 20 referring sites to here are forums/blogs hotlinking images (and the list contains various Google versions as well). In particular, after Google.com, the second to fourth place holders were taken up by a restricted access Chinese forum, a blogspot-based content aggregator, and some Russian torrent site, respectively.

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Apple Comics is one of the largest series of art publications in Korea. This series of books is also published by Brand New Days, which executed the Poppic magazine. Apple Selection Concept Art Vol 1: Last Summer, ISBN 9788993685107, was released December 2009 for 12,000 Korean won by Seoul Visual Works. I think it is a collection of artworks, some of which were found elsewhere previously. In any case, 34 Korean artists are covered in Last Summer, and the theme, as suggested by the title, is summer. Let’s explore Korean artists’ concept of summer! [Review] [PNG]

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At last, after multiple cancellations and delays, it is here! Range Murata Anime Works 1998-2006 Prismtone ISBN 9784862690937, 3800 yen (excl tax), is 344 pages thick and is fairly substantial, especially for its price. It definitely feels really hefty, and the printing is of great quality too, with liberal use of silver foil both on the cover and in certain pages within. It is also strewn with fold-out pages throughout the book, and there are quite a bit of colour pages, although as expected of a design works collection, the majority of the volume consists of black and white character designs and mechanical sketches. [Review] [PNG]

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Weightlessness Space is a 2010 Korean doujin release, a 24 page collaboration between Chris, GAGA and HOODOG. Covering this is of course another step in Hunting the Elusive’s quest to cover art outside of the commonly perceived, and boy, have we found ourselves a treasure. This is especially true of the primary illustrator Chris, which Pixiv says is female. It is really hard to put into words what really strikes me about Korean art. Somehow when it is in front of you, it seems that although the subjects and overall look is familiar from the Japanese context, the feel is that of another paradigm. [Release][PNG]

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