Sensei's Upgrade 2011.06 (Harvest Home)

[sensei]

Sensei's Upgrade 2011.06 (Harvest Home) is now up, with new items ranging from buggy cyborgs from 1973 to shapely wolf kamis from 2008. Featured this time:

Asatte no Hoko 1: Episodes 1-7 (a new gallery with five interesting cuts added)

Cardcaptor Sakura 01: Episode 01 (a set of layouts from an action moment, reanimated in a simple way)

Maeterlinck's Blue Bird (a major update with a new cel and some very hard-to-find gengas)

Microid S (a colorful and dramatic cel of Dragonfly Yanma under attack)

One or two of a Kind (Sensei adds some Spice and Wolf to his collection and wades into the Holo/Horo dispute)

Tenshi ni Narumon: OP cels (a lovely, dramatic Muse)

TnN: Noelle and Yuusuke (More from the Ep. 1 get-acquainted scene. Caution: ecchi!)

xxxHolic/Tsubasa (This gallery now is shared by Time-Space Witch Yuuko and Princess World-Hopper Sakura, who appears in a lovely portrait and two cute reanimations of roughs)

Enjoy! And don’t forget to give thanks for family, friends, and animation art!

[Macron one]

Splendid additions, Sensei!

I particularly like the fantastic set of animated layouts from CCS ep.1! It's a great scene to begin with (showing lots of motion and facial expression) and the word balloons make it cooler still. Your new Spice and Wolf and Tsubasa sketches are also very nice and extremely well researched as always!

[teggacat]

I was wondering why I havent seen you lurking about here lately, you've been busy updating! !
As always, very nicely done and thought out presentation, hard to choose but this round I really like your new
Asatte No Hoko cuts, they are really very nice, and your Spice&Wolf have smooth detail too.
I enjoy your seeing your new goodies because I am exposed to anime that I normally wouldn't search for,
Thanks always for sharing, and warm wishes for you & the family for a Happy Thanksgiving!!

[sensei]

I was wondering why I havent seen you lurking about here lately, you've been busy updating!

...and lots of other things, too. I've been helping my wife do a difficult editing project, working to get a Christmas fundraiser off the ground after the organizer quit on short notice, and doing my own work writing test bank questions for a textbook on the evolution of primate species. Radix celorum pecunia est.

And then some vandal dumped sixteen tons of dead leaves in my front and back yard for unknown reasons. I called the police, and they said, yeah, yeah, the same vandal has been reported in a bunch of other neighborhoods. Guy name of Jack Frost. I hope they catch him soon.

I enjoy your seeing your new goodies because I am exposed to anime that I normally wouldn't search for,
Thanks always for sharing, and warm wishes for you & the family for a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thanks in return, and best wishes to all my Beta friends for a thankful and joyous holiday season. I enjoy keeping my eye out for new (new to me anyhow) series, and doing the little research runs always turns up some intriguing fact I didn't know. I'd loved the job the voice actor did with the trickster Kotomi in Asatte no Houkou, and it was a joy to learn that this seiyuu's superb job in a little-known supporting role gave her enough visibility that in short order she was tapped to voice Holo/Horo in Spice & Wolf. (And if I'm right about her role in AnH, the two characters are more similar than you might think.)

Now I can't watch an episode of S&W without thinking about Asatte.

I particularly like the fantastic set of animated layouts from CCS ep.1! It's a great scene to begin with (showing lots of motion and facial expression) and the word balloons make it cooler stil

Thanks for the reaction: layouts don't always make smooth animations, but the ones from CCS Ep. 1 are an exception. And I have to credit Vampyreshoujo for directing me to Jasc Animation Shop. When my laptop went kapoof, I found that Jasc would let me restore it for $20, which is great as some of the useful image editing features of their more expensive photoshopping program are available in this as well, which is how I got those text balloons to appear and disappear on cue.

[Yupa]

I love your Spice and Wolf sketches! It's quite a narrative-heavy show so they don't use much animation, but I think the artwork is always beautiful. Even the layouts are quite detailed. You're the fourth collector on RS with S&W sketches, it often surprises me how less "public collectors" collect this series, but maybe it has something to do with the high winning bids - people are willing to pay quite a lot for a nice sketch set of Horo with her ears uncovered.

Also some lovely additions to your large TnN collection! Looking at those new cels from ep. 1 an outsider might even think this is an ecchi show, but I don't recall any of such scenes in the rest of the show. I guess they used that scene to get more people to watch it.

I'm not familiar with the rest of the new cels and sketches, but looking at them certainly feels like those shows are worth watching and collecting.

I also use Jasq Animation Shop to make animated GIFs. I like how you can adjust the frame time for each frame. The only downside is that it doesn't let me use 24 fps, instead I have to work with 25 fps (frame time 4/100 s) which is slightly faster.

[D123]

Those S&W's are amazing

I also looked at your new TnT I haven't seen the show but the cels are visually stunning , I didn't think the new additions needed to be covered up though

[sensei]

Those S&W's are amazing

I'm impressed with their largesse: that is, the pencil-on-paper detail for images that are intended to be seen only dimly or partially on the screen. It seems very "old style" (like the India ink line tracing on the Blue Bird cel) at a time when many studios are, I understand, using some kind of touchpad style of drawing that is digital from start to finish.

I also looked at your new TnT I haven't seen the show but the cels are visually stunning , I didn't think the new additions needed to be covered up though

They aren't when you visit the page. But I thought they should be covered as thumbnails, as there is no warning on the gallery home page that there might be ecchi images visible when you visit individual galleries. They are not hentai in design or intention, but I could see that some people could see them as such. And in the wake of the ugly Second Mile affair, an ex-Penn State professor like myself probably needs to take some extra precautions.

You're the fourth collector on RS with S&W sketches, it often surprises me how less "public collectors" collect this series, but maybe it has something to do with the high winning bids - people are willing to pay quite a lot for a nice sketch set of Horo with her ears uncovered.

Yes, I noticed that sketches "with points" go for higher prices than those "without points." These were a bit lower than the norm, perhaps because of the high number of partials and non-Holo images in the pack. But the ones I got were lovely and well worth having.

Looking at those new cels from ep. 1 an outsider might even think this is an ecchi show, but I don't recall any of such scenes in the rest of the show. I guess they used that scene to get more people to watch it.

Maybe, but in my view the show is all about puberty and how young people come to cope with it psychologically. There is one more naked hug that Noelle gives Yuusuke (in the frog-making guitar ep.) and a lot of sexual tension throughout. (Plus some pretty clear yaoi moments with Kael and Hael.) And while N&Y don't take their clothes off at the end of Step 26, one assumes that they are about to consummate their "marriage."

I'm not familiar with the rest of the new cels and sketches, but looking at them certainly feels like those shows are worth watching and collecting.

Absolutely! I feel sad when I read a message from someone who has committed narrowly to one series, and now is no longer interested in collecting at all because the art from that particular show has begun to be exhausted. There's so much anime, and while 99% of it is arguably not worth looking at, that 1% keeps coming and coming and coming.

[cutiebunny]

You can upload gifs on RS again?! I did not know this! Thank you, sensei.


Nice update. I enjoyed the CCS sketches (espcially Sakura & Kero's comments) and the Tsubasa sketches. My experience has been that finding artwork from newer Madhouse series is difficult, and when they do surface, they can be pricey. I suspect that what artwork is still being done on paper is trashed. It seems like a lot of new Madhouse artwork looks like it was folded to fit inside a circular bin, making me think that I'm dealing with stolen goods.

I love your Spice and Wolf sketches! It's quite a narrative-heavy show so they don't use much animation, but I think the artwork is always beautiful. Even the layouts are quite detailed. You're the fourth collector on RS with S&W sketches, it often surprises me how less "public collectors" collect this series, but maybe it has something to do with the high winning bids - people are willing to pay quite a lot for a nice sketch set of Horo with her ears uncovered.

An explanation could be because they want to amass as much artwork from the series as cheaply as possible. When you start making artwork public, you show off its merits to others who can become potential rival bidders. I'm very guilty of this - I've been socking away artwork from a particular series for over a year simply because I don't want the prices on it to increase while I'm still purchasing. But now that that supply has dried up, I may consider posting what I have from that series.

I also use Jasq Animation Shop to make animated GIFs. I like how you can adjust the frame time for each frame. The only downside is that it doesn't let me use 24 fps, instead I have to work with 25 fps (frame time 4/100 s) which is slightly faster.

I'll have to try this. Thanks.

[sensei]

You can upload gifs on RS again?! I did not know this! Thank you, sensei.

Err ... actually I upload the gifs to Photobucket and then import them via html markup as part of the description. If you look closely, you'll see a little blue dot above the animations. That's the "large image" that I upload to RS. I used to be able to upload smaller animated gifs as the thumbnails, but I haven't been able to do this since the Rubberslug "Great Leap Forward."

Yes, I ditto Yupa's comments about Jasc. It's fun to fool around with the timing of the animation, especially since the Japanese animators do often give parts of cuts a little "snap" by animating the general run of images 8-to-a-second, but then speeding up an individual frame to 12-a-second.

[blueshinma]

Its always a pleasure to peek in on your latest updates! All the work and love you put into your collection sure does show!

[Yupa]

I was trying some things with uploading animated images last week. Uploading it elsewhere and linking to it in the description with html is indeed an easy way out. I upload the first frame as the large image, then I remove it again so only the thumbnail generated by RS is left.

However, I think I found another way. If you rename .gif to .jpg it will still be animated. Jpegs can't be animated so internally it must still be a GIF, but RS accepted it.
I think it's something like this: image.jpg.gif
RS only sees .jpg so it accepts it, the browser sees .jpg.gif so it's still animated.

[tex-chan]

I can't believe I missed your update on RS, but I'm so happy to have seen it here. As always, you have collected such an interesting and diverse number of items together. I love how broad your gallery has become, and eclectic updates like this one just reinforce this feeling.

It's very hard to pick a favorite. The Spice and Wolf are stunning, although I know nothing about this show. The sketches are gorgeous and interesting, and the screencaps and commentary really piqued my interest. And the Ep. 1 Sakura animation is something else -- just love the amount of expression, emotion, and motion in this set. The animation captures this wonderful moment perfectly. Love the Microid S cel -- again, a show I know nothing about, but I find myself feeling intrigued by the lovely and expressive artwork you've posted. The TnN additions are superb. Love the "meet and greet" cels of Noelle and Yusuke, and that Muse OP cel is just ... wow! Amazing, both in color and the character's expression. But ... I have to say, much as I love everything, the Bluebird additions have to be my favorites. The cel of Water and Fire is so beautiful. I love how delicate it is. And the gengas you've added to this section are beyond fantastic. They are so pretty and detailed.

All in all, another beautiful update from one of my favorite galleries. Congrats on your new acquisitions!!

[Cordelia]

What a lovely and diverse update! I get introduced to new series every time I admire your artwork.

[Promethium]

What a lovely and diverse update!

I agree! A lovely update! I especially like the S&W additions.

[ReiTheJelly]

I love the new Muse cel; TnN always has such stunning artwork. Your reanimation of the layouts from CCS ep. 1 is also quite entertaining - I don't think I've seen people animate layouts before; it works quite well!