Pride Month – Vocaloid Tarot

So, before Pride Month is over, here’s the male-only version of “The Lovers.” This time, I used someone else’s pose data, so they don’t look quite so awkward. Quite.

href=”https://vocaloidtarothome.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/the-lovers-olikase.png”> Credits below.[/

There’s still a lot wrong with it. Their hands aren’t quite reaching each other, Fukase’s fingers are clipping into Oliver’s back, and that view of Fukase’s face is really kind of creepy. (Though maybe that’s a good thing?)

I dunno. I kind of wanted a romantic pose that wasn’t kissing (especially given how young Oliver is), more of a cuddling thing, but this was the best I had available. I may go back looking for more pose data before I try the m/f version next month (or maybe not until August, since I’ll be doing Camp NaNo in July)

I’d have liked to be able to shift Oliver’s cap some, but I couldn’t find a bone that controlled it. There was a slider to turn it off, but I didn’t want to get rid of it, just move it a bit. May have to do a light edit to connect it to a bone, if it turns out it really isn’t on one.

Oh, and if anyone’s wondering why Fukase/Oliver for the m/m pairing, well…honestly, when I first heard Fukase (his version of “Ghost Rule,” of course) I loved his voice and went looking for other Fukase songs, and I found a ton of duets with him and Oliver. Some of them did have accompanying art that paired them romantically, and the idea just stuck in my head of them as a couple. (Not sure how old Fukase is supposed to be, so maybe that’s inappropriate…) I can get pairings stuck in my head like that pretty easily; one image of Rin and Nekomura Iroha together during a duet was enough to cement them as one of my Vocaloid pairings…

Image credits:

TDA Oliver and Fukase by Jjinomu

Pose data by kitzabitza

The background, which appears to be called “teien” is by a Japanese MMD artist whose name I don’t know because the readme does not display properly on my computer. But it included a couple of URLs, at least one of which is hopefully still in use: http://www.geocities.jp/cgkano/sirokitune.html and http://reriamoon.blog95.fc2.com/

Given that it’s June, I realized I should get a move on and try to get two of the three versions of “The Lovers” finished at least to the test render stage and posted while it’s still Pride Month.

So, I set about the f/f version first, and after working on the pose for a while realized that it was not going to work.

Looking at the pose, you may wonder why I thought that. Well, the simple truth is that it’s too complicated a pose. If it was any card other than “The Lovers” it would be fine, but I wanted to make “The Lovers” available in m/m and m/f formats as well, and trying to copy and adjust this pose to two different sets of models (one of which is of drastically different heights) was going to be way too much work. (Especially those interlocked hands. OMG, those are a nightmare. It was while I was trying to get those in position that I realized this was never going to work.) Also, it’s a bit too close to the official art for the song “Magnet.” That didn’t help, either.

So, I decided to go for a pose that would be easier to alter…

And I got a pose that would be much easier to adapt to different sets of models.

I also got a pose that looked more like “friends posing for a photo” than “lovers in any context at all.” So…yeah, still a fail.

I know I have, at some point, downloaded a lot of “couple poses,” so I think I’m gonna brush the electronic dust off them and see if any of them will work. And I’ll try them with the m/m couple, post the results that way. Then I can worry about the m/f version sometime in July, and update this one whenever it seems apropos to do so.

I like this choice of background, though. “The Lovers” should have an inherent possibility for disaster, and while all those floating chunks of land look pretty, they could potentially signify that the world has been mostly destroyed. I mean, are they in some mystical Skies of Arcadia-like land with floating islands, or are they in a Fantastica where Bastian failed to give the Empress her new name in time?

Hopefully, this will be the last of the Major Arcana to feature Miku. I don’t want any of the Vocaloids to get over-used in this deck, but especially not Miku, because she’s so ubiquitous in, well, pretty much anything Vocaloid. (Especially merchandise. Man, that’s frustrating. I want some merch of the other Vocaloids in their different costumes, not fifteen thousand versions of Miku! (I say in a room that has like four of her in it.))

Image credits:

TDA Magnet Miku and Luka by HarukaSakurai

Tag: Pride Month

“The Lovers” Second Version

“The Lovers” Early WIP