I am DONE with the single-character eyecatches (assuming no one has a massive desire for a side character like Vyura). There’s a few of the group shots that I want to do as well, and there may be more material in screencaps as well, as well as the final four episodes. I’m taking suggestions though, tending towards the eyecatches. Don’t know which group shot I’ll do first.
Side note: I removed the plastic bag from her lollipop, it looked awful when I traced it.
EDIT: I am probably going to re-colour a few of the girls at some stage. Kaimu’s colour is all washed out, Alti looks like a corpse, and Mamiina’s yellowish skin tone makes her look like a wax statue. 
Hot.
Cute! She looks like she suddenly went from age 12 to age 6.
13-1, 15-2 and 21-1 you’ve already mentioned you might do; I’ll suggest in addition 7-2 (the expression in Yun’s face in is kinda hot), 19-1 (my favourite pairing *cries*) and the 9-1 Anubituf/Guragief shot. (22-1 isn’t as hot, and 22-2, while cute, disturbs me faintly somewhere deep deep inside me.)
The 9-1 shot is a definite no. They absolutely murdered the perspective - he looks like he has one eye. Yun’s face looks really wierd in 7-2…
As a Paraietta fan I’d like to see 6-2 done please.
22-2 FTW.
And y’know, Vyura *is* technically a member of Chor Tempest now. Wapourif is pretty important, too.
7-2 : Yun is kind of subject to interpretation here. I see a neutral / lost-in-far-away thought expression. I like
Aaeru is perfect.
22-1 : Please! Note same 9-1 profile for one-eye - much better, though. The hats came off - I like the seriousness.
5-2 : I like Furoe/Floe here. I like the shots where the characters seem together, not layered as in 1-1, 2-2, 4-2.
15-2 : Please!
21-1 : Skip.
Are you tracing from these, or an HD raw frame? (I hope.)
Considering that there’s no way to get an HD raw, I’ll be tracing from these.
Kaimu’s colour is all washed out, Alti looks like a corpse, and Mamiina’s yellowish skin tone makes her look like a wax statue.
I have no major problems with these colors - as is they are more saturated than the original frames, especially Kaimu. Alti is a closer match.
Mamiina is wearing an if-looks-could-kill expression - sorta fits - I don’t know. I took the PNG into photoshop and (color range) selected the skin tones, hue -20, sat 20 - is that what you are thinking?
With too many changes, you go beyond tracing (re-creating the equivalent of a film cel) and into fan art. I like both; I just think they should be labeled, and not replace one with the other. “This is the best I could do to match, and this is where I [fixed what I thought were mistakes and] had fun.”
The Yun in 7-2 indeed looks wierd to me. I like the idea, but something’s very off in the expression/angle there.
Though it’s a single character image, I’d still really like to see 21-2 traced (Yeah, I’m a fanboy, so sue me :p).
My favourite group shot is probably the Photo in 20-2 - It’s just all kinds of cute, because we’ve never really managed to see the girls have such a ‘happy’ moment in the show itself.
Perhaps alter it a bit by rotating it so it’d just be a standard “flat” image instead of a photograph on a background? I’d gather it wouldn’t be the easiest one to trace though? :/
For the pairings, my definitive number one vote goes for 19-1. Mamiina was(/still is?) my favourite girl of the series and Lodreamon has oddly enough been growing on me for the past two episodes.
And, well, fact still is that they’re the most awsome character pair in the series, save for Dominura and Rimone (though I’d say they’re another kind of awsome) ;-).
Other than that, I don’t really have any preferances - 21-1 is sort of cute, but there’s something that rubs me severely in the wrong way with it at the same time. Too much nekkidness or puppy eyes, or something.
In summary;
1)20-2!!!1
2)19-1!!!!!!!!!!!!22″
3)21-2
4) And lastly, I still think that Rimone screencap Jeff linked in the Lodreamon-trace comments would definitively be worth a shot http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/view/55236
As for Re-coloring, they look just fine to me (Alti is bleak), save for the Mamiina one where the skin color indeed looks a bit odd.
Considering that there’s no way to get an HD raw, I’ll be tracing from these.
[to anyone] What source does Simoun-Fans base their 832×464 h264 encodes from?
At the least, grabbing frames from their encodes so far ought to be an improvement. (I could do that much.)
They probably grab them from some of the anamorphic .mkv DTV raws that float on Share?
I’ve seen some “720p” Simoun raws on Share, and while they look like upscales to my eye versus the real thing, they’d probaby still do better in terms of lending itself for tracing source material - less chance that details are fudged out by compression when the image is double the size?
@Basic Syntax
I end up re-drawing little bits of most of my traces. Bits are obscured by logos / text, somtimes a curve doesn’t look right… plus the whole thing’s interpretive anyway. So by your definition it’s already fanart anyway.
@Muey
I won’t be doing 21-2. I just really don’t like it. 19-1 I’ll probably do, but not straight away. 20-2 I can only do if I get a higher quality raw. The cap I have is just too small and lacking in detail. Our brains are very good at interpreting the lines and inventing detail that’s actually not there, but if I was to vector what I can actually see there, you’d end up with a very rough trace that’s lacking in details, especially around the eyes.
If anyone can find high-res caps of the eyecatches (or anything else that looks good for that matter) then throw them at me and I’ll definitely give them a look.
Here’s caps from the “720p” versions if they’re of any better use as source;
19-1 - http://www.zomgwtf.net/RandomPicturesNstuff/Simoun/19-1.jpg
20-2 - http://www.zomgwtf.net/RandomPicturesNstuff/Simoun/20-2.jpg
Something I’d really also like to see in terms of pairs is nicely done Rimone Dominura trace, but I couldn’t find anything for decent material that’d have them both on-screen in some sort of fitting pose with a quick fast forward through their key episodes :/.
No worries about 21-2.
…Because there now is a much more ZOMG alternative in 23-2 ;). And it’s a properly paired image, as well - http://www.zomgwtf.net/RandomPicturesNstuff/Simoun/23-2.jpg. I quite like it, at the very least~
I sure would love to see this pic done:
http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/view/64148
But probably too complicated.
23-2 at 1440×810 (soft, looks scaled up, but a bit more detail nonetheless.)
http://dat.2chan.net/18/src/11573884838720554.jpg
Kind of pointless to trace a scan - Just get a high-res version of it instead and photoshop out the text, most likely far less of a hassle.
danbooru linkage reminds me that theres this lovely line-art pic of Mamiina with her granny-bunny open - http://danbooru.donmai.us/post/view/66846
It’s only inked line-art, though, no colors, no nothing(other leg is cut off too), so I’d gather it won’t work :/
It’s not *pointless* to trace a scan. Several of mine have been from scans, though not recently. Generally there’s a clean version available somewhere, but sometimes you see a magazine scan or something that’s littered with words, and tracing can remove those.
That 720p 20-2 eyecatch is exactly what I needed. Should be enough detail there to do it.
If anyone has any other high-res caps like that, throw them at me. The higher the res, the easier to trace.