telophase | Randomness: markers, eyeball-licking, and dull Catholic priests

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Randomness: markers, eyeball-licking, and dull Catholic priests

Because I know more people read LJ on Monday morning than the weekend, I'm just going to renew my plea for anyone around here who reads Japanese well enough to translate it who'd be willing to get art in exchange for translating a few pages from a book on marker techniques - the bonus being that it's about Kazuya Minekura.

That out of the way,

yhlee mentioned a bit about pacing in TV shows, and this is from my comment to her reprinted here because I'm not sure I know if anyone on the friendslist has seen Boogiepop Phantom, and I highly recommend it.

Not the same as hour-long episodes, but the anime of Boogiepop Phantom plays long and hard with pacing and revelation. It starts with an episode focused on one character, then spirals out and out, looking at other characters in this area, sometimes a little backwards in time, somtimes a little forwards in time, sometimes jumping madly around. You'll often see the events of previous or future episodes playing out in the background, and sometimes you'll get the punchline of a scene in one episode and two episodes later, get the lead-in to it. You have to watch carefully and piece together not only the story, but the chronology.

I've just read the translation of the novel it was based on, Boogiepop and Others, which does this a bit, but not as much: it's easier to follow.

The novel is interesting, but the anime's better. I've seen the live-action movie, too, which is a low-budget affair whose most memorable point can be summed up in three words: eyeball-licking scene.

And in other news from the literary world: is there out there an action/suspense novel starring a Catholic priest that does not, in fact, involve him breaking his vows of chastity at any point? Not that I've read many action/suspense novels starring Catholic priests over the course of my life, but it seems that it's never a question if if he's going to do it, but when. This weekend I finished Steve Berry's The Third Secret, which according to its press is an amazing tour-de-force of suspense and Vatican insider knowledge. What it really is, is dull. And involves a priest who breaks his vows of chastity, but that's OK because the Virgin Mary says it's OK. No, really. The plot revolves around the death of a pope and the behind-the-scenes scheming of a cookie-cutter sociopath to get elected pope, while Our Hero, suffering the ubiquitous crisis of faith, is sent on mysterious errands that are involved with the Third Secret of Fatima. Which was released in 2000, by the way and you can read it online, but that's not a problem, because there was really a third page to the text that contains an earth-shattering revelation. Which is that priests don't have to be celibate, that women should be allowed into the priesthood, that gay marriage is OK, and that women are in control of their own bodies and reproductive issues.

I was really hoping for something more exciting, involving, perhaps, hellfire and brimstone, or the end of the world, or Armageddon, at the very least. Especially after a red herring being set up about the prophecies of Malachy and how the last pope before the end of the world would call himself Peter, once our dull sociopath achieved the papacy and named himself Peter II.

I only kept reading to find out what the rest of the Third Secret of Fatima was, and once I found out I felt seriously cheated, after having slogged my way through the rest of the thing to get there. This book can just bite Mello's fabulous ass.

Is anyone else as tickled as I am that you can access many texts in the Vatican Secret Archives on CD?

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Oh! You want _The Apocalypse Door_ by James D. Macdonald, you really really do.

http://www.steelypips.org/weblog/2002/11/macdonald_james.php

Oh, cool! Thanks. :D

I mean, action, suspense, no breaking of vows, *and* Armageddon! What else could you ask for?

(The sequel is apparently close to being done. Woo-hoo!)

*cheers* I'm just tired of every book that I pick up that involves a priest has him break his vows: it's like there's a commandment of Thou Shalt Not Write A Book Without At Least One Sex Scene and thus priests will inexplicably suffer crises of faith at completely random times so they can bed a babe. I wouldn't mind one who was tempted but resisted, but I don't think I've found any.

I was going to try translating that for you, but then I saw the length of the article at the end and got scared ^^; My Japanese isn't perfect, but with time I can generally get translations done. . .

ANYTHING is better than nothing - I'm really more interested in the text in the images, because that explains what she's doing while she's doing it. No clue what the last page is all about, but if it's like these sorts of things usually go, it's a random biography or interview.

OK then. If you give me some time, I'm pretty sure I could get the text with images done. I glanced over them and they didn't seem like they'd be too difficult. . .

So yes, I shall try

:D Cool, thanks!

I love Boogiepop Phantom so much. Have you seen Paranoia Agent yet? Same writer, same style, but Satoshi Kon directing: total genius.

I don't recall the priest in The Exorcist breaking his vows, but that may be the one redeeming feature of that book.

Yes, I've seen it - started watching on Adult Swim, then Netflixed the rest of the DVDs. :) Love it. Not as much as I do Boogiepop, but it's still up there.

I looked at the article, but it was way beyond me. All I could read was "characters" in katakana. Sorry.

Much love for Boogiepop Phantom. <3 What I wanna read is the manga- Ogata has some gorgeous art in there. :o (http://mostlycloudy.net/~ballzapalooza/boogiepop/andothers.htm because I'm too lazy to remember how to make a HTML link).

I think it's been licensed - I vaguely remember that from the afterword to the book, I think.

Oooo. I'll definitely look forward to that.

It'll be out in April: http://gomanga.com/manga/boogiepop.php

eyeball-licking scene

*shudders* I was trying to repress that memory . . .

Downloaded this when you first put it up, on the off-chance that I might have some time in which a bit of non-academic translation would be my timekiller of choice, and what do you know? I wake up at 3am just a few nights later, open it up and realise I can actually work a lot of this out - with a little help.

So I'm looking at this article, and it's not hugely complicated, but there are some kanji and katakana with which I'm seriously not familiar. Kanji - fine, that's what my reassuringly expensive kanji dictionary is for, plus a lot of them recur with enough frequency that it should simplify as things go on. Katakana - much, much trickier. We're talking foreign words, brand names, abbreviations of the above, and a translator who is neither artist nor Japanese. In other words, your help would be very much appreciated, with that and with other artisty terminology that eludes me, else any translation of anything is just going to sparkle with the badness.

First up: bigma. (Katakana: BIGUMA.) Is that, or does that even remotely resemble, the brand name of a pen/pencil/first draft drawing tool of some description? I can't find it on Google, so am assuming it's an affectionate smooshing of two words, like Big Marker or Visual Marker or something into BigMac. Also, because this makes neat, logical sense and I like the prospect of that, might it be a mechanical pencil into which you can insert different thicknesses of lead at will? Please say yes.

Next we have BB Kent - brand of paper?

Would a Japanese artist refer to the platform on which their working as a "trace platform" or something similar? Does the thing have a proper name I should use?

What is a manga's equivalent of a manuscript called? How about the strong lines you put on before (after? I don't even know...) you colour? In Japanese it seems to be "master line", going by a literal translation of the kanji compound that I can't find anywhere in dictionaries, but is there a proper word for that?

G pen. What?

And that's everything for now. While waiting on the answers for that one, I'm going to give the next box a try, so will be back with more questions at some point (pre-emptively though, what is "gradation" and does that make sense as being next to a picture of shading an eye?). As for the text underneath the pictures however, most are too small or blurry for me to work out a lot of the kanji. If you could scan in bigger and/or sharper versions of just those sections of the pages, that would be great; I have the pictures now, so as long as I have some idea of where it goes on which page then a good copy of the text alone would be just fine.

(And yes, the last page is just an interview, and in which the first word is Copic. I can see why you'd rather have the pictures translated.)

Bigma = Pigma. Micron Pigma technical pens, which come in a variety of sizes.

BB Kent I would assume is paper, but not one I'm familiar with. I'd assume it's probably some sort of marker paper if that's what she's putting the markers on; and I've got both Copic and Bienfang papers to use. :D

I'm betting the 'trace platform' is a lightbox - it's a box with a light in it and a translucent cover. You tape your pencils down to the cover, place your final paper on top, and when you turn on the light you can see the drawing through the final paper and trace it.

Manuscript? Are you talking about the pencils? The script? (I assume the pencils, since there's no writing in the picture XD) Without having the rest of the context, I'm assuming it's the pencils - the pencil sketch you do to work out the picture before you ink it, either on top of the pencils or on another piece of paper using the lightbox.

I call the lines I put on before coloring them: linework. I 'throw down lines' or 'do linework' or 'ink the lines.'

A G pen is a type of pen tip from Japan (and I ahve some - woo!). There's also maru pens and school pens and spoon pens, and probably others, in case you run across those terms.

Gradation is a general shading from one color to another, or one shade to another. The rainbow is a very colorful gradation. :D And something that goes from black to white, with a smooth grey progression in between is also a gradation, a simple one. It makes sense in the eye, I think, because she's saying that there shouldn't be sharp edges between the colors (those are called "steps").

The left side is a smooth gradation; the right side is a stepped gradation.

I'll see what I can do about scanning the picture text again - I have to crash tonight, so it won't happen tonight. Saturday might be the best - you probably want to beep me and remind me because my brain iz ded and my memory for things like this is totally shot at the moment.

Oh, Pigma! That makes a lot more sense than Big Marker (although I've seen enough dodgy Japanese brand names that the idea didn't faze me quite as much as I suspect it should have). I take it that's a circle next to the katakana then, and not a tenten (the two lines)? I swear, the kanji have been easier to identify, probably because there are more lines to guess from - get halfway through and you have enough to look it up and take an educated guess.

As for manuscript, that's the literal translation of the kanji, so I'd guess she's talking about the pictures and not the text. Is the word for that "pencils" or "pencil sketch"?

Gradation makes a lot of sense, thank you for the clear explanation! ^__^ Give me a moment and I'll put up the translation of the first paragraph.

:D I've seen enough strange Japanese portmanteau words that something like Bigma for Big Marker wouldn't faze me in the least. I only knew it because I own some Microns. XD

I'm not entirely sure where the marker book is at the moment - I havne't looked at it since I rearranged teh room, so it's either on one of the art book shelves or in the suitcase that I last used to go to a con with. Yet another reason I can't scan anything tonight. XD

'Pencils' is more of a slangy version - 'pencil sketch' works just as well, and is probably closer to what they mean. It's us comic artists who tend to go on about the pencils and the inks, instead of the pencil sketch and the inked linework. XD

Wheee! Looking forward to it!

(I found the marker book on the shelf next to me - I'll try to scan tomorrow. Some of the more complicated kanji are pretty hard to make out even in the original, but hopefully you'll be able to make educated guesses. :D)

The thing about kanji is that after about five-hundred or so it becomes really easy to see how to break them down and to guess how to draw them, with correct stroke count and everything. The radical is usually the clearest part, and, nine times out of ten, once you've got that and have a vague idea of how many strokes it takes to make the rest of the kanji, you can work it out pretty easily with the kanji dictionary we're all rightly advised to buy in the first year.

...Which is the long way of saying "Don't worry, complicated kanji shouldn't be a problem."

First paragraph up, and I should be able to get the second one (Goku's eye) up before I go back to sleep, but first a couple of things. One, I forgot to mention that I have as yet no idea whether it's supposed to be a peek at Minekura's own personal style or if it's more of a tutorial, so my use of pronouns is pretty liberal, and, as with everything, correct me at will. Two, more strange katakana. Any ideas for BOKASHI? If I know that, I really can get paragraph two up tonight, but will wait for confirmation because I can't even guess what that might be.

Hee - I went to bed right after that, so I just got this this morning. :D

I hadn't heard of bokashi, but I did some poking about art stuff online, and it seems to refer to a type of shading that leaves gradations of color.

Defeinitions:

-- A technique employed by the printed to provide shading or gradation in the areas printed in color.

-- Fuki-bokashi is a Japanese woodblock printing technique which creates a gradation of colors by wiping off some pigments from the printing block.

Generally the printer would do a number of sheets with one color, and once the ink had dried, the process would be repeated with the next color. In general, a fixed sequence of colors was always followed, with light colors first, then dark colors, then finally dense blacks (which often needed several printings). Note that the keyblock was often not printed first; any dark colors can obliterate the thin black lines, and it is not uncommon to find prints in which it has been printed after the dark colors were.

The shading (called bokashi) is produced by a number of different techniques, such as:

* wiping the blocks with a cotton cloth or pad after the application of the ink;
* using brushes with varying color intensity and moisture level;
* rubbing the block with a damp cloth before applying the ink.

One thing to note is that the printer will often vary the amount of bokashi in a single run - it is not at all uncommon to find two impression of a print which are completely different, so different is the amount and location of the shading.

So I guess it refers to producing gradations in color by laying down a series of colors on top of each other from the lightest to the darkest, which makes sense in terms of what I can see in the pictures and from what I know about watercolors and markers.

I expect it's more of a peek at Minekura's personal style than a basic how-to - there's probably some section near the beginning of the book that gives some how-tos. There's 4 or 5 different artist sections like the Minekura one, and then some Q&A type pages and some pages that seems to be telling you all about the different types of Copic marker products you can get. And a really random manga section, probably designed to put humor into the process.

Then I shall treat the pronouns as such from now on. ^___^ Thank you for the bokashi run-through; translation aside, this is Japanese culture stuff that I find thoroughly fascinating, so your time taken to put up such a clear and detailed explanation is very much appreciated!

Next paragraph is up, though I have absolutely no idea what it says... Let me know if anything is expressed really badly, okay? Often it's the connecting stuff that throws me (do you gradate or create gradation? Is is gradation, a gradation or the gradation? etc. etc. etc.) but on the plus side, that's the stuff you'll automatically translate yourself anyway when you read my art version of Engrish.

I'm just looking at the lines underneath the other eye pictures, and is it me or is the top one about Gojyo and the one below about Hakkai? I don't know the Saiyuki name-kanji yet (though I'm sure I will do soon enough!) but from what I can see they aren't under the pictures they actually correspond with. Does that seem about right to you, or am I completely off base here?

I'd never heard of bokashi before, so I get to learn stuff, too. :D

I would normally say that you gradate the colors or you gradate the inks, but you can make a gradation (or 'the gradation' if you're acting directly on this specific gradation).

I don't know the name-kanji, either (the only thing I know is that the 'go' in 'Goku' can be translated as 'satori' and that's from

rachelmanija's recent post on Goku and Zen). She knows some kanji and is a Saiyuki fan, so she might know their names if you need confirmation.

In the pictures, Hakkai's on top, Gojyo's in the middle and Goku's on the bottom. It's entirely possible that whoever did the layout on the book didn't know the series and got it wrong, too. Or that the pictures don't really correspond to the text - I've seen that happen in art books, when the art director's power goes to his or her head and they choose good pictures instead of the correct pictures. LD

In that case, I think it's just mixed up, and have translated as such. Well, I've only translated one so far (Gojyo's eye line is up) because I really can't make out enough kanji for the other two. :( I'm sorry about that, I'll make a start on the boxes on page 3 so I can ask questions and get translations ready while waiting for sharper images.

Here ya go (http://www.sfolse.net/random/Comickers-Marker-book-smaller-captions.zip). About 5 or 6 megs. I scanned them at 300ppi and kept them there - they zoom in pretty good in Photoshop; I can see the kanji much more clearly than I can in real life. XD

The kanji for Sanzo starts with "three" and Hakkai starts with "eight." I think the "Go" in both Goku and Gojyo are the one for "satori."

Oh, and since I forgot to say it in the reply: THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!

Not a problem in the slightest! :D It's nice to confirm that I have actually learnt something practical in this past year or so, and besides, I always enjoy reading your journal and leech Death Note from you at every opportunity (very, very keen to see where it's going, incidentally; it's picked right up after that unfortunate salaryman section in the middle). I'm glad to be able to give you something back.

Uhh, I now can't find the thread where you were talking about keigo-- can you link it?

Also, how would you like to do us all a huge favor and translate this: "Kenren Taishou no nyoubouyaku da sou da ga, kimi ga soko made ano otoko ni kodawaru riyuu wa [fufu], yahari dan'na no shita ga ichiban kokochi yoi to iu koto ka?"

The fufu is a laugh, "Kenren Taisho" is "General Kenren," and the guy who says this gets punched out immediately thereafter by the person he's addressing.

Context at the bottom of the post, and also end of comments here: http://oyceter.livejournal.com/414822.html

Argh, sorry for the lateness! I've been under self-imposed LJ embargo for a couple of weeks, and didn't see this until just now.

My immediate translation is: "You are apparently General Kenren's right-hand man, but isn't the reason you have been concerned with him that - ahaha - the most comfortable place really is under one's master?"

That's a little imprecise, and if you have the kanji I can get a native speaker's opinion when my kareshi joins me here in a couple of days, but dan'na is both "husband" and "master" or "boss" in the same way as today's goshujin is; as a result, I translated it as master because this would, I think, be perfectly acceptable innuendo in English too, ostensibly of hierarchy but actually of something a little slashier.

But. That's an imprecise translation. I've never heard of nyoubouyaku, and would very much like to see the kanji of it before committing myself to anything.

Thanks! I will link you to someone who could get you the kanji.

女房役

Er, I hope that comes out... I basically typed "nyoubouyaku" in here.

If you can't see, the "nyou" is the kanji for woman (onna), the "bou" is the kanji for house (in Chinese, seems to have a different definition in Japanese) and the "yaku" means role.

The linework can also be referred to as 'the inks'.

And a lot of the numbers refer to specific marker colors - they're all coded by a letter(s)/number combo. I can go through and pick out which markers she's using to do it ... I just can't figure out what it is she's doing with them. XD

The .01, .001, .5, .3, .8 etc numbers will probably be Micron pen sizes. I think they're only available in those sizes.

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Randomness: markers, eyeball-licking, and dull Catholic priests

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