Artbooks + mini comics EYEBLEED
I'm having a small artblock, so time to update on my latest additions to the collection, including stuff I bought in Japan.
Kimono Hime 7 magazine
Beautiful photos and nice layout. My only kimono related purchase in Japan, and very happy with it.
(click for larger!)
Food Girls comic/artbook
From what I can understand without reading the text, the 'story' is about a team of Fruit girls who get in various mini adventures that require the help of their magic fridge. The blue dude opens it and a new addition to the team steps out, fit to solve the problem at hand. The twist is that each little story starts out incredibly cute and innocent, and ends up ... not so innocent. So for example, when Strawberry-chan can't stay awake to study for her exam, she gets help from a Coffee bean lady (with an incredible design) who grinds coffee between her huge breasts and let the poor girl drink it straight from her bossom. It's all still pretty innocent and more teasing than anything else.
I bought this book for the irresistible original and fun designs of the girls, but the stories are so silly that they make me laugh too. I mean, Banana chan turns out to have a fake tan that you can peel off. :P
Disgaea 3 Artbook.
Always liked the characters in this game, and the illustrations, despite the artist's consistent problem with drawing feet (he does get a little better at it over the years though) I like how they focus more on silhouette and strong shapes than details, and great simple strong colors. The book has a lot of uninteresting junk too, but still very happy with it. I found a site that collects scans of a lot of different game art. It's fun to see the good, the bad, and the really really bad art there, and to study what works and what doesn't in game design and illustration. They seem to focus on the more popular titles, but I did find some new fun stuff i didn't know before. --> Creative Cut game art galleries
Eric Canete skechbook
Beautiful cover that is done by a different artist and seems to have little in common with the content... Strange, but still a great book. The sketches are brilliant as always, it's great to have them in paper form.
Mystery book
I have no idea what it's called, who made it, if it's from a game or series, or just a book... but I do know it's my favourite random discovery of my trip. It has big color illustrations with fantastic lines and details, in an almost- vector style. Inbetween are greytone panels that suggest a story, with vertical textboxes that resemble old Japanese prints. It feels more like a fairytale picturebook than a comic to me. In the back are very nice concept sheets of all the fun side characters, and this part suggests it's a game because of the many designsheets for villains, allies, weapons etc. Whatever it is, the designs are fabulous (a few are too cluttered, but most are very well balanced) and with beau ti ful color use. They even made crests for many characters, including those based on typical Japanese folklore animals.
Mini comics
Found these at the Utrecht 'Comic Art fair', a nice event that included young underground artists and veteran dutch comic giants, showing their alternative work and paintings. I bought these are two AWESOME mini comics of 4 pages (and 4 panels). Left one by Marjolein Verbruggen is called 'The Toilet visit' and right one by Cynthia Lim without title. It's a very refreshing minature plot, feels like poetry in comic form. Below are the last pages of the 'stories'.
I ordered some exciting new books for my birthday, can't wait! There's definitely going to be another artbook journal dump before 2010
In other news: STRESS1: Wacom dA contest deadline is already in 8 days and I haven't even started yet... STRESS2: It's the 1st of December today? WTFFFFFFF what happened to 2009?? D: HAPPY1: First day at Waterstone's yesterday was awesome! Great colleagues, nice customers, my giftwrapping skills are already +100, hardly feels like work at all (or is that just the first day rush?). Tomorrow groundfloor till, let's see how I handle that...
Kimono Hime 7 magazine
Beautiful photos and nice layout. My only kimono related purchase in Japan, and very happy with it.
(click for larger!)
Food Girls comic/artbook
From what I can understand without reading the text, the 'story' is about a team of Fruit girls who get in various mini adventures that require the help of their magic fridge. The blue dude opens it and a new addition to the team steps out, fit to solve the problem at hand. The twist is that each little story starts out incredibly cute and innocent, and ends up ... not so innocent. So for example, when Strawberry-chan can't stay awake to study for her exam, she gets help from a Coffee bean lady (with an incredible design) who grinds coffee between her huge breasts and let the poor girl drink it straight from her bossom. It's all still pretty innocent and more teasing than anything else.
I bought this book for the irresistible original and fun designs of the girls, but the stories are so silly that they make me laugh too. I mean, Banana chan turns out to have a fake tan that you can peel off. :P
Disgaea 3 Artbook.
Always liked the characters in this game, and the illustrations, despite the artist's consistent problem with drawing feet (he does get a little better at it over the years though) I like how they focus more on silhouette and strong shapes than details, and great simple strong colors. The book has a lot of uninteresting junk too, but still very happy with it. I found a site that collects scans of a lot of different game art. It's fun to see the good, the bad, and the really really bad art there, and to study what works and what doesn't in game design and illustration. They seem to focus on the more popular titles, but I did find some new fun stuff i didn't know before. --> Creative Cut game art galleries
Eric Canete skechbook
Beautiful cover that is done by a different artist and seems to have little in common with the content... Strange, but still a great book. The sketches are brilliant as always, it's great to have them in paper form.
Mystery book
I have no idea what it's called, who made it, if it's from a game or series, or just a book... but I do know it's my favourite random discovery of my trip. It has big color illustrations with fantastic lines and details, in an almost- vector style. Inbetween are greytone panels that suggest a story, with vertical textboxes that resemble old Japanese prints. It feels more like a fairytale picturebook than a comic to me. In the back are very nice concept sheets of all the fun side characters, and this part suggests it's a game because of the many designsheets for villains, allies, weapons etc. Whatever it is, the designs are fabulous (a few are too cluttered, but most are very well balanced) and with beau ti ful color use. They even made crests for many characters, including those based on typical Japanese folklore animals.
Mini comics
Found these at the Utrecht 'Comic Art fair', a nice event that included young underground artists and veteran dutch comic giants, showing their alternative work and paintings. I bought these are two AWESOME mini comics of 4 pages (and 4 panels). Left one by Marjolein Verbruggen is called 'The Toilet visit' and right one by Cynthia Lim without title. It's a very refreshing minature plot, feels like poetry in comic form. Below are the last pages of the 'stories'.
I ordered some exciting new books for my birthday, can't wait! There's definitely going to be another artbook journal dump before 2010
In other news: STRESS1: Wacom dA contest deadline is already in 8 days and I haven't even started yet... STRESS2: It's the 1st of December today? WTFFFFFFF what happened to 2009?? D: HAPPY1: First day at Waterstone's yesterday was awesome! Great colleagues, nice customers, my giftwrapping skills are already +100, hardly feels like work at all (or is that just the first day rush?). Tomorrow groundfloor till, let's see how I handle that...