lots of things (including things that are pictures)
Hooray! The illustrations are done and the scanning is done and the fixing is done, so I can spend my time on more frivolous pursuits! (and then work on the cover tomorrow!)
So I'll start with an icon meme from double_dear!
1. Reply to this post, and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee. Woo!
Starting with Kanoko! From Oyayubihime Infinity (published by CMX♥), and my newest icon! I think I was writing about glasses, and/or about Fujieda Toru (the mangaka of Oyayubihime Infinity), and I was like, "Why don't I have an icon of a character in glasses??" So I looked through my folder of Fujieda-art and made an icon of this one, because I like the colour scheme and her expression is interesting. And then I made it my default icon, because I was sick of my old default icon. And I like glasses. Kanoko's glasses were the reason I picked up Oyayubihime Infinity in the first place-shoujo heroines with glasses are so rare! Sigh...
Anyway, in the process of making this into an icon and saving it, I accidentally saved over the original image it was from!!! So now this is all I've got left of it, because it's long gone from Fujieda-sensei's website! *sob* The illustration was also used for a French(?) edition of one of the volumes, but the colour scheme/image quality that I could find weren't as good... Alas.
This, along with a few other icons I use or have used in the past, is an illustration by Tadatsu Youko from a work called Rosalind no Shouzou (ロザリンドの肖像). I haven't actually read any of her work, but I find her old-fashioned shoujo artwork particularly stylish and cute and nice. And this particular illustration seemed a little different from the happy-cheerful faces I usually go for, so I figured it was good to have for some variety.
The artist for this image is... *looks* Akechi Shou? The title is Shourui Higan Shimatsunin (鳥類悲願始末人). I don't know anything about her(?) but this image stood out to me as rather awesome. I think it's the neon pink 80s hair :D I added the flower-print overlay myself, though I can't remember what I was thinking at the time...
The reason I have all these old shoujo-manga illustrations of titles I've never read is because at some point I decided it'd be cool to see how art styles have evolved over the decades, by collecting cover images from all those decades. Eventually I ended up specializing in Hana to Yume covers (as my current reading grew to include more and more of their titles), and as of now I have a folder with 2,015 HtY cover images, organized by release-order... It's dangerous to be an obsessive shoujo-manga nerd. But being able to look at the artwork makes it allllll worth it! And it's fun to look at the covers and wonder what they might be about... Kawahara Izumi's illustrations, for example, are so light and airy and charming. But I am getting a bit off topic. On to the next icon!
I actually have read some of this author's work! (thanks to scans...) Yamaguchi Miyuki is my favourite artist whose work has yet to be released here. I'm still hoping for someday~ This is from the series Tussie Mussie (I think that's how it's commonly translated; it was originally タッジー マッジー), which is a sequel to Viehmannin wa Utau, which was my introduction to her work. Yamaguchi-sensei's artwork is gorgeous, and her stories are fascinating, and her characters are delightful. I love it all! I chose this image for an icon because I like the versatility(?) of a character covering her face. Who can say what she might be thinking?
And this one's by Tadatsu Youko again! (by the way, so is the pink flowery icon I used for this post). From the series Bye Bye Boyfriend-dono! (which I find a hilarious title-one version of the cover has her tossing a bunch of torn up photos with a cutesy wink and smile). It was my default icon for a while, until I got tired of seeing it all the time, and now I hardly ever use it. That makes me a little sad, since I originally chose it because I like the silly-cute expression of the girl. Maybe if I give it a few months or a year, I'll be able to bring it back into regular use. A lot of Tadatsu-sensei's early works seem by their covers and titles to be incredibly silly and cute (like "Hello! Ouji-sama" or "Okane Tamemasu!", which double_dear previously translated as "I'm going to save up money!"), which of course makes me want to read them all the more.
In conclusion-I could stare at old (and new) shoujo manga artwork all day. I just love it!
And now for some fashion!!
Yesterday I was trying out a sort-of Saki (no, that's too scary) Yuki Sugimoto look, letting my hair dry curly and fall in front of my face. But once it dried it got a little crazy (poofy), and also got in my eyes and made it hard to see what I was drawing... (I wonder how he ever manages to cut people's hair with his own hair in his eyes??) so I had to pull it back a bit. For Wednesday's pose, I kept worrying as I drew it that it would look like a zombie pose rather than something flowy and graceful (not that the one makes any more sense than the other, but I'm not really into zombies...) Hopefully I avoided undead-ness, though.
Finally...
This just came out in Japan!! (not that we're anywhere close to volume 28 in the US, but I can still look at the pretty cover!) Isn't it lovely? It's the winter illustration, so the next volume will start a new round of seasonal illustrations. Exciting! But this round that just ended has been really nice. I kept this image on my desktop and looked at it now and then while I was working. Kaze Hikaru always makes me happy...
So I'll start with an icon meme from double_dear!
1. Reply to this post, and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee. Woo!
Starting with Kanoko! From Oyayubihime Infinity (published by CMX♥), and my newest icon! I think I was writing about glasses, and/or about Fujieda Toru (the mangaka of Oyayubihime Infinity), and I was like, "Why don't I have an icon of a character in glasses??" So I looked through my folder of Fujieda-art and made an icon of this one, because I like the colour scheme and her expression is interesting. And then I made it my default icon, because I was sick of my old default icon. And I like glasses. Kanoko's glasses were the reason I picked up Oyayubihime Infinity in the first place-shoujo heroines with glasses are so rare! Sigh...
Anyway, in the process of making this into an icon and saving it, I accidentally saved over the original image it was from!!! So now this is all I've got left of it, because it's long gone from Fujieda-sensei's website! *sob* The illustration was also used for a French(?) edition of one of the volumes, but the colour scheme/image quality that I could find weren't as good... Alas.
This, along with a few other icons I use or have used in the past, is an illustration by Tadatsu Youko from a work called Rosalind no Shouzou (ロザリンドの肖像). I haven't actually read any of her work, but I find her old-fashioned shoujo artwork particularly stylish and cute and nice. And this particular illustration seemed a little different from the happy-cheerful faces I usually go for, so I figured it was good to have for some variety.
The artist for this image is... *looks* Akechi Shou? The title is Shourui Higan Shimatsunin (鳥類悲願始末人). I don't know anything about her(?) but this image stood out to me as rather awesome. I think it's the neon pink 80s hair :D I added the flower-print overlay myself, though I can't remember what I was thinking at the time...
The reason I have all these old shoujo-manga illustrations of titles I've never read is because at some point I decided it'd be cool to see how art styles have evolved over the decades, by collecting cover images from all those decades. Eventually I ended up specializing in Hana to Yume covers (as my current reading grew to include more and more of their titles), and as of now I have a folder with 2,015 HtY cover images, organized by release-order... It's dangerous to be an obsessive shoujo-manga nerd. But being able to look at the artwork makes it allllll worth it! And it's fun to look at the covers and wonder what they might be about... Kawahara Izumi's illustrations, for example, are so light and airy and charming. But I am getting a bit off topic. On to the next icon!
I actually have read some of this author's work! (thanks to scans...) Yamaguchi Miyuki is my favourite artist whose work has yet to be released here. I'm still hoping for someday~ This is from the series Tussie Mussie (I think that's how it's commonly translated; it was originally タッジー マッジー), which is a sequel to Viehmannin wa Utau, which was my introduction to her work. Yamaguchi-sensei's artwork is gorgeous, and her stories are fascinating, and her characters are delightful. I love it all! I chose this image for an icon because I like the versatility(?) of a character covering her face. Who can say what she might be thinking?
And this one's by Tadatsu Youko again! (by the way, so is the pink flowery icon I used for this post). From the series Bye Bye Boyfriend-dono! (which I find a hilarious title-one version of the cover has her tossing a bunch of torn up photos with a cutesy wink and smile). It was my default icon for a while, until I got tired of seeing it all the time, and now I hardly ever use it. That makes me a little sad, since I originally chose it because I like the silly-cute expression of the girl. Maybe if I give it a few months or a year, I'll be able to bring it back into regular use. A lot of Tadatsu-sensei's early works seem by their covers and titles to be incredibly silly and cute (like "Hello! Ouji-sama" or "Okane Tamemasu!", which double_dear previously translated as "I'm going to save up money!"), which of course makes me want to read them all the more.
In conclusion-I could stare at old (and new) shoujo manga artwork all day. I just love it!
And now for some fashion!!
Yesterday I was trying out a sort-of Saki (no, that's too scary) Yuki Sugimoto look, letting my hair dry curly and fall in front of my face. But once it dried it got a little crazy (poofy), and also got in my eyes and made it hard to see what I was drawing... (I wonder how he ever manages to cut people's hair with his own hair in his eyes??) so I had to pull it back a bit. For Wednesday's pose, I kept worrying as I drew it that it would look like a zombie pose rather than something flowy and graceful (not that the one makes any more sense than the other, but I'm not really into zombies...) Hopefully I avoided undead-ness, though.
Finally...
This just came out in Japan!! (not that we're anywhere close to volume 28 in the US, but I can still look at the pretty cover!) Isn't it lovely? It's the winter illustration, so the next volume will start a new round of seasonal illustrations. Exciting! But this round that just ended has been really nice. I kept this image on my desktop and looked at it now and then while I was working. Kaze Hikaru always makes me happy...