With the latest adaptation of Masamune Shirow's iconic cyberpunk police drama finally in theaters, I thought it made sense to start a thread where artists can depict their interpretations of the material.

Motoko Kusanagi has long been a popular subject within the Poser/DAZ community with representations dating back at least to the days of Poser 4. (Japanese artists made a pre-clothed figure derived from the P4 nude woman, "Posette", depicting Motoko in her "cyber-dive" suit.) When Aiko 3 arrived, Shukky released a "screen accurate" version of Kusangi's outfit from the first season of "Stand Alone Complex" and Nerd offered a similar "in the spirit" ensemble. There's even a complete "stand-alone" figure (yes, I see the irony) of Motoko in the same costume available in Renderosity's free stuff section. (Well, "was" as the download link no longer seems valid.) BugzLife once offered a few clothing collections for Aiko 3 that would have fit within Shirow's narrative.

So to start, here's my example.

It's Aiko 3 wearing a few elements for Nerd's "Hex" set, the leotard and grieves, mixed with the "Lotus" jacket, the Tail Gunner "Kickers" and the gloves from one of BugzLife's sets. Motoko's distinctive hairstyle is Lisbeth's free Paris hair with a morph created by lil' ol' moi. wink

Let's see what renders others have to show.

Sincerely,

Bill

Great start!

Nice job on Motoko there! Masamune Shirow is my all-time favorite anime/manga artist. I own copies of all of his poster books, and have a complete collection of the Ghost in the Shell series and movies on my shelves here (along with the 12 part new Ghost manga mini-series). This was my tribute to Ghost in the Shell from a couple of years ago... :)

I'm also a big fan of the Appleseed series, and his Black Magic MA-66 among others...

Reads like you really ARE a major fan of Shirow! My collection is nowhere near as extensive (and no doubt expensive).

And therein lies the tragedy. It seems more often than not that the theatrical anime movies or the television series gets all the attention. If one Googles "Ghost in the Shell" to return images, illustration by Shirow tend to fall way down the list, usually well past tons of fan art. Yet, that is the source material.

Yeah, my concerns might seem to some as a bit "hollow" given I depicted the Major in her first season "Stand Alone Complex" outfit instead of an ensemble from Shirow's manga. Okay, I admit it; I really like that outfit...though it looks like something one might wear "undercover" for the vice squad. I guess I should have fitted Aiko with the "Code Deleter" collection from BugzLife as that is similar to her "net dive" suit. Well, I can use that for a "follow-up" piece.

What I'd really like is to recreate that scandalously famous poster depicting an "octopus nest" of cables plugged into the barebacked Major's back. the trick would be creating displacement and transparency maps to "hollow out" Aiko and give her "skin" some thickness.

Thanks for the posting you render, Cschell and I hope others will participate.

Sincerely,

Bill

Looks great!

Saw the movie last night. It surprised me just how many sequences were more or less recreated from the 90s theatrical anime. Of course, the circumstances for these scenes were usually different, but I went in expecting that. Shirow himself reconsidered certain elements for his follow-up manga series and composed a forward basically saying, "The situations here don't necessarily mesh seamlessly with the events of the previous narrative." Shoot, in the original "Dominion: Tank Police", the infamous Puma Sisters rocketed into space with Buaku at the conclusion, seemingly never to return. But in the follow-up manga collection, the gynoid cat-girls are back with no adequate rationale other than Shirow noting, "Meh, never mind that other ending."

So, if Shirow himself substantially reworked his material, can we fault other adaptations for doing so?

Point being, I liked it.

Sincerely,

Bill

I gotta say, after I posted that last image the idea of a few GITS renders inspired me! I have one cooking in render now that I hope to have done for post tomorrow (just finalizing the last few tweaks to the scene), and I'm gonna attempt that very well-known image from the original movie posters of Kusanagi with the cluster of cabling over the white back-ground... I'll see about posting it once I'm done, just gotta figure out how to flag for content... :)

Here's the render I had cooking up, it was inspired by the 1997 game Ghost in the Shell with animated cut-scenes by Masamune Shirow and using the same voice actors as the original animated movie. Enjoy! :)

Ah, so THAT'S where the "cyber-dive" fetish wear appeared, a game adaptation. I retrieved my trade paperback of Shirow's first series the other night and I didn't see anything much akin to it within the main narrative. I thought it might have come from one of his early Motoko pin-ups. But thinking about it, I do recall a game I never got to see first hand. (I suspect one can find the "cut scenes" easily enough upon one streaming service or another. I think I search for them this weekend.)

Sincerely,

Bill

There was a promotional poster that used it as well... but mainly it was drawn and designed for the game as a set of original character images from the manga version of Motoko (the film version of her was heavily modified from Shirow's original concept art). There are a number of variations on it in his poster books as well with different styles for the suit and different color patterns...

Here's the poster I mentioned... https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/75/e5/65/75e565ececa0996b6446ef297663c0c4.jpg

and the cut-scenes from it are easily enough found on Youtube... :)

As a last image for this thread here's my reproduction of the most well-known image of Major Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell... I've flagged it for nudity (I think anyways)... :)

Hi all, I wanna give my 2 cents to this too.

I was inspired by cschells mentioned image but take the older uniform. Redfern, where did you find the stockings?

Rendered in Poser Pro 2014 on a Mac.

Henning

The "stockings" come from a "limited time" freebie by Shukky. Basically, it was available for a limited time and then Shukky pulled it from distribution.

Thing is, I didn't use the entire stockings, just the upper "bands" that were assigned to the left and right "buttocks" groups. I did it this way because the outfit did not come with any morphs. The "cuffs" just happen to bridge the hip and thighs material zones on Aiko. I hid all parts of the stockings except for the cuffs and then colored Aiko's thighs, knees and shins the color of the stockings. This way, I was able to add a bit of muscle and definition to her legs. the lack of body morphs in Shukky's set was also the reason I used Nerd3D's "Hex" leotard and the "Lotus" jacket so I could give A3 the physique I wanted.

Yeah, the latest versions of Poser can, in theory, let me inject A3's morphs into Shukky's outfit, but I had already pieced together this character before I got PoserPro 2014. the only thing "new" I did was to add the Tail Gunner "Kicker" boots, giving her yet another "personal touch".

Sincerely,

Bill

Thanks for your answer. That make me think to do the stockings with a Displacement-Map and and - just as you said -

a Texture-Map for the legs. The coloring is not what I wanted, but I will work that out.

Henning

That's come out rather nicely :)

Section 9 gets a couple of new members, Batou and Aramaki.

When I first saw the "Technophilia Eye Implants" at RDNA severl years ago, I knew I had to get them as one of the three included devices would be perfect to depict Batou, Motoko's closest friend on the force. I had already assembled Batou a few years ago. I loaded the files and tweaked some of the material settings, giving them a bit of grunge.

More involved was Aramaki, Kusanagi's boss.In the original manga, Motoko occasionally referred to Aramaki as "the old ape" and Shirow's more "casual", abbreviated drawings of Section 9's leader do look a bit simian. So I used that as a starting point. I set the "chimp" morph for Michael 3 to half strength and then used other dials to return his ears and nose to human form. Then I just "went to town" adjusting numerous morph settings to add character.

Who's next on the list? in terms of screen time in 'Stand Alone Complex", I guess Togusa makes the most sense. But other than his 'mullet", he's the least visually distinctive of any remaining team member.

Sincerely,

Bill

Thanks cschell ... and congrats for your VGF-14 Wildcat in a new series of Robotech Comics - that's great!

@ Redfern: Very nice guys, they are looking pretty good.

I couldn't resist to render another Motoko,

pose was made by me, Seburo M5 comes from http://gamebanana.com/models/655 .

Henning

Helos posted at 7:29PM Mon, 24 April 2017 - #4303420

Thanks cschell ... and congrats for your VGF-14 Wildcat in a new series of Robotech Comics - that's great!

Nice job Helos and thank-you, it's very exciting for me as a fan of the series!

I'm thinking in some Motoko Cyborg images. This is my first impression:

Henning

Okay, I've tried to make some Motoko-Cyborg Textures (the skin should lay above of the underlaying metal) and set her in an appropriate environment.

The most time got lost with posing the easypose cables - :))

Henning