Hunting the Elusive

Yes, it’s time yet again for another of Tokiame’s quality works. Released Comic Market 76, Carefree Scribble Vol 4 is the latest of this artist’s fantastic Touhou-themed colour books. At 18 pages staple-bound, this is not a big volume, and also not all of it is in colour. However, Tokiame is one of the few artists whose black and white works are also worthy of attention, since most of them utilise an ink-brush style which differs from his CG-polished colour pictures. [Release] [PNG]

Tokiame seems to be using a fractals/marble design for the background of the covers of this book. Disappointingly, the cover reuses the Alice artwork within the book.

The landing page is a strange type of line art which seems to have edge-detect or some other filter applied to it.

A nice spread of Youmu. Note the detail on her sword, as well as the arboreal pattern within the darker blank region of the picture.

A look at the whole Alice picture from the cover. It’s fantastic, and I suspect she is Tokiame’s favourite character too.

A brush illustration, but coloured.

Gotta love the effect of a fish-eye lens rendering the world into roundness.

A very outstanding Reimu spread! In fact, the fox mask works so well, I think it should become a standard prop. I am also noticing the amount of detail Tokiame has put into the vegetation, be it trees in both this and the Youmu illustration, or the grass field for Alice’s.

A simpler spread, utilising the book’s marble/fractals pattern.

More coloured ink brush art!

The fact is, Tokiame’s rough “scribbles” are so outstanding in their own right, IMO he is rightly considered one of the top Touhou artists out there.

Tokiame also provided three digital wallpapers for a number of the illustrations in this book. I have provided them here for your pleasure.