The Touhou/Len'en thread

Changgi

Member
We had a Touhou thread back in the old GMC. Think I'll start one here as well, since there doesn't seem to be one already, and include the discussion of the related Len'en games as well.

Len'en is a series of danmaku shooters based off of Touhou made by the guy who made the remastered versions of PC98 Touhou games. The premise of the series is told in the first game, and Len'en distinguishes itself from typical danmaku games by having very good gimmicks that make the games worth playing. E.g. the first spell card has bullets and the background being black, and your flashlight/torch shots would be the primary thing that allows you to see where the bullets are.

Been listening to Lyrica's Touhou lyric songs. There are some really good ones that I really like:



As for Len'en Project, I'm curretly listening to Sese's Extra+alpha theme. She's an Ō-dokuro (the skeleton youkai) who's looking for her corpse in the main game and was a small boss, and after you beat the Extra boss and think the game's REALLY over, Sese comes in and tells you she's found some of her bones or something and battles you in her EX mode. Really cool.

(Skip to 14:09 to see the end of the Extra boss battle)

I know we're here, the Touhou fanbase ;) @GhostlyFeline @Dark @TsukaYuriko @Aura
 
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Gamer (ex-Cantavanda)

〜Flower Prince〜
I like 2 play Touhou songs on the piano. I've played them a lot back in the day when I just started playing piano, now I do a lot of classical music, but I've decided to learn "Reach for the moon", that I could never play when I was younger. I will record it l4ter
Here is an old recording of me:

Holy crap I just saw that it's only two years old, it just seems SOOO far away!
 

Changgi

Member
I used to play lots of Touhou themes on the piano before.

Here's a video of me in my semi-Nitori cosplay (I have a wig with twintails on but unfortunately the angles and such make it not very visible). There are 2 other videos I had, one is a medley for my Touhou friends and the other was of me playing Futatsuiwa from Sado, but that one shows my face and I don't think I currently have that one. The medley one took me several days straight to upload (had to let it run while I was asleep) and it got corrupted near the end, even. Anyway,

 
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GhostlyFeline

Guest
I don't have any recordings of myself, but I have also attempted to learn a few of the tracks on piano. I can play the title theme from Perfect Cherry Blossom pretty well.

PCB is probably my favorite game in the Touhou series. The music is great, I like the atmosphere of the stages, and it has 4.5 cute ghosts in it. That's a recipe for a quality game.
 

Changgi

Member
I don't have any recordings of myself, but I have also attempted to learn a few of the tracks on piano. I can play the title theme from Perfect Cherry Blossom pretty well.

PCB is probably my favorite game in the Touhou series. The music is great, I like the atmosphere of the stages, and it has 4.5 cute ghosts in it. That's a recipe for a quality game.
I think my favourite is Ten Desires, owing to the fact that it's one of the first Touhou games I played, but more so that one of my coolest friends roleplayed as her. Also, its gimmick is really good, with the spirit world thing.

Also many of the music pieces were instant likes (stages/bosses 1-3 and Extra boss music), and the rest just grew on me eventually.
 
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GhostlyFeline

Guest
Ten Desires isn't one that I think about very often, honestly. Getting to play as Youmu was pretty cool, and I dig the spirit world thing, but otherwise it didn't really stand out much to me. In that regard, stage 2 was the worst offender. I couldn't tell you what either the stage or boss themes sound like. Maybe I missed something when I played it. I might have to revisit it soon, since I haven't played it in a while.

Night Sakura of Dead Spirits is a fantastic stage 1 theme though.
 
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GhostlyFeline

Guest
I thought the melodies in stage two were pretty clear myself.
My problem is not that the melodies weren't clear. It's that they weren't catchy enough to be memorable to me.

Don't get me wrong, Ten Desires has plenty of great tracks. It's just also got plenty that I don't particularly care for.
 

Changgi

Member
Just colourized my drawing of Ex Sese from Len'entale. (Sese is originally from Len'en Project)


This is the colourized and depixelized version of Sese (with some modifications) the skeleton yōkai. She appears there as the “extra” end-boss.

Due to parts being transparent, placing this on darker backgrounds would make Sese’s right arm bones more visible (like the original artwork), whereas placing it on lighter backgrounds would hide them.
 
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GhostlyFeline

Guest
Just colourized my drawing of Ex Sese from Len'entale. (Sese is originally from Len'en Project)


This is the colourized and depixelized version of Sese (with some modifications) the skeleton yōkai. She appears there as the “extra” end-boss.

Due to parts being transparent, placing this on darker backgrounds would make Sese’s right arm bones more visible (like the original artwork), whereas placing it on lighter backgrounds would hide them.
ART CRITIQUE TIME.

It seems like you're using a lot of very basic shapes. I'd recommend trying to add more detail to the features so that the character looks less flat. In addition, there seems to be some stylistic inconsistencies. Some parts are pixelly, some parts have a little shading while others are flat colors, the eyes look like they belong on a different character, and the spine thing on her head is the only piece with outlines. Try to define one style, and stay consistent.

On a more positive note, the bright colors are nice, although they could afford to be a little less saturated. In addition, it does resemble the character to a recognizable degree. I looked up the official art of the character for reference. It looks like you have most of the details in there to some degree.

Overall, I think with some more practice, you can make something really good.

END OF ART CRITIQUE.

That is a very cute bone girl. Gonna look up more info about her. <3
Also, after seeing this, I kind of want to try doing some Touhou fanart stuff at some point.
 

Changgi

Member
Oh thanks! I've never been good at drawing so I only ever use PowerPoint (it's the best drawing tool I have).

The pixelation seems to be a problem with the computer treating the picture and isn't really something I did on my end.

The original was in black and white and pixellated to resemble the Undertale battle scene enemies.

I guess for this colorized version, I could've replaced the edges for the spine with the shading like everything else.

While having no gradient seems kinda bland, having gradient for a person's face always seemed weird to me, so I end up with this basically.

You could definitely try drawing yours though!
 
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