Saber's Birthday

I feel that I have failed as a Saber fan... I didn't realize that today, May 13th, is her birthday. I didn't realize she even had a birthday because she's an ethereal being. But of course she is supposed to be a historical figure, a hero, so she was a real person with a real birthday. Thanks to joeltng from Twitter for the reminder. I didn't prepare for anything unfortunately... But I did take this picture of the door to my room recently. It's a wall scroll that is custom made that I got from a store I hardly go to. It was hanging on their glass door, and I immediately drooled for it. Thankfully it was for sale and I bought their last one. I hung it on my door right away.

For the rest of this post, let's celebrate with one of the best unofficial Saber artist ever, Tony Taka! I've been using this picture for wallpaper at work. ^^

Even though Tony Taka draws the best faces ever, Saber's backside looks just as good! Though for some people who doesn't know Saber (ie. my coworkers) thought that her poofy shoulder on her dress is her breast... WTF people!?

Get out of the way and stop exposing yourself Rin! It's Saber's birthday gundammit!

Eh? What's that? You're asking for the rest of Tony Taka's Saber pictures in her ecchi glory? Well I'm not gonna post that here... What kind of Saber fan do you think I am? Huh? I leave that to Ecchi Man's [NSFW] Saber in her birthday suit post...

Noooh Rider! Don't take away Saber's Lion you meanie! This picture initiated the discussion about Saber's birthday, so thankfully I posted this on Twitter and got some of it going ^^;

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SABER!

How to Spend 20,000 Yen Part 2

My Saber Lily arrives at last! She is the final piece to finishing this 2 part post and of course the figure I've been waiting for a while now. It was delayed and delayed again several times. This is part 2 of how I spent my winnings from Danny Choo's 'Your Room' Giveaway. In Part 1, I got myself a Yoko figure and a Saber portrait book, along with my brother's birthday gift :)

I thought they dented the Saber Lily box when they shipped it to me... but turns out it actually looks like that.

Saber Lily was supposed to arrive in August; 2 months ago. I was hoping that Amazon Japan would have two of the figures I ordered on the same time and would be shipped in combination through Tenso. Unfortunately Amazon could not wait, nor could Tenso... so they shipped two separate figures with EMS, which costs half of what the figure is supposed to be. Good service, but I think they need to give some of us a break with shipping ^^;

The other figure I ordered is Mizore Shirayuki. My aesthetically favourite character from Rosario + Vampire. She came way back in August, but I thought I'd wait til Saber Lily arrived to make a combined photoshoot.

So up first is Mizore from Shueisha. I kept thinking back and forth whether to get her or not as a part of my winnings... I'm actually liking her a lot. Thigh highs, cute face, shimapan and some nice cast-off features!

First we start with the clothed option... I like the skirt too. Maybe because I went to a school with uniforms.

The obligatory panchira. That belt thingy that's attached to her left thigh is kinda interesting. I don't complain about it. It looks great on her!

"Ooops! Where did my skirt go?"

"Okay I found my skirt... but what did I do to my shirt??"

Lovely shitapai... she may not be as big as Yoko, but she still looks nice! I guess it's hard to find a bra her size in the monster world?

Fully cast off! It's a weird combination of colours... but I'm not a colour co-ordinated person, so I'm not complaining.

Now here's where I'm noticing the quality... I thought I'd have some fun with the newly discovered macro option on the camera, but then I notice the shimapan. Not really painted well unfortunately. Still if I wasn't using the macro, I probably wouldn't have noticed.

And now on to the Main Event!!

We begin with the base... FREAKING AWESOME! It's a flat base, but the amount of decoration on the base exceeded my expectations! The damage on the tiled floor, possibly from Excalibur, looks well done! Very nice Fate/Unlimited Codes logo as well. The base reminds me of this one stage in the game.

The accessories and extra parts: Caliburn, Avalon, Excalibur and a variant hand to hold Avalon in the air. I'm surprised how they did it. It'd looked good on some angles, but not all...

Closer look at the hand that rocks the crad... err... the hand that holds Avalon. It reminds me of the Franco Il Nero figure I have.

On to the figure! I figured a lot of people have done this photoshoot... so I didn't take too many shots of her.

Instead I try to focus on interesting angles, such as this one... the hand that holds the swords... or something else...

Doesn't this shot make it look like it's a lily flower in full bloom?

Lovely design on the lace of her stocking! Too bad the pantsu doesn't look as good as the Saber Maid...

Trying to take a peek under the armor... tough angle to do.

And finally........

Fate/Triple Play

"Are you my manager?" A new series starting where masters and their servants play baseball to determine who will win the Holy Grail... and a pennant. Play ball!

See more of Saber Lily from Kodomut, RadiantDreamer, Blue Blue Wave and Meronpan ^^ UPDATE: New review by Tommy at the Inferno Project

Yuri Mania 14: Gift from Yaku - Coloured

Art by Yakuri Moe
Colour by Lightning Sabre

After a Thursday evening filled with undoing, changing colour, making layers and changing brush sizes, I finally finished colouring this art work drawn by Yaku! I could have done it the way I did the last artwork I coloured, but this one is special since it was especially done for me and these are two of my favourite anime characters! I really think I could do more, but I'm not that good enough in colouring yet... I can always call it a work-in-progress and of course am appreciative of any constructive criticism and advice. ^^

Previously seen as a rough sketch before in this blog. I'm really glad when Yaku inked the lines to make it sharp for me so it was easier to colour... but umm... did she have to use that nickname? -3-

Anyhoot... colour schemes... I knew Rei has to have a pale skin, but I know Saber is quite pale as well. Saber has some warmer colour in her than Rei. The trademark hair colour has to fit as well, but I opted not to even look at samples of their hair colour since I know them by heart. Plus Rei so many shades of blue in other fanarts anyway. So I went with my own choosing. The red eyes for Rei was easy, but I wasn't sure what shade of green Saber's eyes should be. I know this ain't perfect, but I can always go back and change it later, especially if I improve.

Hmm looking at this again, I think I should've made Saber's ribbons darker... I also wanted to use a little bit of trademark colours in the schemes. Saber's swimsuit has been white for many other art, so I kept it that way. I can always add stripes to it once I get used to colouring curves ^^; Rei's swimsuit colours are based on the Eva unit 00, thus it's a yellow suit with gray trim. I would've prefered the blue Unit 00, but I don't want to conflict with Saber's too much. So as for Saber, I made the float tube behind her to be the trademark silver and blue armor scheme. That float was one of the last things I coloured since I have no idea how to do it... Thankfully I came across Yamada's posts on DC.com that had a float in it. ^^

One of the things I wanted to improve was also shading. I didn't do any shading on the bunnygirl Mikuru... so I wanted to try it out. I saw a little bit of samples from Gelbooru.com and also looked at RadiantDreamer's colouring tutorial. I think he uses a tablet though, so he has better results. The above art is done without shading. Not too much difference since I've only begun doing it this way. Hopefully I'll improve again. Good thing this is all in the computer so it can always be revised. I really wish I can draw too because I want to add a swimming pool in the background... I can always Photoshop one in, but that's cheating >_< I made multiple layers and also learned how to make layer set in Photoshop. So convenient with that layer set now. I made sure that every colour has different layers this time around, so now I can always change the colour of the float and Saber's & Rei's swimsuit. Anyone got a better colour scheme? I'd love to add a logo on the float, but I was too tired to think of one and how to do it... Probably the design on Saber's armor.

And finally I was messing around with the colour scheme again today before I posted this and did an ecchi omake. Since Yaku called me "Ecchi-Man" then I might as well make it ecchi, lol. A thousand pardons for messing with your lines, Yaku ^^;;;

NSFW NOSEBLEED ALERT!!

Ehehe. Anyway... I started this around 4 PM on Thursday, but with many distractions, I didn't really finish til 3 AM... So adding with the stuff I did today, I'd say about 9 hours? Yikes! Did I really do it that long?? 0.o

EDIT: I loved it so much that it's on my phone now :P