HDD Divinity: The NepNep Solution

I have no idea what I was smoking when I decided upon that title. The subtitle sounds like it was ripped from some terrible Robert Ludlum novel, but alas… Anyway, yet another sketch-a-licious post today, covering, as you may have guessed, Neptune from Hyperdimensional Neptunia, everyone’s favourite anthropomorphised non-existent next-gen SEGA console that may have been competing in the fifth console generation vs. the 360, Wii and PS3 had SEGA not basically gone bust over the Dreamcast and been bought out by Nintendo. Here she is:

If you’ve not heard of/played the game, then to clarify, the left hand girl form (‘Neptune’) is her regular appearance, and the right hand (‘Purple Heart’) is what she transforms into as part of her HDD Divinity, so yeah, they’re the same girl, though Nep in particular seems to get a huge age/bosom UP from the process (which I always found funny, actually).

All of the consoles of said generation are represented with girls in a similar fashion in these games. Though, that said, the first game has a snore-worthy battle system that is frankly verging on terrible, though it has an amusing console wars plotline going on. The second game, MK2, lost a bit on the story department, but vastly improved the battle system and added in girls for the various handhelds (PSP, the DS twins, and Nepgear). The third is shaping up to hopefully combine the best of both of the prior ones.

Anyway, to speak of the sketch, I’m generally very happy with how it turned out, though I have to say their wonderfully chaotic and messy hair gave me alot of troubles to get it looking right! I spent a long time tweaking various parts, and as you can guess, ran out of dedication before I could fill in a background, especially as I came to the conclusion that I could do this electronically for the wallpaper version and in this case have it look even better, which I think I did. See for yourself:

Interestingly enough, Smart Blur/Posterization came into use again with this, though with different settings to Itsuki; and this time it was given a few extra blending options afterwards. I also colourized the N Logo, as the purple-ness didn’t come out too well when scanned. You can spot a few added binary streams I put in as extra layers too if you look closely. Cleaning the sketch and adding its transparency was a bit of a nightmare for some reason this time, but I think it was worth the effort.

Also, funnily enough I realised after completing the wallpaper that Neptune’s hoodie-dress outfit is her one from the original two games, whilst her Heart bodysuit is actually her revised one from the new third game (Neptunia Victory). Since her transformed form is pulling the original and beckoning (to the future?) its also ended up making an interesting (if entirely and hilariously accidental) statement about the progress of the series in general.

Anyways, stay tuned.

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