KIMURA yoshinobu

Featured

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  Ninja Girl Hibari

  Hibari-chan appears in Senran Kagura, an action video game for the 3DS and PS Vita that has also been made into an anime series. It takes places in Asakusa, Tokyo, so in order to recreate the atmosphere, I went to Asakusa to take photos and used them here. Lined with small shops, the mixed and Asian Asakusa is yet another face of Tokyo.

  This photo was taken with a 75mm lens. Using this lens, the background won't get blurry even if shot normally. After taking the photo, I increased the contrast of the focus using Photoshop to make the real landscape look miniature. When a miniature figure and a miniature-like landscape are brought together, this mysterious world appears. The figure, made by Phat Company, is of the character Hibari-chan. It captures her warmness and softness very well.

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  Nyaruko Appears in Akihabara

  This is of Nyaruko landing in front of Yodobashi Akiba, Akihabara. Such a place suits a genuine otaku like Nyaruko very well. The high windows near Akihabara Station Line 5 were open, so I stretched out and took this photo, which became the background.

  It seems that pictures taken from higher places make better material for miniature-like backgrounds. Later, I processed it in Photoshop, and I obscured it in proportion to the distance from the place it was taken. I used Max Factory's figma Nyaruko as the figure. It is small, but it has a rich facial expression and it captures Nyaruko very well. In order to make it look like she is landing, I put some padding under her skirt and the ribbon on her waist, making it swell.

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  Hatsune Miku with Fireflies

  I tried to combine Hatsune Miku with a fantastic, rural night scenery with fireflies dancing around. The figure I used was the Hatsune Miku Nendoroid Yukata Ver. A yukata is a type of kimono; it’s casual clothing worn during the hot summer. Even today, women often wear it to festivals and fireworks displays; it’s very attractive. Yukata also suits the Nendroid Hatsune Miku, making it into a very cute figure.
  
  This picture looks as if it was taken at night, but I actually took it a rice paddy in the daytime. Afterward, I processed it in Photoshop to make it look like a night scene. After that, I added some blur proportionate to the distance and added the fireflies with retouching (in other words, the whole thing is fake). I hope to take real photos of fireflies someday.

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  Giantess: Madoka and Homura (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)

  This is an image I created thinking about miniature sets, a kind of special effect often used in older Japanese movies. Today, it is easy to do this with visual effects, but back in the old days, they did it by building a model from miniatures and crushing it with the monster.
  
  The part at the center of the picture where the spotlight hits isn't real, of course. I made it by combining two photos taken at the same place near the Tokyo Tower, one of them taken at night and the other taken in direct sunlight.
  
  I had to use quite a bit of fine manipulation on the background for it to look like a miniature. Can you notice the Tokyo Tower and the part behind it is blurred in a different way? The other buildings as well, depending on the distance, are subtly blurred more or less. In my opinion, the recognition of these small differences accumulated gives a fake scenery persuasive power. I used Max Factory's figma Kaname Madoka and Akemi Homura.

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