Ikariya's Translations

New stuff from all that time away...

2007-03-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

Hello again everyone! I suppose it's obvious, but I've been busy... really busy. Trying to figure out what kinda career and stuff I can put my talents to and get hired at takes a lot of time. So I figured out I want a career in 3d design/ 3d graphic arts for entertainment. I started practicing at home from a Maya book, and here are my first serious results. I'm still working on cosplay items and have all that work posted on Cosplay.com.

DOA 4-panel comic Part 3

2007-01-22T07:47:00.000-08:00

Seems like I got a few DOA fans, so here's the third installment to the great DOA 4-panel series. I'll post more as I get time to do them.

Trans. by me, image editing and typesetting by Sakuma's Kuma.

DOA 4-panel comic Part 2

2006-08-14T23:46:00.000-07:00

Here's the second installment to the great DOA 4-panel series.

Trans. by me, image editing and typesetting by Sakuma's Kuma.

DOA-4 4-Panel Comics!

2006-07-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

Dead or Alive! Honestly, I haven't played DOA4 yet, but this 4-panel comic was so cute I couldn't resist buying it. It's composed of like a hundred pages of 4-panel strips and I got Sakuma's Kuma from Manga Koekje to edit and do the sfx for it, since it's her thing ^__^. The first two pages are just the cover and the first color page, so I'm posting the first two strips too. There are many authors of this collection of comics so I hope you like em!

Fanimecon 2k6 (Part 3)

2006-07-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Okay! More spamming my **Translation Blog** up with cosplay pix.
These are the best full body shots I found online or was given from Fanimecon ^__^

Here's me fighting a drunk cosplayer dressed up as Reno. I'm serious, he was so drunk. And the other picture... Apparently it's some kind of ghost molesting me in the picture. I don't remember that happening, but this picture.... @_@ . The one on the right there is me vs Reete in a duel to the dEth!!!

I came back from AX a couple of weeks ago... haha and have tons of pix of that too, as well as more translation stuffs! *Too busy to post anything* recently, so I'll try to get them up asap.

Fanime 2k6 (Part 2)

2006-07-13T19:01:00.000-07:00

^__^ Fanime was a blast! Even though I spent most of my time there sitting at the Borders Express booth, I had the greatest time hanging out there with my coworker cat-girl Stacy. Here are some pix of the booth, and no, I am not a POSER. The booth next door happened to be an animation tool called poser ok!? I svear!!

So there was a FFVII gathering from like 3-5 in the front... and I got there fashionably 5 minutes late due to scarfing my lunch down, and what do you know... everyone left already... and I thought it was 3-5!!!! So alone...

Just kidding. They actually already had the gathering and a big photosession, for what 5 minues I wasn't there!? and people had already started walking away. ThePinkPanther actually showed up about 5 minutes later than I did and oh man we had a blast. Here are pix of me and TPP (Kadaj) as well as me and R33te (Sephiroth)

Here are the photos I got of the renewed FFVII photo session (after ppl walked away we had to gather them back again).

Here are other gathering shots I managed to get in the halls.

Here's me with Skuldy, my coworker's gf, and M-Y

And some awesome ppl I met and took pix of ^___^ L-C as Tifa and wow these guys had a great Shinra group.
Overall I had a great time there as always for the past what... 8 years or so I've been going to Fanimecon. ^_^ my costume got a lot of attention, but with the goggles fogging up every 5 minutes, it was hard to see anything much... so sorry if I ignored you, I prolly couldn't see you. I also don't reply to people shouting out 'CLOUD' from like a block away. This post was mainly supposed to be for people I met and saw. Next time I'll spam my own site with a few pictures of myself in various poses.

Photocredits for this post are: A LOT OF PEOPLE. Thanks for taking pictures and sending them to me everyone!

Fanime 2k6 (Part 1)

2006-05-27T06:24:00.000-07:00

Fanime's here! I get to work at the Borders booth all day =) So now instead of me looking for cosplayers all day, they come right to me! How kickass is that? Plus, today's the big FFVII meeting, so im so busy today, if you tried to squeeze a needle in it would bend sideways trying. Pictures and some kind of report will come in a bit.

What have I been doing!?

2006-05-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

I just realised I haven't posted ony my site in a while! Well, there's a reason haha! First of all, I got hired at Namco-Bandai to do QA, so I work all day. Other than that, I've been working dutifuly at my FFVII: AC Cloud costume... and here's my proof ^^;;

My modified riding Fenrir goggles. <>_<> Easy to make, and just as easy to look cool in. I painted it a nice metalic silver and added that weird looking nose bridge.

I made the Cloud backpack. Made from the same cardstock I used in Apocalypse, got some furniture pleather, and hotglued them together real nicely. I used real metal snaps too! ^^;; had fun hammering those things in.
Proud that there are no wrinkles, but I wasn't able to put the propper stitching on it, but whatever, it looks awesome. Oh yeah... it also won't hold my sword. I made it to scale to my body just like the sword, but due to the material types, the sword won't go in the sheathe. ;__; If I made one that worked, it would have to be 20% bigger and that just looked too clumsy and huge, so I scrapped that version.

This is my Fenrir that I made for my armor last year. It's made of aluminum foil and creative hotgluing. Hmm yeah, not to impressive huh? That's what I thought too. Time to review, revise and remake.

Here's the *NEW* sculpey model I made with lots of image research and hard, hard work along with the latex mould which took a week to make. Latex moulds are nice, but I had to go to work every day when I was making it, so one or two layers of latex a day for about a week.... talk about a slow process! In the end, it came out really nice, so no complaints.

Here's a shot of the resin cast I made with the ring before and after my paint job. Paint sure makes a difference! The resin took about 24 hours to set and popped right out of the mould with a little help. Good thing I used latex, I had a lot of undercuts on this thing.

Finished product. Pauldron built from aluminum foil with hotglue and black pleather over it. Natural 'scarring' from my hotglue application. Strap made with an elastic fabric/ribbon thing that doesn't need adjusting. Ends hotglued and hotglued to the buckle, so no need for sewing or adjustment holes! ^_^ my CD case gets a cameo!

Hmm. I'm testing out if plastic is the way to go for the other swords. Since Apocky is kinda light already, I'm trying to make sure the others will stand on her, but not heavy enough to make her break apart under the weight. I've progressed a little farther than this pic, but the weight problem is still there.

Anyhow, those are the new pictures! I'm going to Fanimecon next weekend with all this stuff on + a wig (hopefuly). The wig's still in the mail... I got a really awesome one comissioned. I'll prolly have tons more cool pix to post after Fanime ^_^

Work Completed! (Apocalypse Part 3)

2006-03-29T13:30:00.000-08:00

It's done! (needs some paint touch up though)
Lookout Fanime and AX 06!!!

<- attaching the handguard ->

<- enter: Apocalypse ->

<- the end! ->

The total weight is..... wait for it..... only 5 pounds!!!
Both blade and the handle open/close and it's really shiny.

Length 6'9'' Width 1'0''
Materials:
-Posterboard
-Hot Glue
-Bass Wood
-Cardstock Paper
-Acrylic Paint & Varnish
-Galvanized nuts
-Various PVC parts
-Two wire hangers
-Duct Tape
-Brass hinges

Ah, I'm happy with how this turned out.

Work In Progress (Apocalypse) Part 2

2006-03-26T23:16:00.000-08:00

New pictures of my work on Cloud's sword the Apocalypse!

<-close up->

I'm about 80% finished now with the Apocalypse. At present with the handle and blade alone it weighs only about 3.5-4 pounds! Had a little trouble getting the handle to stay straight and strong, but things worked out well. I plan on finishing it up in the next couple of days, so come back soon and it'll be compleeeeete!

I'm debating weither or not to make the other swords, but right now i'm thinking not since I definitely would need stonger materials to hold all the weight. This was quite complex already due to the challenge of keeping it light and functional at the same time.

Work in progress (Apocalypse)

2006-03-09T23:25:00.000-08:00

So I've been working on the Apocalypse for my 2006 version of FFVII:AC Cloud Strife. I had already made two buster swords by the time the movie did come out and was shocked/happily surprised when the new 6-pack sword showed up.

I started off with a basic idea from the movie and had to first engineer a set of arms to make the sword open and close. O_o that took the longest time!!! As you can see, it paid off. The opening mechanism is made of hand-carved pieces of basswood. The main blades are made of stiff polyeurathane posterboard (the elmer's kind you use for science projects), the internal latice is made of really thick cardstock I found.

<--closed/open-->
Other details and final structures are in the photos here. I only have my set of trusty razor blades, my ruler(super important!), my plans sheet, a trusty glue gun, and a dremel to build this perdy sword, so there are tons of imperfections. There are a few dowels stuffed hidden in there to keep the blades stable. I think it's a little messy, but I figure if it looks good at 3-5 feet, it's cool enough.

<---bearly fits in photo!!!--->

I have yet to finish actually connecting the blade to the hilt, getting the guard to work, and painting it. I figure it oughta not take too long, but the paint drying might take a while. I want to try Amethyst Angel's plastic sheeting method on Apocky here, but I think maybe if I make another one I'll try it. I'm just too deep into the process to get it covered properly. The hardest problem was actually getting everything to fit inside the blades. I spent many an hour stuffing as much card cutouts inside testing to see that the sword still closed properly.

If anyone has questions about it or anything, feel free to comment. I might make a tutorial if I have time. Honestly, it's kinda fragile because it's made of posterboard and smashes quite easily. I really just made it for showing at Fainme 2k6 and AX06 to walk around a little while. It won't hold up to 'convention contact' for very long. Some art just isn't meant to be durable.

^___^ I'm proud of my blades! wheeee

My Works So Far

2006-02-16T09:29:00.000-08:00

This post is intended to be a comprehensive list of everything I've done so far as translations go. Listing them helps me think better. I recently joined up with Omanga to work on a project, and the translation is proving to be quite the challenge.

2x2 ga Shinobuden
--Volume 1
Chapter 0
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Page 38 Special

Kogepan
--Daily Loafing
Episode 1

Chameleon Jail
--Volume 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

--Volume 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6

Flower Shonen
-One-shot

Kaede Purple
-One-shot

Tenshi no Shippo
--Volume 1
Chapter 3

Yaiba!
--Volume 4
Chapter 27
Chapter 28

Nanaka 7/16
--Anime
Episode 1
Episode 3
Episode 4

Setbacks

2005-12-19T20:24:00.000-08:00

Hey all who come to my blogsite, I've been working hard at my bookstore everyday so I havent' been able to update ^,^;; It seems to be that Manga-Koekje is taking a break of somekind or aren't producing much anymore ( I have two chapters done for them but they were never released? ) so... If anyone wants a translator, now's the time to send me e-mails.

I can be contacted via AOL AIM as Zylemkun
or e-mail me at saiduk@gmail.com

I do translation from Japanese to English for well, just about any manga style. Most translations I do are turned over next-day and prolly don't need much editing... ok that's my shpiel.

Yaiba!

2005-10-15T00:31:00.000-07:00

Working hard at my job... but Manga Koekje picked up YAIBA! and I'm translating it for them. Apparently some other scanslation group was doing it and stopped, so were' picking up the flag and running!

Secret Project Revealed!

2005-09-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

Kogepan! He's burnt, he's bread, he's depressed beyond any human understanding!

I looked around for another project to do, since 2x2 Shinobuden got licensed, and I picked up a bunch of Kogepan books! I think this is book 4, but it's a 4-panel manga so it's not like there's a overarching story or anything. Essentialy Kogepan [koge(teru):burnt, pan:bread] is tossed out by the baker because he's burnt, and therefore Kogepan mopes around wishing he could be sold.
Anyway, I thought I could try colored strips, and with my busy schedule I can get at least one done a week. It's a new challenge since the author uses bizzare coloquial Japanese that I have difficulty with. ^__^ Yay its hard!

Okay, that said, here's my first installment:

PS rant:
The studio translating 2x2 Shinobuden isn't releasing it until next year! wtf! not cool. >,,< maybe I'll pick it up again.

New "Sister" website

2005-09-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

Hey! You can't do that in(on) anime! I thought to myself one day, remembering the old british "You can't do that on television" and the ancient trekkie website "You can't do that on Star Trek".
Okay, I've had this idea in my mind for a long time and I found a few things to start it up. My idea is to have a gallery of photoshoped pix from anime. Not the typical background fancy CG pix, but ones that look convincing until you look a little closer... or maybe you don't have to look so close.

So ENTER and find out what the hell I'm talking about

New Layout.. sort of...

2005-08-27T22:43:00.000-07:00

I'm experimenting with new colors, but there's no real new layout cuz hahah I don't want to mess up the format that Blogger has already made up for me too much. So, new Ika-Trans logo by T-Chan, Ika-Ikons, and a color change round out the facelift. I'm still trying to tweak the whole thing, so if anything looks just plain =weird= then comment or email me.

Dizzy Weeks

2005-08-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

Been back in SJ for a couple of weeks now, and for some reason, my room is the endless pile of random papers. I've always had a sentimentality factor attached to all my stuff, and always had dreams that my old papers would somehow inspire me or be helpful in the future. Were they? Hell no! Okay, well I did find a few papers that were cool and had little sketches on them (which, once I get my computer back online will prollly get posted) but 99% of my old grade school and high school crap I recycled ...o_o... Ugh! and the DUST! I'm suffocating in my own room fer goodness sakes. 5 years of dust is enough to make colorful pictures not visible through the gray haze.

I heard the Ichigo 100% manga ended recently and am anxious to find out what happened, though, what I hear is that it doesn't have a satisfying ending... I have decided that in the interest of the industry I'll keep 2x2 on this site until Infinity releases book one, so all you ppl out there'd better buy it!!! Once I get another manga project that I like I'll start posting chapters again, but until then, it's all about finding myself a job either translating manga (hope hope) or something in the physics field (hope hope hope). Went to a job fair the other day but got reality smashed in my face when the people there wanted masters degrees. All the fairs in college wanted bachelors degrees... now out here in SJ they want more education.... and like 3y. experience... how the heck is anyone supposed to get a job!!!

Anyhow, it seems most of my stuff consists of books, so that's kind of a comforting factor, but its taking so long to clean the ancient crap outta my room I dunno if I'll ever see them on my walls again.

AX 2K5 Photos!!!

2005-07-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

Okay good news and bad news.

First the bad news. At AX it seems that Infinity Studios has licensed 2x2 ga Shinobuden the manga. Now get this: this is a month after I gave them my resume and a sample of chapter 2 with my URL. AND they sent me an e-mail saying they'd keep me in mind as a 'backup translator' in their files. So it might be my fault folks if they decide to shut down my translation, but I sent them another e-mail saying I want to be in on the American version, so we'll see. Oh yeah, I'm not going to stop translating it untill they send me some kinda of order so =P bleah!

GOOD NEWS
Time for photos of me and my buddies and some other things cool we saw at AX 2K5!!!

Me(right), C-Dawg(middle), and Bri(left)in front of the convention center's arena.
=D don't our costumes look awesome!? I made the staff, sword, and both C-dawg's and my costume! I hand-stitched my cloud skirt and sleeve too!!! Boy, am I crazy!

You can see the stitching detail better with me standing next to Sepiroth & Aeris.
These are my fav FF group pix.

These are all my buddies I met there from UCD. And summore of C.

There was a general FF group on Saturday, but they kinda pushed in close and I was squeezed out to the side so I don't think anyone took my picture...

Here are Bri w/the staff (oooh shiny) and C-dawg fighting Psylocke. C noticed I got lots of pix taken of me so I let him use my Cloud costume on Sunday. I think he poses better in it than I do, but I hav the physique for it...

So here's us on Sunday. I got to carry the goodie backpack/Naruto costume and Bri acquired one major fatal wound.

On Monday I did Kyomaro from Konjiki no Gash Bell (Kiyo / ZatchBell)and we had fun screaming ZAKERU!!!!!!

We never had trouble when we split up at the con 'cuz our weapons were so frikin' big that you could see us comming two blocks away. Our props are easily visible in the background in these photo.

I'll post more photos of other costumes I liked later along with other photos I haven't scanned yet... If I stole from your webpage, well your url is prolly on the picture, so don't have a cow.

Anime Expo 2005 !!

2005-07-01T07:53:00.000-07:00

I'm going to AX 2k5!!!
Boy is it going to be crowded there... I think it is going to be the largest anime convention in the world this year and my friends and I decided to go take part in it! So yeah, if you're going or if you're there now I'll be prolly dressed up as Cloud from FFVII: Advent Children hanging out with my friends the cool c dawg as Kakashi and bri as Syaoran from Clamp's Tsubasa Chronicle. So yeah, if ya see us come say hi! We should be easy to spot... other than that, I'll try to get my pix from Fanime and AX posted when I come back =D

Logo Contest!!

2005-06-23T23:01:00.000-07:00

Hey ppls!
C-dawg needs a new logo and/or our group needs a new look. We need something simple, yet fun-looking. If you can think of one send your submissions to me saiduk@gmail.com. The one we choose will recieve a 'personalized' 2x2 Shinobuden page crafted by the two of us with you in it or something like that... (insert prize here later)
Anyhow, contest ends on August first, send me your ideas!

~Ika

2x2 Shinobuden V1 C4

2005-06-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

ITS HERE!!!!!!!
After long weeks of hauling ass at school I finally had time to get this done! Enjoy!

Translation:C-dawg
Editing, Image editing, SFX: Ikariya

I hope I can put out chapters in a more timely fashion now that I don't have school pressure on anymore. FYI there's 3 volumes in my hand just burning to get scanslated so I don't think I'll run out of material anytime soon, just... time... haha that's why it's a hobby and not a job.

Also apparently someone zipped up my files and is hosting them here.

Less than a week left!!!

2005-06-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

Today's the last day of classes here in Davis. My finals end on Tuesday so come back about 2 or three days after that for new material!!! ooooooh it's getting close now! I can taste it! Can't you?

~Ika

PS- thnx everyone who comments on my blog. You guys rock!

Fanime 2k5

2005-05-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

Yay! We've finally reached 10,000 hits! Thanks to all of you who keep comming back. I still have two more weeks of college then it's vacation/translation time...
I went back home to San Jose this weekend for Fanimecon 2005 =D If I ever get my pix developed I'll post them. I dressed up as Ishida Unryu from Bleach, but unfortunately everyone thought I was a guy in his work clothes... whatta bummer. Also lost lots of money to my anime/manga needs whilst whittling down dealers. It's a good thing I managed to sell a lot of my old books during the Swap Meet or I'd have wasted even more money!!! O_o!!! The schedule posted at the con had them showing 4 episodes of 2x2 Shinobuden and I gave my resume to some translation companies, so maybe something will come of all that. Who knows, maybe in a few months u can buy a whole bunch of shinobuden stuff! she's so cute~~

okie, well that's all for now.
~Ika

5 more weeks left...

2005-05-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

Just a little over a month and I'll be back...
So close to finishing.. yet it feels so far away~~~
... and ugh I have to finish off an incomplete grade too... but by then I'll start up on Shinobu again. Looks like I got some recognition as lots of manga sites and even some cartoon blogs linked to me over the last two months...
;_; I'll be back! I swear!