I like the stark difference between Hinata’s and Aoi’s designs.
Hinata and Aoi's designs are intentionally misleading and make you believe that Hinata is a ghost only to have a twist at the end to know that the real ghost is Aoi, not Hinata.
There is an in-game meta sense that goes with their characters
Hinata wears an old-fashioned school uniform reminiscent of what his grandfather wears, this part is about how Hinata is treated by his grandfather as an extension of his own person with the uniform as proof of that. Hinata is in a sense the ghost of his grandfather with his appearance mirroring his grandfather mirroring the fact that he is a pale imitation not treated as his own person.
Aoi is designed as a normal boy because it references how he wants to be perceived as normal. the ahoge on his dead looks like a whale squirting water this can be about his desire to be a whale to swim out of his loneliness and isolation
Lemure's Blue Boys Birthday Art! (Except I missed out of Sakura's b'day oop-)
Aside from Mamiya stuff I have mentioned in my pinned bio that I have many different interests aside from Mamiya! But I will show off some birthday art I did for the Lemure's Blue Boys! Since me and my friend got into Mamiya we also decided to look at Kenkou Land's other works as well! They have worked on a vampire game with lots of girls and their first ever game was Lemure's Blue and me and my friend enjoyed it! I personally enjoy the characters and I like their stories in particular Sakura and the twins! Anyways I hope you also like em too!
tbh I didn't like how it turned out but I posted it anyways hahaha-! It was my first fanart of Lemures Blue-!! And um...Idk if I'll ever post anymore of it cause...I only do birthday art hahaha!!!
This maybe one of my fave art pieces of this year just very happy with how it turned out and it's so pretty and I go auugghhh~
I have a hard time drawing spider lillies so I just copy and pasted free ones online and it worked like a charm! I am pretty happy with this piece! And this was a redraw for the Itsuki's!!
That was all the art I had of Lemure's Blue I hope you like it!
These pages was taken from the Lemures Blue art book. The translation was done by this lovely person. I don’t own the translation or art don’t reblog without crediting the original owners. be sure to supports the creators by buying this book. The charater bios contains major spoilers for the game, If you haven’t played the game I recommend not to read. if you do read at your own risk. you had been warned
I don’t own this translation or interview, All credit to the translation belong to Kimi Dake Translations who did a lot of hard work translating this. the original interview came from here
Hello, Kenkou Land’s Kokoroten here.
I got a message from someone who wanted to know more about character design, so today we’re going to cover that topic!
Yay, thank you so much for your message!
I make games because I was inspired by the games that other people made. If I can inspire you too, it’ll make me so happy!.
I wanted to share the aspects I pay attention to during character design, as well as the rules I always follow. This post might get a bit long, though.
Normally, the illustrator designs the characters after the setting and direction of the project has been decided. It’s easy to think that style is the basis for everything, but in this case, there are other aspects to keep in mind, like the fact that you need to establish the characters’ background in addition to their design, and that all of them must be suitable to be used in the standing portraits that are common to visual novels.
However, the request I got was to discuss the aspects to take into account during character design, not the process on how to come up with ideas.
The main goal is to define what rules should be followed to gather all the ideas you’ve come up with, and refine them.
I will use the works of my circle as examples for this explanation.
“Lemures Blue’s 2AM ” (official site)
“MAMIYA - A Shared Illusion of the World's End” (official site)
“Vamp the Pray Velvet” (official site), a work by my collaboration circle
***
◆ Lemures Blue’s 2AM
·How to decide the color of the illustration
Let’s start with the basics.
Aoi is blue, Hinata is red, Itsuki is yellow, Sakura is green.
Blue is present in several shades and it’d be a good idea to pick colors that harmonize with blue when designing sub-images. Here, you can use your personal palette as reference.
In Aoi’s case, his sub-image color is a reddish shocking pink used in his flower-like pupil. Once the image color has been decided, you can use complementary colors to accentuate.
I used yellow for his shirt because yellow complements blue.
·Symbolism of facial features, hair style
·Flashy colors that are easy to understand, deformation of characters
For Lemures Blue’s, the character design process took an entire year (for more details, read the explanation in the Lemures Blue’s artbook!), and I kept this particular aspect in mind.
Aoi’s large, round, slant eyes, Hinata’s clearly defined drooping eyes, Itsuki’s emphasized drooping eyes, Sakura’s long slit eyes…
As I will explain later, back then, I didn’t really think about making their faces look different. I believed that characters could be recognized by the design of their eyes. And I also thought that, as long as they had one strand of hair sticking out (ahoge), they would gain personality as characters.
Overall, characters in Lemures Blue’s were mostly two-dimensional, because the approach was similar to the one used in games aimed at men and featuring female characters (known as gal games).
***
◆MAMIYA - A Shared Illusion of the World's End
Here, the approach was different from Lemures Blue’s. The colors weren’t decided from the start.
I used a more intuitive design process for the characters and the initial designs didn’t have to be redone (whereas Lemures Blue’s characters were changed at least five times…)
With MAMIYA, there was a period of three or four years between the design of the characters and the production of the standing portraits, and I’ll talk about what happened during that time.
·How to define the body and facial features
Body type → Compared to Lemures Blue’s, in MAMIYA, all the characters are handsome guys with narrower faces, and we aimed to make a clear differentiation between them.
This can be described as enjoying the small differences between members of male idol groups.
For example, muscular but delicate, curvy, bony… Even if you can’t express it clearly in a drawing, just being aware of their features will make a big difference!
These body characteristics, and details like deciding to give some stiffness to hair by drawing straight lines, have a tighter connection to the characters’ looks this time.
Looks → Specifically, I use the face of a famous person as a model, while thinking that it would be wonderful if the character could be drawn in the style of [redacted]-sensei. With this in mind, I decide who my ideal author is.
I believe that in the final design, the look and idiosyncrasies of the character will come together. And when I analyze a draft, I’m impressed by how similar it looks to my celebrity of choice, and my understanding of the shape of the face improves.
When you pick a real world celebrity as a model, you come to understand what type of face goes with what type of hair, and what clothes suit them best, and you can use this knowledge as reference to fine-tune the smaller details.
Again, this was different from Lemures Blue’s, but here’s another point that you have to keep in mind:
· Characters are deformed, but they still resemble real people
In addition to the individual characteristics of the MAMIYA cast, the visuals needed to have a tendency towards realism without causing interference to the people reading the story. Compared to Lemures, which was more similar to a gal game, the design of MAMIYA was more shoujo manga-ish.
I also used real brands for the clothing, provisionally, and it allowed me to think about the meaning behind each character’s selections regarding clothing, their personalities, their sense for spending money, and their eye for aesthetics, and, by doing so, I was able to express their normal everyday life.
You can check the final result in「マミヤFallDown RecordBook公開」(available only to supporters).
***
◆ Vamp the Pray Velvet
This one was completely different from the previous game, because all the characters were women!
I finally drew full-body portraits.
Kinari-sensei, who was responsible for the script, has vast knowledge about shoes. They researched the topic, and shoes were incorporated into the standing portraits. When shoes work well, they significantly deepen the character’s personality!
· Setting a clear fashion category for the outfits
This is a game about female characters and battles, and it was a lot of fun to break free from the aspects mentioned above!
Sweet lolita, military, sporty, etc. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I truly prefer when you can understand the character quickly just by looking at their name.
· Defining the silhouette
· Balance when looking at the body
We’re finally here, let’s talk about the basics of character design: silhouettes!
You can express a character’s personality through the length of a skirt, so the concept of silhouettes might be easy to tackle!
The easiest way to understand it is by looking at this girlxgirl pair, Reina and Yuriya.
When I decided the design of these two, and their colors and vibe, I knew that they would form a pair, but what matters here are their silhouettes!
For Reina, volume is located in the upper part of the body, while for Yuriya, it is in the lower part. These two are my favorites.
VampVel’s story is about battles between two people, so I had to be mindful of the height difference between them when they were standing together.
Momo and En. The protagonist pair. Normal girl/punk androgyny. Black and white. Pink and cyan.
Seimei and Ruri. Graceful/military. Light/dark colors. But their collars and the length of their skirts are similar…
Et cetera!
When I draw the standing portraits, I don’t draw the characters by themselves, but standing next to each other (the resulting file is pretty large, though).
***
These were three examples of how the aspects that you must keep in mind while designing characters make a transition onto the page. I hope the explanation was good enough.
These aspects vary from work to work, and it is difficult to tell you “do this!” in just a few words. If I had to talk about media other than visual novels (manga, Vtuber, characters for specific projects), the explanation would be different.
Looking back, I feel that every time I reflect on my work, it becomes clearer! And thus, continuing to create works is the way to go! Not that it needs to be said, right?
***
In the message, you mentioned that you wanted to make a game…
Assuming that you have the basis for the characters, now you need to ask yourself: what kind of game do you want to make?
Drama, suspense, romance… The power of character design can draw upon the current parameters of traditional works and break them!
Here’s to hoping that you’ll create beautiful characters that fit perfectly in the world of your game.
And I hope that this post will be helpful to all of you 🌟.
This interview was taken from the Lemures Blue art book. The translation was done by this lovely person. I don’t own the translation or interview don’t re blog without crediting the original owners. be sure to supports the creators by buying this book. This interview contains major spoilers for the game, If you haven’t played the game I recommend not to read. if you do read at your own risk. you had been warned
Creator Interview
I have created a spectral explanation survey, and I will answer the questions we received.. Thank you to everyone who replied to the survey!
Q. Which route was the easiest to write?
Itsuki’s route. His primary principle was clearly stated to be the guilt he felt towards Shinnosuke, so I think it was the easiest to sympathize with as he strived for repentance. Also, thanks to Itsuki’s supernatural powers, Aoi can go more places, like the city.
Q. Which route was the hardest to write?
Hinata and Aoi’s route, easily. I wasn’t sure about Hinata’s motivation, or how he would help Aoi. I hadn’t decided on Hinata’s personality for quite a while...
Q. Which character was the easiest to write?
Sakura. He’s pretty easy to understand as a character. He speaks and acts like he always has Aoi’s best interests in mind. But there’s more to him than that. His father not accepting him is also easy to sympathize with.
Q. Which character was the hardest to write?
Aoi. I didn’t want him to sound repetitive, so I had to work very hard to avoid that. Also, he’s a ghost, so he’s limited on how much he’s able to do.
Q. Do you have a favorite character, or one you’re attached to?
Everyone has their own opinions, but if you ask me... I would have to say Aoi. I both hate him and love him... He’s a monster, and yet we empathize with him, we think about how we can save him.
Q. Which character in Lemures Blue is the most similar to you?
!?!? Some people said I was like Aoi, but I asked my friends who know about my obsession with him, and they said I wasn’t like Aoi. Maybe I’m like Sakura then, since he’s obsessed with Aoi too.
Q. What’s your favorite route?
For me, it’s Itsuki’s route. Unlike the other two, he has no history with Aoi. They were complete strangers, but once he met Aoi, Itsuki’s life slowly fell apart. Sakura and Hinata had deep connections with Aoi, but Itsuki’s never had to be involved. That’s what I like most about it. I also like the idea of the two of them being alone in the world. Or maybe it’s just because I concentrated too hard on Hinata and Sakura during production that I naturally gravitate toward Itsuki...
Q. What are your favorite scenes in each route?
In Sakura’s route, there’s two scenes: the scene where he spreads blueberries on Aoi’s body, and the one where the two sing together. For the first one, I was aiming for it to be a sickening scene. And for the other one, the music by TownHall was fantastic! I playtested it a lot.
For Itsuki’s route, it’s the train ride scene. It’s the only route that has the characters contrast with the people of the city. I really liked the idea of the two boys alone together in the middle of the night among the adults.
In the Hinata/Aoi route, it’s the scene with Hinata running. I tried my best to make it feel animated. Animation is about breathing life into things that can’t move on their own, and I wanted to do that for Hinata. I was so happy when I played through that scene.
Q. What is your favorite ending?
Perfect Dystopia from Hinata/Aoi’s route. Aoi becomes a terror on the world once he enters high school. He believes that people dying at fourteen would be a benefit to society. Fourteen years old is the limit until people become unpredictable. Also, I think Akane Aoi is a good name... I think it fits him well as a high school student.
Q. How long does it take to make an illustration?
30 minutes for the sketch, 20 minutes for the line art, 3 hours to color, and 30 minutes of rendering. So about 5 hours, roughly.
Q. Did you do the line art by hand?
Yes. I use a Pentel Graph 600 mechanical pencil.
Q. Which illustrations were the hardest to draw?
The illustration of Sakura in Chapter 3 and the one of Hinata running in Chapter 12. For Hinata, it was simply a lot of work to do. For Sakura, it was difficult overcoming my own shame.
Q. What do you focus on the most when drawing?
I don’t focus on anything in particular. Maybe the colors?
Q. How did you come up with the story?
It began with the idea of the main character meeting a mysterious boy and wondering if he’s a ghost, only to find out that they were a ghost themselves. And then I expanded it from there. In Lemures Blue, there was a truth that had to be revealed, so I focused on foreshadowing and false leads. I’m not that good at writing a story, so I write isolated scenes when they come to me and find some way to connect them. I drew the artwork first and created the story around that, which isn’t exactly common. Otherwise, I wrote down questions I had in my notebook and tried to answer them.
Q. Did you model the characters after anything? Any sort of motifs?
I didn’t have any motifs in mind, other than the color scheme— blue, red, yellow, green. I also pulled from the characters from other projects. Aoi’s face was meant to resemble a creepy avatar character, for example. I didn’t model the characters off of anything in particular, but I am aware that Aoi and Hinata resemble characters from Evangelion. I was hoping to create a false lead with Hinata resembling Kaworu.
Q. What works influenced you?
For Lemures Blue, I was most influenced by the works of Nisio Isin, Otsuichi, and Ikuji’s works. I was exposed to Nisio Isin in a very emotional period in my life, and while I’m not directly
influenced by his works, they definitely influence the basis of my projects. Characters, settings, wordplay... It all comes back to him. My desire to do a “I was really a ghost this whole time!” twist was largely influenced by Nisio Isin and Otsuichi. I really wanted to do something like Utena, but I couldn’t at all... I think the concept of searching after a specific foreign item came from Penguindrum.
Q. What works inspired you?
I was inspired a lot by the music of Ling tosite Sigure. I remember being on the train, trying desperately to think of characters and plot concepts. I was always listening to Ling tosite Sigure on my iPod. I personally think the charm of their music is the sense of gravity in the performance, almost like the song is folding in on itself, as well as the lyrics which desperately try to depict TK’s thoughts but ultimately can’t. I especially love the grief and pain from his screams; that thought of heartbreak formed the ideal image of Aoi. In addition to Ling tosite Sigure, I’m inspired by a lot of other music.
Q. Were the characters an homage to The Heart of Thomas? (Aoi →Thomas, Hinata → Erich, Sakura → Juli, Itsuki → Oskar, etc.)
When I first thought of this game as a BL game, I immediately thought of The Heart of Thomas. Or I think my view of BL has been defined by Heart of Thomas... It wasn’t until I was nearly done that I realized the characters were almost one to one. If Aoi is Thomas and Sakura is Yuri, then the phrase “I’ll give my heart to you” is very appropriate. It might be surprising, but I didn’t intend it at all! That said, I did just read The November Gymnasium. I was surprised to see that the characters still lined up there. Aoi to Thomas, Hinata to Erich, Sakura to Oskar, and Itsuki to the class president.
Q. Is the story set in Hokkaido? Or somewhere else in Japan?
Of course it’s Hokkaido! I’m glad some people picked up on the Star Festival part. I don’t know much about Hokkaido, but cherry blossoms in July would have to be somewhere cold. I haven’t picked a specific location though. Somewhere next to the sea and a forest, and relatively close to the city. So, somewhere near Sapporo. I initially wanted to set it in Furano, but there’s no sea there... Ideally it’s somewhere near the Sea of Okhotsk, with all the drift ice and sea slugs, but the places around there are too rural to have TV... but it is set in 2033, so maybe it’ll be more urban by then!
Q. If you gave each character a voice actor, who would they be?
I’m not that well versed in voice actors, but...
Aoi: I would prefer a female voice actor, for sure. My friend suggested Rie Kugimiya. A soprano voice would work best.
Itsuki: A female voice actor that can do a male voice, or a male voice actor with a higher voice. The shriller, the better.
Hinata: I don’t have anyone in mind for him. My friend said Jun Fuyukama, and while I’m not familiar with him, he seems to be a good pick.
Sakura: Anyone. No real preference.
Q. Who is seme and who is uke?
All of the characters could easily be seme or uke. I hope people don’t worry about it too much.
That said, the original concept was for Aoi to be seme to everyone, but with Hinata he’s uke. But now I just go with how I’m feeling in the moment. (Also, my views on seme/uke are very different from the rest of the world, so don’t take anything I say as fact.)
Q. The piano is important to the story, but have you ever played one?
I used to play the piano in kindergarten, and the keyboard in middle school. I’m a bit out of practice these days, though.
Q. When did you come up with the April Fool’s joke?
It was around the middle of March. I may have had the idea sometime before then. It’s frustrating for it to be called a shonen-ai game even though it’s a BL game, so I made it in order to show what BL is really like (lol).
Q. Why did you start making games?
I was inspired by playing lots of other games. I’ve always wanted to put my creativity to use, but I’m not very good at manga or writing. But with games, it’s just illustrations and dialogue! I felt it was the best fit for me. In fact, I enjoy being able to use music in games as well.
Q. What made you want to make Lemures Blue?
It all started with the idea of a plot twist. I made a 30-minute long game in order to test it out. I had no idea it would become this big.
Q. What message did you want to convey with this game?
It’s in Chapter 12, where Hinata and Aoi are shouting near the ocean. Like I wrote in the commentary, I want people to appreciate themselves... even a little. It’s a bit embarrassing…
I recently read a manga that felt similar to a visual novel that I watched a long time ago and it's mainly seen in the similarities in the story and the characters in Aoi and Ai. This is just me fishing out similarities between the visual novel and the anime in this post.
there are a lot of parallels between the game and manga that need to be elaborated on and discussed I going to delve deeper into the game and manga there will be spoilers on the game and manga so you have been warned.
let's start off with both the titular characters Aoi and Ai, Aoi and Ai are the main reason why I am creating their posts since they have a lot of similarities.
Aoi like Ai are both titular characters and their stories revolve around them
ai and Aoi both come off as the main character in the first half. the manga begins the first few chapters with Ai's point of view and central focus and the first chapter of the visual novel focuses on Aoi's point of view
the game tricks us into thinking that Aoi is the protagonist because of how he is designed and how the first half has us focused on his thoughts, the manga makes us look at Ai as the protagonist due to her strong presence and character arc.
Both characters get killed off fairly early on in the story, ai gets killed off after a few chapters and Aoi is revealed to be dead at the beginning of the game, they make us think that they are the protagonists only to realize are taken from us.
Both of them despite being dead hold a lot of influence in the plot and the other characters.
Both of them watches from the sidelines acts as a member of the supporting cast and let others shine.
As an idol Ai was put on a pedestal by other people who projected themselves on her without any regard for her humanity, Aoi was treated as a monster due to the lemures blue in his body, his talent shuns him from other people
Ai and Aoi are both liars, they lie to fit the circumstances and setting that they are in.
They both had terrible upbringings which led to their current issues, Aoi doesn’t love himself and has low self-esteem whereas Ai doesn’t know how to love or receive love from others.
There was one aspect that was brought up in Lemures Blue by Itsuki in his discussion with Aoi on idols.
a meta about Oshi no ko pointed it out,
In religion an idol is:
An object which represents a deity, so it can become a manifestation of the god itself
A fake god, at least in monotheistic religions, like Judaism, Christianity and Islam
So, idols are gods. And yet, they are fake gods. In particular, monotheistic religions refuse idols because they are over-simplified representations of the divine.
Similarly, people worship celebrities but only know their simplistic personas. Actors and idols are put on a pedestal but also objectified:
Itsuki is correct in his conjunction on idols in fact that is where the word idol comes from and idol is used prevalently in Oshi no ko.
The last thing is the main antagonists, the antagonists are the fathers of the main cast Kanata Kamiya the father of Hinata, and Hikaru Kamiki the father of the twins, Ruby and Aqua.
I am going to put this post here in case anyone has any input or wants to add.
This post is mostly based on my opinion but it was something I wanted to talk about since I saw so many similarities in it.
