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E2 Girls Girls Girls! 5

Nopy — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 06:15:59 +0000

The fifth volume of the Etsu Girls Girls Girls! collection was released way back in June of 2010. I actually picked up this copy while I was in Japan and managed to keep it in perfect condition. You’d think that a book would be perfectly fine inside a box, but for some reason all of my previous volumes have been damaged during shipping. As you can tell from the subtitle on the cover, this volume focuses on pure girls. I’m not quite sure what that means, but I’m guessing something along the lines of sweet and innocent.

I actually really enjoyed flipping through this volume, mainly because there were so many illustrations that I liked, and the sweet and innocent feel really shows. This volume is a lot less ecchi than the previous one, but I would like to warn you guys to consider your surroundings before you scroll any further. While these illustrations are all works of art, I know at least some people may take offense to viewing girls in lingerie.

Anyways, girls in lingerie cover the first several pages of the artbook. As some of you may immediately recognize, these illustrations are done by none other than the famed artists of Tinkle (てぃんくる).

Tinkle’s art style is by far my favourite out of any anime/manga artists, and I’m sure it’s easy to see why. Not only do they create extremely detailed characters with long flowing hair, they also add in exquisitely designed clothing with tons of frills that would make many artists cringe. Their expertise in creating transparent clothing also astonishes me. It’s hard enough just to get the right textures and shading, much less make clothing transparent, which brings me to my next point. The colours and shading are excellent, and I love the sparkles coupled with the flowing backgrounds. Add to that the adorable faces that they draw and the petite figures the characters have, and you have artwork that defines the “pure girl” phrase.

This next illustration was done by Mana Mitui (みついきな). I actually found the girl’s proportions to be a bit off (ie: her waist), but I liked how well done the water was and the pattern on her clothing. I’ve seen a lot of people just slap on a pattern on clothing as if it were completely flat, here it changes according to the folds in the clothes.

What drew me to this illustration was all of the gold. Really though, I think Misakura Nankotsu (みさくらなんこつ) does a good job of bringing out this girl’s personality with the clothes she’s wearing and her facial expression.

Princess Spirit (姫心重機) drew this wonderful illustration. While I’m not too fond of the girl, I thought the background textures were well done and gives that kind of run-down but still alive feel.

When I choose which illustration to show here, I always look at the illustration itself and not the artist. Based on that, it seems I really like A=g‘s work because I think I’ve included an illustration of his in every volume I’ve covered. This one reminds me of the old drawing style that everyone used to have with the light colours and fluid eyes.

This illustration by Maru Chang (丸ちやん) actually reminded me of Fortune Arterial, maybe it’s because the girls look so similar.

Miyama0 (みやま零) (that’s Miyama with a zero at the end, dunno why my zero looks like an o) did this illustration. I love his skill with lights and shadows.

I liked this illustration by J.2, once again because of the patterened clothing. The way he drew this girl’s eyes also looks pretty cool.

I’m not sure if this artist’s name should be romanized as Yumi Tsukimia? (弓槻みあ) or something else. It’s hard when there’s Kanji in there. Anyways, what drew me to this illustration was how Yumi was able to give this character a more life-like look without huge eyes, but still manage to make her look like an anime/manga character.

This illustration is really cute. Once again, I’m not quite sure how to read this artist’s name, but I tried and came up with Igarashi Mei Ji? (五十嵐明姬), who I assume is Chinese. I couldn’t find a personal site for this artist so I linked to the company he/she works for.

A little pamphlet fell out of the book as I was flipping through it for the first time. It’s actually an ad for a Tinkle art exhibit being held by eJuneX. I actually went to where they have their exhibits, but unfortunately, I was a few months too early for the Tinkle one. When I went, they had artwork from Tony Taka, Carnelian, and some other artists I can’t remember right now. I would’ve really liked to see the Tinkle exhibit, especially considering they sell copies of the artwork there.

Out of all of the Girl Girls Girls! collections so far, this one is my favourite. It certainly had a lot less ecchi content than the previous volume, and all of the illustrations were beautiful. If you had a choice between any of the Girls Girls Girls! volumes, I would highly recommend picking up this one.

E2 Girls Girls Girls! 4

Nopy — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 08:59:29 +0000

The fourth volume of the E☆2 Girls Girls Girls collection is centered around the use of 65 colors in the illustrations. This artbook was released on December 14, 2009, has a total of 96 pages, and includes illustrations from the E☆2 Magazines up to volume 22. Those of you that like anime art may recognize the art style for the cover of the book; it was illustrated by none other than Tinkle, in my opinion, one of the best illustrators out there. As usual, the artbook contains many illustrations from many different artists, below are a few of the ones that I liked.

This first illustration was done by Takuya Fujima (藤真拓哉), known for doing the artwork for the Nanoha ViVid series and the character designs for the Weiß Survive anime. I like the large eyes that he gives his characters, but I find their necks to be too long.

If you recognized the cover illustration, then you should recognize this one too as being one from Tinkle (てぃんくる). I always love their works, the girls are always so cute and have such amazingly detailed frilly dresses. If Tinkle weren’t as good at drawing frilly clothing as they are, I don’t think I would enjoy their artwork as much.

This illustration was done by Kota Murasaki (相澤こたろー). I don’t know anything about this artist, but I like how this illustration has a rather simplistic feel, but is actually quite nicely done if you take note of the lighting and the girl’s ponytail.

Here’s the complimentary swimsuit illustration for this post. This one was done by Yoshi☆wo (よし☆ヲ). If you take a look at his site, you’ll find some really cute moe-fied versions of the Evangelion girls. Yoshi☆wo seems to go for drawing girls with large eyes and large oppai.

The loli in this illustration was done by Kagura Mizuki (かぐらみずき). Note: Kagura’s site is very NSFW. Anyways, when Kagura isn’t making some extremely hardcore illustrations, she makes ones like this. The girl herself isn’t that special, but I like how Kagura drew the white dress.

Halloween is just around the corner, so what a coincidence that we’d find an illustration like this in here. This poor little witch was illustrated by Kasukabe Akira (カスカベアキラ). I absolutely loved everything about this illustration of Akira’s, from the broken broom to the witch’s expression, and the fact that she fell into a pumpkin basket full of treats ^.^

This lovely illustration was done by Kirino Kasumu (桐野霞). This is one of the few non-ecchi/sexy/moe illustrations in the book, and it didn’t need any of those things to appeal to me. It feels like it came from a fantasy novel, what with all of those little lights and that ball the girl is holding.

When I pick out my favourite illustrations from these E☆2 artbooks, I try not to look at who the artist is and just enjoy the art for what it is. With that said, A=g must be an excellent artist because I seem to pick out his illustrations quite often. Not only are the girls in A=g’s illustrations cute, they always seem to fit perfectly into the scene that has been created. You can see more examples of what I’m talking about at A=g’s Pixiv page.

The last illustration to catch my eye was this one by Hato Rami (羽戸らみ). I don’t know what it is about this illustration, but it feels like it came out of an old-school manga. Taking a look at Rami’s other illustrations, they all seem to have an old fashioned feel to them, but they’re all so modern. I think the way he shades in the hair and adds those white dots has something to do with it.

While I only showed some of the illustrations that I liked, E☆2 Girls Girls Girls contains much more art from various artists. Surprisingly, while the previous volumes did not have anything revealing beyond the usual panty shots and bikini’s this volume had a lot of ecchi content. I think there were around 10 illustrations with bare oppai, something to keep in mind if you’re planning on picking this up.

E2 Girls Girls Girls! 1

Nopy — Sat, 01 May 2010 05:41:36 +0000

Today I thought I’d share some of my favourite illustrations from the first volume of the E☆2 (Etsu) Girls Girls Girls! collection. I’ve actually had this artbook for nearly a year now, but never got around to posting about it until now. Like volumes 2 and 3, there are also special categories in volume 1, but these ones are more generic. The first section starts out with gravure illustrations, and after that are a series of smaller categories such as maids, twins, and glasses. These pages were really hard to scan without actually tearing the book apart, which is why you’ll notice one side is a little blurry in all of the pictures. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the cover illustration was done by none other than Tony Taka, who I’m sure many people have already heard of.

This picture above is another illustration from Tony Taka (http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/i/taka_tony/). The thing I like about his illustrations is that they’re always smooth and usually simple. His characters also have relatively soft-looking eyes.

This goth illustration was done by Hiro Suzuhira (http://heart-work.info/). I like the girl’s outfit, but I think her ear looks a bit weird.

This cute little girl was drawn by Akane Ikegami (http://akanemakesrevolution.blog121.fc2.com/). Sometimes I find that eyes drawn this way look a bit weird, but I think it looks perfect here. I also liked how some of the cherry blossom petals were blurred to make it feel like its windy.

On to the maid section, here we have an illustration by Kiba Satoshi (http://www.din.or.jp/~kiba/). I thought the mini-tie was a nice addition to the regular maid outfit, and she looks cool holding a sword.

This maid was illustrated by Kaya Kuramoto (http://home.att.ne.jp/yellow/kuramoto/). Girls with guns are cool, but does anyone else think that it’d be really hard to reach for the gun in that position? The gun also seems a bit too big for the holster. Anyways, I liked how Kaya drew the maid’s face, she’s like a ghost or something you’d expect to see in a horror anime/game.

Here’s the last maid, I promise. Its illustrated by Momoko Sapporo (http://www.cc.rim.or.jp/~momoko/). It wasn’t so much the art that I liked, but the girl just seems like she has a really spunky personality which you don’t normally associate with maids.

These two twins were illustrated by KEG (http://www009.upp.so-net.ne.jp/keg/). I liked the old-fashioned feel of this illustration, and the only problem I could find with it is that the lower twin’s right elbow seems a litle too sharp.

Masato@Takashina (http://ts-web.dojin.com/hjo/) did this illustration. I thought it was interesting how the colours are almost like water-colours, but the patterns on the girl’s clothing is too detailed for that.

This one reminded me of Aoi Nishimata’s work, but the top of the page says it was illustrated by Okira. I couldn’t find any information on this artist, so if anyone knows who he is or if he has a website, feel free to share.

What I liked about this illustration by Mikeou (http://www2.odn.ne.jp/~cai16580/) is how he somehow managed to merge a maid outfit with a school uniform. At first I just thought it was an apron, but part of it is underneath the school uniform.

Anyone who follows anime/manga/game style art should be able to recognize this art style. This illustration was done by Tinkle (http://www.tinkerbell.vc/), famous for their beautifully detailed art that usuallly have cute girls wearing really frilly dresses.

This goth-loli girl was illustrated by Miyama-Zero (http://miyama0.dragon.gr.jp/). While the dresses in his art aren’t as frilly as in Tinkle’s, I still think it’s done really nicely.

I thought this girl looked really cool, she’s illustrated by A=g (http://easyplan01.blog10.fc2.com/). She looks like an angel you would see in some fantasy game, complete with a halo, crosses, and a staff for her weapon :)

The sunset in this illustration by Yuunagi Futaba (http://ps-hutaba.net/) was brilliant, I love how the colours blend together here. I also thought it was funny seeing an abandoned catgirl (instead of a cat) in a box.

Here’s an illustration by Miyama-Zero again. After looking at this second picture, it seems like Miyama-Zero draws his characters with rather large heads.

I know the yellowish colour in this illustration by Yuuri Nishiwaki (http://yuuri.happy.nu/) was intentional to show that there’s a window and setting sun, but I think this would’ve been better without it.

The last image I’d like to share is this one by Yukiwo (http://yukiwo.com/). I just adore this girl’s little top-hat, and she looks like a doll in that dress. I guess the cemetary is supposed to give it a dark feel, but it just doesn’t feel very dark to me.

There are a total of 75 full-page colour illustrations and a lot of monochrome illustrations at the back. Most of them are done by different artists so you get a lot of different art styles in here. While it’s a bit troublesome for someone who doesn’t know Japanese (like me) to try to look up the names of these artists, it’s definitely a good place to discover new art by people you might not have heard of.

E2 Girls Girls Girls! 3

Nopy — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:30:43 +0000

Along with E2′s (Etsu’s) Girls Girls Girls! volume 2 illustration collection, I also bought the volume 3 illustration collection. This volume focuses on the cover girls of all the E2 Magazines from volumes 1-16, the poster girls from volumes 1-15, and the pick-up girls from volumes 1-7.

On the inside cover is another illustration of the same waitress girl on the front cover, but with different coloured clothing and background. The illustration was done by artist Tony Taka, who seems to have quite a few of his works published in E2 Magazine. If anyone out there think this girl looks familiar, it’s because Tony Taka did the character designs for ”Sora no Iro Mizu no Iro”, which you might have seen. You can see the similarities in the screenshot below (especially in the eyes and face):

The book also features other artists that regularly appear in E2 Magazine. Here is an illustration done by Aoi Nishimata, who worked on the character designs for SHUFFLE!, Tick Tack!, and Really? Really! I guess that’s why all of her works remind me of Kaede, Asa, Nerine, Sia, and Primula ^.^

This illustration was done by Misakura Nankotsu. I like the school uniforms that the girls are wearing, it reminds me of School Rumble. In case you can’t read the text behind them, it says “Kumanozawa Foolish Sisters”.

Carnelian’s work seems to always have very large oppai, if you don’t believe me just look up “Kao no Nai Tsuki” (“Moonlight Lady”) or “Yami to Boshi to Hon no Tabibito”, note that both are NSFW.

Another illustration by Tony Taka. What I like about his works are the soft faces that his characters have.

Can anyone who reads kanji tell me the name of this artist:

Tinkle’s work is also very well-known, and you can probably tell why from the illustration below. All the detail put into all the frilly clothing really makes their art stand out. There was also another one of their works on the adjacent page, but with bare oppai showing, I thought it best not to post it here.

A girl in a white dress with a pink umbrella taking a stroll through the woods. Sounds like a picture-perfect scene, and Aoi Kimizuka portrayed it very well here.

I really like this illustration done my Kantoku. He also does quite a few illustrations of popular anime characters.

Another work my Tinkle. Notice the frilly clothing.

Somehow pink hair and green eyes seem to fit perfectly when drawn anime/manga style, but look so weird in real life.

This fox-girl was done by Hiro Suzuhira, who also worked on the character designs for SHUFFLE! alongside Aoi Nishimata. It looks like Suzuhira provides a little more fanservice with a bit of panty flashing :)

Here’s another work by Hira Suzuhira that I just loved. The detail in this illustration is amazing, especially the little flowers on the girl’s fingernails.

Once again I can’t read the name of this artist, but I like the art style.

Here’s another piece by Misakura Nankotsu, this time there’s no school uniforms. I wonder how often you’d find a girl lying on the floor in her underwear and smiling at you.

This girl reminds me of Nunnaly from Code Geass, drawn by Aoi Kimizuka:

More of Tony’s work. I think he likes tall, slim girls with brown hair.

This one looks really nice, but a bit scary at the same time.

Cute nekomimi girl by Teinkuru.

And at the last section of the book are the E2 pick-up girls:

Back cover:

Like the second volume of the Girls Girls Girls! illustration collection, this one was definitely worth the buy. The book contains 103 pages with over 70 illustrations, some of which span two pages. I’m really looking forward to the 4th volume now ^.^