Irenka Kagami Visual Works (18+)

Irenka Kagami Visual Works Cover

Irenka Kagami Visual Works - Illustrations and Design Works by Kagami

It’s been a several years since the release of the incredibly popular Nuye / Kagami Visual Works (republished on 3/4/2011), brainchild of artist Kagami and eroge company Lilith. Most recently, the second edition of Kagami’s illustrations and design works was released in a two volume set entitled Irenka Kagami Visual Works (ISBN: 4545291001740). Irenka 1 features 196 pages, while Irenka 2 has 148 pages of color and b/w illustrations and Japanese text. Both volumes come packaged in a sleeve case. Since Irenka is a Japanese production, the illustrations are censored, but the on-line samples appear to use the Japanese “digital mosaic” style.

Click over to Lilith for some juicy samples (NSFW, of course). Both Nuye and Irenka are currently in stock and ready to ship through beNippon.

The new black.

Black comes in many shades, especially when it comes to ink. For the manga artist who is looking to create authentic inked works, Kuretake has developed “Manga Black.” This 60mL bottle should give your artwork the manga appearance you’ve been after. Kuretake Manga Black in the 60mL bottle is available now at beNippon.

Final Fantasy Music Scores

As video game company Square Enix released their 14th iteration of the Final Fantasy franchise, Final Fantasy XIV online, they’ve started off with a huge FAIL and double FAIL. However, as much as the Japanese gamers hate the game, you’ve got to admit there’s so much eye candy there. The scenery and character creation is just beautiful. Along with all that eye candy, is plenty of ear candy as well. Throughout the history of the Final Fantasy franchise, each edition has had its own soundtracks and musical scores, most of which are only available in Japan.

For those musician that feel the need to master the scores from the various Final Fantasy games, many can be found at beNippon, such as piano solos from the recent  Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XIII games, to guitar solo sheet music.

Find dozens of other Final Fantasy music sheets in the sheet music department.

Shimauma-kun, is that a G-pen?

Shimauma-kunJust who is this Shimauma-kun anyway? Why, he’s one of Zebra Co. Ltd.‘s mascot characters, and he just happens to have a G-Pen nib for a tail. The word on the street is that Shimauma-kun uses his G-Pen tail as an antenna to call his spaceship, no joke!

Zebra G-Pen NibNot only is Zebra’s G-Pen nib on the tail of Shimauma-kun, but it’s also in the hands of many Japanese manga artists. And the G-Pen nib is also loved by artists the world over who love to ink.

The Zebra G-Pen nib is able to produce clean lines ranging in thickness dependent on the amount of pressure produce by the hand. Most often used to ink outlines and silhouettes, the G-Pen nib can also be used to texture inner areas of designs with fine lines.

Zebra G-Pen Nib Texture ExampleZebra G-Pen nibs can be ordered worldwide from beNippon in packs of 10 nibs. The Zebra pen shaft is also available.

Images from Zebra Co. Ltd.