Hunting the Elusive

Takeshita Kenjirou is the proprietor of the rather obscure Garou Kissa Hapido circle and is the illustrator for today's release. This calendar came as a kind of random thing with my previous previous previous deputy shipment (I think) and was totally random, but I decided to scan it. It actually took me some time to track down the site of the illustrator. [Download: RAR][Directory]

This calendar was released at VOC@LOID MASTER 2 event in December. I believe it was a Vocaloid-only event run in parallel with Comiket. It's pretty good value with 28 pages: 12 calendar pages, 12 colour illustration pages, two preview thumbnail pages and two for the cover.

As for the style...well it really depends on what you like. It's pretty cute but I find it not too refined for my tastes (needs more gradients). Still, it's a rare work and the artist doesn't get much exposure, so I'm just putting it out there.

This release actually has been a long time coming. It was scanned before Delphinium died, and in fact it was during the processing of these scans that Delphinium blue-screened on me. I finally got around to finishing it off and cutting out the pictures (I had compiled the pictures into big pictures so I could parallel process less files).

Scan settings: 600DPI, but I couldn't get it to process properly, so I did one pass on GREYCstoration, then resized to 50% before going another (lighter) pass. Would have been ideal if I could leave it at the original size, but sometimes you can't push these things.

BTW, turns out there is a way to batch process using GREYCstoration. You have to use a French GUI for the program. Make sure you install ImageMagick as the GUI uses the command line version of GREYCstoration. It's a bit awkward to configure, and the dialogue boxes are wonky in Vista/2008, but it's manageable. Make sure to use the plugin in GIMP in parallel to guide your settings.