Making of Blog Mascot, Seira Haruka~

This post will be on the making of the blog mascot. 

From the title you would have probably guessed her name. Yes, her name is Seira Haruka in Romaji and 星羅遥 in Kanji, which translate to 'Stars From Far'. Actually she isn't a nekomimi shoujo. It is just that during the making, I feel that it will be interesting to add a pair of cat ears and a cat tail! xD Therefore, it is just a pair of artificial ears and tail! Also, if you have been following my Twitter, you should have saw some of the progress already!


I did the illustration with the open-source application, Inkscape and took quite a long time to get it done. I browsed lots and lots of web tutorials and finally managed to get it done, though I was in a hurry and she isn't really 100% complete if you can tell. 


So for the progress...

This was the rough idea of how the head will be

Because it was the first time I did an Illustration,
I 'copied' slightly the idea of the clothes 
from Atelier no Meruru.
It is also to save some time from costume designing.

The new head with 2nd version of eyes.
The reason for the different eyes color
is for me to test some shading.

Added the skirt and legs.
Change of color of the inner shirt to
test some shading again.

added the shoes

Beta stage with Hairstyle v2 and version 3 of eyes.
Added shading to the chest area to make it look 'realistic'.
Change of hair color to test shading again.
Added shading to the ribbon on neck.
*Hair looks weird*

Slightly adjusted the hair to its 3rd version so that it does not look 'bumpy'. 
Started to add shading to the hair. 
*maybe a little over shaded if you can tell*

Decided to make the sleeves shorter due to my inexperience 
in clothing folds and how the shading should go.
Changed the hair to its original color.
Clothing have been recolored with a darker color.
Color testing on the eyes.
Added blush on cheeks.
Body proportions have also been readjusted.
(The legs was about 1.5x longer than the body. @_@)

Added this heart pin~ Lovely ehh? >w<

Changed the eyes color to intended color.
Added 'ribbons' to left side fringe.
Removed the over-applied hair shadow. 
Re-did the nose and mouth.
*This is where I added the ears out of boredom!* xD

Shippo anyone?

'Final' result.
*Shoes were not shown because it is not done actually.* LOL.
Also if you noticed, the shading for some parts aren't done that well.
This is a rushed work so... 
Still, excuses are excuses, but I am happy with at least the face.

'Redid' Haruka with a new costume and facial expression.
This version is much more detailed, but only upper torso is done
due to shortage of time.
Lazy to remove the ears and tails as it looks quite good on her! >.<
If you notice the hair around the neck area, 
the 'fill' came out of the 'stroke' due to readjustment above the chest area.
Didn't notice that until now, though it have been fixed as seen in title pic.

Well, that's the end of the making. It may seem short but it took me more than a week! Have to really thank the useful tutorials on the web and many of the imageboard around, especially the creator for the hairstyles. The final hairstyle is actually a mixture of two of them. The original idea of the ribbon on the side fringe is actually from the series Shuffle! I really loved Asa-senpai's hairstyle ever since then! Her unique hairstyle is one of the reason the series still have an impact one me after so long. wwww.


And finally, hope you like her~ >w<


終わり～