OS-what?

OS-tan (or OS-girl, or OS-characters) is the name given to a particular representation of a... operating system! Created by various amateur Japanese artist, the first done was the Windows family: 2000, Millennium, XP and the others... these designs in form of cute manga-style girls spreaded rapidly around manga-fans, and many other versions and operating systems were created, Linux included.

Why Linux?

Because I like it :)

The original design exists, I liked it and I made a fanart based on it.

What programs do you use?

Photoshop for coloring and composing and a good old-fashioned pencil for drawing :)

Sometimes I throw in a Cinema 4D rendering.

I know of GIMP, but for backgrounds I heavily use Photoshop layer effects - a feature GIMP doesn't (still) have.

Besides, on the system I use GIMP is quite allergic to tablet :( (On Windows randomly decides to ignore half the pressure levels and on OSX sistematically ignore the sheer existance of them. Sigh.)

Will you ever release the source files of the characters?

I'll probably upload them, sooner or later, in .psd and .xcf format: so if you don't like my layer-effect ridden backgrounds and want to create some other combination you can.

Linkage

If you are curious and want to know more of OS-tans, the best place to start is Wikipedia:

Here you will find explanations, copyright notes (some of designs are sort-of copyrighted) and various tidbits on the designs.

ETA 2006-04-06: ZOMG! I'm there too! °_° Not anymore! The article was cleared and only the original Windows-tan designs were left (which is quite understandable, since the article is dedicate to estabilished designs and mine aren't).

Who are you?

...not a Vorlon, for sure. </geek>

I'm Juzo-kun, also known as JK, and my main site is this. In a web-designer and illustrator from Italy.

A note to savvy xhtml/css coders

Yes, I cranked this in a absolutely positioned and fixed-width layout, and didn't properly used the FIR in links and title. This will make quite a mess in the home page if you change the font size, and lose navigation if you hide images... but I coded this site in literally half an hour and I'll correct this sooner or later... maybe.

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