Author Archives: Silver Arrows

Micah and Zaid

Micah and Zaid from Rune Factory 3. I love the dynamic between these two. Micah gets all snarky and acts like he's above Zaid's "man's journeys", but you know inside, he's all "HELL YEAH!". Anyway, apart from Zaid's hand looking a little awkward, and Micah's looking a little small, I'm really happy with how well this came out. This was also where I experimented and discovered this painterly style. I used this technique on later pictures, but I think I forgot to note down the settings I used. So I forgot how to do it.

micahzaid

Micah and Zaid belong to Marvelous Entertainment. This is a fanwork only.

Revisiting My Old Sketchbooks 2 — Dreamsong Edition

It's time to take another trip down Memory Lane, as I look back at my old artwork. Some of these pictures date back to 2008. So well done me, it's been 12 years since I started Dreamsong, and I'm still not done.

Here is an old sketch of Apollo. This was meant to be the scene in chapter 4 when Palutena asks if he knows what's going on. I didn't use this, because he just doesn't exude enough sliminess. He's supposed to be way more repulsive!

apollo

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What is This Book? — (Re)Create This Book Pt 3

I haven't really done any work on this for a while. See how easily I get bored of projects? So I thought I may as well post my last entries since it may be a while till I do any more.

So here is "Create Hope". Of course, I thought of Star Wars: A New Hope, so I drew moisture-farmer Luke. This was a really hard one. I'm not good at realistic portraits. I had to use the grid method, but even then, his left-eye was so hard to draw. No matter what I did, it always looked wrong. So I quit before I made it any worse. It didn't help that in the source image, Leia's bun was super-imposed over the left-hand side of Luke's face.

create-hope

I mean to seal this as it's soft pencil and I don't want it smudging, but I can't think of any way to incorporate the fruit rule without cheapening the picture, so I may have to break the rule in this one case.

Next is "Create an Upside Down Drawing". I drew a sloth. I mean to paint this with watercolour, as I've finally dug up my drawing pens, but the Luke picture is on the following page, and I'm so scared I'm going to manage to spill the paint onto it.

create-upsidedown

That's all I have for now.

Revisiting My Old Sketchbooks 1 — Ferys’s Gang Edition

I was having a look through my old notebooks to find my old Dreamsong chapter 6 draft (which I did, by the way, and it was as bad as I thought). And of course, I got a little nostalgic seeing all my old art, and a little put out, actually, as it seems that my skill level has gone quite a bit down since then. But I thought it would be fun to share my trip down memory lane. You also get to see just how much editing goes into the lineart after scanning. Even though I prefer the experience of traditional art, digital art is necessary for me, just to fix the worst mistakes.

Anyway, I'm breaking it into two parts. To start, here are the pictures, and a few character development notes, from my AD&D gang.

Here are the original sketches for the chibis. I feel sad to think I can't even draw at that level anymore.

Raven, and a random Itachi:

raven-itachi

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If At First You Don’t Succeed…

nerdmug

An oldie, but a goodie. I accidentally gave it a width of 404. This was not deliberate, but it makes me happy. I used to code in XHTML and PHP, I dabbled in JavaScript and Pascal for a while too, but I don't have the patience for it these days. This was for a custom mug for the same person, but unlike the mousemat, this wasn't given to the boss, but shoved in storage. I believe the clipart was from openclipart.

Fly Away Home

flying-dandeliongirl

There's a bit of a story behind this. I drew this picture a long time ago for a personalised mousemat for someone I considered a friend. It still kinda sucks, but I put several days into getting this as perfect as I could with my limited skill-set. I even had to copy and paste the background from my Micah and Zaid piece, because in spite of several attempts, whatever I drew sucked so bad. Drawing is hard for me!

Anyway, a year or two ago, I asked if this friend still had it. They said, casually as anything, that they gave it to their boss ages ago. Even though they knew how much time (and money) I put into it. So screw it, it obviously meant nothing to that person, so here it is for everyone to look at.

Momotarou — English Translation and Transcription

A transcription and translation of the story of Momotarou, retold by the Yumearu channel. I hope this will be useful to beginner learners of Japanese.

昔むかーし、おばあさんは川へ洗濯に行きました。
mukashi, mukashi, obaasan wa kawa e sentaku ni ikimashita.
Long, long ago, Obaasan [Old Lady] went to the river to do her laundry.

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Language-Learning Tips

blossoms

Some of these are specific to Japanese, but most can be applied broadly to any language study.

  • Avoid doing anything requiring visual concentration after a study session! This stops short term memories developing into long term ones. So no Tetris after study! On the plus side, DO play tetris if you want to forget something! Playing Tetris can prevent formation of painful memories and trauma
  • Teach what you've just learned to someone else. Even if the only student you can find is your pet or your reflection. Teaching others will help cement your new knowledge in your mind.
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Jumping the Snark

In fact, I finished reading the Naruto manga a few weeks ago, but then I got a nasty cold, and then I decided to play Etrian Odyssey again, and I don't even know why I found it so hard the first time, because it wasn't harder than any other RPG, and then I decided to get a move on with the Gyakuten Saiban translations. I should have posted this earlier while it was still fresh in my memory, but shaanai naa, what can you do?

i am madara
I guess I'm Madara. Reality is way over-rated.

So... I was disappointed. An awful lot of sharks were jumped. It felt like Kishimoto went "Oops! I've just OP'd Madara, what should I do? I know! Let's power up Naruto and Sasuke! Akan! I've OP'd the boys now... What should I do? I know, I'll make Madara more powerful. Oh, damn —" etc etc. So many sharks were jumped, so many. I really preferred Part 1 to Part 2. As the series progressed, it became more and more about...

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Page 48 — Final Farewells

Translator's notes: So we're finally on the last page. To anyone who's been following this since I posted my first translation effort 9 years ago: my apologies, and thanks for your patience. Anyway, here it is. I actually felt sad translating this. The end made me feel nostalgic for the old Ace Attorney world.

Page 48 - Final Goodbyes

Illusory Episode 20 — Special Compilation

Final Farewells — At the Airport

Phoenix and the gang have come to the airport to see off Edgeworth, who's about to set off on his travels. It seems it's also time to say farewell to "Naruhodo Gyakuten Saiban!". This is specially written for this compilation edition.

Pearl: Mr Nick, he's here! Hurry, hurry!

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Celebrate! The Translation Project is Done!

To commemorate almost actually finishing this after *checks* almost exactly 9 years, here are some more photos of the inside of this book. Just to clarify, it’s an official fanbook, not a fanwork. It was published by Softbank Creative, and has a retail price of 1,500 yen + tax. I think I paid about £15 for it on eBay. It was first published on 14/06/2006 and I have the second printing which was on 30/06/2006. The ISBN is 4-7973-3556-4.

Here’s the dust jacket opened out.

Naruhodo Gyakuten Saiban - Dust jacket Continue reading →

Kansai-ben Version of For the First Time in Forever (Reprise) from Frozen

I found this on Ten Tobata's channel, except he didn't say where it was from, or even if it was official or fan-made. Anyway, my sensei, Yuki-san, hunted it down for me, without even being asked, I might add, because she's awesome like that. It's fan-made, after all. It's actually quite a sweet scene, at least this version. I've transcribed and translated the lyrics for you, which took me ages, because some of those kanji are complex, yet too blurry to make out, but I managed it eventually. As always, my knowledge of Japanese is limited, so there may be mistakes. Also, I've never watched Frozen, so there may be context stuff I've missed. Anyway, here is the video for anyone else who was looking for the Kansai/Osaka dialect version of this song. The singer also did the full song here.

Purple is Anna's lines, blue is Elsa's.

守ってもらわんでええねん。うちは大丈夫や
mamotte morawande ee nen. Uchi wa daijoubu ya!
You don't need to protect me. I'm okay!

な〜、エルサ、行かんとって、な〜
naa, erusa, ikan totte... naa!
Hey, Elsa, don't go...! Hey!

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