Yes, I realize I have a very, very strange sense of humour. It doesn't make sense if I didn't explain that this was for Optimistic Penguin's contest ^^; Oh and yeah, if I had an Optimus Penguin, I would totally use it here. Oh and I used the Prinny stylus for Prinny Laharl's blunt weapon.
The Melancholy of Saber Lily Special 6
I made it into two parts since I wanted to do "the glass is half full" joke :P Can't be more optimistic than that! This 4koma is really showing off my loot from AX, lol.
And don't worry. Saber Lily didn't really shove the stylus up you-know-where in the second panel. It's just inside the label near his butt.
I made it look like Prinny Laharl is crying, but still hard to see maybe. But how did the hands/wings stay near his eye like that? I'll answer that with the next photo.
Pins! That's right this Prinny is dangerous with pins stuck in his wings!
A closeup of the pin.
Yep, that glass is really half full... Or half empty depending on your point of view. I call it empty because I drank the Pepsi Max inside afterward.
You can see the other entries at Optimistic Penguin's site divided in parts 1, 2 and 3. No Prinnies were (permanently) harmed in the making of these 4koma comics.
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 ^^;
You can guess from the title and picture that this will be about the ending song from Durarara!! using Figma in the animation. Well you guessed right... Unless you guessed that I'm making a Saber Lily Can-can dance video, that is. Which I'm not.
But first let's get some things out of the way. Durarara!! is a new anime that started airing in January. I've only started watching it in the middle of February because of all the parody that has been made out of the ending animation. The anime is quite good actually. Different individuals with different background stories all live in the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo and somehow their lives are all connected in one way or another. The ending song, Trust Me, is done by Yuya Yamashita and a lot of parodies have been made out of this video.
So after seeing so many parodies on YouTube and NicoNicoDouga, I decided to make one of my own. Since I can't draw to save my life I use what I have available; my Figma (and one Revoltech). I needed 15 of them which I do have, but I decided to use one Revoltech because I wanted to use Rei and the Figma isn't out yet. Also, the purpose of making this video is to make a promo video for The Melancholy of Saber Lily comics, lol. So the characters that are in this video is either in the comics or will be there eventually.
Yes, I keep all my Figmas in their original boxes... Which was quite a hassle for this project. Anyway, enough talk... I'll show you the video first.
The Melancholy of Saber Lililily
I started this last Thursday and it took a few hours just to get all the characters off the original background. Taking the pictures took a couple of hours as well. And then I wanted to time the pictures to the song as well. Quite a pain, I tell you. I added the pictures in the beginning instead of the scenery ones in the original video. I also had to change Rei's hands position so it fits properly so that it looks like she's holding Ryomou's legs.
I used this Maria-sama ga Miteru parody art as a basis for my sizing and template for the pictures. I changed the colour a little bit in my version to fit Nanoha and Fate's colours ^^
This is an unused picture for Cute. She's one of the new Figmas that I have to open for this project. She'll be in the comics soon. I have quite the plan for her... Mwahahaha! Oh the MEIKO was supposed to be a size reference, but I didn't really use the reference point, lol.
Nanoha gave me the most trouble! First... I couldn't find her at all! I searched high and low and I decided to give up and created a new roster for the video. It would've worked too, but I think a lot of people made me look for it and I finally found it. Then when I started to pose her, her shoulder started to stiffen up... Seriously, what a pain. I took off her arm to "massage" the shoulder joint.
Another thing I have to add is that even though I thought about making this video on my own, there was already a Durarara video made with Figmas. Ah well... I made it according to my storylines, lol. But anyway, to be fair to MrKammy, here is his version:
Anyway that's it for me... I'm really tired and this project really wiped me out! "Trust Me!"
Can you believe I've been doing this 4koma comic series for a year now? Once again I started this out of wanting to do something fun and stupid with my special edition Figmas. I thought it'd be cool to have Saber Lily fighting an RPG-based warrior Haruhi. They had the appropriate gears and both have a sword. With more ideas and demands popping up, I couldn't resist creating more and more!
So this time, as you can see in the first picture, Drossel will appear in the pages of Melancholy of Saber Lily. I've been holding off on using Drossel because a lot of people were still using her and I didn't want to flood the internet with more of Drossel. I think I waited long enough to make Drossel stand out and for me to have an idea (and to actually execute it).
Yes, I realize it's a busy weekend, especially with what's going on in Vancouver. We have the Olympics starting, Valentine's Day and the Lunar New Year on Sunday. Yet, the most important for me in this weekend was to finish the first year anniversary post of The Melancholy of Saber Lily ^^;
It didn't help that my friend wanted to go see a new movie on Friday, the day of the Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony... He wanted to see "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" instead of the real Olympics. I ended up spending 4 hours away from doing these 4koma. It was surprisingly good though. Since it was based on a series of books for young teenagers, I expected it to be corny. It had a somewhat convenient and rushed ending, but the rest of it was good. ANYHOW... Rants aside, let's get to the comics!
Oh but first... I'll be having references to Drossel's original series, Fireball, so it might be good for you to see at least the first episode to get the gist of it.
The Melancholy of Saber Lily Part 33
(Virtual) Cookies to anyone who can guess the reference to the first two panels. I made these 4koma to look like the series, so I stole a few screenshots to get Gedächtnis in there ^^; I thought it might make the crossover between Haruhi and Drossel more believable. Yep, so a new crossover begins... But I honestly don't have a lot of ideas for this, so I may not go with it too far. It will have to go back and forth.
And it seems like I do have a regular schedule for my 4koma comics... Once a month, lol! I hope to do it more frequently, but if I get busy with other things, I just won't have time to make these...
The Melancholy of Saber Lily Part 34
Yeah, I like to play with Drossel's innocence just a little bit. I can at least keep it innocent for two panels, right? I'll recently read this volume of original English language manga drawn by Adam Warren that featured a superheroine who gets stuck in bondage a lot... So I thought I'd include some of that stuff with Saber Lily, lol!
This is the said "manga", though it's closer to comic book... Actually I don't know, it's quite a hybrid. It's drawn in manga style, but it's in a comic book format and it involves superheroes. Even the author was concerned about the hybrid because people who like manga doesn't like superheroes comic books and people who like superheroes comic books doesn't like manga. Me, I like both, so this was the ideal comic!
It didn't hurt that the comic had a lot of... mature situations, and the main character's costume tends to get ripped a lot (like Ikki Tousen). I've read volume 5 recently and wow... it was quite a tear-jerker. It even had some yuri moments in it. I might write about this comic/manga hybrid again one day. It's a great series for people who like both manga and superheroes.
But I digress... I didn't have time to work on a new banner for the comic site unfortunately... but you can visit The Melancholy of Saber Lily's site to read the previous installments and read it all without this nosy commentaries ^^;
Of course before I go, I can't leave you without the bigger version of Saber Lily bound and gagged, can I?
Gokigenyou! I can't believe I've been saying that for a year now! Yes, it has been a year since I started these yuri posts on my blog. Though it was never been a regular thing here, the Weekly Lily series that started at dannychoo.com and now figure.fm has been going on regularly without missing a beat, even if I've posted near midnight (PST) on Sunday. ^^;
I believe I haven't fully explained what yuri is when I started this, I had assume a lot of you know already and instead I just leave a quick link form Wikipedia to make the story short... But I should really fully explain it, from my point of view at least. Basically it's a genre in anime, manga & other media that involves a romantic relationship between two or more girls. Yuri can also be called shoujo-ai or girls love. In North America, the two terms indicate whether the story involves sexual relationship or not. Shoujo-ai is the more common stories that come out in North America and on Japanese television, such as Maria-sama ga Miteru (Maria Watches Over Us), Kashimashi and Strawberry Panic. A lot of what I post ranges from the innocent love of shoujo-ai to the most extreme yuri... However, to make it easier, I put everything into one easy category, "Yuri"; since it is the term more people are used to and it's shorter & easier to say.
Now "yuri" can also mean the flower "lily". So a lot of my own yuri 4koma comics have smatters of lilies in them. It's a great wordplay for other series too, such as Hidamari Sketch. So remember that yuri = lily ^^
For a while now I've always replaced a lot of the risque scenes with the infamous lily panels, but since this is a special occasion, I shall do something special...
The Melancholy of Saber Lily Part 31
If you've browsed my blog well enough I'm sure you've encounted Aldora... If you know her then you know why Saber Lily's got a shocked face in the end there ^^; All in all it was quite fun positioning Haruhi and Saber Lily in those compromising position... But sure was hard to put them in said positions... I was considering putting a transparent lily over these panels, like the first picture of this post, but I think it looks better this way. I asked a few people about the transparent lily on Twitter, but I think I didn't make it clear enough. Thanks for the opinion though! This is one of the only times I will do this, lol.
These two 4koma were actually something I came up real quick... Though perhaps this next one may have a lasting effect throughout the whole series...
The Melancholy of Saber Lily Part 32
Dun-dun-dunnnnn! Evil is afoot! Ok, I'm pretty sure a lot of you can guess who this is, lol. So we shall see where this takes us... A new storyline is born! Stay tuned!
Oh lookit that... It's my 100th post! I'm crying tears of joy as expressed by Mikuru's face here... Ok not really. I didn't really plan too much for my 100th post honestly. I did do quite a bit of work to do the next batch of Saber Lily 4koma though. These ones don't really follow any storylines, so I thought calling them omake is appropriate.
I haven't done batch comics in a while since the last few ones had major background replacement. These ones were pretty simple. The first one had the most work done, but even that didn't involve too much editing.
The Melancholy of Saber Lily Part 24
This was somewhat inspired by the John Woo action movie, "Face/Off". At least the title is... I've been wanting to do this sequence for a while since I've been borrowing the original Saber's alternate face on Saber Lily for so long. It's time she gets her face back!
The crying face is of course, Mikuru's, the first picture you see in this post. I was going to place the face directly... but the face was actually too big on Saber Lily's head. No standardized face sizes in Figma...
Thus, Mikuru's face had to be imposed in Photoshop. The above photo is what it originally looked like. Oh and I borrowed a bit of Yunamon's effects for the comic above. His 4koma is quite inspiring ^_^
The Melancholy of Saber Lily Part 25
Yup, gotta cater to the fujoshi community as well, lol. Though I dunno if what Yuki's doing at the end is even reality or not ^^; This comic was based on the dialogue between Haruhi and Saber Lily in the previous comic post and fueled by FatBastard's comment on Figure.FM. Yuki was added later on to complete the 4 panels... It's something Yaku would've wanted ^_^
Not much to say here... I was pretty much trying to take the photos so that their imaginary "appendage" is either blocked or not visible. Oh yeah, I did borrow that line from Baka Tsuki's translation of the Haruhi novels. It seemed appropriate. ^_^
"In other words" inspired an idea. Well the idea was there before I came up with this title, but it's definitely something I'll do in the future.
The Melancholy of Saber Lily Part 26
This whole thing about GN Archer being a female mecha and the tentacle monster came about around last winter when they first showed GN Archer and how feminine it looked. This idea was inspired by WiseFreeman who did a post on GN Archer a long time ago. I remember I commented on how there should be a GN Archer doujinshi ^.^ Haven't seen one yet, so I decide to make my own :P
I pretty much spoiled the tentacle vs GN Archer action in my last post... but I didn't spoil the appearances by Saber Lily and Haruhi. They were part of the plan, but weren't revealed til now! I cracked up just from the dialogue going on in the last (lily) panel XD
The 4koma below is the rejected pile. I was going to do two versions with the GN Archer, but I felt it was too redundant and went with the one with the lily panel ending. Since I saved the other one already, you might as well take a look... It's weak, I know -_-
I like the title better, but it was a bit too long to fit in the comic anyway :P Which one did you like better?
All of these 4koma are on The Melancholy of Saber Lily site of course. I've been putting them there and surprised anyone who've been visiting that with new comics even though I haven't made this post yet.
So how was the 100th post? It included guro (face removing), yuri and even yaoi! Catering to everyone's tastes... XD
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!
Uh-oh... somebody's pissed... Time to jet! See you next time folks! Gokigenyou!
Oh lookit that... It's my 100th post! I'm crying tears of joy as expressed by Mikuru's face here... Ok not really. I didn't really plan too much for my 100th post honestly. I did do quite a bit of work to do the next batch of Saber Lily 4koma though. These ones don't really follow any storylines, so I thought calling them omake is appropriate.
This was somewhat inspired by the John Woo action movie, "Face/Off". At least the title is... I've been wanting to do this sequence for a while since I've been borrowing the original Saber's alternate face on Saber Lily for so long. It's time she gets her face back!
Thus, Mikuru's face had to be imposed in Photoshop. The above photo is what it originally looked like. Oh and I borrowed a bit of Yunamon's effects for the comic above. His 4koma is quite inspiring ^_^
Yup, gotta cater to the fujoshi community as well, lol. Though I dunno if what Yuki's doing at the end is even reality or not ^^; This comic was based on the dialogue between Haruhi and Saber Lily in the previous comic post and fueled by FatBastard's comment on Figure.FM. Yuki was added later on to complete the 4 panels... It's something Yaku would've wanted ^_^
This whole thing about GN Archer being a female mecha and the tentacle monster came about around last winter when they first showed GN Archer and how feminine it looked. This idea was inspired by WiseFreeman who did a post on GN Archer a long time ago. I remember I commented on how there should be a GN Archer doujinshi ^.^ Haven't seen one yet, so I decide to make my own :P
I like the title better, but it was a bit too long to fit in the comic anyway :P Which one did you like better?
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 :)
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.
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.
Fate/Triple Play