(IWGP entry!) like a shining starThe summer IWGP contest was intended to be a free-topic wallpaper making fest. However, I really wanted a theme that can tie up the timing of the battle, and, of course the subject topic also (Rika in this case). The contest is being held in August, it is typical for school kids to be taking summer breaks, getting back to school in September with a great start. And well a lot of H!P fans are still kids... I wished to reflect that theme despite having left school a long while ago, so I jinx'd it with the rather recent (not so anymore now, it was when I made this) Ishikawa graduation with a graphical approach.
Rika has her latest photobook "Shiawase no Ashiato Happy!" which is kind of a ceremonial book for her grad, so the pics from there would be pretty appropriate. Out of the less kiddy bunch of the photos, this series of her in a gorgeous ball-gown just caught my eye; particularly this one where she sits on that Euro couch against a silk window blind with sweet ass patterns on both. Amazing lighting, all that.
As for how the process went, first off of course was the standard touching ups that you all are familiar with. Good thing with the scan was that it had a 2000px + width and this is a 2-page-spread even, where the scannist already did a nice merge job (big kudos) so this wasn't hard at all. Gorgeous lighting again, so the brightness leveling was easy as well. Since the contest asks for a 1024x768 size, which is 4:3, and lately I typically started the canvas on 1920x1200 which is 16:10 - I had to optimize this wallpaper for the 4:3 specs which would be 1920x1440. Great thing is that the photo was big enough for it anyway.
Theme-wise, in order to put the idea of "movin' on to the next" into the photo, despite Rika's pose being rather static, I halfassedly attempted a pretty new style on my part (which is shamelessly ripped off of ElectricHeat or NoPattern, two of the most pioneering illustrative-print styles out there). With both Rika's grad and the timing of the summer contest, I wanted the theme to be literally "shine like stars in the night / move onto the next stage". Against such a dark-based photo, the sparkling, glowing aura around her would be like the stars; the bridge-like rainbows and the ribbon across would be like the guide to the next. (corny, I know...).
Much of the glowy stuff was done via varying settings within the "outer glow" panel of Photoshop. Noise'd and dodge'd specifically. Since that panel is kinda limiting in controlling how bright the stuff can glow, I found out a clear-cut solution was to use multiple layers of the same object, with differing glow settings such as color and blending modes to fine-tune the shininess as much as possible. Sometimes I even needed to use one mode for the bottom layer, use another for the top one, group them in the same folder and use another mode on that folder... I guess the other important catch here would be a diverse use of layer mask; use a hard one on sharper objects (rainbows for one), and use a blurred one for the lesser ones (like the sparkling stars). Brush out the crap you don't want later on. If you brush stuff randomly / mindlessly you you can get some interesting results. Oh yeah you can use layer masks on layer folders now too, AND THEN use another layer mask on a nested folder, which is like, the best-thing-ever.
Next up, to further juice up the mood, there were then the various floral ornaments, tiled patterns, cloudy overlays, butterfly stencil, and even the huge ass glowy sig of hers etc are then echoing to Ishikawa's incredibly graceful quality. Yeah...
Typography... well the Japanese fans always like the uber cheesy catch-phrase and here I am making two big ones for them. Classic serif choice, needless to say is to compliment the theme as well.
One of the few things I skipped about (ran out of time, I started this like, in the afternoon of the contest deadline, lawl), was the lack of reflection off of the sparklings on Rika's body. Technically it wouldn't be a big deal, but still there is a slight but apparent fakeness about the picture, and that was the cause of it.
Shiawase no ashiato HAPPY
rika006s 2005-08-31
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