Hunting the Elusive

Another full-colour illustration book from WNB’s Mako Tatekawa, released 26 April 2009 (Comic 1, I believe), 20 pages of great art by this classic favourite of mine. I know some readers aren’t big fans, but hey, feel free to skip this post. This thin book, Shikisai * Qualia (色彩*Qualia), covers Clannad After, Code Geass, Hayate no Gotoku, Maria+holic, K-On!, Kara no Kyoukai, Hetalia Axis Powers, and of course the mainstay of this artist, Fate/Stay Night (but just a bit). In a way, one could say WNB Mark has caught up on the contemporary anime viewing, which is always a good thing. [Release] [PNG]

The cover illustration of Shikisai * Qualia is an original illustration, I believe. I actually recognise those headphones, and in fact own a pair. It was a favourite in Japan when I was over there, but personally I find the sound has nothing on my AKGs.

One of the great things about WNB is the amount of work put into the design of the books, not just the illustrations. You get elegant filigree patterns and flower things everywhere.

Right off the bat, we get page spreads everywhere in this book. Had to join the scans, though with 64-bit Photoshop automation and this new computer, things are easy.

We then get alt-colour of the original character illustration from the front cover, as well as a bondage C.C. with Zero’s hand on her.

A page spread of cross-dressing Hayate…(uhh…see Merun’s comment). Trap, my friends. BTW, heard about the new Idol Master Dearly Stars game, with the trap character?

Another spread, this time on the centrefold, featuring Matsurika from Maria Holic, Mio (!) from K-On! and Shiki of Kara no Kyoukai, wearing that same kimono as on my figure. WNB + K-On! = Win

Hetalia Axis Powers spread. Who is the pretty girl? I had problems with the Katakana, but found out at last it is Liechtenstein. She’s so cute!

Uh…I guess Yuuna Setsu counts as a guest illustrator… They’re from the same group FFS, and most people can’t tell the difference in styles. But basically you can compare their Hetalia characters, and enjoy the Mariya Shidou.

Did we say full-colour? Oh well, off-set printing rendered in colour, of sorts, I guess. These are Fate illustrations used for various goods, like plastic bags, I think.

I skipped the opening spread, which is just this black background thing. Note there are colour difference between the sides. That’s due to the one side being printed on the card stock for the cover, the other on the thinner page stock. Also has a little Midori from Midori Style II. Cutie.

Technical:

This release was scanned twice. The first time was with the OpticBook 4600, before I bought the Epson V300 Photo scanner and did it again with properly calibrated colours. I must say I am not too happy with the OpticBook 4600’s colours, because it is impossible to colour-calibrate, and it turns out stuff which is often too contrasty and over-exposed. I am in touch with their tech people to hopefully maybe get them to write a firmware to fix this problem.

So as I explained in a previous post, I will use the V300 predominantly, but use the 4600 when I need to scan bound books/mags or when the colours are not too subtle. The V300 could be used for this post because the book is bound with staples, yay.

Oh, I have also changed the auto-credit-when-hotlink web-watermark thing to something a bit more visible. As always, the releases themselves are not marked in any way, and you really don’t want to be saving 800px pictures anyway.

This is also due to my changeover from IrfanView to ACDSee as my primary image viewer and basic editor. The lack of support from IrfanView for Unicode directory structures and filenames is a game-breaker, especially for someone who dabbles with Japanese media. I’m surprised I put up with it for this long.