October 21st, 2009, 9:47PM by nat | 6 comments
Edel Farben was released December 2008 and is a gorgeous collection of color illustrations by You Shiina (椎名 優) from the circle Tenkyudho. I have a couple of art books by this artist, and I have to say, this self-publication is my favorite book from her.
This collection is 46 pages in length (not including covers) and is entirely in color. Most of the illustrations are full page, with the largest occupying two pages and the smallest covering half a page. The book is paperback, and B5 in size, but the print quality is amazing.
And so are the illustrations. Most of the pieces are free works, drawn originally for this book or for You Shiina's home page. Because of this, there's a lot of variety in the character designs, and the look of the girls (and guys) featured in Edel Farben. Anyone know what "edel farben" might mean anyway?
You Shiina's guys have a very androgynous look to them. It's like, their faces are interchangeable with the girls. Unless it's supposed to be an older guy, then he looks like Hoenheim from Fullmetal Alchemist (see top right) :D
My favorite thing about these illustrations is the clothing. You Shiina goes all out on clothing design, with a similar level of detail to Kaori Minakami (水上カオリ) and Kaya Kuramoto (椋本夏夜) especially when it comes to beautiful Gothic Lolita fashions. The backgrounds are also great, and she really finds ways to integrate them with the character image.
You Shiina's works appear on light novel covers, and magazine monthlies, but I can't think of something everyone would know her work from. Maybe Tales of Commons? Any other ideas? I only discovered her work myself when I bought her first art book based solely on the cover art ^^; Sometimes impulsive decisions are good ones!
Since this doujinshi came out during Comiket 75, you're most likely to find it used on places like Yahoo Auctions JP and Mandarake. I've said it before but, I didn't start collecting doujinshi until last year, so though some of these do get hard to find, they're never impossible.
14 years, 11 months ago
Very pretty, thanks for the review ^_^
14 years, 11 months ago
lol Hoenheim xD but yes, very pretty. :] edel farben means noble color, i believe. well it's german, since i know of the flower edelweiss (= noble white).
14 years, 11 months ago
Ah, nice :D That makes sense really, since it's one of the few color volumes You Shiina has. Thanks!
14 years, 11 months ago
no prob. well, it's actually noble colors...haha, overlooked the fact that farben is plural. xD;
14 years, 11 months ago
I actually have an older Yuu Shiina artbook right here with me, bought during a trip to Asia. The cover text and legal text are all in Chinese though, minus some interesting inserts that are in well-written English.
I bought it because the cover art looked pretty (a very risky move when buying shrink-wrapped books), but it turned out alright. The book largely contains art from a series called "Angel Howling," focussing largely on the two main female characters named Mizu and Furiu, though there is a section focussing on other characters from that series as well as original works As you said before, the artist has a good sense for colour and fashion sense, but in this book the men actually look quite masculine. It's full colour too.
Due to the fact that I don't know Japanese, however, I have been completely unable to find any information on just what "Angel Howling" is. I don't know if it's a manga, a light novel, or something else. Do you think you could find this out for me?
If you want, I could send you a photo or scan of the cover of this artbook I have in case you want it for yourself. Thanks for sharing this!
14 years, 11 months ago
I know the book you're talking about. I keep meaning to get it, but it really takes more motivation for me to spend on older stuff when there's always something new coming out ^^;
Angel Howling is a series of novels by Yoshinobu Akita, the same guy who wrote the Sorceror Stabber Orphen novels. Angel Howling was after Orphen though... It finished, but that's all I know about it ^^; Oh, it also ran in Dragon Magazine.