Comments on: Dengeki Steals Dead Man’s Boobs

By: Artefact

Artefact — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:14:08 +0000

Thank you very much for your kind words, and moreover your insightful comments.

What you say is very interesting indeed, and makes perfect sense when we consider how Japanese popular art gets split into standard illustrations for mass consumption, and doujin/amateur type works, and also how the great majority of artistically inclined Japanese are not classically trained… the exceptions stick out (like Hiroaki Samura or Masamune Shirow), but are of course a tiny minority, else Japan would be a land of art colleges.

The Mark Maggiori case is certainly extreme… Difficult to see how he ever though he could get away with that.

By: Oldboy

Oldboy — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:48:00 +0000

Dear Artefact, I think that most of japanese art fans (hope we are talking about japanese people) if they’re not drawers they can only become very outraged. The problem is that considering japanese pop/manga culture (in visual terms) probably most of fans lack of study of classical art,considering the time to make an illustration (think about a classic bishoujo game) it takes a lot of hours to make a clear sketch and many hours to coloring. Those illustrations will be consumed in little time by the industry and buyers, so most of drawers that don’t work in the industry and put a lot of efforts to realize them for personal sites, probably become outraged too. So we have two categoris of people. I saw also the japanese sites example of plagiarism, they are bad example of the problem, most of pictures (just maybe one or two of the bunch are a valid proof) were compared without a sense, they just look quite similar because the rules of established japanese character design (when you draw in a polish “3d form” and straight lines form, example : they don’t have a distinct mark ala “ASTERIX”, or Nagai or Moneky Punch) and coloring techiniques(photoshop manuals accepted by companies, and sold to a market of aspiring illustrators, just explains the same techniques to color hairs and skin used by beginners). If you want look at some *true plagiarism” you must look to Mark Maggiori at http://www.catsuka.com/maggiori.php. You will be shocked! I forget to excuse for my bad english (it’s not my native language) and I think this site probably is the best on the web for layout and entertaining contents, it’s a feast for eyes! :)

By: Artefact

Artefact — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:02:21 +0000

Interesting! Thanks.

I wonder how this squares with how verboten this seems to be to Japanese art fans, who were quite outraged…

By: Oldboy

Oldboy — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:36:33 +0000

Hello there :), I want give a personal thought about this trace problem. As BuggyBY has said for the last picture it was merely a pose reference. I’ve won some comic contest in the past years as comic drawer, I’ve realized my drawings by imagination without lookin directly to other pictures, but when you do this as daily job, you must look to reference photographs and other artist’s jobs. We often imagine that artists are very skilled when they do some drawing autographs or other goodies at various manifestations (I did too), but for the artist it’s a sort of endurance test, he only draws what is more simple for him (face, half body etc…). If you look at the illustrations of Hiderou Horibe, they are at 100% a copy photographs of real life models, his skills are pointed (as a majority of illustrators we can see here and there) to render in straight lines those body and costumes, often (probably due to lack of time) they are traced directly from photos and then with a lot of work, they’re re-drawn with straight lines and “anime-eyes”. Hope it helps…

By: Lss

Lss — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:42:11 +0000

he had 2 books published posthumously. and yes he draws oh so beautiful women.

totally worth buying.

By: BuggyBY

BuggyBY — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:25:00 +0000

The third one strikes me as a little doubtful. Basically, only the pose is the same.

By: Artefact

Artefact — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:08:47 +0000

I only know of what’s published on the Wiki - it looks as though his works span a number of manga, eroge, and the mentioned PC Angel covers, as well as some artbooks, one published posthumously. Quite a varied portfolio.

You can see a cache of his homepage here. The very last revision is a memorial, revealing he passed on due to acute heart failure, at the age of only 36.

If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.

By: AnimeRookie

AnimeRookie — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:24:06 +0000

I want to know more about Hiderou Horibe. DO you have any knowledge of his previous works, or info about his death ?

By: Hinano

Hinano — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:33:40 +0000

I’m absolutely shocked at how much recent tracer stories have come up -_-;