Cuffs / Sphere / Cubes – Several artist

Cuffs is the eroge company behind Amesarasa, Sakura Musubi, Garden, and more. They always have some stuff for the Comiket, especially the wallpaper collection and calendar which feature several artist, and it seems they are also collaborating with other companies. Notably for the calendar, there is Karory, Izumi Sakurazawa, Kantoku, Gayarou, Cuteg, Natsume Eri, and for the wallpaper, H2SO4, Kurot, Darupu and moreee. I never got any of their previous collection, but I always found them really good from the rip I have seen.

Aside of this, there are some rough sketch sold, NSFW dakimakura.

Palette – Izumi Tsubasu

Contrary to Cuff, Palette only has one artist, Izumi Tsubasu, who did the illustration for their last eroge, Mashiro Iro Symphony – Love is pure white. The set is of course based on their last game, and of course, I can’t read what is written *sigh*, but it seems really nice, especially the mugs lol. I can see a paper bag, a shitajiki , and I will guess that number 3 are stickers.

Palette will also sell a dakimakura of the heroine, Sena Airi, the OST of the game, and some pillows.

Suzuya – Ryohka

I’m disappointed… no sign of icon. 03. Instead we have a set with a NSFW oppai mouse pad, a Ranka calendar, which see to feature only one illustration, and a keychain. The set is in a funny file, the front with school mizugi and stockings illustration, and the opening side has been cut and designed to look like… the bottom part of the school mizugi! Oppai mouse pad were already quite stunning when I first discovered them, but a mizugi file… I’m simply flabbergasted.

Not included in the set is Suzu:can Vol. 17, which is a collection of hentai doujinshi by Ryohka.

Pixel Phantom – Kamiya Yuu

Pixel Phantasmagoria is an interesting doujinshi for 500¥; it has 14 pages of color illustration, and 30 pages of monochrome. It seems to be original art, as I like them. Maybe I will give a try to this artist.

The rest is Touhou related, with a 20 pages hentai doujinshi, and towels.

Mizukichan – Goto-P

Goto-P is simple like his/her awesome art; there is only one doujin. P6+ is just 20 B5 pages collecting recent artworks. I don’t need anything else, except maybe money now.

Carnelian

So much stuff… that I had to photoshop a bit every sample. First of all, the 25th volume of BENIGYOKUZUI, full color 14 doujinshi with Bayonetta, Macross Frontier, Nyan Koi, Persona 4, Azumanga, Evangelion, Umineko, Bakemonogatari. This could be interesting to get. Then there is a doujinshi with the art of Kao no Nai Tsuki, both color and monochrome which I’m not really interested in.

In fact, I prefer the winter set, featuring idols in a booklet, a bag, a snow ball, with several illustration and a snow ball, in which you can change the background with several illustration, and they are double faced with a calendar at the back. Finally, the set includes 2 random badges. Not in the set is some kind of towel or blanket.

Nick Ninth – Onineko

Onineko will illustrate another doujinshi for Nick Ninth. A B5, 18 pages doujinshi in full color, featuring a story. There is also a CD bundled with it. I have already pre-ordered it on Toranoana and this will be my first doujin from Onineko, yay.

Onineko will also be in a collaboration doujinshi with Asida Cako, Happa, Hara Yuuu and Noasan(?). I don’t know any of these artists, but a quick look at their site is rather reassuring, they are not bad.

Shimeko

This doujinshi is also a bit disappointing, for the simple fact that it’s a collaboration one. It’s 52 B5 pages with artist I have never heard of. You can see the full preview of the doujinshi by clicking on the image; it’s simply too large for my blog xD. The theme is Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, and Summer Wars. I don’t think I will get it.

REI’s ROOM – REI
Private Garden – Tsurusaki Takahiro

REI will have a collaboration with Tsurusaki Takahiro. First of all, there is 2 clear files. REI will illustrate Nene Anegasaki from Love Plus and Tsurusaki illustrate the cute Midori and Milk. No news from GREENWOOD on that end. Then there is a bag, with the same illustration for REI while Tsurusaki drew Bakemonogatari this time.

Then REI will publish a doujin, with 75 pages collecting his sketches for the eroge Magic A Rider

More Love+, with pillow cases, bed sheet, T-shirt.

And to finish, some Touhou, a 20 B5 pages monochrome doujinshi, with a manga inside, and more pillows! Too many pillows for my own good here…

Snow Ring – Dmyo

Dmyo is rather easy. Another Dmyotic, 16 pages. We can expect it to be full color, and it seems to feature Vocaloid, Black Rock Shooter, K-on, Touhou. Otherwise, Dmyotic 3.0 seems to make a reapearance and finally, there will be a DS case. I might get Dmyotic 6.0, at the end to round up my order.

Sugar-Ringo – Juna

A Korean artist I discovered while looking for the C77 artwork on Pixiv. Her style remind me a lot of Dmyo, but otherwise, not much information on the doujinshi for C77, except that the title, Irogami and Donuts Hole, the latter being an illustration book.

Strawberry Pink – Cuteg
White World – Piah

And to finish, some Cuteg. First doujinshi is a collaboration between Cuteg and Piah. It’s based on the manga Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai which I really like. But The problem is the lack of information on her doujin, either on her website or her Pixiv. Sweet Impact has the subtitle girl’s collection, so I may pray it’s full color. It might be one of this random doujinshi I might try to get not knowing what the content is… Then Cuteg will have some of her old publication

The road start from the white paper, and I will go until it get digitalized. Second article will be about colors on screen, then colors in printing, and finally paper and screening. I’m also introducing the Shadowbox on the blog since the Lightbox didn’t work. To get the full size of an image, you will have first to click on it, then save the image on your computer.

Computer has changed how most manga and anime are drawn today. They used to be on celluloid, on Deleter’s paper, with different tools to draw. Now, a good part of the process is on computer. One things can still be done on paper, the sketches. As far as I have seen, some artist still does it, others just sketch directly in their favorite drawing software.

Sketches are fascinating; it’s the idea of an artist as rough as it can be. I also like looking at the tool they use. Judging by the strokes, Aoi Nishimata seems to use a ballpen, Tanihara Natsuki use a pen, maybe the famous G one, or a marker but I guess the majority use a pencil, not necessarily a black one though; blue pencil are not scannable for instance.

The next step is inking, and can be done either on computer or still on paper, with pens, marker, or brushes. But be it at the end of the inking, or of the sketches, one important step is the scanning if the artist started on paper.
Scanning takes the drawing from the analog space to the digital space. From here, is set in stone the resolution of the drawing.

Let’s try to explain it briefly; one characteristic of a scanner is the resolution, expressed in DPI, Dots Per Inch. In short, a line of one inch is sampled to a certain number of dot. The more dot, the more precise and detailed it’s.
From what I have seen, artists usually either prepare their illustration for Internet or for printing. I think it’s the most visible in the Pixiv Artist Book 2009 which is full of small illustration. If the image were prepared for Internet, the resolution need to be high, but on paper, at a 300 DPI printing resolution, it will look small. I think some artist just didn’t have high resolution image. Here is a list of example of image resolution needed for a full page print at certain DPI:

• B5 page, 300 DPI, 2079×2953
• A4 page, 300 DPI, 2480×3508
• B5 page, 600 DPI, 4157×5906
• A4 page, 600 DPI, 4961×7016

And to illustrate, here are some original digital file, from Izumi Sakurazawa‘s doujin CD, Chronological, and Goto-P‘s Peeping-P doujin CD. It’s rare to get such file, but here are files which could be used for nice printing.
These, insane resolution requires, aside of the usual Intuos 3/4 tablet and the scanner, a very good computer who can handle these images. Kantoku for instance has a Intel Core2 Quad Q9550, with 8GB of RAM, 5 GB are used as a Ram Disk, a GeForce 9600GT/512MB, and 1TB of hardrive. This is a professional computer which is really scaled for high resolution images, as the most important part is the RAM.

So, what should be remembered is the resolution of an image for a decent printing; it’s freaking huge.