Like many others, I too downloaded Aiko from DAZ. She's presented me with the opportunity to render something I've wanted for some time, Yukito Kishiro's Gally from "Gunnm", better known in the US as "Battle Angel Alita". Gally (or Alita) is a full conversion cyborg, an organic brain housed in an otherwise totally robotic chassis. She makes her living as a bounty hunter in the "Scrapyard", a dyspotian slum literally overshadowed by a seeming utopia constructed at the base of a "space elevator". In the earlier chapters of Kishiro's manga, Alita has no memory of her life before being reactivated by Dr. Ido, a kindly cyber-surgeon and outcast of the "floating" city. As she hunts her bounties, she awakens fighting skills, techniques not developed on Earth but Mars. Displayed above is a scenario all too familiar to Alita fans. The poor girl seems to go through cyber bodies like underwear. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but if I remember correctly, she "wears" at least 5 shells since Ido found her. We can only wonder how many she sported before her amnesia. More than once Kishiro has depicted her as little more than a head and an upper torso. At least when she was playing MotorBall, it was under controlled conditions, not from destruction. She's hoisted like an engine block as her "pit crew" tunes her chassis for the next match. One may wonder if the production crew for "Star Trek: First Contact" may have been inspired by those images for the grand entrance of the Borg Queen. Alita has a couple of distinguihing features (behinds the obvious cyber-body). One, Kishiro tends to draw her with pursed, almost puckered, lips. This goes against the usual trend in anime and manga within which the characters have barely defined lips, if any. Two, Kishiro connects the outer edges of the upper and lower eyelids. A recurring motif in much of Japanese cartooning has a noticable gap between the eyelids. Three, after Ido discovered Alita on the MotorBall circuit, she sported metallic bands under her eyes. This is why I'm glad I purchased DAZ's "Bishonen for M3" a long time ago. One of the face textures has an almost identical band under the left eye. Using PaintShop Pro, I selected that region, flipped the copy and aligned the mirrored selection under the right eye. Though intended for Michael 3, the skin appears quite feminine with no hint of male pattern beard stubble. "Bishonen" roughly translates as "pretty boy". I didn't have to alter the texture any further before applying it to Aiko. I had been using the Vorg V3 texture for some images, but for this one I selected one of the Bishonen body armour patterns because it didn't display "robo-nipples". Her spine and "innards" are pieces from Davo's "MadLab 2" set. The "wig" is MayaX's Yuna hair simply darkened. Those of you familiar with Kishiro's works, let me know if a did a decent job. Sincerely, Bill

I think you captured Gally perfectly. Nicely done!

Oh neat. I really like this. I have a cat named Gally. She has black hair and is very cute too. ^_~

Very nice! That's our little panzer kunst master! Y'know, Don would make a good Ed for a motorball sequence, wouldn't he? And the bishonen sets for Mike 2 and 3 and wonderful tools for playing anime with....

I originally bought the first Aiko to do an Alita picture, but never got around to it. Now, with the new Aiko, maybe I'll evenually make an Alita pic. But, I gotta buy A3 first. ;-P :-)

I'm very picky when it comes to fan images of anime/manga that I care about, and you've done a very good job here. I would love to see a full body render ;-) Too bad nobody is capable of getting anywhere near decent quality models of Masamune Shirow's (female) characters.

Okay, R_Hatch, here you go, one full body portrait of the Scrapyard's greatest Hunter-Warrior! As I mentioned above, I had originally used Sparky's Vorg texture, but I found the "robo-nipples" a tad distracting. Then I remembered the male counterpart, Morg, for Michael 3. The only difference between the two was the pectoral region. Morg had smooth breastplates. I tried it and it aligned perfectly! The Morg texture, while not a perfect replication, does favor Gally's "Beserker" chassis she wore until her MotorBall "phase". Should someone release a trenchcoat for Aiko, I can recreate the ensemble Alita sported in her earlier adventures. Sincerely, Bill

Battle Angel Alita was one of the first things I thought about when Aiko came out. I think the two pics do an excellent job of capturing the essence of the character (which is one of my favorites).

I will say that you have done a really nice job on your character build. Good show.

Wow, that's the best Aiko yet!

*** **Thread Necromancy** ***

I realize this thread is rather ancient, but why start a new article when the original is still available?

A recent thread upon the DAZ boards rekindled my interest in this old project, adapting Aiko 3.0 to resemble Alita/Gally from "Battle Angel/Gunnm".  I finally found some clothing that when mixed and matched more or less captured the look of her first Scrapyard ensemble.

The Aiko bodysuit has a MAT setting that leaves the high neck but "scoops" out the shoulders.

The knee braces from the Aiko Body Armor has "plates" that are just about perfect.

And the leg wrappings from the Shadow Dancer set covering Harkonen's free Vampirella boots more or less resembles Alita's wrinkled footwear.

Now I just need to find an acceptable trenchcoat.  I will probably opt for one of RoyLoo's items at PoserPros, but does anyone have any additional suggestions?

Sincerely,

Bill

Nice work, Bill.

She is absolutely lovely!

From the manga I remembered the stripes under her eyes to be totally black and more evident, but I've only seen the manga and not the anime so I can't judge precisely.

Anyway she's awesome!

 

Giorgio

I had to google first for her  :blushing:

But I have to say, you did a awesome job.
Looks realy great.

Quote - From the manga I remembered the stripes under her eyes to be totally black and more evident...

 

You're right, they do often appear black in the manga.  When Kishiro has the opportunity to depict Gally in full color paintings, however, he makes the stripes look like polished chrome. Actually, the stripes are quite different depending upon what sources one views.  In the earliest manga volumes when she encounters her first major opponent within the sewers of the Scrapyard, Alita smudges mud under her eyes like war paint.  In the one shot anime, her opponent literally "dices" a poor dog.  Alita dips her finger into the pooling blood and applies that as war paint.  Back to the manga, once Alita has left Dr. Ido and joined the MotorBall circuit (a deadly roller derby like sport), we discover she sports metallic stripes under her eyes.  Kishiro has maintained that motif ever since.

Here's another recent render which hopefully shows the stripes in greater contrast.  My earlier attempts used only the morphs that came with Aiko.  This new version employs Thorne and Sarsa's "Slyphie" head morph at 0.750 combined with the HeadCaucasian dial at 1.000.  It allows me to better recreate her "pouty", puckered lips.

BTW, thanks for the kind assessments, all of you!

Sincerely,

Bill

Thanks for the exhaustive explaination, Redfern!

Now you just need some lethal Panzer-Kunst poses!   :biggrin:

Giorgio

Sorry about that.  I do tend to get long winded at times.

Thankfully, there are a lot of combat poses available that can "bluff" there way as being the infamous Martian cyborg style. :biggrin:

Sincerely,

Bill

Looks good. I haven't seen the film in ages, though - Channel 4 in the UK showcased anime quite a lot in the early/mid-90s and this is the one I remember - I'm not normally a genre fan.

It's on IMDB and elsewhere under its alternate title "Gunm".

Quote - Looks good...this is the one I remember - I'm not normally a genre fan.

 

Obviously, the anime must have made an impression.  (Hopefully favorable as opposed to, "G*d!  That was horrible!")

Sincerely,

Bill

Good job! I modeled this in Max a few weeks ago for a friend of mine that's really into Battle Angel.

Quote - Good job!
I modeled this in Max a few weeks ago for a friend of mine that's really into Battle Angel.

 

Ah, Alita's (in)famous Damascus Blade when she was in the wastelands!

Sharp!  (In both senses of the word)  And quite accurate as far as I can tell.

Electroglyph also modeled one several years ago (before Aiko 3 debuted) and converted the mesh into a Poser item.  I have it, but the Geocities download link he provided is no longer valid.

Sincerely,

Bill

Here was my take from last year or so. www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

Quote - Here was my take from last year or so. www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php

And a remarkable job you did upon her, too!  Searching back 8 years through the gallery, there are not that many examples, but of those in the 3D venue, yours is certainly the most faithful.  The charging of her berserker body's plasma cutters is most impressive, blasting away the sleeve of her coat!

Tell me, how did you react to Gally not even appearing in the latest two "Last Order" collected volumes?  Kishiro has certainly veered upon a tangent, hasn't he?  I mean, vampires??!!!

Sincerely,

Bill

Really nice rendition of Alita Redfern! I am glad to see so many fans here at Rendo. fyi James Cameron is/was (?) working on a live action version of Yukito Kishiro's Angel...

Alita's story is told, so as a writer, he got tired of her and took a break.  I can respect that.  I still like her,though.

Following redfern instructions here is my version of her.  Bigger view over at www.steampunkanime.com

improved Version