I can put the the more raw one in the scan gallery, but I'd like to put this one in the art gallery then -- since
people who've seen the two images -- at *screen* size (up to 2560x1600) have thought that the one you pulled
*looks* alot more attractive -- but beauty is in the eye of the beholder -- I annoyed with the *image* on that one
because it doesn't show Naraku's better sides an makes him a very one-dimensional, stereotypical bad guy. He
had so many dimensions -- remember he was the Handsome Prince -- or at least that's who's body he'd taken
over at the beginning of the 1st series. The prince who's dad hired the demon slayers to kill the spider demon,
where kohaku killed them. The prince killed the father when he saw he was possessed by the spider demon -- but it
wasn't clear if the prince had already been possessed by the same demon that we come to know as Naraku.
So the dark and dingeyness of the scan really didn't do alot to show off why Naraku was so successful at deceiving
people. He REALLY gets made over toward the last episode -- like a stylized Egyptian diety before he gets picked apart
by Sesshie's new contaminating disintegrator blade (that infects flesh to decay and defeats Naraku's regen
power -- and spreads infection to any other Naraku flesh it touches -- forcing a cascade disintegration of Naraku's
grand body in the 3rd to last episode (last episode airs next week, on Monday, March 29th in Japan and on Hulu. On Hulu
you can watch the whole last season 'the Final Act' to catch up if you're into that. IF you were,
you'd understand what I meant by my version looking more true to form.
If you haven't watched that -- you can complain about technical aspect of scanning, but if you remember InuYasha
(my last viewing of the original series was less than a year ago) and especially if you see the new 'final
act', I think you'd better appreciate the the newer version I put out.
As far as this scan looking more cell -- inuyasha was *simple* cell animation. It wasn't Clamp.
Most of the scenes use no gradients -- simple smooth, bilevel colors. IT IS smooth -- the only reason it isn't
smooth is the grain of the printing -- not the drawing!
You are wanting to add grain where there was none in the original -- much of it was done on computer where there was no
grain!
I don't know why you want fake grain added to scans -- because most of it isn't from the original drawings --
and from Inuyashsa of it is -- the original artwork is all simple tones -- from the _anime_ -- the manga has drawing
features, obviously. But these cans are of the stylized form of the anime not the manga.
But anyway -- most of the ones I did earlier like the one you liked were ones that had more detail on their own and
weren't simiple cell work that had been blown up for the calendars. The 'square' format calendar work has
a large number of them are that are blown up *cell* work from the anime -- so they should look like cell to be
authentic. They SHOULDN'T all look the same -- because the pictures themselves didn't come from the same
sources. This particular 'year' of the calendar -- a squarish format had no original artwork in it -- it was
all reshapings of previous -- cut and resizing's of others or blow-ups of cells.
Are you saying all of them should be made to have 'grain' even when the sources didn't?
I can actutally give more than the option(s) I gave -- I made sure to download the one that was there before (if it
isn't around). I can upload a higher res version of that with color correcting -- but it still looks boring. But,
(and uploading the 2nd, larger isn't conditional on acceptance, but I'd like to throw the hand-colored version
in the inde-gallery as a re-color of the original -- that way people could look at and or use either.
But don't get stuck in thinking they should all look alike when some were blow-ups of anime cell stills. As you
have pointed out -- I'm certainly not getting stuck on one style -- this was not something I would do for most or
many -- it took three weeks of hand tuning and I still felt I could keep "tweaking"...but it was driving me
crazy.
Just understand -- the ones that look really good with less tweaking were done as higher res source art for the
calendars -- but that just wasn't the case for this 2006 US calendar (for many or most of them).
