Needed something green and fresh for my desktop coming into the clutches of the southern hemisphere winter, so I dug up another favorite photo from my June 2012 Kyoto/Tokyo trip and did some quick tweaks to make it desktop-ready. The bamboo forest at Arashiyama is absolutely stunning and one of the most beautiful, calming places I’ve ever visited in my life. Would definitely love to revisit at some point down the track.

Adjusted color balance, lighting and threw in a soft marble texture from stock.xchng to round things off.

• Widescreen 16:10 – 2560×1600
• Standard 4:3 – 1600×1200
• Square 5:4 – 1280×1024

To be honest, I haven’t used any anime wallpapers since June 2012. Ironically, my first visit to Japan coincided with my phasing out of hardcore anime fandom. Real life took over in a massive way. But I’ve recently started easing back into anime/mangadom – mostly because of Chihayafuru season 2, which is love – and it’s something I’ll always enjoy, even if I don’t see myself devoting crazy amounts of time to it going forward.

Anyways, this was one of the photos that I took in Japan – a close-up of donated sake barrels at Meiji Jingu in Tokyo. I’ve been using this as my desktop since the trip. Minor post-processing touches (adjusted brightness/contrast and color balance) and voila! Photography is one of my newer loves and I went a bit camera-crazy in Japan… will try to marry old and new hobbies, walling and photography

• Widescreen 16:10 – 1920×1200
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Was in the mood for a new monochrome/patterned desktop, and remembered Mawaru Penguindrum’s epic OP which has been on my to-wall list for a while now. Last night I googled up an awesome Illustrator patterns tutorial as well as an Illustrator blend tool (refresher) tutorial and decided to just go for it. Vectored the penguins off of this screenshot and then created the patterns in Illustrator. Just a simple wall (as usual), but fun to make and surprisingly abstract – plus who doesn’t love penguins anyways?!

Mawaru Penguindrum walling attempt #1, for Miss @Maria_Francisca

• Widescreen 16:10 – 1920×1200
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So many people requested more walls of Howl’s Moving Castle in the 2011 Year of Studio Ghibli poll that I figured I better try and squeeze in a wallpaper of Howl before the year ends This is one of my favorite scenes from the movie – watching it on the big screen just took my breath away. There is a very good reason why Miyazaki is so loved around the world – his films are pure magic.

Howl and Sophie’s outlines vectored off of this scan; the rest is painted with my trusty mouse. Eyeballed Makoto Shinkai for clouds reference, but overall kept things simple for this wall (as usual).

• Widescreen 16:10 – 2560×1600
• Standard 4:3 – 1600×1200
• Square 5:4 – 1280×1024
• Wallpaper Pack – Blue Version

The Kenshin wall really put me in nostalgia mode, so I decided to make something that featured another one of my first manga crushes, Subaru Sumeragi. Subaru’s still woefully underwalled, plus I’ve been wanting to experiment with big typography for a while now. So I doodled this up over the weekend – a bit of retro plus abstract went a long way.

Subaru extracted and re-CG’d from this scan; color scheme inspired by Gideon’s stunning palette in our Zetsubou-Sensei collaboration wall. Font used is League Gothic from the brilliant League of Moveable Type. I also borrowed a line from My Chemical Romance – SING for the fontage… possibly one of my favorite songs of all time.

• Widescreen 16:10 – 1920×1200
• Standard 4:3 – 1600×1200
• Square 5:4 – 1280×1024
• Wallpaper Pack – Textless Version

Jay’s epic Kenshin wall totally put me in the mindset for moar Kenshin desktopage, since he was one of my first loves too I’ve always loved the nishiki-e styled covers that Nobuhiro Watsuki drew, and I wanted to play with Illustrator’s default brushes. So I picked one of the most bad-ass Kenshin nishike-e images I could find and voila! Stroking with Illustrator’s calligraphic brushes is AWESOME. Definitely going to try this again for another wall!

Kenshin vector-stroked off this manga page; calligraphy text and stamp vectored from this scan that I got off MT way back when, but seems to have disappeared since. Used one of MouritsaDA-Stock’s fantastic floral brushes again for the background (same brush that I used for the Haku wall, incidentally) and slapped on a texture from Flickr to round this wall off.

• Widescreen 16:10 – 1920×1200
• Standard 4:3 – 1600×1200
• Square 5:4 – 1280×1024
• Wallpaper Pack – Blue Version

I wanted to crank out some more Ghibli walls So, Totoro. My main goal to keep things simple after the CLAMP mascots wall, so I just doodled on this until it felt done.

Totoro outlines vectored from this scan. I also smacked on a really light watercolor texture from SadMonkeyDesign-res.

The inspiration for this wall started with David Lanham and ended with Nick Iluzada.

• Widescreen 16:10 – 1920×1200
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• Wallpaper Pack – Alternative Version

This is my 100th wallpaper on Pixel Ellipsis! The site also turned 5 on August 5th (yes, I am now the proud owner of a toddler-aged website), so I wanted to do something really special for this wall. CLAMP was one of my favorite mangaka growing up and their works really pushed me over the edge of otakudom, plus my online walling persona has always been Mokona Modoki. So I thought it’d be appropriate to pay tribute to CLAMP by squeezing in as many of their iconic mascots into one wall as possible

I ended up using half a dozen scans for this wall, but Kero, Spinel Sun, and most of the presents were vectored-extended from this scan; Ioryogi from this scan; Usagi from this scan; Chii (atashi) from this scan; black Mokona from this scan; and white Mokona from this scan. Ioryogi’s chocolate treat outlines were vectored from this scan, and white Mokona’s yellow-striped present box was vectored from this scan. I also used the white Mokona scan and this Wish scan for color referencing; a pattern by masterjinn for the wall, and wood texture from Mayang for the floor. Lastly this Kobato. scan was really the inspiration point for this wall, even though I didn’t actually use it in the end 8)

• Widescreen 16:10 – 1920×1200
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Promo wall for Six for Tea: Wallers for Japan Disaster Relief:

I know that many people have given quite generously to various charities and fundraisers for disaster relief efforts in Japan. Adding to the fact that it’s been over a month since the March 11 earthquake hit Japan, I’m both amazed and moved by people’s ongoing support and contributions for this little fundraiser of ours. Not just in donations, although that is of course huge, but also in time spent promoting and walling for the project, all of which has been incredible to witness.

So, to everyone who has contributed to Six for Tea in some way, shape, or form – thank you so much. We’ve raised nearly half of our $500 target for Mercy Corps; please continue to support Six for Tea as we march closer to our fundraising goal!

As for the wall, this was a fairly simple design that turned out surprisingly well. I vectored the outlines of the paper cranes off of a Stock.XCHNG photo, added two gorgeous paper textures from Bashcorpo and one from Dioma, then topped off with two of my favorite grunge brushes from deviantART. Special thanks to Gids, partner-in-crime extraordinaire for looks and suggests.

• Widescreen 16:10 – 2560×1600
• Standard 4:3 – 1600×1200
• Square 5:4 – 1280×1024

Pray for believing in tomorrow… 明日信じて祈って

Quick plug for Six for Tea, a fundraising effort for Japan that I’ve started up with some other walling friends. Please donate what you can to Japan disaster relief!

This wall is just a simple vector of this Madoka OP screenshot, extended. The hardest part was probably trying to keep the outlines thin. I also eyeballed this other Madoka screenshot for reference on her tears; used this scan for part of the ruffles extension; tweaked the lighting and added glow; smacked on a light mud texture from resurgere; and lastly flipped Madoka around for a more interesting composition.