^Ripper's Anime Page

Introduction

A small warning
Most likely, this topic does not hold any interesting information for you.
If it doesn't - just skip it and don't waste your time.This post is BIG, so if you don't have a will to read it to the end, then skip it.

This post can be quite instigating.

Furthemore, the next posts are going to be ENOMOROUS in size (image-rich - over 60 images and a way more bigger than this one in a text amount), if they will be written.

That posts will contain a "making of" as a proof of images I've rebuilt, because things described in this post are able to cause you to think that I'm a liar.

I'll post it if the community needs it, because it will be in vain if nobody cares about it.
I'm waiting for an approval. If you're interested, I'll wait several days and then post it (f.e. THIS post was being written for about 4 days, then the next ones will take me about a week each due to it's size).

Background
I'm completely unable to draw or paint, I just can't do it, kids at pre-school draw way better than me.

But I know photoshop/gimp/inkscape on a level enough to use it freely. As I've mentioned before, I can't create any art by myself - I don't have imagination nor talent for this, but... I guess I can rebuild, repaint, or improve things that had been already created by others.

I don't claim to have an awesome skills in ps/gimp/inks, but take a look at it anyway, maybe you'll like it.

I use to do everything in detail, so my approach requires a lot of time, concentration, and patience.
Another side of the coin - sometimes I can drop or suspend a project even after a several months dedicated to it, if I feel that I'm losing interest to it.

That's sad for me, because I have lots of 90% complete projects (generally, my main job projects), which are dropped or suspended, because I've just got fed up with them and switched attention to something else.

However, I'm still hoping to revieve them someday, who knows what will come into my head next. xD

Legal stuff
Everyone knows official YK's download page...
While searching for a direct link to it (damn YK's flash! ), and writing this post I saw a line in his disclaimer:

*Unapproved distribution and secondary processing are forbidden.

I think that makes this topic a bit wrong, but, from the other hand, I think I should post it, because:

1) I've given a lot of my time to it (you don't really know HOW MUCH).
2) This work can be taken for a fanart (90% of it), can't it?
3) I think that YK can forgive a hard fan like me for this anyway.
4) This forum translates his manga and does not bother about legal issues a lot.

What this is all about
This story has started about 2.5 years ago. I'm a happy compiz user, so I have multiple desktops, which are
faces of a prism (there are six of them, see screens here, this is incredibly convenient), but there's been a problem - I didn't have wallpapers for them.

I haven't found ones that are satisfactory and suitable for me on the net. What about official wallpapers available at YK's site - they're altered in away they cause your eyes bleed: colors are mutilated completely, also some filters added.


A long way

Analysis from the height of the past days
I wanted good wallpapers, so there were only several ways to acquire them:

1) Color images from the manga itself
2) Use cover arts
3) Try to fix official YK's wallpapers.


Explanation one by one:

1) If I used manga images, then I'll get used to them (try looking at them for 14-18 hours a day, like I do) and this will force me to skip that pages while reading manga when it's time comes. This is not a solution, I need something stand-alone, but completely related in the same time.

2) Cover arts are stand-alone and related, but:
- They are with scanner artifacts, also some of them are broken completely (f.e. GLOv2 cover)
- There is text above them, which has to be removed, areas beneath it have to be redrawn.
- There are printing dots on some of them (scanner resolution is bigger than printing res).

+ Smaller versions are available at YK's gallery, although they're very small.
+ In YK's room (site area) LO 2 cover drafts and work process are available, it can be used for rebuilding thin lines.
+ Italian covers are available (just hi-res versions of small ones in YK's gallery, but with scanner issues [f.e. dots])

This is acceptable, because the result worths it (for me), although it's extremely hard to do. (I didn't realize that time HOW hard exactly it will be).

3) YK's art is a way more pain in the ass:
-- Colors are broken
-- Effects (f.e. pencil effect in the red picture)
-- It's easier to redraw some parts from scratch then fix it

+ Smaller versions are available at YK's gallery (very small)
+ Italian covers are available (just hi-res versions of small ones in YK's gallery, but with scanner issues [f.e. dots])

This is acceptable also, but it's a WAY harder than covers.


My choice
So, finally, I've chosen these ones (in chronology order):

1) March 2007 - - GLOv4 cover (little interesting)
2) June 2007 - - GLOv2 cover (VERY INTERESTING)
3) January 2008 - - YK's official wallpaper (little interesting)
4) February 2008 - - YK's official wallpaper (medium interesting)
5) May 2008 - - YK's official wallpaper (THE MOST INTERESTING) - as time has shown, this is my favourite (explanation below)



A logical question - "Where's the sixth one?".
I've used one official wallpaper (), because I liked it the way it was already, without altering it.


Progress and results (the main part of this post)

Here are my progress and comparison images (before/after) in the INTEREST ASCENDING ORDER with additional info and commentary.

1) All wallpapers are done in 1440x900 resolution, covers are done in the original resolution.
2) Samples given below are in 50% (covers) or 37,5% (wallpapers) resolution.
3) Time amounts are given in days, which represent spared time. I used to give it about 4 hours a day, so, for example, 1 week = 7 days X 4 hours each = 28 working hours [this is a lot for a hobby, don't you think? ].


1) GLOv4 cover



State: COMPLETE
Time: about 2 weeks
Software: GIMP
Main tools used: Stamp, smudge, blur/sharpen, burn/exposition
Layers: one
Shapes: none


Commentary:
This is the easiest wallpaper I've made, nothing serious done, I haven't even removed a GLO header, only hieroglyphs and "vol. 4" sign, done levels correction, sharpness, and combined with a smaller variant from YK's gallery. You can laugh all you want.


2) Wallpaper #3



State: 20% done, SUSPENDED since February 2008
Time: month
Software: GIMP
Main tools used: Stamp, smudge, blur/sharpen, burn/exposition
Layers: 3
Shapes: none

Commentary:
The same thing, but there is a lot of work this time. I've combined it with YK's gallery image (it's became blurry due to scaling it up - I've had a lot of fun cleaning it all up), levelled, and so on. Then I've roughly reconstructed colors.
Still nothing (or little) interesting.


3) Wallpaper #5



State: 90% done, SUSPENDED (maybe DROPPED) since May 2008
Time: 2 months
Software: GIMP
Main tools used: the same
Layers: more than 100
Shapes: about 350 (inkscape)

Commentary:
Interesting part begins. Per-pixel rebuilt image, using YK's gallery small version.
By per-pixel I mean this: 200%-800% zoom and heavy usage of "main used" tools. I can even say that I've redrawn it pixel-per-pixel (without joking). Only line-sharpening is left to do.

There will be no workflow post for this image, because the sources are lost - that's why it's maybe dropped. Maybe, this image won't even count for you, because there is no proof for it, although I'll post the full-res version.


4) GLOv2 cover



State: COMPLETE (or 90% readyness xD)
Time: 7 months (more than a half a year [SIC!] for one image)
Software: GIMP
Main tools used: the same as previous
Layers: 9 (in fact 1, these layers are BACKUPS)
Shapes: 188 (inkscape)

Commentary:
Interesting part continues. Completely per-pixel rebuilt image with a lot of difficulties. Parts hidden beneath the signs are DRAWN FROM SCRATCH.

This looks impossible, so one of my next posts is going to be about this image's "making of", with images of every step and even an animated GIF to see it dynamically. Also, there will be a full-res version of it.

What about it's status - I've completed it only yesterday, just for this post. I've picked it up after it's 1.5 year's oblivion.
Also, I think, it still needs some work to be done, f.e. smoothing and sharpening, but I'm currently satisfied with the result, so I've marked it complete. If I'll ever pick it up again, then I'll finish all minor improvements.


5) Wallpaper #1 (The pearl of it)



State: 70% done, SUSPENDED since May 2009
Time: a YEAR ([SIC!][SIC!])
Software: Photoshop CS3&CS4, inkscape, GIMP
Main tools used: the same as previous
Layers: 2091
Shapes: 147 (inkscape), about 1000 (photoshop)

Commentary:
The MOST interesting of all, my favourite image/wallpaper, placed onto workplace #1 (see screens).

1) Image itself is completely per-pixel rebuilt (200-800% zoom and stamp/smudge/blur...)
2) Many parts are REDRAWN COMPLETELY
3) 70% of main lines are vector-drawn.
4) This is the biggest thing I've ever done in PS and inkscape.
5) I've even found THAT font.
6) There is going to be a HUUUGE "making of" with lots of images and animated GIF's, if it'll be requested.



PS.
I'm looking forward for an opinion of the community. And waiting for an approval.
If I'm doing herecy - write it also.

PSPS.
This post is far away from amount of thoughts I want to express, but if I post everything I want, it will be a whole book and it will take years for me then. A useless book, because I've never been good at compositions. x_X

Fuck, I can even start a blog. o_0
However, I won't - I don't have anything interesting to post there.

I think HumanRage summed it up nicely!

O M G !!!

My hat off for you sir!
Can't wait to see the hi-res version of those!

This also makes me think i should give some people image upload rights to the forum.
Imageshack etc don't hold the images forever!
Would be a damn shame if these were lost someday.

If someone else want upload privi, message me!

Your work is really nice and interesting!!

I wonder if we ask for Yukito to upload his full resolution works, will he do that?

Ok, other topic (but almost related to that one!), by clicking on the japanese yukito's page, i've found something really interesting (maybe you all already know that!)

On the japanese page, click on the firts link in the "hot news" and you will find many things about his work, the main ones that i am talking about are on the first links (listed below). I think it explains how Yukito make its scenes the most difficult visually.

http://jajatom.moo.jp/y-shosai/cn18/cn12/pg648.html

http://jajatom.moo.jp/y-shosai/cn18/cn6 ... model.html

Sam wrote:I wonder if we ask for Yukito to upload his full resolution works, will he do that?

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

Sam wrote: On the japanese page, click on the firts link in the "hot news" and you will find many things about his work, the main ones that i am talking about are on the first links (listed below). I think it explains how Yukito make its scenes the most difficult visually.

I've suspected that, and now it's confirmed, thank you.

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

Why did you say that? Will it not be great to have the BAALO covers and other drawings in full resolutions?
I have seen on the japanese web site that on Yukito's desktop there is the full resolution and not croped cover of the third volume, i would be reallyu happy to have it for me to make some full size pictures in my room!

Fuck, I've misread it. Sorry, man.

I've read it as "let's ask YK to upload your works there." - I'm against it.
But if you want to ask YK to release HIS ORIGINALS in hi-res - That's ok, but don't let him know about THIS work.

Also, I think that is a ridiculous idea, you shouldn't do that anyway.


PS.
I'm AGAINST submitting it to YK's site.

He should really put out a Gunnm artbook of some sort.
All the covers, art he put in every book, background info, sketches....

No offense, but I'm not fond of most of those "fixes".
The wallpapers are ok, though, even though I don't find them fantastic to begin with.

Dream wrote:The wallpapers are ok, though, even though I don't find them fantastic to begin with.

Do you mean I'm making shit? Just curious.


PS.
The biggest post of this forum is in progress.

Introduction

Warning: It's going to be the biggest post of this forum ever.

If have courage to read it, then read it to the end! Else, don't even bother yourself - you have better things to spend your time on.

If you are still going to read it, reply your opinion, please. Any opinion is apreciated, because it's better than not caring at all.
However, if you write something like "man, you're doing shit!", please explain why you think so - I'm just curious.

I'm going to tell you about each of these images with the full-res results included, but do you need it?
If not - just skip this topic and don't waste your time.


Composition of this post has taken so long (about a month [I've realised it right now... A MONTH FOR A _POST_... fuck, I'm slow! ]), because it was hard to remember the order of my actions and themselves as well (what I've done and how I've done), also making step-by-step shots - I've had to restore in my memory all the work from the beginning. However, I've managed to do it only draftly due to it's amount and my weak memory, so some steps may miss or their order may be wrong, also some steps can be omitted due to my lazyness and the size of this post already.




Please, don't take it for a boast, but I've dedicated a lot of time to it, really.
I've nearly fallen off a chair when I counted it roughly.

2.5 years = 365 x 2.5 x 4 [hours a day] x 0.93 [average productivity] = 3394.5 hours total.

A little comparison for you - it's more than enough to learn any foreign language flawlessly or a huge bunch of new technologies for my main work, or just have some sleep and great time.

But I've used it for a hobby, because it's very possible to go mad without any relief or an attention switching target.

A small note - only PURE effective time is counted, I mean that if I suspend an image for some time, I DIDN'T take this time in account.

As a side effect of this work - I think, my ps/gimp/inks skills may have improved a little bit... I dunno.

So, please, don't go too hard on this work, take in account it's time consumption and my amateurity.
However, I think, it's taken so long only because of my detail approach and untalentedness.

If you haven't dropped reading this madness, then let's go!

Also, this post contains an lot of images, so watch your traffic, if your internet plan isn't unlimited.


I'll tell you in detail about every image I've touched, in interest ascending order.
Also, as it has turned out, the more interesting image is - the more difficult it is.

To remind you:
1) GLOv4 cover (the least interesting)
2) Wallpaper #3
3) Wallpaper #5
4) GLOv2 cover
5) Wallpaper #1 (the most interesting).


GLOv4 cover
This was my first experience in such activity, a test one to see if it is possible to have any satisfactory (for me) results.



State: COMPLETE
Time: about 2 weeks
Software: GIMP
Main tools used: Stamp, smudge, blur/sharpen, burn/exposition
Layers: one
Shapes: none


What I've done here:

1) Cropped cover for Alita to fit my screen in height (1440x900).
2) Adjusted levels/curves/brightness/saturation/colors
3) Combined with a low-res image from YK's gallery to correct the colors.
That was the hardest and the longest (about 5 days) step, because it is a very precise and eye-burning part, although it looks extremely easy - you need to match as many pixels as possible, also every line has to match.
4) Cleaned up the mess caused by low-res image scaling up.
5) Using stamp, smudge, b/s, and b/e tools (I'll call them just "tools" further) I've removed the hieroglyphs and a "Vol. 4" sign, fixed areas beneath them using low-res gallery image (blue drips, stone, stone edge).
6) Fixed the line at the left (I guess that was a scanner artifact).
7) Smoothed broken parts by hand due to artifacts.
8 ) I've made the final version in two saturation variants due to my screens' differences.

The high saturated one is for a notebook screen, and the normal saturated is for a good monitor, so it doesn't look oversaturated.

Choose which looks best at your screen for youself.


Only one improvement possible here is having "GLO" sign removed, but it was lazy for me to do that, also it looks ok for me even in this condition. Marked complete.

Final images (click them for a full version):





Wallpaper #3
The second image I've done, but this one is very far from completion, I'd rather say that it's just in the early beginning of processing.

Also, I don't even have an idea when I'm going to pick it up - I have to finish W#1 first, but I don't know when I'll pick it up either.



State: 20% done, SUSPENDED since February 2008
Time: month
Software: GIMP
Main tools used: the same as previous
Layers: 3
Shapes: none

Making of
So, here we have:

+ sharp lines
+ relatively high resolution
- partially broken colors (brown-black range is converted to blue-purple) - fixable by merging with gallery low res one, which has colors right.

Progress:

1) Adjusted levels/curves/brightness/saturation/colors:





2) Matched the low-res image from YK's gallery with the base one. See #3 and #4 in the GLOv4 section (previous section). It's the hardest step.

Also, LR image went very blurry due to scaling it up - cleaning needed.
However, I needed only colors from it, so it's nothing to worry about.




3) Set LR layer mode to "Black only", duplicated twice, and merged lower of the duplicates down with the base layer.

Brown-blacks are in place now, but still there are purple areas (f.e. ear, neck, hair speculars):



4) Set higher of the LR duplicates to a "difference" blending mode:



5) Set lower of the duplicates to a "seed extraction" mode:



6) Merged duplicates, inverted resulting layer, and merged down with the base one in a "hue" mode:



Compared with the step #3, all unnecessary blue and purple colors are gone, as it should be.
Letters are broken now ("N", "st or ", address, YK sign).


7) Smoothed some parts by hand.

8 ) Restored letters and adjusted saturation.
Notice that pieces of the shoulder are falling above the letters (in the original they were below letters).

9) Lost interest.


To do someday:
1) Vector redraw lines.
2) Clean edges, remove their orange color
3) Use one of hi-res italian covers and redraw some parts of the image (just like W#1 below).
4) Do everything else, a lot of it.

20% complete version (click it for a full-res):





Wallpaper #5
So, interesting part begins.

This is the first incredibly hard to do image, which has brought me a lot of troubles and difficulties. Most of the work was done in 200%-800% zoom.




State: 90% done, SUSPENDED (maybe DROPPED) since May 2008
Time: month
Software: GIMP
Main tools used: the same
Layers: more than 100
Shapes: about 350 (inkscape)


Making of

The sources are lost, but I hope to find them someday and finish this image.

In this image two color ranges are broken: blue-dark bue ---> yellow-green, brown-black ---> pink-red.

The workflow is completely the same as in the previous image, but continued: image is per-pixel redrawn by hand (it's not a joke, some parts can illustrate it clearlier than others [see the full-res version]: take a look at her neck, fist, knuckes, and the whole hand, at her body's side-lower [pelvic] area) to eliminate all the fuckups caused by layering a low-res original over the hi-res one.

Compared to the previous one (W#3), it has good borders, colors are smooth, there are no square artifacts, most of the lines are sharp, although some parts of the image look generally blurry.

Hand and neck lines are vector-redrawn.

What's left to do

1) Basic sharpening, also some lines need it. It can be done directly on the image, but I want to find the sources first not to do the same work twice.
2) Background cleaning up - the easiest thing ever


90% complete version (click it for a full-res):





GLOv2 Cover
We are getting close. This was the real trouble for me, because the image from the cover itself is quite broken.
Also, I wanted to remove all text above the image, which was a difficult and time-consuming task.

This thing still needs some more cleaning up, but I don't have a will to finish it completely, so I've marked it complete although it's about 90% ready.


State: COMPLETE (or 90% readyness xD)
Time: 7 months (more than a half a year [SIC!] for one image)
Software: GIMP
Main tools used: the same as previous
Layers: 9 (in fact 1, these layers are backups)
Shapes: 188 (inkscape)





Making of

Most of images are taken from the backups.
Some steps will consist of two images - the whole one in a half-res and a cropped one in a full res to see the area of action closer.


1) Original cover - colors are broken (colors shifted, overcontrasted, oversaturated).
Text has covered relatively big area - it has to be removed, parts beneath it restored.





2) There are scratches on the scanned image - I've highlighted them here for you (However, I don't even have any slighttest idea why I've done it... o_0):



3) I've put the original LR image from the YK's gallery above the cover to see the difference in their resolution. What is needed: sharpness of the cover and colors from the LR.



4) I've matched the LR image and the cover (it's a relatively hard step - the cover is rotated, their dimensions, even their proportions [w/h] do not match), it has got completely blurred after this procedure.



5) Combined with the LR image (just like in W#3 [blue wallpaper]), colors are better now, some draft areas above text appeared, which will be used as a redrawing template later.



6) After a day of experimenting with smoothing filters like "gaussian blur", or "surface blur", I've figured out that they are completely irrelevant to the process, because they totally screw all the thin details up, so I've simply had no other choice except doing it all manually.

Using zoom and tools I've per-pixel edited the whole image by hand: cleaned it all, made colors ok, removed and restored the parts below the "Vol.2" and YK signs.

This is the longest and the most boring step, it was mostly like this: "400% zoom and [-stamp-smudge-smooth-] - repeat for 2 months", was nearly driving me nuts. Arrrgh!!!

Take a look at the full-res crop - it speaks better than me.

It looks more or less right now, but some sharpness and thin lines are lost.
However, I didn't touch the areas that were left from the LR image (blurred areas above the text signs).








7) Removed some parts of the text, per-pixel redrawn areas beneath it (clouds, tube).






8 ) Redrawn her wrist (not an easy thing), hand area above it (roughly), and clouds surrounding it.






9) Redrawn her hand more or less, restored clouds under her butt.






10) Started redrawing her knee area.





11) Continued redrawing her knee area.






12) Redrawn her knee. I didn't know, if the kneepad center part is straight or round, I've made it round. Notice it for a moment.






13) Draftly removed the text in her ass area. Looks creepy.






14) Completely removed the ass text, but the butt itself looks bad.





15) Roughly cleaned it, smoothed the knee area.
Looks better now.






16) Redrawn the pelvic side circle (take a closer look).






17) Redrawn and smoothed the ass speculars. Ass is nearly complete, take a close look at it and compare to it's previous states.






18) Removed the last text, redrawn areas beneath it. Remembered that the kneepad center is a corner, made it a corner.






19) Vector drawn some lost lines in Inkscape, so they can be sharp, then merged it with the image.





20) An animated GIF to see it all faster (there are only 256 colors, it's the format's limitation):




What's left to do

1) Cleaning of some areas
2) Smoothing of some areas
3) Removing double-lines in areas, where I was too lazy to clean them.



"Finished" (90% complete) version (click it for a full-res):




Now this image can say something like this too:

Bite my shiny metal ass! (c) Bender

Wallpaper #1

This is my favorite image, which also has taken more time to improve it, than others, although it's very far from completion.



State: 70% done, SUSPENDED since May 2009
Time: a YEAR
Software: Photoshop CS3&CS4, inkscape, GIMP
Main tools used: the same as previous
Layers: 2091
Shapes: 147 (inkscape), about 1000 (photoshop)

As you can see from this summary, it has a huge number of layers and PS shapes.

Explanation:

1) There are lots of layers consisting of a single stroke, or even just several pixels, because I've rebuilt the whole image manually and didn't want to use a single layer like I did before due to the inconvenience of such approach. Also, instead of redrawing the stroke for an unknown amount of tries, it can just be altered without screwing up it's surroundings.

This part is about 500-750 layers.

2) Some parts are completely drawn anew, because it was easier just to erase them and recreate, than try to fix them... this will be explained in this post later.

These are remaining layers, about 1250-1500 of them, although it sounds terrifying.


What about shapes:

1) Inkscape shapes are done precisely, consist of huge amount of vertexes, and are used for major lines, recreating of missing lines, and sharpening blurred ones.

2) Photoshop shapes are done mainly draftly and consist of only several vertexes, because they have another purpose.

They are mostly used as a stroke paths, because this approach is better, than I've had before, I'll explain it:

The process before (ALL previous images, especially GLOv2 Cover (the previous one, look above)) was like this: stroke with any tool, if unsatisfied - "UNDO", repeat until satisfied. That has taken about a 20 tries before I have a stroke I want... that was incredibly boring and slow, because my hand isn't even a bit steady.

Then I've came up with an idea: "How can I parametrize the stroke? o_0". The answer was simple - stroke a path, then make it look good with the same technique, but another path and tool.

So, I've started to make paths (which are easily editable), and then to stroke them with different tools (mostly "Smudge" and "Blur").

But then, a greater idea came on to me: "How can I make a FADING stroke?", which I needed a lot. The answer was simpler than the previous one - to put a DOT equal in diameter to a stroke starting size to a start of a shape I want to make, and then SMUDGE it using paths. (I was widely using this thing when drawing upper hand lines and areas... [read further])

However, there is a great number of variants, which I don't think are even a bit useful for you, although I've made a big use of them...

So, using paths and some logic there is possible to have a perfect stroke even without a steady hand.

These solutions look obvious, but they've taken a lot of time to figure them out (for me).

Also, I widely use paths to select areas instead of using "Select" group tools (Select, Mag. Wand, Lasso, and so on...), because of the precision they offer.


I guess, this explanation is enough for layer amount and path amount.
Read further, images will explaing everything better.


Left image is in 50% res, right images will show cropped region of action in a full-res

So, let's go!


Period 1

1) Here is the orginal YK's image, it has:

-- Blacks are shifted by a gradient - at the top of the image black color equals dark-red, and at the bottom it's light-blue-green-grayish.
-- Red color is overlayed as a colorizer
-- Pencil effect is applied (take a look at her hair and hand)

+ Lines are mostly sharp
+ It is widescreen, that's good for me.
+ Italian covers are available, which have good colors, sharp lines, and details, which MISS in the original wallpaper due to a pencil filter. However, these covers have text above them and printing dots (scanner resolution was bigger than printing one, I guess).




2) I've done basic levels/saturation/brightness/contrast adjustment and shifted colors into blue.



3) Put an original YK's low-res gallery image above the base one to start matching sizes.



4) Matched the LR image and the base one. Fuck, that was INCREDIBLY difficult, because I couldn't rely on proportions - wallpaper image is cropped in height. This step has taken me about a week and made me lose interest in this image for about 3 months.



5) So, I've finally fixed colors so-so and successfully forgot about this image. During that time, this variant of the wallpaper was decorating my desktop at home and at work... looks horrible, but still. It wasn't even cleaned up, because I've been completely exhausted after the previous step.






Period 2

6) After I've cooled down enough, I've picked it up.
I've roughly deleted the background and overlayed the Italian cover hi-res image to start MATCHING it. Fuck, this nightmare AGAIN!!! Aaarrrrghhh!!!



7) When I've finally matched this image to the base one, I've cut it roughly and applied a surface smooth filter to get rid of the printing dots. I'll use this image to finally correct colors. What about fine details - I'll restore them by hand when I'll rebuild the whole image (just like a GLOv2 Cover).



8 ) Then, I've vector drawn some major lines, which were going to be screwed up because of rebuilding.






9) I've rebuilt this image manually, just like in the step 6 of the previous image. I'm lazy to write it again.

However, there are some parts, which looked bad even after rebuilding.
Let's start from the belt. Image on the right is in the full-res.

Even though it's rebuilt, it looks terrible - green colors appeared, lines are blurred, also I've left a small fuckup just below it's right lower corner, which is between her hand and pelvic area, but just above the finger (I've noticed it only while writing this post o_0).



10) I've deleted the belt and smudged everything surrounding it into inside to fill the border areas.




11) I've deleted and smudged some parts of her hands: lower part of the upper hand and upper part of the lower hand.

Also, I've masked the contour with a black color to fill thin hairs, compare it with the previous step's image.



12) Started redrawing belt - painted color palettes.



13) Blurred it to get more-or-less smooth color.



14) Used a vector mask to get rid of everything unneeded.



15) Made a mask to use as a shadow, so it will look exactly the same.



16) Blurred belt some more and combined with the mask. Belt is ready, although it still needs some thin lines (see "TODO" section of this part later).

Not all steps are covered, the belt consists of about 10-20 layers, including border lines.

I've switched to a lower hand. As you can see, I've already prepared it to be edited.



Here's an animated gif to see the belt process:




17) Drawn a highlight on a lower hand (about 5 layers)



18 ) Made a line - several layers more.



19) Made two lower highlights, darkened the line, blurred some parts.
This part of the lower hand is ready, it is about 20 layers.

Switched to creating seams (zip lines, I don't know) in the pelvic area, as they are in the original image and in the Italian cover, because I've completely removed them when I've per-pixel redrawn this part of the image (the right image, take a look).



Also, here's an animated gif to see a lower hand:




20) Started making the front seam - stroke the path imported from the Inkscape.



21) Stroke it one more time, but with a black color with a lower radius.



22) [many steps are omitted] The front seam is ready. I can only add that it consists of about 50-60 layers and about 10 shapes.



23) Moved to a side seam, stroke the Inkscape path.



24) [many steps are omitted] Split it into layers, cleaned, blurred, done something else I don't remember what exactly.



25) [many steps are omitted] Side seam is complete, it's about 50-60 layers also. Shape count is about 15.




26) Started making a latex [maybe leather] specular, although it was less accented in the original version. Stroke the white line.



27) Made some smaller speculars, each of them uses a single layer, also they are path drawn.



28 ) The same procedure as in the previous step, but black strokes and another paths.



29) I've smudged the speculars, used two separate paths (forward and backward direction [right-left]) to smudge them precisely (intro of this wallpaper explains the process).

Also, smudged speculars use two more layers each (for each direction).



30) The same thing, but with the black layers.



31) [many steps are omitted] Blurred, done other improvements. So, now each highlight consists of about 6 layers, main specular is about 5 layers, about 150 layers all speculars in total.

I like these speculars and seams, they look pretty good (for me).

Switched to the upper hand.



An animated gif of the lower body part:





32) Started editing the elbow area of the upper hand, taking the Italian cover as a template, because it has a lot of fine details of this part of the hand.

Deleted everything here, prepared it for some action.



33) Drawn the left highlight.



34) The right one...



35) Drawn the wrist lines as they were in the original.



36) Drawn the highlight.



37) Blurred it.



38 ) Some more highlights.



39) Blurred them, added the lower highlight.



40) Smudged it to get a smooth colored elbow area.



41) Some more elbow highlights.



42) Made them more accented, so the hand looks more relief.



43) Made an elbow split into areas, also some speculars added as they were on the cover.



44) Highlighted them.



45) Made one more area.



46) Completed elbow area division. Now it looks great!



47) Made a split line and highlights around it.



48 ) Stroke the line itself and edited the highlights around it.



49) Colored the hand to make it's colors right as at the cover, also stroke the contour of the image (it was deleted before) and edited it to be thinner in some places and thicker in others.

The elbow part of the hand is done, it consists of about 250-300 layers and about 400 paths (most of them are procedural, of course).



Here is a gif of the hand:






51) Filled the background with a light-pink gradient.



52) Saved as jpeg, opened as a layer at the background, scaled, put in the same position as the original.



53) Blurred the background.



54) The background looked grayish, so I've colored it into a calm soft-yellow color.



55) Trimmed to 1440x900, sharpened (filter, 10%), put the text above the background.
Yes, I've found THAT font manually!

Here's the big gif, which illustrates the whole process:





To do:

1) Edit the upper part of the upper hand and the lower part of the lower hand, make speculars good there.
2) Add some lines to the belt, which I've omitted yet, however I've already vector drawn them (purple ones, see the vector image above).
3) Clean some minor parts.


So, here's the INCOMPLETE, 70% done version (click it for a full-res).





PS.
Commentaries are welcome.

PSPS.
If I'll remember more, I'll write it later.

I applaud you!!

holy shit....thats a long post and good rebulding. (waits till Int 29Ah hers near the blades again for more 3D stuff)

Actually, your talent would make miracles on Hyper Future Vision (Gunnm first arc) covers.
Have you ever thought working on them?

Man, you're confusing me. o_0

No, I haven't, because I've started all this just to have 6 desktop wallpapers, which are as much as possible less related to the manga itself.
Also, I'd mention that I was doing this exclusively for myself, and the idea of sharing it with the community had came to me spontaneously and after I've dropped it all.

However, if I'll ever start doing it with the BAA original covers, I'll have to finish these ones first - only one of them is finished, others are not.
I'm already sick of having most of my projects 90% done and then dropped, even the main job ones, just because I've got fed up with them and switched attention to something else.

PS.
I'll think about it after I finish these 5 images and the 3D project (which won't be soon, I suppose).

I am not in a hurry (I am not going anywhere ).