asaka-lucy-touhou

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

笑 いつの間にか334回も流していたらしい。たまに流しっぱでイヤホン置いて放置してることもあるし本当に厳密に正しい数かはわからないけど、今年一番よく聴いた曲かもしれない。個人的には本当に神曲。 LOL. I've played Jizou dake ga shiru aitan (The Lamentations Known Only by Jizo) 334 times before I knew it. I don't know if that's the exact number of times I've listened to it because sometimes I just stop playing music and leave my earbuds alone, but it's probably the music I've listened to the most this year. It is the best music for me. (The whole album is the best too).

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

Sunken Fossil World (Mainline style)

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

bnnuies

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

やった〜！一番の山を越えました。これは最後のコマだけど作業順的に先に着手しただけでまだ他のコマも残ってるけどこの画面が決まればもう大体怖いものなしなので描けるのが楽しみです。

Yay! The hardest part is over. This is the last panel, but I just started working on it first, and there are still other panels left to be drew. But now that this panel is almost done, there's nothing I'm worried about! (I was very anxious about the background, and in fact, despite this simplicity, it was very time-consuming.) Hopefully everything will be completed by the end of this week.

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

While looking for reference material to check Reimu's outfit for a manga I'm working on, I noticed that most of the figures on the market today don't have a ribbon on Reimu's back. I thought my memory might be wrong, so I checked, but the back view of Reimu in the game (pixel art) clearly has a large white ribbon. I think this is an important part of her charm, so it is a bit sad that few figures have the ribbon on her back 🥲 (As far as I could find, only figures based on Genji Asai's Kourindo Reimu had ribbons on their backs.) I definitely prefer the one with the white ribbon! 🎀

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

連続で漫画描くってどうなんだろうと思ってたけど一回手をつけ始めたら「楽しくてやめられん〜！」ってなってる。久々にシェーディングをしてるとシェーディング楽し〜！って感じ。

I wondered what it would be like to draw manga in a row, but once I started, I had fun and couldn't stop. It's been a long time since I've done shading, and it's a lot of fun! (The very cool line drawing of Reimu in the foreground was done by @elfen-alcibiade.) To Alcibiade: Please let me know if you have any concerns about me posting progress along the way!

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

Hi Alcibiade! 🎀 Thank you for your kind reply to my comment! I'm glad you’re happy to see the theme of lifespan differences often appearing in MariAli fanfics. It’s an important theme—one that's not easy to answer and has so much depth that you could explore it in many different ways. (If you ever want to!)

Also, thank you for your interest in the song about Alice making a doll that looks like Marisa after her death. I initially thought it wouldn’t be meaningful to share without explaining the lyrics, but I found a great English translation on the Touhou Wiki! Here’s the video and the translation link:

Video (Song: 砂鉄の国のアリス / Satetsu-no-kuni-no-alice): https://youtu.be/NaAFtpFWn2o?si=w2JJk6ayl9lYyg2W

Lyrics: https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Lyrics:_%E7%A0%82%E9%89%84%E3%81%AE%E5%9B%BD%E3%81%AE%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B9

While the lyrics don’t explicitly mention that it’s set after Marisa’s death, it's speculated to be connected to another song by the same lyricist, suggesting it takes place afterward. The lyrics only describe the doll’s hair color, which might imply a different character, but the CD booklet features artwork of Marisa and Alice, confirming the song is about them.

There are different interpretations about the "long golden hair" mentioned in the lyrics. Personally, I imagine Marisa passed away of old age, or that Alice grew long hair over time after Marisa's death. I see the story as Alice, unable to cope with the loneliness, making a doll resembling Marisa and giving it a self-identity. However, every time the doll spoke or reached out, Alice felt the difference from the real Marisa, causing her mental decline. The doll, seeing Alice's suffering, ultimately killed Alice and then itself. There are various interpretations, but it's undoubtedly a sad song. 😢 I hope you find it interesting that there are multiple ways to understand it!

By the way, I remembered a MariAli video set to a famous Japanese song with illustrations by a Korean fan. The song's lyrics feature a man giving instructions to his future wife, telling her what to do and not to do in various situations—things like "Don't sleep before I do" or "Cook well." At first, the man seems demanding, but toward the end, he says, "Don’t die before me. Even if just for a day, don’t die before me. I don’t need anything else, just hold my hand and shed at least two tears. I'll say, 'My life was good because of you.' I promise I’ll say it. Don't forget, you're the only woman I'll ever love." In the video, Marisa plays the role of the man and Alice is the future wife. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a full English translation of the lyrics, but the illustrations are adorable, so I'll share the link in case you're curious:

Video (Song: 関白宣言 / Kanpakusengen): https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm6704811

I'm surprised that both of these videos are so old 😅 But I still think they're great. Please check it out when you have the chance! ✨

Hi Asaka! Thank you very much for sending me this song with the translation of the lyrics, and for sharing your thoughts about it! 😊💕 Also, thank you for the other song with the video, which is absolutely adorable! 🥰

I didn't know that people would make music about MariAli, and I'm glad that I was able to discover it, thanks to you! I also didn't know that people would make things as dark as this song. I really like dark stuff, especially about the ships I like, and I didn't know if it would be okay to make stuff like this, so I'm a bit relieved! 😭🥹 I'd like to make a very small comic about the dynamic between Alice and Doll-Marisa, from the doll's point of view, in this song. I will try working on it at one point, but I also want to respond to your other ask and make a comic about it too! (maybe not an entire of directly, but I'd like to think about it with you!) I don't know where to begin! x')

I really like the song you shared, and I have a lot of admiration for the people who creates great music or art based on their own interpretations in a way that permits different interpretations to flourish from their art itself (I hope that my way of speaking isn't too confused 😭 ). I really like the idea that the long golden hair would be Alice's, who would have stopped cutting her har after Marisa's death, just like if she was afraid she would loose something that she took care of during the time Marisa was still around (it reminds me of the paradox of Theseus' ship: after undreds of years of maintenance, the ship's pieces would all be replaced by new ones, one by one. Will it still be Theseus' boat if all the pieces changed from the original boat? Maybe Alice's long hair helps her feel like things haven't changed, even if Marisa died and was replaced. If her old hair are still here, things are still the same? At the same time, it's a great way to show that time has passed since Marisa was gone, and that she doesn't want to get rid of strands of hair that the real Marisa would have stroked in the past? (should I make a comic about this too?? I don't know!!) )

I also really like the fact that the song is written from the Marisa-doll's point of view: she tries to make her creator happy, who's the most important person to her, but she doesn't really understand why she was made in the beginning. And when she finally gets it, she understands that she's not her creator's most important person in return, and that instead of bringing happiness to Alice, she makes her feel terribly bad just by being here... it's so sad 😭💔

I also really like the second video you shared, because they're absolutely adorable, and I see Marisa as a man-ish person, so I found her being like a husband really cute and kind-of in-character (with my own interpretation). x') And I feel like both of them has the egoistical desire to be the first to die, so that they wouldn't have to be the one having to live alone afterwards. But the song remains romantic, funny and cute, so it's also relieving to see peaceful MariAli scenes where they just enjoy their life. 🖤

It's true that the videos are old! But I loved watching and listening to them, though! Thanks a lot for your comments, your interpretations, and for the things you share 🫶🥰 I always love reading your posts and everything you write here! 💕

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

Thank you for answering in such detail, Alcibiade! 😭💖 I had expected that you might use other tools in addition to Procreate when drawing comics, but I was a little surprised to find out that you do everything in Procreate. I know that there are other tools that are better suited to drawing comics, such as CLIP STUDIO PAINT, but I really like Procreate and wanted to finish my work in Procreate, so your answer is really helpful.

My layer structure and workflow is quite similar to yours, but in my case I duplicate the working file of the panel I drew earlier to apply the text style to another panel. Having a model layer seems like a good idea, and I will try it next time! (I still think it would be nice if Procreate had a way to save text styles 🥲)

By the way, your page layout is fantastic! 💕 When I first looked at the page I was really impressed by the attractive composition and I think the balance between close-ups and long shots and the way the panels are connected is wonderful. I'm always struggling with layout and curious about how you decide, so I'm really happy to hear that you're going to make a full process video for a page! I'm really looking forward to it! And of course I'm looking forward to the day when I can read your comic 😊 (I expected Shinki to appear from the summary you wrote, but I'm really curious to see how that led to the dance scene). Thank you as always! Have a wonderful weekend ✨

I would like to ask you about the process: How do you layout the balloon and add text to it? I assume you use Procreate to draw the comic (since you mentioned brushes), but Procreate is not very good at editing text, and it has a layer limit, so if you have a lot of text layers, the layer count will fill up quickly. I've always struggled with this and was curious how you do it. I would be glad to know when you have time!

Hi Asaka! 🖤✨

Well, it's a great question: as you'll see, I struggle with this too! x') You are right, I use procreate. ^-^

And yeah, I also find it quite bad with text edition. About the layers, I always have these ones:

-one layer for lineart,

-one layer for the panels outlines,

-one layer for each halftone that I use ( 4 different greys nuances ),

-my speech bubbles layer,

-my texts,

-my sketch layer (that I delete in the end)

-and several "model" layers with different speech bubbles, panel outlines and texts that I use and copy/paste in every new page I make to make sure that my texts are always the same (in terms if size for example) and that my pages always have the same ratio and borders.

So yeah, the layer count always fills up very quickly! I hope that you'll be able to understand the pictures I join here with these explanations about my pretty chaotic-yet-functional set of layers x') And so, my way to manage my texts is very chaotic too. (sorry if the pictures are a bit blurred >.<)

As you can see, when there isn't too much text on the page, I manage to keep them all as text layers that I can modify, just in case. The two invisible layers are my "model" texts that I duplicate and then rewrite every time, so that I don't have to modify the settings of the text every time.

But sometimes, when I have too many layers for various reasons (when I have too much text, like on this page for example) then I just change it into image layers that I can't modify as text anymore. But I always keep the model text as a text layer, if I really need to modify the text somewhere I'll just rewrite it from this layer (even though on this page, I accidentaly changed the invisible model layer into an image too.....)

There must be much more practical ways to do it, but for now I just do it like that x') If you have better options, I would gladly hear about them! (I'll respond to your other ask as soon as I can, but I'm really trying to find something cool to do with it, because I really really like the ideas you mentioned! And I will also make a post with a video of my full process of a page of my comic that I'm really proud of and it won't spoil the scenario too much, I think! ) I hope that this is the kind of response you wanted and that it can help you in some way! Thank you for asking me, I love sharing things about comics, and about how I make them 🥰💕I wish you a great day! ✨🖤

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

Alice Margatroid

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

紅楼夢のポスター

今回、紅楼夢のスペース掲示用に用意したポスターの絵柄はこんな感じです！

スペース自体は紺珠伝鈴仙で申し込んでいるのですが、ここ数カ月で突然のヘカーティアマイブームが来て、こんな感じになりました。

ヘカーティア好きの人の「ヘカーティアのどこが好きなのか」というのを聞いていたら、私もなるほど！と思ってしまいまして。 最近、紺珠伝を4人全員分クリアしたりもしてしまいました。(エンジョイなので、完全無欠＆イージーですが)

案外、そうした「誰かの熱」にあてられて何かを好きになることも多いです。「熱さ」っていいですよね。

私もどこかで誰かに熱を分け与えらてれたらいいなと思います。

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

幽々子の桜クリアファイル

透過部分と白版(※透けない部分)にこだわり、鑑賞と実用を兼ね備えたクリアファイルが出来ました。裏面には西行の句が書かれております。お好きな方へのイベント土産などにも良いかと思います。

私が作るクリアファイルはどれも何らかの仕掛けがあるクリアファイルであることが多いですが、今���も是非、実際に物理的に手に取っていただきたい一品となりました。 紅楼夢で初出し、秋季例大祭にも持ち込みいたします予定です。

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

The page I did today is so much prettier than the rest of my comic, that now I have to redo half of the comic so that it can keep up with this... :') We're reaching the end of the story, though! So even with all the oldest pages I'll have to redo, it musn't be very long until I finished completely and post it! I can't wait to show it to you guys!

Previous post about the comic <3

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

First of all, thank you so so much for drawing such a wonderful Reimu, Alcibiade! 🥺✨ As I mentioned in the message I sent you, I had very few concrete ideas about how to bring this idea to life, but as soon as I saw the Reimu you drew, I was able to immediately imagine what kind of scene it was and picture the scenes before and after it. I thought that Reimu's vigorously thrust out hand was perfect for the scene of the gambling game “Chinchirorin (チンチロリン)”, so I interpreted it that way. This may not be the response you were expecting, but because of the nature of this particular gamble, the act of rolling the dice in order is necessary, so I was unable to fit all the time lines into a single picture, so I interpreted the Reimu you drew as a panel of a comic and tried to depict the scene I had in mind. But before I show you that, I have to apologize to you... Even though I saw your comment that you would send me a new picture of Reimu, I reblogged it before I received it because I lost the working data... 😱 The number of layers in my working data had reached its limit, and I thought I would duplicate it and work on it, but I deleted the previous data without duplicating it properly. I'm sorry for my silly mistake! 😭 So unfortunately, all the data from the first panel to the fifth panel has been lost, so it would be better to start over again rather than replace it. Fortunately, I was able to extract the lost panels from the time-lapse, so I can show you what it showed. Here is the comic (draft):

The reason why Mamizou sticks close to Nagito is that she has already lost badly to Nagito in a gambling game, so she tries to make Reimu lose by having her play Chinchirorin with Nagito so that she can feel better about herself. Aya also came to write an article about Reimu's defeat in the newspaper, thinking it would be interesting if the lucky Reimu lost to someone from the outside world (Nagito). So in the end I ended up drawing Mamizou and Aya, but I thought it might be a good idea to try and give shape to the scene where all the various characters are gathered at the Hakurei Shrine enjoying a game of chance, as I think that's the most attractive scene.

To add to the rules of this game, this Wikipedia page explains that the strongest roll is Triple 6-6-6, but the rules I looked up explain that the most special roll is Triple 1-1-1 (this is called "pinzoro(ピンゾロ)"), so I'm going to go with that.

For now, I just wanted to show you the scene I had in mind, and I don't have any additional work to ask you to do at the moment, but if you have any points you would like to edit or add to, please feel free to modify these panels! In the future, I would like to make a clean copy of this, but if there are any points that you feel need to be improved, such as the way it is presented or the lack of description, I would be happy if you could point them out!

Hi Alcibiade! 💖 I'm glad that you are interested in collaborating with me! Honestly, I don't have any concrete ideas at the moment, but the mention that you can draw either Touhou- or Danganronpa-related line drawings reminded me of the one I've been secretly working on in my head about Hajime and Nagito getting lost in Gensokyo. Not that there's anything specific idea that I want you to draw, but I thought it might be interesting to share some ideas about it, so I'll write some down here.

First of all, this type of story is called "幻想入り(Gensou-iri)" in Japanese fandom, and it is one of the themes that has been the subject of a lot of fan creation. For example, there are many stories about video game characters who got lost in Gensokyo, such as Kirby, Zelda, or characters from Final Fantasy. In fact, it is canon that people from the outside world can wander into Gensokyo, so it is easy to imagine this kind of story.

Anyway, the reason I fantasize about Hajime and Nagito going to Gensokyo is because I want to see Nagito play a game of Japanese gambling with Youkai. XD There is a character who first appeared in TH18, a Youkai named Sannyo Komakusa, who runs a gambling den on Youkai Mountain. While the den isn't described in much detail in the game, it's depicted in Lotus Eaters, one of the official manga. I imagine Hajime would be very cautious around the Youkai, but Nagito would fearlessly accept the Youkai's challenge to a game of chance in Sannyo's gambling den. He would then draw in more and more Youkai, who would be amazed by his extraordinary luck. Later, at a banquet at the Hakurei Shrine, Reimu (she is also lucky!) and Nagito would face off in a game of chance, having a great time late into the night. By the time they wake up, Hajime and Nagito will have returned to their world... And that’s the story I have in mind.

I have other little ideas, like Mamizou (one of the Youkai from the outside world) saying "I know a lot about the outside world" and getting involved with Hajime and Nagito but the knowledge she has is so outdated that Hajime gets confused, and Aya being amused by Nagito's good luck and offering to interview him, and many other ideas. At the moment I am not writing down any specific ideas or drawing anything, but I would like to put aside the background of how it happened, etc., but I would like to draw just the gambling scene at some point.

Sorry if my story seems a bit all over the place. X( I'm sure there are all kinds of fun things we can do together, and I'll send you another message if I come up with any good ideas! Have a great day! 🫶💕

Hi Asaka! 🥰

Thank you for sharing so many great ideas with me!!🥹💕 I'm not sure if you wanted me to keep them all to myself or not, so please tell me if you want me to take down this answer ^^" it was a pleasure to read the stories you had in mind, and I wanted to respond when I could take the time to pull the best response possible out of my mind !

It's true that there are all kinds of things we can do together, so please don't hesitate to send another message if you have anything in mind! But I also really like the ideas you mentioned here, and I'm excited by these Gensou-iri stories because this way, we can gather different interests we have in common! :)

The gambling scene looks very inspiring, so I'm not surprised to learn that you wanted to draw it! I think that the two other stories you mention, one with Aya and one with Mamizou, seem both easier and harder to create for us together right now: easier because I completely see how they could be written as relatively small and independant (yet related!) comics, but also harder because you can't really "reduce" them to a small drawing that we could make together as a starting point, I think. But I really like them nonetheless!

So I decided to focus on the gambling scene with Reimu, if it's ok for you. It took me ages to respond to this ask, because I kept asking myself how I should proceed! At first, I thought that I had to do half of the drawing and then lend it to you, but I realized that it would have been frustrating to you to just fill the empty space without having your word in the process :c So I had another idea: I just give you this drawing of Reimu defying a blank space (for now!) and you do absolutely whatever you want with it (you can add all the colors or shadows you want, add the setting, you can add Nagito and Hajime... it's up to you!) and then you give it back to me, and I can add other things if you left space, or do the color, or anything really. This way, you can do whatever you want and if there are things that you wanted me to do, you just have to leave the space and I can do it afterwards ^^ I thought about drawing Hajime and Nagito myself to give you a more finished drawing, but I thought that maybe you would have liked to draw them yourself. 😊💖 Anyway, let me know what you think of this idea :) and please feel free to modify everything you want to!

( I figured that drawing Reimu this way was a good compromise between your style and mine, because it gives me the opportunity to have fun with the composition like I’m used to, without having you cornered into a particular perspective or composition yourself. I hope you like it ! Because I don’t know a thing about japanese gambling games, I’ll let you draw the game you want if you don’t mind x’) )

Thank you for this ask full of lovely and funny ideas!!! 💕🖤

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

Eternally young 🌙

I made a whole original outfits for 2hus in my recent traditional artworks and thought that it’s a waste to keep those as only waist-ups (pun intended).

No bg version. To be honest the whole fit is kinda “random things - go!”-ish. But I made it work somehow.

[asaka-lucy-touhou]

other side