 | "Facing Right" by Akira
(2010-09-17) |
Since I'm right handed, it's easy for me to draw a character facing to his/her right. I made everyone in this strip face right as a joke (It was a joke really!). I still have difficult time drawing characters facing left. Their faces get out of proportion, the balance of eyes, nose, and mouth gets off. Even in current "Drawing Manga" arc, I didn't draw a character facing left until
5th strip. I haven't drawn anything for a year and didn't want to challenge myself in the beginning.
Some of the off-balanced drawings can be found in eighth strip fourth frame (Konstantin) and 12th first frame (Laika). After drawing for a while balance gets better and in 18th strip third frame (Kotone), I didn't have any problem drawing her at all.
Current story arc is a rehabilitation to get my drawing skill back to where I was years ago.
I personally think my best was around 2006, penci-wise. And ink-wise, it's 2004 (I'm imitating 2004's inking style for a current story arc). It's interesting that both are after long serious story arcs: "Laika's story arc" for 2006 and "Kotone's story arc" for 2004. Long story arcs wears me out tremendously, they do improve my manga skills. How ironical.
Please write your comment to this strip at pOnju forum
 | "Looking into Touhou with detail - Perfect Cherry Blossom" by Totaku
(2010-09-17) |
Today we will be taking a look at the 2nd PC game in (7th in the overall series). the Touhou series. In this game ZUN introduced new mechanics as well as a whole new view on Gensokyo. And so we begin our talk on....
Perfect Cherry Blossom
One year after EoSD was finished, ZUN had started work on his next game in the Touhou series. This time it would take place a year after EoSD and also the team would center around "finding Spring".
This now leads to my introduction to Perfect Cherry Blossom, the second Touhou PC game.
In this game, we once again take a look at Gensokyo, but now it's going through a rather harsh winter season.... that lasting alot longer than usual. As of right now, it's the May season, and spring still hans't arrived yet in Gensokyo...
Reimu find this a bit problematic as she is unable to rest easily at her shrine since her tea would get cold real quick, so she knew something was wrong, so had no choice but to go out and investigate and see if she could find out what happened to the Spring.
Mean while, at the Forest of Magic, Marisa was mainly relaxing as the season weren't affected in her area (for some reason, yet she did feel a cold breeze. Somehow she thought "Why not go out and see what's going on?' So she took her broom and left to see what's happen in Gensokyo where she soon comes across the winter season and decides to see what's going on...
At the Scarlet Devil Mansion, Sakuya had been busy tending to Remilia's needs as usual, but because she's been in the mansion for a while she grew concerned....the food supplies from winter were running low and the winter season was not ending.... something was wrong and if she was going to get food supplies to keep the mansion fed and keep her master occupied, she needed to go out and find out the cause of the prolonged winter. So she left the mansion and began an investigation of her own....
With this, the story to Perfect Cherry Blossom began...
In the game you can once again play as Reimu or Marisa, who haven't changed much in their play style from the last game. But we get a new charater that we are allowed to play in this game... Sakuya. Sakuya played in a way like a mix between Reimu and Marisa. She's may not be as fast as Marisa, but she's definetly quicker than Reimu. And her shots mainly consist of knives which when powered up can form into a spread or semi homing shots. Also her bombs while somewhat weak are quick and effective and in one case she has a spellcard that will freeze time along with the bullets for a short period of time....
Now some of the things ZUN has added into the game was for the first time, he allowed the hit box to be visible. This was mainly done by holding shift to slow down. You will then see the hit box on your charater and you should know that you should be hit there.
Second he used a new system based on the point you collected which allowed you to gain a "Border Bonus" This would form a barrier around you charater for a certain duration. If the charater gets hit while the border is active, the border would wipe out the bullets within a certain range and then vanish, however if you survive with the border for the whole duration, you get a massive bonus.
Finally, you get extra lives based on the points you collect rather than the score.
Based on the fan's view, compared to EoSD, PCB is considered to be the easier of the Touhou games. As if has a much more easy to use system, plus the hit box detection. And finally the danmaku was slowed down (though it also increased with more clutter compared to before....
And with a memorable list of charaters this would give the world a Gensokyo a new and interesting view to the players....
Next week I will begin charater introductions once again....From the stage 1 boss all the way to the extra bosses (note I said "bosses") We will begin by discussing about the harsh winter and the youkai that roams about the winter season: Letty Whiterock
Till Next week people
Totaku
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