#there is also like an official artwork with this exact pose from a different angle that I find really funny

[ryuarl]

Vash!

[maguneedsalife]

Review time! 1/8 Mikazuki Munechika

holy swordboys, batman! 

file this one under “figures i didn’t expect to ever own but then saw on extreme markdown and snagged”

picture-heavy review under the cut as usual!

So, I didn’t expect to own this figure. For a variety of reasons. I didn’t really like how the prototype pictures came out; stellar paint job notwithstanding. The pose is kind of bland. The Awakened version was announced around the same time this version came out, and I like the pose/potential shirtlessness on that better. I saw this one in person once in a display case at Kinokuniya, and that made me think “hm, maybe regular jiji wouldn’t be so bad,” but the $170 price tag didn’t convince me. I had honest to god been intending to wait for the Awakened version to come out.

Then i went on fucking mandarake and saw they had this one for 6k yen. Considering his retail price is to the tune of 15k yen, i decided to jump on it. I knew in my collector heart that I would probably never see that price on this figure again. At that deep of a markdown he ran the high chance of being defected or damaged, but all manda had to say about quality was “box damage” so i added him to my cart and crossed my fingers.

fast forward a week and he shows up. not only is the box PRISTINE except for where the previous owner cut the tape, jiji is completely, utterly perfect. This man had seen the outside of his box maybe once. 

AND SO, now i will shut up and get to the review pictures, which is what you’re all here for

Honestly, he’s perfect. He’s so perfect that I could just post these pictures by themselves and let them do the talking. But that would be boring.

Here he is from the side. The pattern on his outfit really stands out here; i’m just consistently amazed that that’s actually sculpted on instead of a decal. His sword is also much longer than i expected; I guess its length isn’t entirely clear in the official illustration

From this angle you can sort of make out his body line under all his clothing. The sculpting of the fabric folds is just fantastic.

Here he is from the back. He looks like he’s leaning, but it’s just the odd way that the weight is distributed. He’s putting most of the weight on one leg, but surprisingly enough he can stand solidly without his base. From this angle, the sort of wistful tilt of his head is just lovely. He almost seems like he’s reminiscing about days long gone by...

Here he is from the other side. More fantastic work on the folds.

I feel like i’ve swindled mandarake out of a perfectly good swordboy. He’s breathtaking from just about every angle.

Up close.... aaaAAAA he’s so pretty, I’m dying scoob.

In hindsight, I wish I’d taken a closeup of his face straight on, because there’s actually a gap between some of his bangs that’s hard to see at this angle. The sculpting on his hair is so exact, i’m surprised they were able to mass produce it...

Closer in you can see that no detail was spared. Even the small crescents in his eyes have been faithfully included--though they’re nearly impossible to see in the official artwork.

Back when the prototype pictures were released there was a bit of uproar about his face, particularly his mouth. The prototype’s lips were parted slightly, to better match Mikazuki’s serene smile in the official art--but it wasn’t all that flattering. In fact the lips were one of the reasons I was kind of turned off the prototype haha.... Somewhere between the prototype and release, the face was fine-tuned and his mouth changed into a close-lipped smile. I’m glad they made the change; it looks much more natural.

The tassels on his head also look nice.

Closeup of his breastplate and crest. Kogitsunemaru’s armor stitches were decals, but Mikazuki’s are individually sculpted. 

Closeup of his obi zone. The amount of detail in this figure is incredible, and here especially. You can even see the strap where his sword is attached.

All of the tassels on this figure (except the ones on his head) are made of a flexible plastic--which honestly is a godsend, bc if they weren’t i probably would have broken them all off by now. Kudos to Orange Rouge for their foresight.

while the patterned blue definitely draws the eye, there’s something to be said for Mikazuki’s hakama as well. The gold embellishments can be hard to see, but at certain angles they catch the light well.

Tan sandals, and a simple base. interesting to note, Kogits’ socks had a center seam, while Mikazuki’s have an edge seam. You can also see a bit of his underclothes in the reflection here, which I had no idea he had. Another detail that would probably escape notice!

close in on his hand and the handle of his sword. Looking up his sleeve, you can actually see another sleeve nestled in there. He’s not just a faithful reproduction of the illustration, he’s a reproduction of what the design would actually entail.

Just as it did on the nendoroid, the gradient in his hair looks very nice.

More details on his back; normally this isn’t something you would ever see.

Closeup of the obi zone. The pattern on his sword belt is easier to see from behind.

Hidden within his sleeve is... another sleeve! The pattern on his sword is also very cool. I hadn’t noticed this until now, but each phase of the moon is represented on the scabbard.

more sleeve-within-sleeve i had no idea was there. He must be very warm.

And while we’re looking up things...

He has very feminine legs...

I couldn’t get close enough to really see but, thanks to MFC and twitter i know that Mikazuki is actually going commando. (link nsfw; anime boy butts ahead). Someone stop this old man

When I first took him out of the box I searched high and low for any kind of defect that would’ve caused a 60% markdown, but i honest to god couldn’t find any glaring mistakes. The only thing I found that might POSSIBLY have caused it was this near-invisible ding:

Joke’s on you, manda???

Here he is next to the now somewhat legendary nendoroid jiji. Truth be told, the nendoroid was what piqued my interest in Touken Ranbu in the first place--I’d literally never heard of it before goodsmile started making figures. (You can read my nendoroid review here and see the start of my descent into swordboy hell)

After all is said and done, I’m extremely glad I went out on a limb and snagged the nendoroid. Tourabu is my aesthetic in so many ways, and now i have a whole plethora of swordboys to love and throw my wallet away to. It’s nice to have a scale of my first swordboy crush, too. I think I’ll always be partial to the nendoroid--it was my first exposure to the series, after all--but the scale figure captures so much of Mikazuki’s elegance that the nendo is just too small for.

Together with my other swordboy love, Kogitsunemaru. (Of course my favs are the hardest swords to get) (I say, after getting them for free on tkrb pocket)

I bought kogits for my birthday last september (bc at that point i honestly liked his scale better/didn’t think i’d ever find a jiji in my budget) but ever since I’ve thought he looked kind of lonely. I’d wanted to get awakening jiji for him, but honestly I’m glad I got the default one. The two of them look natural together. Thanks to them both being 1/8 scale, their height difference is also accurate. It’s very slight, but it’s there!! 

Is this what it feels like to own both Barbie and Ken?? my shipper heart is very satisfied with this purchase. I tried to make them kiss, but their swords got in the way. There’s an innuendo in here somewhere

The whole sword family! These boys are all lovely on their own, but.... ahhh, they look best when they’re together!!!

masato introduces us to the new boy

I was expecting them to be the same height, but masa is actually taller!

Of course, Ren is still the reigning champion (though it’s not fair since he’s 1/7)

Seeing how much taller Masato was made me think Souji might at least have a chance of being the same height as jiji. Nope. Sorry Sooj

Here’s where he’s living for now. I’d like them to be on the other side of each other, but Kogits is so tall that he blocks out ren and masato if he and jiji switch places. The black bases also look very nice on my desk.

god my desk is getting so full, and there’s only more to come... rip

All in all, while he was definitely an impulse splurge (i am not buying any more figures until my preorders start coming out, do not let me) and despite all my apprehension, Mikazuki has definitely earned his place in my collection. He’s absolutely stunning, and photos don’t always do him the justice he deserves. I’m excited to start working with him for real, and try bringing out even a fraction of the charm that he has in person. 

While I still would have preferred a more lively pose, I now think this kind of thing is a fine start. Hell, it’s still better than nothing; I came into figure collecting when the prettyboy figure scene was preeeetty spotty. In the future--budget willing--I hope to show my support for touken ranbu figures with dynamic poses, so figure companies know that it’s a risk worth taking. (I guess that’s my one regret buying secondhand; OR isn’t going to see that money. whoops.) I’ve still got my eyes on awoken jiji, though if THIS jiji ran 15k a pop, lord knows what kind of hit my wallet would take on a fancier one....

Anyway, that just about wraps it up. Impulse control willing, my next review will be around April/May.

[cellerityweb]

Constructing Alfheim in God Of War

On the official PlayStation website, the weekly “ArtStation Art Blast” concentrates on creating Alfheim in God of War. Check out the beautiful artworks and let them give you a deep insight into the development of the first realm you get to explore outside of Midgard.

Spoiler warning!

From here the entire content is provided by ArtStation Art Blast.

A radiant, beautiful light constantly beckons you closer and closer in the middle of this strange realm. At the same time, you see a lingering darkness emerge throughout your adventure here as you see the Dark Elves fighting against the Light Elves. This is complemented by the architecture you come across, which is gorgeous, arch-laden, in marble and towering high over you. Then, a twisted, glowing red hive awaits you at the center point of your journey… a stark and patched together contrast to the beauty that you’ve witnessed. These are some of the strange, yet fascinating dichotomies you experience venturing through Alfheim, the first realm you get to explore outside of Midgard.

Everything Begins and Ends at the Light

Alfheim was the first realm the team worked on after designing Midgard and it would set out how fantastical, yet grounded the other areas of the game would become. Although in popular culture, certain areas of Norse mythology have been explored, many of the actual realms had not been well-represented and would challenge the team to approach this with a sense of thematic consistency while weaving in our team’s own unique flair. Luke Berliner, our lead environment concept artist, recollected the first directive of the game, stating, “There was a lot of creative liberty in defining what the realms meant to us.”

The first pillar of designing this realm became the Light of Alfheim, where Kratos and Atreus would journey to in order to power the Bifrost. Much like the Mountain in Midgard, the light would be a centerpiece that would continually direct you towards where you were heading. “Cory, our creative director, had this idea of a central light source that was the only light source in Alfheim, feeding into the narrative hook that you needed the light to progress.” The team started to toy with a number of ideas that would center around that. For instance, there was a lot of interest in showing off how life and death, one of many dichotomies that would appear, were big parts of the realm because the lake was supposed to represent the Lake of Souls.

Another fascinating artistic challenge that the Light of Alfheim affected was the foliage. All around Alfheim, as you venture through by both foot and boat, you experience varying tree shapes and otherworldly environment art. Much like everything in this area, even these trees are affected by the Light of Alfheim. Luke explained, “Early on, the trees, the environment looked like as if it was growing towards a singular light source and that would look very different than Midgard or any other place. I really liked the singular idea of that light source and how an entire ecology has grown around that in a unique way combined with a more fantastical architecture.” This idea led to interesting concepts where the team played with the region’s fauna and how that would react to having a light source centralized as a beam.

The team would narrow this down even further to the exact tree types they were inspired by,  which were different, depending on the realms that they were working on. First would be exactly those types of trees that would show off an ancient, yet elegant environment that would contrast well with Midgard’s environments.  “One of the things that we looked at were different, really old growth trees,” Luke said. “Things like a bristle cone, pine trees, and old olive trees…things that have kind of grown for a really long time and have an interesting form to them.”

Our Sr. Environment Artist, Erik Jakobsen, then took those concepts and translated them into the 3D in-game environment, although the process wasn’t so simple due to the complex nature of trees chosen.  “These amazing trees, stretching towards the light, were definitely one of the first things I remember from Luke. This being the first realm you travel to made it difficult to strike a balance between real and magical. What looks good in a single beautiful concept sometimes needs to be tested out in 3D to get the balance correct. Leaves that are too red or too white may throw off the other level elements.”

Although difficult, the end result was a very cherry blossom-like feel to the trees, but with a darker tinge that wasn’t as pronounced in the original concept artwork. Luke mentions, “It was interesting because the concepts had the notion of a lot of this, but in 3D, slowly, everything kind of evolves. So, you got the more beautiful leaves in the 3D space and so things come into their own on the environment side.”

The Collaborative Design of Elvish Architecture

From the environment, the team moved onto the next complex challenge – the architecture and building structures worthy of the two warring elven factions. Much like the foliage, the team was grappling with how to differentiate the structures of Alfheim against the earlier Midgard environments that the player had experienced. The team would utilize both the ‘time period’ of the game being pre-Viking and its relation to the other realms to start designing the construction. Luke recollected, “We were trying to figure out – what makes Alfheim narratively even unique and different from Midgard. A lot of the architecture in Midgard was very square stone and blocky. And we thought maybe we should use more traditional Viking knotwork, saying that these types of things existed in the other realms, and slowly filtered into Midgard to create what we know as Viking design or the Viking inspiration that we know of today.”

Much like with the trees, this concept was not easy to completely translate into the 3D space and required lots of collaboration between the entire team. The first section of the challenge started with understanding Viking knotwork – known for its intricate curves and lack of straight lines. “The challenge was that everything had a curve. Viking knotwork is not modular like most architecture is,” Erik mentioned. “Luke and the concept team had a lot of really great concepts, but they do not show every angle we see in-game. A curve has to be balanced, land into the next shape and flow into the next curve. I had two great artists work with me on the level – Charleen Au and Sarah Swenson, and eventually, we developed solutions for all those damn curves!”

The next step for the team was to create distinct locations and make sure that everyone on the team was on board. The trench, which was the main section that you venture into to get to the Light of Alfheim, originally started out very differently, before ending up with a more futuristic/fantasy-like set of movement options. At one point, it even had three different trenches overall, rather than the singular one it ended with. Erik remembered, “I did an original mock-up of the trench going down into the lake, which looked different than it did in the final game. But I remember that Andrew Chrysafidis, our level designer, suggested having the doors open to reveal itself like an elevator.” This ended up being a major concept that was utilized throughout the entire area of Alfheim in collaboration with the concept and 3D environment art teams.

These collaborative processes would continue throughout the entire creation of Alfheim, each with its own set of challenges and successes. The main Alfheim temple, for instance, brought along the challenge of integrating a lot of cloth, while also trying to work with level design in building a fun gameplay scenario. Luke mentioned, “We decided to make it look fabric early on, which posed a lot of challenges for environment art to make it look different. Just to get the fabric to behave properly over the design space – there’s quite a bit of work that went into that.”

Erik added, “Part of it was fitting the level design back into it because it was one of the first levels that the team as a whole had to work through constantly. So, trying to fit that intent and hold the integrity and still fit it into the design space was tricky.” The end result, though, was a very unique and distinguishing temple that was much different than the other realms, thanks to the technology and collaboration behind it.

One other collaborative challenge came with the Hive, where lighting brought major changes through its creation, bringing in a challenge unlike those encountered in the other sections of Alfheim. The team had to think about how these changes would affect the overall design and feel of getting to the Light. “Originally, the light was just supposed to be white or a light blue,” Luke recollected. “But Cory had always wanted this Hive over the Light, and then he wanted the light to be able to be dimmed and then go on brighter. Because of this, Erik and I chatted about making the Hive glow similar to a lampshade, tinting it red which would permeate to the entire exterior of the temple. Because of this, when you remove the Hive and go back outside,  there’s a huge state change and you feel like you accomplished something in a grander way than if it was just brighter.”

Erik remembered the difficulty of two lighting states: “The lighting system is powerful but also a dense interconnected web of layers. If one area of Alfheim gets nudged, the entire web shifts and needs to be readjusted. Multiply this complexity by the two states – the captured and the freed lighting.”

Conclusion

Alfheim is a realm brimming with two sides constantly at war with one another that translated not only literally into the game, but also into its design. Although you may come into Alfheim with the expectation of a straightforward, beautiful realm, you come away with perhaps more conflicted feelings on the warring factions and the two sides that continually appear throughout the heroes’ journey here. “It’s intentionally confusing between the Light and Dark Elves – who’s good and who’s bad and what you should and shouldn’t be doing,” says Erik. Your expectations of the situation continually get toyed with as you, perhaps, unintentionally change the landscape of Alfheim.

“You change the course of the realm, so you see that continually reflected through the environment. You’re not just visiting, but altering the course of Alfheim, even if it is to just get what Kratos and Atreus need or want,” Luke concludes.

Make sure to visit ArtStation to view our team’s Art Blast for God of War.

Source: 80.lv

The post Constructing Alfheim in God Of War appeared first on Making Games.

Constructing Alfheim in God Of War published first on https://thetruthspypage.tumblr.com/

[anakin022]

For the most part I was pretty underwhelmed by Kong: Skull Island. Instead of being entertained by an adventurous thrill ride I was irritated by a whole lot of problems. The “plot” is an absolute joke. Pacing is all over the place. The characters are your usual stereotypes… and even the monster fights can’t stand a chance against Peter Jackson’s King Kong from 2005.

It seems like there’s not much left to like about this film. Certainly not Henry Jackman’s mediocre score. Okay, maybe the atmospheric cinematography by Larry Fong. And a particularly nice typography during the film’s opening and closing credits.

But there’s only one thing that really knocked it out of the ballpark for me. And that is Kong’s extensive poster campaign:

Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures ordered a wide array of artworks and creative agencies like by B O N D, Concept Arts or Little Giant Studios, to name only a few, delivered big time. What they dished up in the past few weeks is unmatched this year and probably the past year as well. This colourful bouquet of posters and banners is nothing short but stunning. And it’s probably the only thing that really lives up to its spiritual predecessor Godzilla.

#1: Kong: Skull Island (Original)

#2: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

The official soundtrack cover (#1) for Kong: Skull Island is an interesting affair. I figured WaterTower Music would make use of that amazing wide angle shot of Kong posing amidst the island’s impressive mountain range. But I didn’t expect that level of creativity. The title treatment is pure bliss in times of chickenhearted mass market designs off the peg. I also love the overall composition of the cover. But why do they backpedal immediately with this boring font selection for the remaining text (“Alternate Gothic No. 2“)? And I can’t help but think that the cover would immensely benefit from a slightly bigger field of view. It somehow feels a bit crammed. Just a tad more space towards the edges to give it some air to breathe. I think it would all fall into place just a notch better.

Maybe one day I’ll try to come up with my own version of it. But for now this has to do:

Making of custom cover #2 (Click to view)

My goal for this particular custom cover (#2) was first and foremost to create space and go for the full cinemascope effect. It was quite a bit of work necessary to rearrange all these elements as needed. But Photoshop is a pretty powerful tool and it seems to have a solution for every problem. And concerning my earlier criticized font design I decided to go with a more uniform style by using the official logo font “Forza“.

But please don’t think that I consider my custom cover to look any better or even as good as the original cover. It’s just a different take on the same material, bar the imaginative logo treatment. I just could find a way to include that one into my cover. Well, you can’t have everything.

The gallery below consists of the usual doings. Official poster designs transformed into square cover artworks.

#3: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#4: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#5: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#6: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#7: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#8: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

I won’t go into detail about the necessary work steps, as I think most of the times it’s obvious anyway. And I feel like I’ve done this a thousand times already up to the point of repeating myself over and over. And no-one’s interested in the same old stories. I would just like to point out the miraculous change of scale that Kong is depicted in in all of those artworks. I guess that’s what you call artistic freedom.

As with Godzilla back then, I also came up with some additional vinyl treatments again. They perfectly transport the vintage vibe of the film and make for some great eye-catching motives in your digital music library.

#9: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#10: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#11: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

Custom cover #9 is based on a pixel-perfect homage to the Apocalypse Now film poster, created by Little Giant Studios. And it’s close to perfect. From the hand-painted quality over the crystal-clear sharpness down to the tasteful font selection in the bottom area.

Cover #10 is hollering Ape-ocalypse Now even louder by mimicking the official soundtrack album. I also have attempted an even more faithful version, but it ultimately looked a little too cheap for a blockbuster soundtrack.

A far more extensive vinyl treatment went into the two final designs below. I’ve surely spent the most of my time for this series on the following custom covers, probably not so much on the first one (#12), but definitely loads and loads of time on the second one (#16).

#12: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#13: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#14: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

Revisiting my old Godzilla Limited Edition was a sure thing for me, at least when I heard about Legendary’s plan to establish their own version of a cinematic universe, boldly titled the “MonsterVerse“. King Kong, together with his soon-to-be-bro Godzilla, is supposed to form a team of super-monsters. Two allegedly baddies who are about to be saving mankind. Think of DC’s Suicide Squad, but successful. It’s all steering towards a (first?) big showdown between them two in 2020. And who knows what else is following beyond that.

So I dug out my old Photoshop template and adapted it into this Kong: Skull Island Limited Edition. The bold film logo provided a perfect opportunity for a die-cut digipack sleeve (#12) and the presumably most beautiful Kong artwork of all worked perfectly as the Vinyl sleeve inside of it (#13). I had to extensively extend the original image in height by using a textless version of this widescreen banner. And I also applied some subtle colour filters to give it a slightly more old-school and romantic feel.

The concluding addition to this collection is perhaps the most challenging piece I’ve ever worked on. It all started when I came across a viral website named Discover Skull Island. As usual I started to grab all applicable images with the help of Chrome’s developer tools. It provided me with those huge, huge fake satellite views of the island, including different sets of translucent clouds and one particular, highly mesmerizing thermal photography of the same location. Ideas started to grow immediately, but for the time being I put it aside.

It was only after I saw some photos of the New York Comic Con poster, that I started to get a clear notion of where I wanted to go with those giant source images. That day I teased my idea to my Facebook gang, without having an exact concept for it, or the certainty that it would work out in the end. I only knew that I had to give it a try. And it’s only now, four weeks later, that I can gladly announce that yes, it all worked out perfectly. And even better than I could have imagined.

#15: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#16: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#17: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#18: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#19: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

For this set I decided to work on the 6540×3240 full-sized images to preserve as much detail as possible. Both the front and the back went through a fair number of drafts before I settled on the final design and began working on the single artworks in detail.

The animated GIF below is the end result of a full week of work. I’m calling this one the “NEON Edition” and it’s all worth around 1,63 GB of disk space, split into two different Photoshop files (regular and illuminated version), because my computer couldn’t handle a single work file of that size.

The clear plastic wrap that’s ought to house the (seemingly) textless vinyl record sleeve (#17) is in large parts based on the previously mentioned NYCC poster. Why? Well because, just like the poster, it’s meant to reveal all kinds of secret information when viewed under black light.

I’ve added all necessary soundtrack information on the semi-transparent outer sleeve (#15, #16), to save space for the mythology mysteries on the luminescent inner sleeve (#18). The scribbles and sketches have been recreated in meticulous detail using close-up shots of the illuminated poster. For the additional remarks I’ve used ten different fonts to ensure that the individual letters vary enough to give the illusion of real handwriting.

Coming up with four different product mockups was the last step in this custom covers series. And it was another major task since Photoshop mockups usually don’t support transparent elements. I’ve had to come up with quite a few tricks to get the desired end result. But it was all worth it and I’m sure I’ll utilize these newly found techniques on future projects as well.

#20: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#21: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#22: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#23: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#24: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#25: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#26: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

#27: Kong: Skull Island (Custom)

“Kong: Skull Island” by Henry Jackman For the most part I was pretty underwhelmed by Kong: Skull Island. Instead of being entertained by an adventurous thrill ride I was irritated by a…