Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!
Four Leaf Studios, together with the Katawa Shoujo Japanese translation team, would like to give all our fans a christmas present this year. And that christmas present is .pdf versions of the currently released artbooks; the Katawa Shoujo Player Guide, and Fragments of Summer.
We plan to release a .pdf copy of Midwinter, the third Katawa Shoujo artbook, around mid-March. Those who buy Midwinter at Comiket will have the exclusivity of a physical copy, and be able to view it several months earlier than anyone else.
This was all made possible by the very hard work of the Japanese translation team, who were responsible for Comiket organisation, all physical printing and publishing work, and translation of the artist and writer comments contained in the artbooks. A big thank you from the 4LS team goes to all of you guys. And of course, a big thank you also goes out to all the artists who contributed, both developers and fanartists.
Without further ado, here are the artbooks. Have a very merry Christmas from Four Leaf Studios, and a happy new year!
Katawa Shoujo Player Guide (Japanese)
Fragments of Summer (Japanese)
Fragments of Summer (English)
- Suriko
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Katawa Shoujo Will be Released on January 4th
Katawa Shoujo will release on January 4, 2012.
Of course, 2012 is not 2011, and we do apologise for that. The date of 4 January was selected in order to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the /a/ sticky that started this project, and will see the release of the full version of the game.
We thank you for your patience in waiting for the game to be completed, especially those who have contributed to the game's development. It's been a long ride, but the end is finally near.
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Monday, December 5, 2011
Katawa Shoujo Artbook at Comiket 81
Hi all,
The Katawa Shoujo Japanese translation team got a desk in the coming Winter Comiket, Comiket 81. The location and dates are: Dec 31 (Sat - Day 3) East "Pe" (ペ） Block 15a (East-5 hall).
Our new doujinshi is a B5 sized artbook of 20 pages, just like the summer artbook. Artists from the development team as well as the Shimmie regulars contributed their masterpieces.
The book is titled "Midwinter", in contrast to the previous book, and will be distributed at 400 JPY.
They will be bringing additional stock of the summer artbook "Fragments of Summer" to Comiket as well.
» Discuss this post on the forums
The Katawa Shoujo Japanese translation team got a desk in the coming Winter Comiket, Comiket 81. The location and dates are: Dec 31 (Sat - Day 3) East "Pe" (ペ） Block 15a (East-5 hall).
Our new doujinshi is a B5 sized artbook of 20 pages, just like the summer artbook. Artists from the development team as well as the Shimmie regulars contributed their masterpieces.
The book is titled "Midwinter", in contrast to the previous book, and will be distributed at 400 JPY.
They will be bringing additional stock of the summer artbook "Fragments of Summer" to Comiket as well.
» Discuss this post on the forums
Monday, November 14, 2011
Shizooooon
Hello this is Moekki and today I'm writing about Shizune. I have enjoyed drawing her alot and I think working on her design really helped me develop my style!
here is a diagram
Anyways, in chronological order:
A) Raita's initial design, coloured by some anonymous dude. Although many aspects of her design were drawn from this image, the teal coloured hair was scrapped almost immediately because it's ugly and only works on Miku.
B) 2007, the first game design adopted after the beginning of the project. This design was probably more influential on future designs than Raita's.
C) Wooooow what shitty art! This was after I first joined the project and it's completely horrible. However most of her design is set in stone now
D) I don't remember drawing this but I found it in my KS folder. This was during the intervening period before Kamifish kicked my ass, most of the artists were very dead for about 5 months. I think i tried to give her twin ahoge like hideaki but luckily it never came to fruition. I was still struggling to draw her hourglass figure
E) Her current design, I'm kind of impressed how much I improved that year! I didn't draw any concept art for this design and thus determined that concept art is useless for moeblob school girls. Zettai ryoiki has been discovered and things are good
THE FUTURE!) things are mostly the same but over time her bangs have slowly turned into cat ears
Guest art by VCR
Thankyou and good night
XOXO Moekki
(PS: This means the direction is done)
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here is a diagram
Anyways, in chronological order:
A) Raita's initial design, coloured by some anonymous dude. Although many aspects of her design were drawn from this image, the teal coloured hair was scrapped almost immediately because it's ugly and only works on Miku.
B) 2007, the first game design adopted after the beginning of the project. This design was probably more influential on future designs than Raita's.
C) Wooooow what shitty art! This was after I first joined the project and it's completely horrible. However most of her design is set in stone now
D) I don't remember drawing this but I found it in my KS folder. This was during the intervening period before Kamifish kicked my ass, most of the artists were very dead for about 5 months. I think i tried to give her twin ahoge like hideaki but luckily it never came to fruition. I was still struggling to draw her hourglass figure
E) Her current design, I'm kind of impressed how much I improved that year! I didn't draw any concept art for this design and thus determined that concept art is useless for moeblob school girls. Zettai ryoiki has been discovered and things are good
THE FUTURE!) things are mostly the same but over time her bangs have slowly turned into cat ears
Thankyou and good night
XOXO Moekki
(PS: This means the direction is done)
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Thursday, October 27, 2011
Rin's Path Direction Complete
Rin path direction is now complete, so it's time for second-last heroine art recap.
Rin's art has stayed fairly tethered to RAITA's original design, with her personality reflected in her relaxed posture and roughly-cut short hair visible most of the prototype designs that have been made for her as well as in her final in-game art. With Kamifish coming on board as Rin's path artist, her talent for very clean linework and sketching gave her designs a great amount of consistency very early on once she began work for KS.
The two most notable differences from RAITA's art are Rin's hairstyle being change from a bobcut to short and splayed-out, and a change from wearing a skirt to wearing trousers. The former change came after most of the current artists came on board at the same time in 2008 - Moekki, Weee, Gebyy, and Kamifish - and began working on new designs. It was at this time that Aura gave the artists a task to try and work out the best way to develop Rin's appearance; each artist would draw Rin sleeping against a tree. By showing her in what felt like a natural activity she would do, it could be worked out what design best fit the way she acted. The result of this was for some aspects of Weee's image to be incorporated into her look - namely, the back of her hair being splayed out slightly messily, and her front bangs being separated from the back of her hair to show her ears.
The second change, with Rin's uniform being switched from the blouse and skirt to the boy's uniform shirt and trousers, is primarily a matter of practicality for her. As Rin paints with her feet, wearing trousers simply allows her to do so without the chance of people catching a glance at her panties. The blouse being changed for the boy's shirt was mainly a matter of aesthetics to match the trousers. Relatedly, Rin typically wears sandals rather than shoes, in order to allow quick access to her feet to manipulate objects without getting them dirty through going entirely barefoot. And the answer to any question about clothing that starts with "But how does Rin..." is still "Emi."
And that's Rin's art. Look forward to the final heroine's recap, Shizune's, sometime soon!
- Suriko
» Discuss this post on the forums
Rin's art has stayed fairly tethered to RAITA's original design, with her personality reflected in her relaxed posture and roughly-cut short hair visible most of the prototype designs that have been made for her as well as in her final in-game art. With Kamifish coming on board as Rin's path artist, her talent for very clean linework and sketching gave her designs a great amount of consistency very early on once she began work for KS.
The two most notable differences from RAITA's art are Rin's hairstyle being change from a bobcut to short and splayed-out, and a change from wearing a skirt to wearing trousers. The former change came after most of the current artists came on board at the same time in 2008 - Moekki, Weee, Gebyy, and Kamifish - and began working on new designs. It was at this time that Aura gave the artists a task to try and work out the best way to develop Rin's appearance; each artist would draw Rin sleeping against a tree. By showing her in what felt like a natural activity she would do, it could be worked out what design best fit the way she acted. The result of this was for some aspects of Weee's image to be incorporated into her look - namely, the back of her hair being splayed out slightly messily, and her front bangs being separated from the back of her hair to show her ears.
The second change, with Rin's uniform being switched from the blouse and skirt to the boy's uniform shirt and trousers, is primarily a matter of practicality for her. As Rin paints with her feet, wearing trousers simply allows her to do so without the chance of people catching a glance at her panties. The blouse being changed for the boy's shirt was mainly a matter of aesthetics to match the trousers. Relatedly, Rin typically wears sandals rather than shoes, in order to allow quick access to her feet to manipulate objects without getting them dirty through going entirely barefoot. And the answer to any question about clothing that starts with "But how does Rin..." is still "Emi."
And that's Rin's art. Look forward to the final heroine's recap, Shizune's, sometime soon!
- Suriko
» Discuss this post on the forums
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Big in Japan, part 4: Comiket 80 Report
We had the honor of adding another page to the history of KS, attending the Summer Comiket and Comitia with the new KS illustration book titled "Fragments of Summer". This time the pics are all in full color for your eyes to enjoy. We sure made a serious jump in quality.
The book was made possible again by the KS devs along with the Shimmie regulars, plus 4 guest participants from Japan as well. This is a historical collaboration of KS fan artists around the globe.
- Himeno, a doujin artist who creates KS fan comics frequently. He has posted his works in the forum numerous times.
- Sukaponta, a doujin artist and an overseas cartoon enthusiast. He has been following KS development since its infancy.
- Yamada, who responded to our call for participation. You can find his arts in Pixiv.
- EEE boy, one of the translation team member, and shows very good skills in dot arts.
So the big day was August 13, the second day of Summer Comiket. We brought a few hundred copies of the new book and the remainders of the Act 1 CD / Players Guide combo from the previous Comitia.
This was how the desk looked like just before the event's opening.
The big surprise was that we sold out the Players Guide within the first hour. (The stock was low though.) The new illustration book was selling very fast. We almost saw lines forming in front of our desk. I've been doing doujin stuffs for about 10 years but I have never experienced anything like this in my life. It was astonishing. I never thought that KS became this popular in Japan.
In the end we sold more than 200 copies of the illustration book. A remarkable number. We saw lots of positive reactions afterwards on twitter.
On the following Sunday, August 21, we had another event which was Comitia 80, specializing in original doujin creations. We sold another 100 copies or so, proving the popularity of KS yet again. One person claiming he's from New York dropped by, and bought 10 copies in bulk so that he can distribute them back in US. It turns out that the person was Lansan1ty...hope he's doing ok.
We are aware that there are lots of requests for distributing the scanned data and all. We are seeking the possibility to fulfill these needs in one way or another. We appreciate if you can give some time for this.
We thank you for all the support from KS devs (especially Aura who coordinated the whole thing), the artists and all the fans out there in Japan and worldwide. There are new plans going on so please stay tuned to the dev blog for further development.
-hir
» Discuss this post on the forums
The book was made possible again by the KS devs along with the Shimmie regulars, plus 4 guest participants from Japan as well. This is a historical collaboration of KS fan artists around the globe.
- Himeno, a doujin artist who creates KS fan comics frequently. He has posted his works in the forum numerous times.
- Sukaponta, a doujin artist and an overseas cartoon enthusiast. He has been following KS development since its infancy.
- Yamada, who responded to our call for participation. You can find his arts in Pixiv.
- EEE boy, one of the translation team member, and shows very good skills in dot arts.
So the big day was August 13, the second day of Summer Comiket. We brought a few hundred copies of the new book and the remainders of the Act 1 CD / Players Guide combo from the previous Comitia.
This was how the desk looked like just before the event's opening.
The big surprise was that we sold out the Players Guide within the first hour. (The stock was low though.) The new illustration book was selling very fast. We almost saw lines forming in front of our desk. I've been doing doujin stuffs for about 10 years but I have never experienced anything like this in my life. It was astonishing. I never thought that KS became this popular in Japan.
In the end we sold more than 200 copies of the illustration book. A remarkable number. We saw lots of positive reactions afterwards on twitter.
On the following Sunday, August 21, we had another event which was Comitia 80, specializing in original doujin creations. We sold another 100 copies or so, proving the popularity of KS yet again. One person claiming he's from New York dropped by, and bought 10 copies in bulk so that he can distribute them back in US. It turns out that the person was Lansan1ty...hope he's doing ok.
We are aware that there are lots of requests for distributing the scanned data and all. We are seeking the possibility to fulfill these needs in one way or another. We appreciate if you can give some time for this.
We thank you for all the support from KS devs (especially Aura who coordinated the whole thing), the artists and all the fans out there in Japan and worldwide. There are new plans going on so please stay tuned to the dev blog for further development.
-hir
» Discuss this post on the forums
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The Five Stages of a KS Dev
Stage 1: Enthusiasm
Making KS is a blast. Seriously, it's pretty damn fun. Applying yourself to something with other people is a great pastime, and all the side effects of it, like the great community that's built around KS, or getting our work in events like Comiket are just frosting on the cake. I like the people in 4LS, and talking and theorizing and working with them. I think they like me too, most of the time at least. Sometimes, simply taking a step back and realizing "holy crap we are actually doing this" is a big motivation booster.
Stage 2: Frustration
Making KS is hard. We've had to climb over a whole bunch of totally unreasonable hurdles to get stuff done along the way. The goals we have set for ourselves are completely unrealistic, and it's taken way too long to get there. The amount of stuff we've scrapped from KS could be bigger than the amount of stuff that is in the final product. The ways things can go to hell have surprised us time and time again. These kinds of things wear people out horribly, but this still is just the beginning of the descent to madness that is visual novel development.
Stage 3: Desperation
Making KS is suffering. The dumb shit we've had to go through with this project is unimaginable, a whole bunch of it self-inflicted. We aren't a well-oiled machine by any means, and sometimes some cogs don't work well at all. Getting the 4LS engine to work properly is a constant uphill battle including surprises, fights, begging, threats and bribery. The people who have to fight that battle go to some pretty ridiculous lengths sometimes. You wouldn't believe me if I told you.
Stage 4: Scorn
Making KS is the worst thing ever. Everyone has a point where they just can't take it anymore. The final straw will land on your back, and it will snap. Everyone reacts to this kind of stress differently. A22 rolls on the floor, delta yells a lot, and so forth. However, because we are professionals, we usually get over this pretty quickly and move on to...
Stage 5: Acceptance
Making KS is worth it. Because if it wasn't, we'd have called it quits years ago. To hell with the questionable artistic merits or a cripple porn visual novel, the adoration and wrath of all our fans, the massive though untapped potential that our project has built up and all that. There is worth in simply being together in this for so long and trying to reach that elusive goal. Once you realize that, you feel awesome, at least until the project kicks you in the nuts or ovaries the next time. Because rest assured, it will.
-Aura
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